An Adelaide collector of speedcars is likely to buy Mal Ramsay’s ingenious rear-engined Birrana S74 Midget.
The collector, whose name is unknown, apparently hordes famous or unusual speedway cars. At present count, he is said to have about 15 oval track cars – mostly midgets – worth thousands of dollars.
Ramsay’s pavement track Birrana, which caused such a stir among the heavily traditional ranks of speedcar racing that rear engined cars have been banned in Australia, is being valued at $6000.
The S74 has been put on the market before it has fired its blown VW motor in anger following a letter received by Ramsay recently by Birrana patrons Bob and Marj Brown.
The Browns have moved their business overseas and have told Ramsay to sell the Birrana speedcar, as well as their Sesco-powered dirt track midget, spare Sesco motor and many other bits of gear the Brown speedway team had accumulated.
(The Browns were in mid-1975 establishing a business in the UK – Thermax – and running two Birrana 273 Ford BDAs for Bob Muir, and very occasionally, Dean Hosking, in the British Formula Atlantic Championship).
The impending sale of the shocking green coloured revolutionary midget is almost sure to end eight months of controversy raised by it. Ramsay, fascinated by the lure of pavement speedway racing at Adelaide International Speedway, decided last year to hand in his road racing license and go speedway in the little mid-engined car he envisioned.
He planned to debut it at the Australian Grand Prix at Liverpool in January, anxious to take on AJ Foyt in a local car. However, the ultra-conservative RDA in South Australia would not clear the car to compete in the AGP because they said it had not been proved in competition yet.
That was the beginning of a line of establishment reactions against the S74 that eventually led to the Australian Speedcar Control Council banning rear engined midgets.
Their thinking was of the type that it would dominate racing, make conventional cars obsolete, increase costs exorbitantly, etc – traditional USAC thinking, in other words. The only concession made was that the S74 could continue racing for two years, then that’s it for the ‘radicals’.
What the ASCC did was to very effectively stifle the only show of imagination presented for more than twenty years. They were afraid the Birrana would overrun speedcar racing, and everyone would have to follow suit and build a ‘funny car.’
Despite problems getting the blown 1600cc VW engine to work in the initial stage of the project it showed tremendous potential when Mal took the S74 around the ½ mile AIS track in 22.7 seconds, 0.1 under Mel Kenyon’s record.
In its first race at the May Adelaide lnternational Speedway meeting, it was again impressive in gaining a second, third, and fourth from the rear of the field in three races.
The Birrana has not raced since then because of the cancellation of a number of AIS meetings in recent months, so it is unlikely now that it will ever be known just how good the S74 could have been.
The Birrana looks more like a fat Formula GP midget than a full speedier. Its rounded nose and faired in tail, despite the best efforts of the RDA, still leave it looking unlike any midget ever built or raced here.
It is not, as is popularly thought, based on the monocoque chassis of the Formula Two Birrana 274. Only the front and rear suspensions are F2, and even then they are considerably beefed up to endure the rigours of speedway. Even the fact that the S74 uses full racing independent springing was probably enough to send the midget purists with their leaf springs, beam axles, and solid rear ends spinning.
The chassis is of a spaceframe construction, clothed in aluminium body panels and houses a supercharged VW engine running at 12 pounds of boost. Horsepower of the unit is unknown, being air-cooled, Mal has been unable to dyno it for fear of it overheating and blowing it up — as happened with he first motor he had in the car.
The gearbox is a Holinger unit with a wide range of ratios available, while the brakes are 9¾ inch disc outboard-mounted all round. Wheels are the same as used on the F2 Birrana, fitted with F3 Firestone slicks.
The cockpit is even roomier than Tatnell’s Winfield Export Offy’s, with the driver nestling in a fibreglass racing seat. Although the S74 is presumed to be lighter than conventional cars. Ramsay said it has yet to be weighed because he had planned for the bulk in a lot of areas to be reduced after it had been fully sorted.
This Auto Action classifieds ad ran in the November 20, 1975 issue.
I’m not sure when it sold, but it’s still alive, I believe, in the Holmes’ family collection of Birranas in Queensland.
It’s gotta be the ultimate Group Q novelty historic machine. CAMS’ Historic Committee would choke on their chocolate-donuts when reviewing this COD application!
Credits…
Auto Action September 12, 1975, Mike Jacobson, Ann-Maree Ramsay
Finito…
primotipo... 