primotipo…

Stirling Moss on his way to winning the January 20, 1962 Lady Wigram Trophy in searing New Zealand heat.

He has the side-panels of Rob Walker’s Lotus 21 Climax FPF 2.5 removed to get a bit of air flowing through the cockpit of chassis #935.

I love this ode to the demise of the fabulous front-engined Grand Prix cars written by Digby Paape.

‘I remember coming away from this race thinking, “Well, that’s the end of exciting racing.” Gone were the front engined monopostos with loud exhausts that rang off the Port Hills, the drivers biceps fighting the wood-rimmed steering wheel, the blue chrome on the exhausts, the dirty spoked wheels, the broadsides and four-wheel-drifts. All gone with the advent of these pesky little cars that cornered on rails and sounded like Austin A40’s.’

Luvvit!

Australian great Lex Davison referred to the Coopers as ‘Anti-Climaxes’ and ‘Mechanical Mice’…not that it stopped him racing and winning in them!

More about Lotus 21 chassis 935 here: https://primotipo.com/2016/04/08/ole-935/

The mid-engined rout started early in NZ. Jack Brabham won the 1958 NZ GP at Ardmore aboard a Cooper T43 Climax on January 11, a week before Moss won the first Championship F1 race in a mid-engined car at Buenos Aires on January 19. He too raced a Cooper T43 in that Argentine Grand Prix, one of Rob Walker’s cars.

Broaden the definition to Grand Prix racing and the mid-engined feat wasn’t a big deal given Auto Union’s pre-war successes, but such is the fixation with Formula One these days that most prefer to ignore the history of a period that doesn’t interest them or of which they have no knowledge.

It wasn’t too many years before – 1956 – that Moss had first visited the country and taken New Zealand’s premier race, again at Ardmore aboard one of the great front-engined Grand Prix cars, the Maserati 250F.

#7 is Moss’ with the 3-litre Ferrari 500/625s of Peter Whitehead and #4 Tony Gaze alongside. The Bugatti is Ron Roycroft’s T35A Jaguar, #6 is another Jaguar engined car, Peter Whitehead’s Cooper T38 being raced by Reg Parnell. Peter lent Reg the car after Parnell’s Aston Martin DP155 had engine problems in practice. Moss won from Gaze and Whithead.

Tailpiece…

Rob Walker’s NZ GP winning Lotus 21 Climax leaves Ardmore on the back of a modest trailer towed by a Borgward Isabella Coupe…simpler times.

Credits…

Eric Stevens, Digby Paape, Roger Herrick

Finito…