I found this intriguing photograph taken by Martin Pfundner during the Budapest Nagy Dij Formula Junior event at Ferihegy Airport in Budapest, Hungary, on May 6, 1962.
Curt Lincoln won the event, which comprised two heats and a 22-lap final on the 3.3km track, a total of 74 km, driving a Cooper BMC. Kurt Ahrens was second in a Lotus 22 Ford, and Jacques Cales third in a Stanguellini Fiat.
‘Our cars’ – maybe you can make more of Martin’s notes than I can. They are #5, a Fiat-based Formula Junior and the #31 Melkus-Wartburg sports car raced by its constructor, Heinz Melkus, an East German. Melkus was fifth. The F2 Register race results don’t help me identify the monoposto.
As always with these things, there is usually a surprise or two, for me at least; it turns out that Heinz Melkus had a rich history of building sports cars and single-seaters behind the Iron Curtain until he died in 2005. https://www.melkus-motorsport.de/melkus-motorsport-start.html
Anjakub wrote in The Nostalgia Form in September 2005 that ‘Heinz Melkus (20 April 20, 1928-September 5, 2005) born in Dresden) designed and produced a range of single-seat racing cars and road-going sports cars between 1959 and 1986. The cars were produced in Dresden in East Germany. The cars particularly used Wartburg engines.’
‘Melkus racing cars competed in Formula Junior, Formula 3, Formula Easter and sports car races. In 1968, Heinz developed the famous RS 1000 road-going sports car featuring a mid-mounted tuned version of the Wartburg 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine. Most cars used the 992cc version of this engine, but a few of the later cars were built using a special 1200cc version.’
‘Son Ulrich Melkus was the most successful GDR driver, but he had a deadly accident in 1990 after tyre damage on a public road. His younger son, Peter, also participated in auto races. Ulrich’s sons Ronny and Sepp still drive in races today. Heinz Melkus and his family now run a BMW dealership in Dresden called Autohaus Melkus.’
David McKinney, ‘It could be added that in the bad old days when East European drivers had to do all their racing on their side of the Iron Curtain, Melkus was consistently the most successful East German driver, winning many 1960s races not only on his home ground, but in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Latvia and Russia as well. On more than one occasion he was the most successful driver in the inter-nation Friendship of Socialist Countries Cup.’
‘His FJ and later F3 Melkus-Wartburg cars, of which scores must surely have been built, were equally successful in the hands of many other drivers from the other side of the Iron Curtain throughout this period and beyond.’
Credits…
Martin Pfundner, F2 Register, Anjakub, David McKinney
Finito…
primotipo... 