Nurburgring 1000km Paul Hawkins competing with S221, the Cyril Simson owned, Healey homologated, ‘Sebring Sprite’ in the pit area during 1960. The Team 221 machine Hawkins shared with Simson machine was 38th.
John Whitehouse-Bird wrote, ‘Then again, during 1961, following the car’s extensive reworking, as one of just five, John Sprinzel marketed, Williams & Pritchard Ltd, alloy-bodied, Sebring Sprite’ coupes. The car survives.’ The same duo shared the J Sprinzel entered car but failed to finish. See more on Hawkins and Healeys here:https://primotipo.com/2020/09/25/hawkeye/
Ayrton Senna, Van Diemen RF82, sneaks a look in his mirrors in the March 8, 15 lap round of the 1982 British Formula Ford 2000 Championship. That’s Aussie, Colin Jack in the #9 Reynard SF82 alongside.
Colin picks up the story, ‘I was second on the grid in my third race in England, Silverstone, British Formula Ford 2000 Championship in 1982. I was in the new Reynard Super Ford, while all around me were Van Diemens, Senna was seven-tenths of a second quicker in qualifying and drove away after I tried to hustle him into Copse. Still my claim to some little fame is that I came second to one of the best ever. I also beat a couple of others that went into F2 and F1. Great memories.
I started racing in 1977, in a 250 Supercart, then switched to cars with a Bowin P6F. I had a hard shunt at Surfers, rebuilt it with some mods, before being offered the Birrana (F2) drive with Paul Liston, Wrangler sponsorship was secured by my girlfriend Liz Ainsly and after a learning year in F2, I decided to see what I could do against the best from around the world. Great experience and eternal memories!’
Colin first caght my eye when I was ‘helping’ Alan Bisset with his Bowin P4A FF and Colin was rattling around in a P6F, not exactly the thing to have by then in the Bridgestone RD102 road-radial days when P4A’s were the duck’s guts.
Paul Liston’s 1974 Birrana 274-012 (shown here) was long in the tooth by 1980 but it was wings and slicks – ground effect tunnels even! – progress which Jack’s skills behind the wheel pursuaded it into equal seventh position in the 1980 Australian F2 Championship; all of the cars in front of him were much more modern.
Birrana 274-012 was ex-Wolfgang Prejawa. The car was originally fitted with a Lotus-Ford 1.6-litre twin-cam for the then ANF2 1.6-litre twin cam rules, and then Wolfy fitted a Ford BDA to race in the 1976-77 New Zealand Formula Pacific Championship.
Several of the Birranas competed there, BDA powered: memory suggests that Graham Baker bought and raced Chas Talbot’s 274-016 and Graeme Crawford raced his 273-010, the 1976 ANF2 Championship winner.
Bueselmann contesting the the 1977 New Zealand Formula Pacific Championship aboard Birrana 274-012 Ford BDA qualifies him as an Aussie Abroad of course; above, circuit unknown.
The place of a journeyman-racer amongst That Grid in That Year was a challenge: Keke Rosberg, Tom Gloy, Bruce Allison, Steve Millen, David Oxton, John Nicholson, David McMillan, Andrew Miedecke and others were a take-no-prisoners bunch of young thrusters! Rosberg won the five round series aboard a Fred Opert Chevron B34 from Gloy and Allison.
Enno didn’t have the happiest times of it in New Zealand with brake problems at Baypark, a DNS at Pukekohe, he was 14th at Manfield, had engine dramas at Teretonga, and didn’t enter the final round at Wigram.
I love this 1972 Birrana magazine ad, I wonder if the comedian was Mal Ramsay or Tony Alcock…or another member of the team? It’s Mal aboard the #51 272 Ford.
Frank Gardner in the SCA European Freight Services Chev Camaro ZL-1 he raced in Europe during 1973, here at Silverstone during the July British Grand Prix weekend.
The engine will be familiar to Oz Taxi Fans as the 427cid/7-litre Reynolds 390 silicon aluminium block – note the McLaren Chevrolet rocker covers – run by Bob Jane in his ZL-1 until CAMS cracked the shits with him and changed the Improved Touring rules at the end of ’71. And yes, he won the Australian Touring Car Championship with a ‘little-350’ in 1972. The Holley 850CFM fed monster gave somewhere north of 600 bhp and lb/ft of torque…more than adequate as Rolls Royce would say.
Brian Muir shared the touring car grids with Gardner aboard a 385bhp 3.5-litre BMW CSL. I was thinkin’ it would be an ETCC round and therefore the results would be easy to find, not so! Who won the tourer events that weekend folks? More about Brian’s 1973 here:https://primotipo.com/2022/09/03/brian-muir/
The shot below is of Brian five years earlier with Francisco Godia-Sales having won the April 7, 1968 Barcelona 6-Hour, at fabulous Montjuïc Parc in this Escuderia Montjuïc Ford GT40
In a great weekend for Muir, he popped the car on pole, set fastest lap and won it, game over! John Fitzpatrick and Allan Rollinson were second in a Porsche 910.
Alan Jones had a great 1973 season, finishing second in the British F3 Championship in this DART – Dennis Dobbie’s Dobbie Automobile Racing Team – GRD 373 Ford-Vegantune. Tony Brise beat him by only two points in a similar GRD. He finally broke free from F3 that year, and then his rise and rise was rather rapid.
Malcolm Bowyer took this British GP 1973 shot where AJ was third in the race won by Tony Rouff, GRD, with fellow Aussie, Buzz Buzaglo a great seventh in a leased March 723 Ford, while Larry Perkins was a DNF in his Ensign LNF3 Ford after an accident.
Jones won heat one, Larry was ninth in heat two, while Buzz, DNF’d heat one with an accident so his seventh in the feature from way back on the was a pearler; great bloke! See here:https://primotipo.com/2014/07/08/buzz-buzaglo-australian-international-racing-driver-and-the-eternal-racing-story-of-talent-luck/
A few more shots of the Jones boy’s GRD – chassis 060-F3 – rare as they are, at Oulton Park, April 2, second round of the BRSCC John Player British F3 Championship.
Group Racing Developments was founded by ex-Lotus Components folks after Colin Chapman closed it: notable David Lazenby, Dave Baldwin and Gordon Huckle. The Jo Marquart designed cars were quick. Van Diemen acquired acquired the business in late 1975.
The Oulton front row comprises Jones, Russell Wood, March 733 Ford, and Tony Brise, GRD 373 Ford. Wood won from Jones with Brise a DNF accident.
Brise won heat one from Wood, and Jones heat two from Larry Perkins, GRD 372 Ford, with Larry a DNF in the feature after an accident on the first lap.
Joan Richmond and Margaret Allen at Brooklands in 1934, Joan’s ride is a Ernest Henry designed Ballot 3/8 LC 3-litre, straight-eight built for the 1921 Grand Prix season; the ex-Malcolm Campbell/Jack Dunfee 100bhp @ 4000rpm beautiful bolide was hardly a State of the Art machine by ’34.
She bagged one fastest lap at Brooklands in a somewhat frustrating season with chassis 1006 before the exotic Frenchie threw a rod at warp speed and punched an expensive hole in the crankcase at about 103 mph.
The same thing happened to the pair of Stephen Brown/Cooper Brothers Ballots. Jim Gullan had the ? fail in his ex-Louis Wagner Ballot 5/8LC chassis #1004 in January 1939 AGP at Lobethal. He related in his book, ‘As we approached the end of Kayannie Straight (during practice) around 120 mph, there was an enormous crash under the bonnet and the air was filled with pieces of flying metal. The crankcase had a huge hole, the sump had been carved in half by an errant rod, and the Scintilla magneto was hanging by its plug leads.’ Not to forget that poor Jack Nelson had the crankshaft of the ex-Jules Goux 2LS #15 blow up the year before during the 1938 Albany Grand Prix.
The Richmond 3/8LC is owned by an Austrian, the remains of the 2LS are in the hands of an Australian marque enthusiast. ‘Racing Ron Edgerton’ ‘woggerised’ the 5/8LC a bit is his 1970-80s restoration but it was a runner when sold to a UK owner about 40 years ago and hasn’t seen the light of day since.
Ron Barnacle was a Melbourne advertising executive who raced a Wren F3 machine before ‘stepping back’ into Formula Ford for some years before winning the 1984 Driver to Europe Series in a Royale RP31.
Here he is in the Brands Hatch paddock during the 1985 Formula Ford Festival weekend, his mount, a Van Diemen RF85, I’m not sure how he went. Johnny Herbert won the event in a Quest FF85, from Jonathon Bancroft, Damon Hill and Mark Blundell. Other notables on the grid included Eric van de Poele, Frank Biela, Perry McCarthy, Tim Harvey and Roland Ratzenberger.
AS a Victorian I saw a lot of his racing, he did well in an ex-Charlie O’Brien Ralt RT1 Ford BDA (RT1/78-145) in the early years of Ralt RT4 dominated Formula Pacific and lived the dream by contesting an the AGP in 1981 (13th).
These days he operates a commercial 900 acre cattle property (vealers and dairy heifers) in South Gippsland after retiring from the top of the ad industry, including a stint as Chairman of the Clemenger Group, in 2010.
This has a late 1971 feel about it to me. Tim Schenken tests the Ferrari 312PB he raced as part of the Scuderia Ferrari squad in 1972-73, here at Modena.
Cruising through the Brands Hatch paddock with great mate, Ronnie Peterson here, during the ’72 Brands 1000k – second in the race won by teammates Jacky Ickx/Mario Andretti – and below, on the hop at Le Mans in 1973 in the car he shared with Carlos Reutemann, DNF engine in the 12th hour. The race was won by the Henri Pescarolo/Gerard Larrousse Matra-Simca MS670B.
A bit more here:https://primotipo.com/2025/11/01/australian-world-sportscar-championship-drivers-1/
Tony Gaze set an early precedent and benchmark for Aussies racing abroad post-war, here in a press conference over the 1956 New Zealand Grand Prix weekend, at Ardmore, near Auckland.
From the left it’s RM Grierson, President of the Auckland International Grand Prix Inc, Gaze, Stirling Moss, Reg Parnell, Peter Whitehead and Leslie Marr.
Gaze and Whitehead raced 3-litre Ferrari 500/625s, Moss, the family Maserati 250F, Parnell the Aston Martin DP155 ‘F1 prototype’ and Leslie Marr, a 3.4-litre Jaguar XKD spec powered Connaught B-Type; Moss won from Gaze, Whitehead, Marr and Parnell.
Gaze aboard the HWM Alta s/c, chassis #52-107, during practice at Wigram in 1954.
He was dispatched to New Zealand to do as well as he could in the NZ GP – third – and the Lady Wigram Trophy – second – and then flog the car; mission accomplished. See here:https://primotipo.com/2019/12/14/tony-gaze-hwm-alta-new-zealand-1954/
Rolled Gold Australian Formula Ford shot from Romain Moorman taken during the October 22, 1972 Formula Ford World Cup race meeting at Brands Hatch.
1971 Australian Formula Ford Champion (Driver to Europe) Larry Perkins in the very first Elfin 620, and behind him, the just minted 1972 Champ, Bob Skelton in the very first Bowin P6F. The Elfin 620/620B/623/622 – Formula Ford/ANF3/ANF2 – were a very successful series of cars for Garrie Cooper while the variable-rate-suspension P6F/P6 – Formula Ford/ANF3/ANF2 – were successful in the right hands, for John Joyce.
Larry’s international career started right here. Note ‘Team Elfin’, it was a works-entry (chassis number TBA) that returned to Edwardstown post-trip, and the open-face Bell Magnum helmet. David Oxton reckons the bloke striding purposefully between Skelton’s car and the pit counter may be ace mechanic, Bruce Richardson.
The primary purpose of the trip was the Formula Ford Festival at Snetterton a week or so hence. The truckload of Australians who contested that race were Perkins and Skelton, John Leffler, Bowin P4A, and then resident ‘locals’ Peter Finlay, Palliser WDF2, and Buzz Buzaglo, Elden Mk10A. See here in some detail:https://primotipo.com/2014/07/08/buzz-buzaglo-australian-international-racing-driver-and-the-eternal-racing-story-of-talent-luck/
The Norman Reeves Motor Group – signage on each car – was a prominent Ford dealer with multiple outlets, I’ve no idea what the connection to Larry or Bob was.
The decision for Bob Skelton as 1972 wore on was what car to take to England. His championship winning Bowin P4A or the modern as tomorrow, edgy-wedgy, variable rate suspension P6F; the known and trusted, or, maybe, The Unfair Advantage. What would you have done? Bob chose the latter. More about him here:https://primotipo.com/2020/03/24/bobs-on-the-job/
Skelton took delivery of his new P6F-119-72 on September 8, 1972 and had time to test it at Sandown, Melbourne (below) – Bowins were made in Brookvale, Sydney – before plonking it on a boat/plane for the UK.
The really neat thing about the whole exercise was that when Skelton returned to Australia he took the car back to Brookvale and John Joyce converted that same spaceframe chassis machine above – P6F-119-72 – from Formula Ford to Australian National Formula 2 spec.
Out with the Ford Crossflow, Hewland Mk9, solid rotors and Ford calipers and on with a Hart-Ford 416B, Hewland FT200, Girling calipers, wings etc. Hey presto, a car quick enough to best 1973 ANF2 Champions, Leo Geoghegan’s dominant Birrana 273 Hart-Ford – following Skello at Amaroo Park above – occasionally in qualifying during that dominant year for Leo. Geoghegan won the title from the similarly mounted Enno Buesselmann with Skelton a distant third.
The two Bowin P6 Formula 2 cars were P6F-119-72 and Bruce Allison’s P6F-129-73, a car Bruce disliked intensely. Both became hillclimbers in their mid-life, powered by Leyland P76 V8s. Have either been restored?
More Bowin FF here:https://primotipo.com/2018/08/30/bowin-p4a-and-oz-formula-ford-formative/ I’ve had a lengthy P6 epic 90% complete for years, I really must finish it off.
Allan Grice shared this Paul Vestey/Charles Ivey Racing Porsche 956 with Chris Craft and Alain De Cadenet at Le Mans in 1984, DNF engine in the fifth hour, and below in the Nissan R88C he shared with Mike Wilds and Win Percy at La Sarthe in 1988 to 14th place.
The performances of the touring car ace late in his career, DOB October 21, 1942, in these very demanding, powerful, ground-effect cars was really something to behold. It makes you wonder what he could have achieved had Howard Marsden/Allan Heaphy or whoever got him over-yonder a little earlier. A bit more here:https://primotipo.com/2025/09/18/aussie-porsche-le-mans-racers-random/
John Reaburn alongside The Chequered Flag AC Cobra during the 1966 Zeltweg 500km, more here: https://primotipo.com/2025/12/14/john-raeburn-australian-racing-driver/
Here’s the John Reaburn/Geoff Russell Mk3 Ford Zephyr three-wheeling through the Dipper on its way to second in class and fifth outright in the 1963 Bathurst 500. It bagged the same result the previous year at Phillip Island.
Credits…
Jonathon Whitehouse-Bird, Colin Jack Collection, Birrana/Steve Bannister, Romain Moormann, Malcolm Bowyer, J Vinals, J Manhire Collection, Warwick Clayton, Greg Moores, Barratt Press Agency, Ric O’Reilly, Auckland Library, John Payne, John Reaburn Archive, autopics.com.au
Finito…
primotipo... 