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Jack Brabham’s screaming Matra MS650 3-litre V12 and the rumbling Henry Greder/Jean-Pierre Rouget Chev Corvette 7-litre V8 (eighth) blast past the Le Mans pits during the 1970 Le Mans 24-Hour on June 13-14.

By all accounts, the triple world champ enjoyed his races with Matra on an all care and no responsibility basis rather than his chief cook and bottle washer responsibilities at Motor Racing Developments and the Brabham Racing Organisation, with all due deference to Ron Tauranac

He shared Le Mans mount with young French thruster, Francois Cevert, who, in addition to his endurance responsibilities, took his GP debut aboard a Tyrrell March 701 Ford that year. They failed to finish at La Sarthe, as did the other MS650s raced by Jean Pierre Jabouille/Francois Cevert and Henri Pescarolo/Jean-Pierre Beltoise; a real who’s-who of French GP winning drivers of the mid-late 1970s.

Up the front, Hans Hermann and Richard Attwood took Porsche’s first outright win aboard a 4.5-litre Porsche Salzburg 917K; the best of the 3-litre cars was the Martini 908/02 raced by Rudy Lins and Helmut Marko.

That year, Brabham and Dan Gurney were the two GP winners on the Equipe Matra-Elf endurance program payroll. It would be fascinating to know what those two senior citizens and noted driver/engineers thought of the Matras overall and especially its two key constituent parts: the chassis and engine. Do any of you Frenchies have anything documented in relation to this? Dan only did Sebring but Jack did the season, enough to have provided input into the development direction of the cars.

The best results for Matra’s sports car squad that year were wins for the MS630/650 in the 1000 km of Buenos Aires-Beltoise/Pescarolo, for the MS650 in the Tour de France-Beltoise/Depailler/Jean Todt and for the MS660 at the 1000 km Paris at Montlhery-Brabham/Cevert.

Brabham had been under pressure from his wife, Betty, to retire for several years. He would have too, had Jochen Rindt returned to Brabham for the 1970 season, but Chapman offered him the earth, moon and stars to stay at Lotus, so Jack tore up the Austrian’s contract and convinced Betty he had to do one last season. Further proof of Jack’s intent was that he had sold his stakes in BRO and MRD before the end of 1969.

Doug Nye advises that when Jack’s father tapped him on the shoulder and called time, that was decisive…So Jack fitted as much as he could into that final pro-season: F1 with BRO, some F2 – John Coombs Brabham BT30 – and endurance racing with Matra.

Jack opened his Matra racing account at Daytona on February 1, where he and Cevert were 10th at the start of a season of utter domination by Porsche.

Where the 12-cylinder 917Ks didn’t win, the flat-eight 908/03 did, except Sebring, where the Ferrari 512S driven by Ignazio Giunti, Nino Vaccarella and Mario Andretti prevailed. Porsche won the International Championship of Makes, 63 points to Ferrari’s 37, Alfa Romeo’s 10 (T33/3 3-litre V8) and Matra-Simca’s four.

Brabham was pretty chipper at Brands Hatch on April 12 as he had won the South African Grand Prix in early March, showing the new breed – the array of 1970 F1 newbees included Emerson Fittipaldi, Francois Cevert, Ronnie Peterson and Clay Regazzoni – there was life in the old dog yet!

He was paired with JPB in an MS650 in the Brands 1000 km, the pair finishing 12th, 34 laps adrift of Pedro Rodriguez, who blew the minds of onlookers with his handling of the JW Automotive Porsche 917K in the most atrocious weather conditions.

The same duo were fifth in the Monza 1000 km, then came Le Mans, and that season-ending Paris 1000 Kilometres win for Jack and Cevert at Montlhery on October 18. The Aussie-Franco duo won this non-International Championship of Makes round aboard a new MS660 monocoque by three laps from the Jose Juncadera/Jean-Pierre Jabouille Ferrari 512S and the Larrouse/Chasseuil/Ballot-Lena Porsche 908/02. More about their Montlhery victory here:https://primotipo.com/2016/09/09/jack-and-francois-matra-ms660/

It was Jack’s final pro-race win, as against mucking around in touring cars in Australia in the mid-late 1970s, he ‘retired’ after the Mexican Grand Prix on October 25, so that Montlhery win would always have been memorable as he very soon felt, strolling around his Wagga Wagga paddocks and Bankstown Ford dealership, that he had retired too early…

I’m not so sure about that. He is one of the few who retired at the top of his game; had fortune favoured him, he would have won the Monaco and British Grands Prix, if not one or two others that season. His timing was immaculate…and he was alive.

Matra M630-MS650…

Matra entered racing with the F3 monocoque MS1 in 1965, the MS3 Djet was their first sports car launched the same year, whereas their first sports-racer, the MS4/620, was built in 1966. More about the MS620 here:https://primotipo.com/2015/11/15/matra-m620-brm-le-mans-1966/

The MS630 spaceframe coupe succeeded it in 1967, and was powered by a 2-litre P60 BRM V8 as a prototype (all three ’66 Le Mans entries DNF) and with a Ford 289/4.7-litre V8 as a sports car. In 1968, it raced as a 3-litre prototype fitted with Matra’s new V12 engine. While both cars again failed to finish the all-important race at Le Mans, Q4 and Q5 were indicative of race pace.

For 1969, chief engineer Bernard Boyer designed and built the MS640 coupe and MS650 spyder around the same key components inclusive of the MS630 spaceframe chassis but fitted with a comprehensive evolution of the V12 engine.

The MS12 had relocated intake ports which had been placed between the camshafts on the 1968 MS9. The MS12 ports were within the 60-degree Vee, a more conventional ‘crossflow’ position. Twin camshafts actuated four valves per cylinder and Lucas fuel injection was retained. The endurance spec engines were slightly detuned in comparison to Matra’s F1 units and produced about 410 bhp at 10,400 rpm. A robust ZF five-speed transaxle was also specified.

The MS640 Coupe was ready for the Le Mans test on March 30. The striking car featured a very curvaceous, slippery body, inclusive of a pair of tail-mounted vertical fins and partially enclosed rear wheels.

While Choulet’s body was slippery, it produced bulk lift over 300 km/h, the Matra got away from Henri Pescarolo before he had done many laps. He escaped from a massive accident with ‘only’ serious burns, but that chassis was destroyed, and the other MS640 was probably rebuilt as an MS650 spyder.

At Le Mans, Matra entered and raced a 1968 spec M630 Coupe, a pair of M630/650 hybrids and a new MS650. The updated 1968 cars and MS650 were fitted with spyder/roadster bodies that were low, wide, long-tailed and incorporated a small rear spoiler; learnings from Pesca’s accident.

Piers Courage and Jean-Pierre Beltoise raced the MS650 from grid 12, while one of the M630/650s was a bit quicker and started eleventh. The JPB/Courage MS650 was fourth, the Jean Guichet/Nino Vaccarella MS630 fifth, and the surviving Nanni Galli/Robin Widdows M630/650 was seventh.

Following Le Mans, the MS650 and an M630/650 were raced in select rounds of the World Championship, with the first real success at the Paris 1000 km at Montlhéry, where Jean-Pierre Beltoise and Henri Pescarolo drove the MS650 to victory, followed home by the MS630/650 crewed by Pedro Rodriguez and Brian Redman.

Two further MS650s were produced and campaigned at Sebring, Daytona, Brands Hatch, Monza, and Le Mans during 1970.

Given the pace of other 3-litre prototypes: Porsche 908, Alfa Romeo T33 and Ferrari 312P Matra’s the MS650 raced at Le Mans alongside its replacement MS660 (Beltoise/Pescarolo DNF gearbox). While outwardly similar, it featured an all-new aluminium monocoque chassis. It was a step forward, but it took the 5-litre to 3-litre engine regulation change for the new for 1972 Matra MS670 to deliver the goods at Le Mans from 1972-74.

Etcetera…

Matra MS620 (MS620-01) BRM 2-litre V8 during the April 3, 1966 Le Mans test weekend.

Matra Sports Type List and Designations

MS630 and a couple of MS7 Ford FVA F2 cars. Perhaps, thanks to reader, ‘Pete, ‘it looks like the location might be Marigny airport (in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France) where they did testing ahead of Le Mans.’

1970 Le Mans pit panorama.

#32 is the Brabham/Cevert MS650, #31 the Beltoise/Pescarolo MS660 DNF transmission in the seventh hour. The other obscured MS650 was raced by Patrick Depailler/Jean-Pierre Jabouille/Tim Schenken, it too was out in the seventh hour with an engine problem. If my memory of a conversation with Tim serves, he did very few practice laps and didn’t get a steer in the race.

Let’s not forget that Matra – Matra MS80 Ford – were the reigning World F1 Champions in 1970, both Constructors and Drivers.

This Elf PR session at Montlhery in October 1969 shows Jackie Stewart in his 1969 World Championship winning MS80 Ford DFV from Henri Pescarolo’s MS7 Ford FVA F2 car, then Jean-Pierre Beltoise aboard an MS650, then, perhaps Johnny Servoz-Gavin, MS630/650 and finally an MS630…

Matra @ random here:https://primotipo.com/2023/09/19/matra-random/ the early single-seaters here:https://primotipo.com/2019/05/24/surtees-matra-1966-and-thereabouts/ Matra and Stewart’s ’69 World Championship here:https://primotipo.com/2016/07/01/matra-ms80-ford/ Not to forget the F1 MS120 here:https://primotipo.com/2014/07/06/venetia-day-and-the-1970-matra-ms120/ and yes, I am a biased Matra devotee!

Credits…

Eric della Faille, Jean-Pierre Fabre Collection, Francois Hurel, Michel Charles, Marc Lebold, Revs Institute, Antoine Damfreville, Louis Galanos, Patrick Vauvert, Matra Sports Facebook group, F2Index-Fastlane, racingsportscars.com

Finito…