The Arthur Barnes driven TH. Schneider broke the Adelaide-Melbourne record with a time of 12 hours 10 minutes for the wild ride over a very rough roads on 11 April 1925…
Sydney motorist AH Barnes was accompanied by J W (William) McCulloch, in the 25.5 hp French six-cylinder 4.5 litre machine. It was national news, this advertisement was placed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 20 May 1925.
The same car, engine number #29, set a Broken Hill-Adelaide record of 8 hours 3 minutes for that 336 mile journey, an average of 42 mph, on 19 August 1925, ‘speeds of more than 100 mph were attained along the route’- that record was previously held by an Amilcar.
Three veteran and six vintage TH. Schneider chassis are known to have been imported to Australia through agents in South Australia and Victoria- George H Booth and Thomas Mitchell and Co-pre-War, and Domain Motors/Kellow-Falkiner Pty Ltd-both post-war, respectively in each state.
The two photographs below show the 25.5 hp TH. Schneider (variously TH. Schneider, Th. Schneider and both of these without the full-stop- I have used the variant on the badge below) out front of Geo Booth’s premises in Adelaide after the Broken Hill to Adelaide run on 19 August 1925. The crew was again Barnes as driver and McCulloch the mechanic.
George Booth of 411 King William Street Adelaide and Domain Motors of 348 St Kilda Road in Melbourne were the agents for the cars at the time and of course sponsors of the successful record attempts.
(SLSA)
(SLSA)
Theophile Schneider first entered the motor industry in partnership with Edouard Rochet to build the Rochet-Schneider at Lyon in 1894, he then moved to a factory in Besancon, east France near the Swiss border to build cars on his own- his first was an 1850cc four cylinder machine with a radiator behind the bonnet, a style later popularised by Renault.
These first ‘Schneiders, fitted with engines from 10 to 35hp were raced circa 1912-1914, the best result second place in the June 1912 Grand Prix de l’Automobile Club de France held on a course based at Dieppe, the car was driven by Rene Croquet with riding mechanic Rene Champoiseau.
After converting to manufacture of components for the war effort the company resumed car production post-war and changed its structure to that of a limited stock company, the record-run car is a type 21.20.1, 25.5hp six cylinder, 4480cc six cylinder, for speed manual with a solid front axle, live rear axle fitted with semi-elliptic springs and two rear wheel brakes, the wheelbase was 3505mm
Three of this model were imported into Australia by Domain Motor Body Builders/Domain Motors. At 1950 pounds they were nearly twice as expensive as the 4.5 litre Bentley of the day, Domain Motors ceased business around July 1926 at a time Th. Schneider themselves were in deep financial trouble at home, having been declared bankrupt in November 1921.
The reputation of the marque allowed the company to trade profitably through the mid-twenties, re-entering racing inclusive of participation at Le Mans in 1926- Pierre Tabourin and Auguste Lefranc were sixth in a 1954cc 25SP and in 1927 when Robert Poitier and Pierre Tabourin DNF accident in a 25SP.
‘White House Crash’ aftermath- the #2 d’Erlanger/Duller Bentley Sport 3 litre at left and #1 Clement/Callingham Bentley 4.5 litre at right- ditto photograph below (unattributed)
(unattributed)
The Tabourin driven TH. Schneider is infamous amongst Bentley enthusiasts as the cause of the ‘White House Crash’ which involved three Bentleys. At dusk Tabourin approached the corner too fast, lost control and hit a building close to the road coming to rest and partially blocking the track, Leslie Callingham, following closely, swerved to avoid him and ended up in a ditch on the opposite side of the road, George Duller then hit Callingham, and then Benjafield too hit Callingham in avoidance of Tabourin- Benjafield was able to continue but the race was well over for the other three machines.
No-one was seriously injured but Pierre Tabourin was taken to hospital with broken ribs, the #12 ‘Schneider driven by Chanterelle/Schlitz withdrew from the race out of respect for the injured Tabourin. In a happy ending for Bentley Benjafield and Sammy Davis won the race in the Sport 3 litre ‘old number 7’.
Problems in 1928 led to a second bankruptcy in March 1929 and closure of the Besancon factory doors in early 1930- right in The Great Depression of course.
TH. Schneider’s assets were acquired by French company Societe SADIM, the name continued but was applied to caterpillar tractors- World War 2 saw the end of a once proud marque.
Meanwhile, back in Australia, the insolvency sale of Domain’s assets resulted in four Ansaldos, three Ansaldo chassis and ‘four brand new latest model Schneiders’, of which one was the record breaking car- number ’29’ the other a new DS six cylinder 25hp model changing hands.
The record breaker, which John Bisley has (as of 2015) was never bodied, it was acquired by Watts McNamara and went from Myrtleford to Griffith in 1927- where it remained for most of its life. If any of you can fill in the ownership details of the car since it arrived in Australia please get in touch.
The record breaker at the Cockburn Hotel, in South Australia, not far from Broken Hill near the South Australia-New South Wales border (Richard C)
(unattributed)
Even though the cars were small in number in Australia, motorsport was used in attempts to build the brand inclusive of an entry in Australian Grand Prix where a 2 litre TH. Schneider driven by Ernest King contested the 1929 event held on the daunting, dusty, undulating and fast Phillip Island road circuit- King failed to finish having lost a wheel on lap 17 of the race won by Arthur Terdich’s Bugatti T37A.
The photograph above shows King contesting a hillclimb at Wheelers Hill in Melbourne’s outer east in June 1928, six months prior to the 1929 AGP- Th. Schneider 2 litre 25SP.
‘Schneider’s motorsport participation in Australia extended to the reliability trials which were popular at the time and of which I have written in the past. In March 1927, a 7hp car was first in class and fifth outright in a field of about forty cars- the driver was AGP winner Arthur Terdich as below.
(unattributed)
Etcetera…
(unattributed)
Rene Croquet and Rene Champoiseau aboard their TH. Schneider during the second day of the 1912 French Grand Prix on 26 June- the road race comprised 20 laps of a 77km course based in Dieppe, a total of 1540km.
Contestants raced over 10 laps on each day with the results aggregated to produce a winner.
Georges Boillot won in a Peugeot from Louis Wagner’s Fiat S74 and Victor Regal in a Sunbeam with Rene seventh, Rene Champoiseau raced another TH. Schneider but retired.
Credits…
SLSA- State Library of South Australia, thschneider.wordpress.com, prewarcar.com, Richard C, F2Index
Tailpiece…
The site of Domain Motors business premises at 348 St Kilda Road- a nice spot right opposite The Shrine of Remembrance, next door to the French Consulate which is apt! and not too far from Albert Park Lake, for international readers, is now, in the best Australian tradition, a block of luxury apartments…
No Australian racer comes close to owning and racing as many interesting cars as Bob Jane…
The tough nut from Brunswick developed a used car business initially, and shortly thereafter took on new car franchises before creating ‘specialist tyre retailing’ in this country- Bob Jane T-Marts are as iconic now as they were novel in the late sixties when Jane initially rolled the arm over with what was a new concept here.
Bob was the embodiment of ‘living life to the full’, he did not die guessing. Calder Park’s owner collected wives with as much enthusiasm as he did racing cars but found that they are not as easy to unload as last years Holden, the complications of his various ‘families’ screwed the later decades of his life comprehensively, which was a great shame as someone who gave much to many.
Big hitters. Niel Allen, Bob Jane and Frank Matich in Matich’s Firestone Racing Tyres tent at Sandown, circa 1967/8 at a guess. The vented guard belongs to Bob’s Elfin 400 Repco (M Kyval)
I’m not suggesting the man was perfect i might add, but in a motor racing sense he put far more into the sport than he ever took out.
This series of paintings were commissioned of Martin de Lang to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Bob and Harry Firth’s Ford Cortina GT, Bathurst 500 win in 1963. I’ve set them more or less in the chronological order Bob raced them, there were plenty more Jane owned racing cars than this though, check out the list at the end of the article.
The painting at the article’s outset shows Bob’s Maserati 300S in front of his great mate, Lou Molina’s Molina Monza Holden-Repco from Doug Whiteford’s Maserati 300S and then Bill Pitt’s Jaguar D Type at Albert Park on 23 November 1958- Bob and Lou are about to be lapped by the other duo during the 32 lap, circa 100 mile Victorian Tourist Trophy won by Whiteford from Ron Phillips’ Cooper Jaguar and Pitt, Bob was fifth and Lou unplaced.
(K Drage)
In the beginning.
Kevin Drage’s shot of Bob is at Fishermans Bend on the race debut of his ex-works 300S ‘3059’ in October 1958. Doug Whiteford and Jane (in Bob’s case after Reg Smith had it briefly first) acquired the Officine Maserati cars raced by Jean Behra ‘3055’, and Stirling Moss ‘3059’ during the 1956 Australian Grand Prix/Australian Tourist Trophy weekends in late 1956.
Bob was initially rough and ready in it, even inspiring Reg Hunt to move his boat further out into Albert Park Lake to keep it out of harms way- he did get the hang of this racing caper mind you. Stephen Dalton’s first competition outing for Bob Jane, he believes, was in a Ford Customline at Hepburn Springs hillclimb in October 1956. See here for an article on the 300S;
Another shot of Bob at Albert Park on the same weekend depicted in the opening painting. In a decade of stunningly beautiful racing cars as curvaceous as Sophia Loren, surely the 300S is up there for the title of the prima-donna sportscar of the fifties?
(M de Lang)
Jane’s locally developed Appendix J Jaguar Mk2, ultimately raced at 4.1 litres, won his first couple of Australian Touring Car Championships (ATCC) in the days the title was decided in one race- in 1962 at Longford and 1963 at Mallala.
The factory Jaguar E Type Lightweight didn’t make a lot of sense given the way it fitted into our local class structure at the time, and given the lack of endurance events in Australia of the type for which the car was built, but who can argue with the beauty and spectacle it provided all the same. Mind you, Bob did win the one race Australian GT Championship at Calder in December 1963, I rather suspect 10 miles could not really be characterised as an endurance event.
This machine, like Bob’s 300S and D Type, he retained for decades but was ultimately sold, global cars that they are- all left Australia, which is a bummer.
(B Miles)
Spencer Martin with the white helmet in hand, John Sawyer and Bob leaning on the delicate aluminium panels of his car at Lakeside before the start of a heat of the Australian Tourist Trophy in 1965- Ron Thorp’s AC Cobra is on the row behind. See here for a piece on Bob’s E Types, he had a couple, as one does; https://primotipo.com/2018/04/15/perk-and-pert/
(M de Lang)
Whilst Jane raced single seaters and won in sportscars he was most formidable in all types of touring cars from Series Production machines such as the Cortina GT in which he won at Bathurst in 1963 together with Harry Firth, through to the animal savagery of the Chev Monza Sports Sedan shown further on.
The Jane/Firth pair won three of these 500 mile production car enduros on the trot, the first was the 1961 Armstong 500 at Phillip Island aboard an ‘Autoland’ Mercedes Benz 220SE-they then followed up in a ‘works’ Ford Falcon XL in 1962.
Harry Firth behind the wheel of the winning Cortina GT, Murrays Corner, Mount Panorama 1963- that’s Max Volkers in a FoMoCo Cortina 1500 behind (unattributed)
In 1963 the event moved to Mount Panorama as the ‘Islands track surface was too badly damaged by the ’62 event to continue to stage the race- in fact racing came to an end there until Len Lukey bought the facility circa 1964, reopening it in 1967. At Bathurst they won in a ‘works’ Ford Cortina GT.
In 1964 Jane won again in a ‘works’ Cortina GT but this time shared the drive with George Reynolds- all of these ‘factory Fords’ were prepared by Harry Firth and his team in his ‘Marne Garage’ on the corner of Burke and Toorak Roads, Glen Iris in Melbourne’s twee inner east.
(unattributed)
Jane’s first 1965 Ford Mustang was locally developed with plenty of goodies bought over the counter in the US, it met an untimely end at Catalina Park in an accident the young entrepreneur was extremely lucky to walk away from.
The shot above shows it in rude good health at Warwick Farm entering Pit Straight, whereas it is in its death throes in Martin’s painting below, 7 November 1965.
(M de Lang)
(unattributed)
She is well and truly rooted- the angle from the other side is worse but I don’t have a clear, sharp shot from there to pop up. It was a case of pull all the good bits off and start again- Bob is clear with the white blotch on his head, I think its a flaw in the photo rather than Nurse Ratched gone berserk with bandages.
‘Cripes, its gunner need more than bog to fix this lot!’
RF Jane with Nomex shirt reflects upon the remains of a Mustang which was pristine ten minutes before. Leo Geoghegan looks on from behind whilst Bob Jane Racing Chief John Sawyer ponders gathering up the pile of shrapnel and popping it into the truck before the long trip back to Melbourne.
(M de Lang)
Bob certainly had a penchant for Mustangs, this is his second, a 1967 GT fitted with a big-block 390cid V8 and also raced later with small-block engines.
It met its maker when Chris Brauer had a very nasty career ending accident in it at Lakeside in 1970. Bob replaced this one with the 1968 Shelby built Trans-Am factory car, it still exists in the US.
The livery and specifications of this car evolved a lot over a short space of time not least driven by the needs of ever widening tyres with the photograph below in the machines at Warwick Farm in 1967.
(B Williamson)
If any Mustang enthusiast can give me details of the evolution of this car’s specifications from 1967 to 1970 please get in touch and i will add them in.
Jane is blasting across the top of Mount Panorama in de Lang’s photo above at a guess, whereas in the photograph below he is exiting Hell Corner, after a change to Shell colours, circa 1967. Perhaps this photo is a Shell shot given the background. The grille evolved to a simpler, later look too making identification of the car and year tricky, especially in monochrome!
(unattributed)
(M de Lang)
Pure touring car sex on wheels. Moffat’s Trans-Am, Foley’s GTaM and this John Sheppard built LC Holden Torana GTR-XU1 Repco ‘620’ 4.4 V8 Sports Sedan are my favourite Taxis.
This jigger was brilliant in conception and exquisite in the detail of its execution right down to the ‘standard interior trim’ and an engine compartment which looked as though it was made for a Repco V8 rather than an inline-six. The art shows Bob at Hume Weir circa 1971.
Just brilliant, not to forget the shedload of races Bob and John Harvey won in the thing circa 1970-1972. Bob should be shot for allowing Frank Gardner to commit automotive rape upon the little sweetie when he shoved a 5 litre Chev into it in 1975- although FG did squeeze an extra season up front despite said atrocity…
Warwick Farm, 5 September 1971 (L Hemer)
CAMS took exception to the wing, which was fair enough, it was outside the rules, but didn’t it look even more of a menace in this specification?
Didn’t Jane put the cat amongst the pidgeons with this Chev Camaro ZL1 427 ally blocked weapon! The painting depicts the car at Dandenong Road corner, Sandown 1971.
Looking at it reminds me of the spectacle of ‘full on body contact’ between Bob and Allan Moffat’s Mustang Trans-Am in 1971-2. Bob won the ATCC in 1971 with the big fella fitted and when shafted by CAMS, who changed the rules to eliminate the 427 motor, stuck it up the regulator and won again fitted with the ‘liddl 350 cast iron engine in 1972. ‘Nice one’, i thought at the time, plenty of lawyers improved their billings for the year by being involved in some serious litigation between RF Jane and the CAMS down the decades.
(unattributed)
Ere we go again…
Did Moffat lose it or did Bob give him a Rock Hudson to assist?
With the splendour of Springvale ‘Triple Fronted Brick Vanilla Slices’- 1950’s cream brick-veneer houses of the type I was brought up in, in the background, Moffat and Jane engage in a territorial dispute under brakes into Sandown’s Dandenong Road- meanwhile Graham ‘Tubby’ Ritter takes avoiding action at right. Cooper S pilot folks? Jane won this race.
‘I still don’t know if he hit the Armco?’ quipped Lynton Hemer @ the precision of this particular apex, 9 July 1972 (L Hemer)
(M de Lang)
The HQ Holden Monaro GTS 350 started life as an Improved Tourer in late 1972- its race debut was in John Harvey’s hands that year at Surfers Paradise, but morphed into a most formidable Sports Sedan when Group C replaced Improved Touring as the class to which the ATCC was run from 1973- Pat Purcell modified the car further as the Sports Sedan rules allowed.
Another Sheppo built car originally, it raced in Bob’s hands until 1978 and still exists restored to its original form, the art depiction is probably Oran Park whilst noting the signage isn’t correct.
(B Keys)
Nice and close at ‘Torana’ as it then was or ‘Peters’ as it originally was, corner at Sandown circa 1974/5.
Bob has the Monaro tucked inside John Pollard who has given the faster car room in his Holden Torana L34.
Hallmarks of all of Jane’s cars, whoever was Boss Cocky of the team at the time was the immaculate standard of presentation and preparation. I’ve always been fond of the look of HQ’s, surely one of the most harmonious and fully resolved of all of GMH’s styling exercises- lowered and with plenty of wheel and tyre under the ample guards they were/are mighty fine looking road cars with this beast, and Mal Ramsay’s HQ Kingswood Repco visual delights as racing cars.
(M de Lang)
One can easily imagine the excitement around the Jane transporter at race meetings circa 1971 with their bit of the paddock occupied by the Camaro, Torana, Brabham BT36 Waggott 2 litre and this McLaren M6B Repco ‘740’ V8 5 litre- which won a pair of Australian Sportscar Championships in 1971 and 1972.
Excitement around the Bob Jane transporter, or Shell tent anyway, circa 1965. Nose of the Mk2 Jag at left, first Mustang, E Type Lwt and nose of the Elfin Mono at right (M Kyval)
The story of this thing, one of the best looking Can-Am cars ever built, is told here; https://primotipo.com/2019/10/16/sex-on-wheels/ ,the art is of Bob at the wheel, circuit who knows, it could be anywhere, whereas the shot below is of Bob giving John Harvey a lift just after Harves won the Symmons Plains round of the 1972 ASCC- and the championship itself.
(E French)
Who could ignore Sports Sedans, even as a devout open-wheeler woofda, with savage beasts like this thing providing quite a show.
Watching Bob drive this car was magic, seeing Peter Brock race it after Bob retired was sensational- he teased everything out of Pat Purcell’s magnificent racer, another painting at Sandown’s Dandenong Road corner.
(C Parker)
Chris Parker caught all the heavies on the grid at Calder August 1982- Australian GT Championship round 6, heat 1- Alan Jones won every race of the nine round championship.
Alan Jones is on pole in the Porsche Cars Australia Porsche 935 alongside Peter Brock in Jane’s Monza, on the row two is Jim Richards’ black BMW 318i turbo and alongside him Tony Edmondson’s Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV Chev and then the white Colin Bond driven PCA Porsche 944 GTR turbo- on his inside is Rusty French’ Porsche 935. On the back row on the inside is Brad Jones’ Mercedes SLC and on this side the Bob Jolly Holden Commodore. They really were the most exciting grids of things at the time even if the 935’s rained on everybody else’s parade…
Everything about this car was big! Originally built by a team led by Pat Purcell it was raced by Bob from 1980, then rebuilt by Pat and Les Small before being raced by Peter Brock in 1982/3, then Allan Grice raced it in 1984 to an Australian GT Championship and then Bryan Thomson to the title the following year. It morphed into a Toyota Supra in 1989- where is it now? Click here for a summary of the car; http://www.scharch.org/Cars/Monza_Racecars/Cars_MonzaAU_Purcell-Jane.htm
(B Jane)
Peter Brock awaits the start at Calder circa 1983- the formidable size of the car evident in this shot- 6 litre Chev V8 upfront and a transaxle at the rear.
Etcetera…
The list of cars Bob owned and raced, or were raced for him by others is as below. It isn’t complete, it’s out of my head, i am happy to add others to the ‘good stuff’, no road cars only racers he owned…
Sportscars
Maserati 300S, Jaguar D Type, Jaguar E Type 3.8 FHC, Jaguar E Type Lwt, Elfin 400 Repco 4.4, McLaren M6B Repco 5 litre
Single-seaters
Elfin T100 ‘Mono’ Ford twin-cam 1.5, Brabham BT11A Climax 2.5, Brabham BT23E Repco V8 2.5, Jane Repco V8 2.5, Brabham BT36 Waggott TC-4V 2 litre, Bowin P8 Repco-Holden F5000, Ralt RT4 Ford BDA F Pac, McLaren M26 Chev F5000
Tourers
Ford Customline, Holden ‘Humpys’, Jaguar Mk2 4.1, Mercedes Benz 220SE, Ford Falcon XK, Fiat 2300, Lotus Cortina, Ford Mustangs- three of em- 1965, 1967 and 1968 Shelby Trans-Am, Ford Falcon GT ‘XR’, Chev Camaro ZL1, Holden Torana GTR-XU1 Repco 4.4, Holden Torana GTR-XU1 Series Prod/Group C, Holden Monaro GTS 350 Imp Tourer/Sports Sedan, Holden Monaro GTS 350 Series Prod, Chev Monza, BMW 635Csi, Holden Torana L34, Holden Torana A9X, two Mercedes Cosworth 190. In addition there were numerous ‘Thunderdome’ thingies
Not bad is it- in one lifetime.
The ‘Jane Estate’- those two words are a catch-all of ‘Jane Family individuals, corporate entities and trusts’, i think, still own the Brabham BT11A, Ralt RT4 and McLaren M6B. I am happy to take advice from those who have the facts rather than ‘i reckon’…
Image and other Credits…
Martin de Lang- artist, Stephen Dalton
Mike Kyval, Kevin Drage, Bill Miles, Chris Parker, Jock Psaros, Ellis French, Lynton Hemer, Bruce Keys, Bob Williamson Collection, Bob Jane Heritage Collection
Tailpiece…
(M de Lang)
Peter Brock in the Porsche 956 he shared with Larry Perkins at Silverstone and Le Mans in 1983- didn’t this ‘Aussies taking on the world attack’ capture us all at the time.
It symbolises a few things not least Bob’s world view and a couple of blokes in a very long list Jane supported from the early sixties…
Ray Porteous’ JMW leads the John Fleming Austin 7 Spl at Darley, Queens Birthday weekend June 11 to 13 1960…
Darley Army Base, 8km from Bacchus Marsh is a reasonably obscure motor racing venue so Hugh Coleby’s upload of some photographs from his late father, Peter Coleby’s collection on social media is hugely welcome. Gordon Dobies’s contribution in identifying the cars and drivers is gold too ‘one of the advantages of being old enough to have raced at those meetings and never throwing anything away’ he quipped.
The Preston Motorcycle Club conducted the meeting, whilst I have vaguely heard of the place I thought it was a ‘bikes only venue- clearly that is not so, members of the 250cc and 500cc car clubs were also invited along.
Bacchus Marsh was a tiny rural hamlet when I played in some tennis tournaments there as a kid, I still remember the wonderful lawn courts and Avenue of Honour as you drive into the town which is 60km from Melbourne on the Western Highway- the main road from Melbourne to Adelaide for you internationals.
These days its a big commuter town to Melbourne but when the 4000 members of 4th Infantry Training Brigade, the U.S Marines and others occupied the place they must have wondered what they had struck, Bacchus Marsh let alone Darley would have been microscopic!
Australian, American and Dutch (from the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia) soldiers trained at the camp located on a plateau with rolling hills in the background, before being shipped overseas many of them marryied local gals, the area was used for Citizen Military Force (remember the CMF?) training until the 1970’s.
(AIF)
Rifle training at Darley, trusty Lee Enfield 303’s by the look (AIF)
(AIF)
Robert Thompson wrote that his late grandfather, Lou Thompson built the camp in 1939- Thompson and Chalmers Pty Ltd took on Simmie & Co as an associate on the large project, Darley Military Camp had over 360 buildings including recreation huts, a Post Office and a 68 bed hospital on 160 hectares of land located at Camerons Road.
When the military moved out post-war most of the infrastructure went as well inclusive of buildings, but, critically, the roads remained, the site soon came to the attention of the Preston Motorcycle Club who were eagerly looking for a venue on which to race.
Ray Porteous, Austin 7 Spl (P Coleby)
Extreme narrowness of Darley evident in many of these shots, this one the start of the 1959 Junior A Grade- L>R Eric Hinton AJS 7R, #64 Owen Archibald Norton, #82 Ron Miles Norton, #1 Tom Phillis Norton, #2 Jack Ahearn Velocette. On row 2 are #25 Ray Blackett and Geoff Curley #14 (E Miller)
Working bees of club members soon filled trenches left by the removal of cabling, re-coated the road surface, cleared scrub and removed junk left behind by retreating military forces. By late 1947 the place was ship-shape with the first meeting held on 29 February 1948- the Hartwell and Kew clubs were invited along to join in the fun.
Open meetings soon followed, ‘the main straight, which had a left-hand kink in the middle, was only as wide as a two lane road, while the rest of the rack was even narrower. It made for shoulder to shoulder racing on solos and even closer encounters on outfits’ recorded Old Bike Australia.
Peeling off the Main Straight (Camerons Road) is #8 Alan Osborne, Honda and Tom Phillis Ducati in 1959 (MCN)
John Hartnett, Cooper Jap 497cc 1960 (P Coleby)
The Preston club guys were happy to hold a couple of well run meetings a year, fitting many races onto the card without chasing the major titles such as the Australian Tourist Trophy with all of the stars of the day racing there- Frank Mussett, Maurie Quincey, Bert Flood, Jack Ahearn, Keith Brien, Max Stephens, Rex Tilbrook, Alan Wallis, Ken Rumble, Kel Carruthers and others with Quincey the ‘local ace’ in the mid-fifties- he switched to cars later in life remember folks, an ANF2 Elfin 600B Ford twin-cam springs to mind. Max Stephens was another who tried four wheels, he owned and raced the ex-Brabham Cooper T40 Bristol, with some success out of Tasmania.
Easter Monday meetings were common early, the club then settled into a mid-year date on the Kings/Queens Birthday weekend which was usually a frosty, wet experience for both the riders and the punters. The Preston guys were also innovative in running the first one hour race for production machines during the June 1959 program.
Over the years various high profile car racers had a crack at the lap record, Reg Hunt’s Maserati 250F did a 1:14.1 in 1955 which was bested by multiple Australian Hillclimb Champion Bruce Walton aboard a Cooper Mk9 JAP 1 litre twin in 1960 with a 1:10.8. At that stage the quickest of the bikes was the 1:13.5 achieved by both Eric Hinton and Tom Phillis.
Maurie Quincey and Matchless G80 (C or CS?) on the Darley grid, rider of #1 more interested in the babe behind than the race start!
And below is Quincey aboard an Elfin 600B Ford twin-cam during the 1971 Sandown Tasman meeting, it was after some involuntary aerobatics in this car at Sandown at about this time that he called it quits on his competition career.
By then Maurie was in his late thirties, well after his international bike racing career, inclusive Isle of Man appearances and running a successful Honda dealership in Moonee Ponds, Melbourne. He died on July 19, 2019 six months ago- see a very interesting article about Maurie here; https://www.oldbikemag.com.au/maurie-quincey-victorian-dominator/
(L Hemer)
Maurie Quincey on Bray Hill during the 1955 IOM Junior TT- a splendid fifth aboard a spare works Norton Manx 350. He was offered the bike after going so well on his ‘customer’ 350 and 500 during practice (unattributed)
Back to Darley.
Kel Carruthers appearance on the Honda 250/4 in 1961 would have been really something to see and hear- i bet he frightened the kookaburras flying above the citrus trees in the valley below the track bigtime! Kel won the Harvey Wiltshire Trophy Lightweight race slicing four seconds off the lap record in the process.
The final meeting took place in 1962, in a thriller of a race Trevor Pound and Ken Rumble passed and re-passed for the whole 15 laps with Pound winning by a bike length, both being credited with a new outright lap record of 1:12.8. Trevor Pound raced in the Manx classic too and never lost his passion for competition, he raced Formula Vees in his dotage.
Whilst plans were being made to race in 1963, on 10 June the farm owner withdrew his permission saying the continued rain in the region had flooded the pit and spectator areas and damaged sections of the track- at late notice the meeting was held at Calder, 30km away.
‘Racing never returned to Darley. A combination of primitive facilities, the narrow and uneven road surface and the remorseless march of civilisation spelled the end of the happy little track. Despite its shortcomings, the circuit had an enviable record for safety and a reputation for slick organisation. With nary a backward glance, the infield area was soon subdivided into building lots and small farms.’
To see the place, drive up Camerons Road, at the top of the hill you are on the plateau, about 100 metres on the right are the remnants of the final corner named ‘St Kilda Junction’ poking at you from a vineyard. At this point you are on the Main Straight with the former pit area- still dotted with concrete slabs from the place’s military past on your left. The straight is about 600 metres long- halfway along is a kink, and opposite that is a monument to Darley Military Camp.
Old Bike Australia concluded a great article with this ‘It takes a little imagination if you weren’t there…but if you stand on the kink and close your eyes, you can still hear the sound of a hundred motorcycles and a dozen or so cars from the 250cc and 500cc Racing Clubs, most with open exhausts warming up.’
‘Wafting through the air is the fragrant mix of Castrol R and methanol, mingled with the aroma of Hines “Kerosene” pies. The pointed tents of the Hines Catering Company…appear in many of the period photos of Darley, and those who sampled the wares will tell you the kerosene stove that heated the pies produced a pastry of unique taste. A section of canvas behind the servery contained a special nook where the course announcer Frank “Farmac” McDonald and selected others could lubricate their tonsils with a cold ale between races.’
‘Fortunately, on the run back to Melbourne, you won’t have to cope with “Cunningham The Camera Cop”- the notorious plod who used to hide his Thunderbird beside the old stone bridge out of Bacchus Marsh and photograph any who transgressed by crossing the double centre-lines.’
Hasn’t the Old Bike Australia writer painted a wonderful, evocative picture of times long gone?
‘Moe’s Nose’ approach June 1960. South Aussies Ian Hogg and Peter Morgan
(C Rice)
Roger Barker leading Ron Miles, note the hay bales and beautiful Darley bush setting.
Barker is on a bike with a ‘Rimond’ fibreglass fairing, a product he helped develop in tests at Ballarat and Darley- these were made in Melbourne by former top clubman racer, Charlie Rice and Bob Edmonds, ‘Rimond’ a combination of their names, about 30 fairings were built. Barker was quoted in the English press as saying they were good for about 12mph or 200rpm using tall gearing. The bike could be a Norton.
The Mudgee born rider, having scored points at the Isle of Man and Assen on Nortons in June, died at Schleiz, Thuringia, East Germany in July 1957 having blacked out in the intense heat of the 500cc race whilst leading aboard a Matchless G45, the conditions were made worse by the engine heat the Rimond fairing trapped. He slid off the bike, hit a tree and died instantly from the impact.
Etcetera…
What to look for on your visit, Camerons Road, Darley 3340.
(J Bowring Collection)
A couple of photographs from the John Bowring Collection via Tony Johns.
We are not clear on the date yet but the shot above is John Hartnett’s Cooper Mk5 JAP from the Doc Grosvenor and Allan Tyrrell Austin 7 Specials.
It’s the great Bruce Walton’s Cooper Mk8 JAP below, perhaps on his 1960 record breaking run.
(J Bowring Collection)
(J Bowring Collection)
No idea who this committed crew are folks- thoughts?
Bibliography…
‘Old Bike Australasia’ 5 February 2018, Stephen Dalton, Gordon Dobie, Jim Scaysbrook article on Roger Barker in ‘Old Bike Australasia’
Photo Credits…
Hugh Coleby, the late Peter Coleby, Eric Miller, Lynton Hemer, Motor Cycle News, John Wynne Collection, John Bowring Collection via Tony Johns
Tailpiece…
(P Coleby)
John Fleming, Austin 7 Spl leading followed by Mel Mason with a couple of unidentified JMW’s in the mix, June 1960. There was a big field of at least eleven cars on this narrow track- intrigued to know the full grid if any of you have a record of the race.
Len Lukey’s Cooper Bristol, Mount Druitt, NSW, in May 1958, having set FTD at 13.53 sec for the standing quarter (J Ellacott)
‘Now that really is a beautiful looking racing car! Wotizzit I wonder’, the young gent seems to thinking…
The smartly attired chap is surveying the lines of Len Lukey’s Cooper T23 Bristol at Mount Druitt in Sydney’s west in May 1958. Len Lukey was both a champion driver and successful businessman, founding ‘Lukey Mufflers’ in the 1950s, a brand still respected today.
Melbourne-born, Lukey started racing relatively late, aged 32, having established and built Lukey Mufflers from its Nepean Highway, Highett base. Generations of enthusiasts are aware of his name because of the original equipment and performance exhausts and mufflers he produced. No lowered, worked EH Holden with wide chromies and twin SUs was complete without the distinctive Lukey logo being displayed on its exhausts for following traffic to know its performance intent.
Lukey started competition in the Victorian hills with a side-valve Ford Mainline Ute, Australia’s ubiquitous workhorse down the decades. It was in this car at the opening Altona meeting in 1954 that he frightened the life out of Stan Jones in Maybach when he spun whilst coming through The Esses, the car looking all the while as though it had lost its way transporting a load of mufflers from Highett to Williamstown. The competition regulator, the CAMS, frowned upon the use of such utilitarian vehicles in racing, so he switched to the first of a series of Ford Customlines.
Len Lukey, Ford Customline, Rob Roy, 1957 (B King)Equipe Lukey during the 1959 AGP weekend at Longford, Cooper T45 Climax: unknown, Neil Marsden, Helen Lukey, Claude Morton and Len Lukey (Jock Walkem)Awesome shot at the start of the 1959 AGP at Longford, showing not least how narrow the track was then. The old start line was on The Flying Mile towards Mountford Corner. Winner Stan Jones has the jump in his Maserati 250F, then Len, partially obscured in his Cooper T45 Climax, then Arnold Glass, Maserati 250F, Doug Whiteford, Maserati 300S, Ron Phillips, Cooper T33 Jaguar, Alec Mildren, Cooper T45 Climax and the rest (unattributed, I’d love to know the name of the photographer)
It’s interesting to review the stunning march of touring car domination of Australian motor racing and look at the role Len Lukey had in its rise. Australian Motor Sports had this to say in its January 1960 issue, ‘…there can be no doubt that by tuning these massive cars to the highest possible pitch, Len Lukey started the ball rolling towards the day when the term production car racing became such a farce that a special Gran Turismo Class had to be instituted’.
Lukey had some spectacular moments as he learned his craft, a trip through the hay bales at Albert Park and a lucky roll at Phillip Island, there was no rollover protection in those days, both were lucky escapes.
The car was timed at 106mph at Gnoo Blas, Orange in 1956, beating both Jack Myers and the Aldis Bristol. His dices against Jack Myers, the Sydney Holden driver, were crowd pleasers in the way Geoghegan/Beechey battles were a little further down the track.
He soon took hillclimb class records at Rob Roy, Hepburn Springs and Templestowe, all in Victoria.
Both Myers and Lukey progressed into single-seaters via Cooper Bristols. In Lukey’s case, his ascent to the top was quicker than just about any Gold Star winner, and then, he almost immediately upon achieving the prestigious award in the longest ever season, 12 rounds in five states, retired as a competitor but remained in the sport as a circuit owner and sponsor.
Team Lukey during the 1957 AGP weekend at Caversham- Customline and Cooper T23 Bristol (K Devine)
Lukey commenced racing the ex Reg Hunt/Kevin Neal Cooper Bristol in 1956…
He was ninth in the ‘Olympic’ Australian Grand Prix won by Stirling Moss at Albert Park in a works Maserati 250F.
In the 100-mile Victorian Trophy race he was fifth behind Davison’s Ferrari 500/625 3-litre, Brabham’s Cooper Climax, Doug Whiteford’s Maserati 300S and Tom Hawkes’ Cooper T23 Holden, it was an auspicious open-wheeler debut. He started a campaign to contest the Gold Star the following year- the first time the Australian Drivers Championship had been contested.
The season commenced at Caversham, 16km from Perth, held in searing heat and famously won, after much argument about lap-counting, by Davison’s Ferrari, which was shared by Lex and Bill Patterson. Len was fourth in a fast, reliable run in the Cooper. He was fifth at Albert Park and then late in the season scored two thirds in the New South Wales Road Racing Championships at Mount Panorama and in the Port Wakefield Trophy held at the South Australian circuit in rough bush country 100km north-west of Adelaide.
He set Australian National Speed Records in both the Cooper – 147.4mph and the Customline at 123.3mph – outside Coonabaraban in north-western NSW in 1957.
The Cusso was timed one way at 130mph, the car that weekend was festooned with masking tape, shields over its headlights, an enclosed radiator and sealed doors and boot to squeeze every bit of speed from the beast. Len had to enter the car through the windows; safety was again very much to the fore!
The car which ran at Coonabarabran was a new shell, but all the learnings and good bits of the earlier one were transferred across. Len raced it for a further year before being selling it to Melbourne driver Owen Bailey but it was badly damaged in an accident at Albert Park in 1958, Bailey’s first meeting in it.
On the way to winning the South Australian Trophy, Gold Star round at Port Wakefield in April 1958, Cooper T23 Bristol (unattributed)Lukey at Albert Park during the Melbourne GP in November 1958, Lukey Bristol, Jaguar Corner. ‘Vanwall-esque’ nature of the body clear if not as beautiful in execution (B King)Len Lukey is being congratulated by Derek Jolly for his second place in the October 1958 Victorian Road Racing Championship at Fishermans Bend. Lukey Bristol, Ted Gray won in Tornado 2 Chev (K Drage)
Its amazing to compare and contrast the short four or five round Gold Star contests of later years with the more arduous nature of the series earlier on, particularly given the standard of Australian highways then.
The 1958 award was contested over nine rounds, starting at Orange in New South Wales, from there to Fishermans Bend in Melbourne, then south across Bass Straight to Longford, to Port Wakefield north of Adelaide in South Australia, then two rounds at Lowood, Queensland, in June and August. So I guess depending upon other race commitments, one could leave your car up north, then to Mount Panorama, Bathurst in New South Wales for the Australian Grand Prix in October and then, finally, two rounds in Victoria- Albert Park in November and Phillip Island in early December.
The 1959 Gold Star was held over a staggering twelve rounds, and so it was that Len committed himself to a couple of serious tilts at the title in 1958-59, the lessons learned in 1958 were applied with great success the following year when he won the title.
Len was third in the opening South Pacific Championship round at Gnoo, Blas Orange in January, Jack Brabham won that event in his Cooper T43 Climax but was ineligible for Gold Star points as a non-resident.
Back home to Victoria, Len was fourth at Fishermans Bend in February and fifth in the Longford Trophy in March. Stan Jones won at the Bend and Ted Gray at Longford in the big, booming Chev Corvette 283cid V8-engined Tornado 2.
He scored his first splendid Gold star win in the South Australian Trophy at Port Wakefield in April, winning from Austin Miller’s Cooper T41 Climax and Keith Rilstone in the amazing Zephyr Special s/c.
Then followed a long haul back to Melbourne to ready the car and then a 1650km tow to Lowood Queensland for the two rounds held on the disused airfield circuit.
He bagged a pair of thirds in the Queensland Road Racing Championship at Lowood in June and the Lowood Trophy in August. Alec Mildren won both of these events in his Cooper T43 Climax, with Len looking lovingly and with considerable longing for one of these mid-engined cars, an aim he would realise before the year was out.
Lukey had developed his own thoughts on how to improve the performance of his Cooper and built a new spaceframe, high-bodied chassis, the ‘Lukey Bristol’, into which the mechanicals of the factory car were fitted.
Ready for the AGP, the car was taken to Bathurst but finished a distant sixth, two laps in arrears of Lex Davison, Ern Seeliger and Tom Hawkes aboard a 3-litre Ferrari 500/625, a 4.6-litre Maybach 4 Chev and a 2.3-litre Cooper T23 Holden-Repco, respectively.
The last two rounds of the championship were back in Victoria, he was fifth in the Melbourne Grand Prix, an exciting race weekend in which Stirling Moss and Jack Brabham scrapped at the front of the field in 2.2-litre Cooper T45 Climaxes, the race won by Moss from Brabham then Doug Whiteford’s Maserati 300S, Bib Stillwell’s ex-Hunt Maserati 250F and then Len.
Lukey was quickly in discussion with Brabham about the purchase of the Cooper T45, the very latest of Surbiton’s machines at the time, and would soon have the 2-litre Coventry Climax FPF-engined machine in his workshops, providing him with the tool to do the job in 1959.
Len was still active on the hills, winning both a new NSW sprint record and FTD at Mt Druitt in 13.53 seconds; this article’s opening photo is at that meeting. In July, he spun at the end of Rob Roy when the throttle jammed open. Len was thrown from the car before it rolled to a halt, but it was a lucky escape.
The final Gold Star event was the Phillip Island Trophy on Boxing Day but Len spun the Cooper in a preliminary event, damaging the car’s suspension enough to non-start the championship race. The Coad brothers sportingly lent him their Vauxhall Special but the car was outclassed, with Lukey third in the Gold Star with 21 points, then Alec Mildren on 23 with Stan Jones deservedly taking the title with 31 points. Stan won two rounds at Fishermans Bend and Phillip Island and was third on three occasions- Gnoo Blas, Longford and the first of the two Lowood rounds.
The Lukey boys push the Cooper T23 Bristol thru the Longford paddock in March 1958, behind is the Lou Abrahams owned, mighty Tornado 2 Chev, victorious that weekend (HRCCTas)Len and Stan Jones on the cover of the March 1959 issue of AMS in recognition of a marvellous AGP dice resolved in Jones’ favour 1959- Cooper T45 Climax from Maserati 250F
After Brabham contested three New Zealand internationals in early January 1959, Lukey bought the car from Jack. It was fitted with a 2-litre FPF rather than one of the 2.2s Jack had been using. These engines were rare with the full 2.5-litre variants built around new blocks being readied back in Coventry for Cooper, Rob Walker and Lotus’ use in F1 that season – rather successfully so as events transpired.
In 1959, as mentioned above, the Gold Star was contested over 12 gruelling rounds, between 26 January and 14 June, the halfway mark of the season, those on the title chase travelled from their home base, to Orange, then Fishermans Bend, Longford, Port Wakefield, Bathurst and Lowood – Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and Queensland, with an arduous second half of the season still to come.
The competition was strong, Len and Alec Mildren raced Cooper T45s, Bill Patterson a T43 with Stan Jones the other racer who had committed to most of the rounds, racing his Maserati 250F, Maybach 4 Chev and later in the season he took delivery of a Cooper T51 Climax as did Bib Stillwell, David McKay and Austin Miller but the latter trio did not race across the continent in the manner Len, Alec and Stan did.
In much the same way that the new-fangled Coopers were challenging the front-engined orthodoxy in Europe, so too, of course, was the case in Australia, albeit there was no surprise at the speed of the Coventry Climax-engined cars, given the giant-killing nature of the air-cooled Coopers since the first appearance of one at Bathurst in the dawn of the 1950s.
Only two points separated the Cooper T45 Climax duo of Lukey and Mildren at the seasons end – Len won the title with 68 points to the Canberra motor-dealers’ 66.
Mildren won three rounds, Fishermans Bend and the two Lowood rounds mid-season, whereas Len won two- at Caversham and the last round at Phillip Island when the pressure was well and truly on. The Cooper’s differential failed during Saturday practice. Len did not have a spare; Noel Hall did, but it was affixed to his car, which was in Sydney. Jack Myers removed the gearbox and popped it onto a plane, the precious cargo was collected from Essendon Airport and then taken to Phillip Island where it was fitted to the car. The machine was finally ready about an hour before the off. Lukey led from the flag and on the final lap equalled the lap record, a memorable win indeed.
Alan Jones quizzing Lukey about the handling characteristics of his Cooper. Otto Stone, racer/engineer/mechanic and fettler of the Stan Jones Maserati 250F at the time, is to the right of Alan, and Stan is at the far right but one in the white helmet ready for the off, Phillip Island 1959 (unattributed)Lukey and Jones scrapping through Longford Village, AGP 1959, pub corner. Cooper T45 and Maserati 250F (oldracephotos.com)
Stan Jones won two rounds as well, notably the Australian Grand Prix at Longford after a race-long dice with Len. It was a classic battle of the time between the powerful front-engined 2.5-litre Maserati and the more nimble, but less powerful 2-litre Climax-powered Cooper. There was a bit a karma in Stan’s race win as no-one in the field, other than Mildren, deserved an AGP win more and Alec’s time came twelve months afterwards after an even more thrilling dice between Lex Davison’s 3-litre Aston Martin DBR4/300 and Mildren’s 2.5-litre Cooper T51 Maserati at Lowood.
Jones also won at Port Wakefield in March in the big, booming Maybach 4 Chev, stepping back into the car he vacated two years before when he acquired his Maserati 250F. His friend and engineer, Ern Seeliger had replaced the SOHC straight-six Maybach engine with a Chevy V8, and made other changes to what had been called Maybach 3. There was something a bit poetic about a Maybach taking one last win this late in the piece, given the front-running nature of this series (of three or four variants of cars, depending on how yer do your count) of cars for the best part of a decade.
Bill Patterson, like Mildren and Jones had a very long race CV which he enhanced in 1959 with two wins in his Cooper T43 Climax – arguably a quicker driver than Mildren and Lukey, if not Jones – Patto was also in a run to Gold Star victory, his turn would come in 1961 aboard a Cooper T51 Climax the year after Mildren.
Single round wins that year were taken by Jack Brabham, taking his traditional win at the season opening Gnoo Blas South Pacific Championship before heading back to the UK and by Kiwi Ross Jensen’s Maserati 250F in the prestigious Bathurst 100 at Easter, but neither qualified for Gold Star points as non-residents.
Bib Stillwell was the other round winner in his new Cooper T51 Climax at Bathurst in October. Bib was perhaps the slowest of all of this generation to mature as a driver at the absolute top level but he won four Gold Stars on the trot from 1962 to 1965 with a blend of speed, consistency and the best of equipment.
What was impressive about Lukey’s ’59 win was his relative inexperience against the fellows he beat, all of whom had fifteen years to a couple of decades on him in race experience, but it was a close-run contest. That year, a driver could only count their scores from nine of the twelve rounds. Len and Alec scored in ten rounds apiece; both had to drop a round – both discarded three points, and so it was after a long, intense year of racing criss-crossing the vast brown land that Lukey won from Mildren by only two points. Amazing, really, but the CAMS learned the lesson and the event was never held with that many rounds again.
Lukey only raced once more, in the 1960 NZGP at Ardmore and then sold the car to concentrate on his business interests.
It was a good performance too, seventh on the grid amongst all of the 2.2 and 2.5 litre FPFs but it all came to nothing after undisclosed dramas after finishing 36 of the events 75 laps. Brabham won from McLaren, Stillwell and Jones – two Cooper 2.5s from two Cooper 2.2s rather put the state of play at the time into sharp relief.
No photoshop here, Jones and Lukey during their 1959 Longford AGP dice getting some serious air as they cross the railway line on the outskirts of Longford village on Tannery Straight (C Rice)Left to right, Lukey and Mildren in Cooper T45 Climaxes and Bib Stillwell in his new T51 at Caversham in October 1959- Len took the win (K Devine)(B King)
Whilst Lukey retired from competition to focus on his business, he remained a friend of motor racing until his untimely death in 1978…
He provided financial support to various competitors, not least Jack Brabham. The works F1 Brabhams of the 1960s used Lukey exhaust systems right into the 1966-67 championship-winning Brabham BT19 620 and BT24 740, all of the works F1 cars were fitted with Lukey exhaust systems.
Look closely at the rear of one of the Brabham BT24 Repco 740s during the 1967 GP season in the photograph below, and you can see the Lukey Mufflers made exhausts on the car, and the company name on the chrome-plated exhaust endpieces.
In 1962 Len acquired a Holman Moody built Ford Galaxie ‘R Code’ 406cid four-door which was raced initially by Lex Davison, Len no doubt encouraging his purist racing car friend in the direction of the ‘dark side’. The shot below is of Norm Beechey racing the machine against Max Volkers’ Cortina at Lowood in August 1964, I wonder who got the better of this encounter in the wet? The Galaxie still exists.
(B Thomas)Brabham BT24 Repco during the 1967 season (unattributed)
The 1962 Armstrong 500 (miles) production car race resulted in extreme circuit damage to the Phillip Island track. The Phillip Island Auto Racing Club (PIARC) could not afford to repair the bitumen out of meagre club funds, and as a consequence, the track sat idle for two years.
During the initial track fund raising a decade before, Repco and Olympic Tyres supported bank guarantees for PIARC to a value of £17,000. Without funds to service the loan, no race meetings and therefore no income, Repco and PIARC made the regretful decision to sell The Island property.
Shortly thereafter Lukey was chatting to racer/enthusiast George Coad at Essendon Airport whilst awaiting a plane. Upon learning from Coad that PIARC was forced to sell the facility, Lukey immediately rang the clubs President and offered to buy it for £13,000.
As part of the deal, Len imposed a condition on the club that racing be revived. Lukey would develop the property and PIARC re-build the track and facilities and run four events a year for ten years. Lukey had a passion for the island and the circuit but also knew what it would take to revive and run the place having been a PIARC committee member some years before. PIARC paid Len $2 per year in rent.
The first public race meeting was held three years later in September 1967. The circuit was sold again after Lukey’s death and is now the wonderful facility we all know and love, without Lukey’s timely investment it would not be there today.
The Lukey brand hasn’t been in family hands for decades but lives on as a wonderful reminder of its founder, a great driver of both touring cars and single-seaters, a lifelong enthusiast and supporter of the sport.
Love this shot of the Cooper T23 Bristol during the 1956 AGP weekend at Albert Park, the machine is getting plenty of attention. Finned drum brakes and top transverse leaf springs, front and rear, clear (G Smedley)
These big barges occupy a lot of real estate and did no harm at all to attract the punters. Touring cars were on the rise, sadly, even in 1956. Len Lukey from Norm Beechey in Ford Customlines during the 1956 AGP carnival. Is the Holden 48-215 on the right front below that of Jack Myers?
(unattributed)
Cooper T23 Bristol..
(unattributed)(B King)
Lukey’s Cooper T23 Bristol blasts past the Army Barracks at Albert Park during the 1956 AGP, and below the cockpit of the immaculately prepared Cooper at Templestowe Hillclimb in Melbourne’s east.
(B King)
Doug Nye wrote the history of the 1953-built Cooper Mk2 Bristol chassis on The Nostalgia Forum in 2003. Nye lists ’11 (ish) to 12 (ish) chassis. The Lukey car is ostensibly ‘CB/9/53’.
‘1953 ‘5’ The Tom Cole Mk2 – in effect totally destroyed in fire at Syracuse
1953 ‘5B’ The Tom Cole Mark 2 rebuilt as above around a fresh frame, driven by Swaters, Cole, Graham Whitehead – to Dick Gibson – sold to Australia, probably Reg Hunt. (Reg Hunt’s Mark 2- alleged sold NEW in 1954) for Kevin Neale in Australia – to Len Lukey – Frank Coad – Eddie Clay – Ken Cox – Peter Menere – Jumbo Goddard, and to Tom Wheatcroft for The Donington Collection. But this was surely in reality the ex-Tom Cole second Mark 2 of 1953…ex-Gibson’ Nye wrote.
(B King)
Gardening at Templestowe circa 1958, no harm done by the look of it.
(A Lamont)
It would have been a wild ride around Longford, mind you, the forgiving nature of the Cooper Bristol chassis would have made it slightly less challenging than some other cars of the day.
This wonderful shot is during the 1958 Gold Star meeting in March, the first ‘national’ Longford meeting won by Ted Gray in Tornado 2 Chev.
(unattributed)
Len at Albert Park, guessing 1957, who and what is that behind him?
(B King)
Lukey Bristol...
(unattributed)
Lukey heads up the Mountain, Mount Panorama, during the 1958 Australian Grand Prix in October. He was well and truly outgunned in his new Lukey Bristol, which had made its race debut at the previous Lowood Gold Star round, on a circuit that rewards power and a forgiving chassis.
The Lukey Bristol was an evolution of the factory product, but lighter with a chassis designed by Lukey. It had a more enveloping body, clearly influenced by Frank Costin’s Vanwall design, and used castings made and machined in Melbourne. The engine from his Cooper Bristol was used; the new machine also had a transverse leaf rear end like the original.
It was advertised for sale in this form, as were the various components and fibreglass body panels. Bob King believes three of the chassis were built: the Lukey Bristol, Faux Pas and a third. Both cars mentioned are in the hands of David Reid.
(Miller Family)
The photograph above and below are of the construction of the Lukey Bristol at right, with the Cooper T23 at left denuded of its constituent parts, at the Lukey factory in the Nepean Highway.
Note the rifle on the wall to scare off late night intruders, ‘chicky-babe’ calendars on the wall and robust spaceframe chassis, who the artisans are would be great to know.
Things have progressed in the shot below with a rear suspension corner, straight off the T23 soon to be bolted on, transverse top leaf spring carried over, the chassis clearly lower and wider than the original.
(Miller Family)(B King)
The page above is included for the section about the ‘Lukey Mufflers Chassis’ and related components. I was going to crop and then thought, let’s all read it and weep – Frank Shuter’s Maserati 8CM will do me!
The ad makes mention of both front and mid-engined chassis availability, the former were of the type used on the Lukey Bristol, the latter built off a jig created from the Cooper T45 chassis. One of the Cooper experts will be able to hazard a guess as to how many chassis were built using this jig, it was not the only T45/T51 jig in Australia, either!
(B King)
Len Lukey, Lukey Bristol chase Bib Stillwell’si 250F during the 1958 Melbourne Grand Prix; they were fourth and fifth, ex-Hunt Maserati respectively. Stirling Moss won the race in a Rob Walker Cooper T45 Climax from Brabham’s similar car – the chassis bought by Len at the end of the summer, and Doug Whiteford’s Maserati 300S. Look at the lean of the heads into the corner and the relative roll of the Lukey Bristol compared with the Maserati.
(unattributed)
Winning at Part Wakefield in the Cooper Bristol in 1958 and contesting the 1958 AGP at Bathurst the same year, he was sixth. The #56 car behind is Bill Reynolds in the Orlando MG Spl 1.5 – Murrays Corner.
(B King)
More Australian Motor Sports, this time incorporating the ad for the sale of the Lukey Bristol.
Cooper T45 Climax...
(G McNeill)(unattributed)
Lukey rounds Stonyfell Corner, Port Wakefield, South Australia, in the 1959 Gold Star round- Cooper T45 Climax. The shot below was taken during the Fishermans Bend Gold Star round in early 1959.
(unattributed)
Information about this car is a bit opaque, like so many Coopers of the period, but the story goes something like this. Chassis T45 F2-10-58 was believed to be a factory machine raced by Jack Brabham until it was damaged at the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix.
It was acquired by Jack after being rebuilt around a new frame, brought to Australia and raced to second place behind Stirling Moss’ similar Rob Walker owned car in the 1958 Melbourne Grand Prix at Albert Park, the last race meeting held at the celebrated circuit in its first iteration as a motor racing venue.
Jack then took it to New Zealand to contest the 10 January Ardmore NZ GP, again finishing second behind the Walker/Moss T45. He was second at Wigram and third at Teretonga behind Ron Flockhart, BRM P25 and Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T45 Climax and then headed back to Europe, Len acquired the car at this point.
The car was then bought by Melbourne’s Jon Leighton, who raced it successfully for a couple of years, albeit the competition got pretty tough with so many 2.2 and 2.5-litre FPF engine T51 Coopers on the scene.
It passed into the hands of Melbourne Architect Richard Berryman, then later to Len Lukey’s widow, the car was an attraction at the Phillip Island museum for many years during the long period the Lukeys owned the track, and was occasionally raced by Keith Lukey, Len’s son.
Robert Shannon, founder of the insurance business well known in Australia was the right kind of owner sensitive to the car and it’s importance. I recall speaking to him about it during Melbourne City Chamber of Commerce meetings on several occasions.
After Robert’s sudden death by heart attack, Ron Walker, ‘father’ of the Albert Park Australian GPs of today, owned it, did nothing with it, and then rather blotted his local copybook by selling it via Bonhams in the UK. It would have been rather nice if the Cooper, with such a significant Australian history, had been advertised locally and stayed here.
Do contact me if you can assist in filling the gaps.
Cooper T23 Bristol Today…
In June-July 2025 Guy and Harry Plante – father and son – custodians of the ex-Lukey Cooper T23 got in touch with the following information and photographs.
‘The Cooper Bristol was purchased by me (Guy Cape) in 2014 in the UK from Bob Gilbert, who bought it from the Tom Wheatcroft Museum. TW was friendly with a gentleman called Jumbo Goddard, a Bentley man who lived in Sydney, who sourced the car for him in Australia to then put in his UK museum.
(G Plante Collection)
When I bought the car, it was painted in Aussie colours, yellow and green ( I have pictures). Having researched its previous life before going to Australia I learned that the first owner was Tom Cole, a British – American racing driver, who, with his parents moved to the US the day before WW2 broke out. Cole raced a Cadillac-Allard J2 with the marque founder Sydney Allard, Cooper T23s and later a Ferrari 340MM in which he was later killed at Maison Blanche in Le Mans.
I returned the car to Cole’s Atlantic Stable racing team colours whilst keeping it as original as possible.
I still race it today with the Historic Grand Prix Association and have entered the Monaco Historique Grand Prix with it three times. Last year, I won the class with an overall 9th position out of 24 entries, beating my previous best of 14th position.
(G Plante Collection)(G Plante Collection)
A few years back HGPCA drivers were invited to race in Australia. We did so at Philip Island where I was amazed to see so much history and memorabilia in the circuit’s museum. I told the lady in the museum that I know owned the car which she said ‘you can’t do it’s in a museum in the UK!’ She was very good friends with Keith and Lyn Lukey whom she telephoned to say some English nutter reckons he owns his dad’s car. We all met up, they came to watch me race and two weeks later we had a demonstration race before the F1 Grand Prix at Albert Park.
I was overseas at the time in 2024, but the car was also driven by my friend Will Nuthall at Goodwood Members’ Meeting, where it came first, winning the Parnell Cup (see some tremendous footage online).
I am 63 years old but have no intention of retiring from racing or ever selling this most wonderful car – it will be Harry’s turn next! I hope you find the above interesting – Harry has started the continuation of this fabulous part of motoring history.’
(G Plante Collection)
Credits and references…
John Ellacott, Kevin Drage, Ken Devine Collection, Bob King Collection- Spencer Wills photographer, ‘History of The Australian Grand Prix’ Graham Howard and others, Doug Nye on ‘The Nostalgia Forum’, oldracingcars.com, Wikipedia, Jock Walkem, Charles Rice, Geoff Smedley, Andrew ‘Slim’ Lamont, Greg McNeill, Austin Miller Family Collection, Guy and Harry Plante. Special thanks to Bob King for some wonderful photographs and tidbits from his AMS collection,
Tailpieces: Lukey with Cooper T23 Bristol sans bodywork, Templestowe circa 1958…
A very young John Goss and Holden FJ lost in his thoughts in a Symmons Plains paddock circa 1965/6…
Is he dreaming of his first Bathurst or AGP win or maybe Formula 1? Perhaps its a more prosaic and immediate musing- ‘Why doesn’t John Youl harvest the hay in this paddock so I can get my friggin’ car out!’
The photograph below is a few years later, 1973 to be precise.
It shows Gossy in full-flight aboard his Ford Falcon GT351 Group C car at Old Pit Corner during the 5 March Symmons Australian Touring Car Championship round won by Allan Moffat in a Ford Falcon GTHO Ph 3 from Peter Brock’s Holden Torana GTR-XU1- John was third and blazing a trail in the early development of these cars. What an awesome thing it looked the first time I saw it during the January Sandown Tasman round a month or so earlier.
Both the Fords and new L34 V8 Toranas had problems early on without dry-sumps didn’t they?- the regs precluded them and more wheel/tyres on the Group C machines created greater grip than the Group E Series Production cars of the years before and therefore oil-surge problems. There were plenty of popped engines until the respective camps sorted the problem.
Of all the places to have a motorsport event, Tooronga Park in Malvern, 12km from Melbourne’s CBD is up there with the least likely…
An Austin 7 Special at left and the Campbell McLaren/Halliday Ford A Model Special the two intrepid occupants built.
Right in the heart of Melbourne’s stockbroker belt even in September 1940, the roar of racing engines is somewhat bizarre, but the ‘Malvern Comforts Fund’ staged a five day carnival of activities to raise money to provide luxury items to supplement Australian troops normal, basic rations.
State based organisations of this type were formed during World War 1 and federated- the ‘Australian Comforts Fund’ quickly grew into a fundraising, collecting, sorting and distribution machine to rival the Red Cross- it was dissolved in 1920 but revived in 1939 to again look after the lads and lassies.
Wonder what mutt won the Ugliest Doggie Competition? (R Bell Collection)
Ray Bell sent this amazing flyer to promote the event and most of the photographs in this piece, the one below is of Ron Edgerton’s Alta V8 a Speedway Midget alongside. Is that Tooronga Station in the background of the shot?
Given the crowded nature of the large parklands it seems likely that ‘novelty’ rather than speed events were the go but if any of you have an entry list and details of the contests it would be great to hear from you.
(R Bell)
The car (at left below) is the ex-Lord Selsdon Fraser Nash TT Replica being driven by Earl Davey-Milne, who still owns it. ‘The A Ford Special Midget is not Arthur Wylie’s normal car (Ray Bell’s thought as to the machine at right), so I am not at all sure’ as to the car on the right Bob King comments.
‘Cam McLaren was a hilarious commentator at Rob Roy and Templestowe Hillclimbs keeping up a lively banter with, I believe, John Price- this was before car racing got serious and many of the cars were absurd…’
(R Bell)
‘The Malvern Groups five day carnival in September 1940 was an extravaganza in Great War style, with marches, bands, button sales, dances, recitals and a monster Town Hall finale that included the Coburg Ladies Pipe Band, the Hawaiian Club (WTF?) and pupils of Miss Greenough, danseuse (a female ballet dancer) and J King, magician…’ there is no mention of the light car racing in Lynne Strahan’s account of the carnival.
The scale of this national organisation was enormous, the Malvern Comforts Group (only a small suburb of Melbourne then) alone provided ‘food, hostels, picture units, canteens and parcels of books and games…while over 120,000 skeins (a length of yarn loosely coiled and knotted) of wool and twelve miles of flannel and drill had been consumed for garments fashioned with “motherly care”…’
(R Bell and B King Collections)
Ron Edgerton’s Bugatti T37, with Bob King thinks, Maurie Monk’s GN Special alongside.
The last serious motorsport event in Australia before competition cars were put away for the war’s duration was the ‘Patriotic Grand Prix’ held in Perth’s Applecross on 11 November 1940. The program comprised four events, the GP was a 12 lap, 30 mile race won by Harley Hammond’s Marquette Special, below.
(K Devine)
Etcetera…
(R Bell)
(R Bell)
Campbell McLaren and Mr Halliday at Mitcham Hillclimb, circa 1941, and in the photo above that, building their racer, a project they commenced whilst still at school.
Mitcham is a suburb 17km directly east of Malvern, very much in the sticks then but could almost be categorised as an inner-suburb these days if Melbourne’s eastern outskirts end at Healesville, which it sorta does…
I’d love to know where the ‘climb was, I had an aunt who lived at Mitcham in the sixties and seventies, a bit of cursory research shows the venue was in use from at least 1936- sixty entries raced there that October, but did it survive post-war?
(SLV)
A trip down memory lane for Melbourne’s eastern-suburbanites.
The Glen Waverley line rail-crossing- not even a boom-gate, as long as the operator in the little hut doesn’t go to sleep all is good, at the ‘bottom’ of the Toorak Road plunge down from Glenferrie Road looking east in 1955, this spot is a long drop-kick to Tooronga Park.
By the time i was an ankle-biter visiting my uncle/grandfather’s newsagency on the corner of Burke and Toorak Roads in the early sixties that stand of trees at the top of the hill had become a drive-in theatre. In addition to the gasometers there was a brickworks in this area of flat land, so it was quite industrial for a residential area- the gasometers were removed circa 1980 as natural gas replaced the coal-fired variety.
Its funny the stuff which pops back into yer head. The two ‘clutch-fucker’ hill starts which terrorised me as an 18 year old ‘P-Plater’ in me Mum’s Morrie 1100 was that one at the top of the hill where the trees are- the corner of Tooronga and Toorak Roads, when traffic lights emerged and the Warrigal Road/Riversdale Road muvva in Burwood…i got there eventually!
Into the sixties the first small shopping centre emerged, then re-zoning removed the extractive industries and Coles headquarters moved in, then circa 2010 a bigger shopping centre and shedloads of apartments. Oh yes, there is now a freeway (the Monash) near the railway lines and at present, finally, the powers that be are creating an overpass for the railway line.
Gardiners Creek is there somewhere but maybe its behind where the snapper took his shot, no doubt some folks who attended the Malvern Comforts Fund event fished in that creek all those years ago…
Credits…
Ray Bell and Bob King
Ray Bell Collection (from Campbell McLaren’s photo album), Museums Victoria, ‘A History of The City of Malvern’ Lynne Strahan, Bob King Collection, State Library of Victoria, Ken Devine Collection
My theory is that there are only a relatively small number of ‘T-Intersections of Life’ decisions which are key in determining the paths which follow…
Its interesting to read Tony Davis’ biography (with Akos Armont who has directed the accompanying documentary due in cinemas early next year) of Jack and pick what those may be.
Johnny Schonberg’s wife and her pressure on him to give up racing in 1948 gave Jack his start- that it was a speedway car meant Brabham both got a taste of competition and also entered the sport in Australia at its professional end- that is he quickly realised there was a dollar to be made if you were good.
David Chamber’s suicide meant his Cooper T23 Bristol was available when it landed in Australia in 1953- Jack was able to buy it with his savings and assistance from his parents and REDeX. Whilst Jack was a name in speedway the RedeX Special put his name in lights on the circuits. Cooper inclined, he bought Peter Whitehead’s Cooper Alta to race in England- a shit-heap as it transpired, but he attracted the attention of the John and Charles Cooper with it when he moved to the UK, donned some overalls in Hollyfield Road, initially on an unpaid basis and six years later had bagged two World F1 Titles with the team.
Jack poses with Number 28, the Midget he and Johnny Schonberg built which was then powered by a 996cc 8/80 JAP engine. It’s his first race night in a 23 year career, Parramatta’s Cumberland Oval on 5 December 1947 (T Wright)
Brabham’s Cooper T23 Bristol REDeX Spl at Mount Druitt circa 1954. The sponsorship arrangement and advertising, not allowed by CAMS, caused Jack plenty of grief (Nye/Brabham)
Betty Evelyn Beresford was the right choice of Jack’s partner in life- she allowed Brabham to have absolute focus on his racing whilst she brought up the family of three boys- all successful racers themselves of course.
It transpires that Brabham was ‘Jack The Lad’ and not averse to a bit of Hanky Schpanky outside the matrimonial boudoir, this ultimately caused the end of his marriage in 1994. Jack’s second marriage to his secretary, Margaret Taylor, in 1995 is not explored in the book, a shame as she looked after him for over two decades but maybe this was simply too painful for the Brabham boys who unsurprisingly adored their late mother. Conversely, Gary Brabham’s charges and jail for child sexual offences in 2009 and 2016 are covered in brief, to the credit of Davis and the Brabhams.
The partnership between Ron Tauranac and Jack was key of course, this relationship dates back to 1951. Brabham involved him in consulting on major modifications to the Cooper T45/51 whilst he and his brother Austin were building the first series of Ralts before he came (home in a way, he is a Brit by birth) to England to commence Motor Racing Developments Ltd with Jack at the dawn of the sixties.
It transpired they needed one another too- Davis explores Jack’s ‘relevance deprivation syndrome’ and mental health after he retired to the bucolic splendour of outback Australia and Ron had been shafted in the sale of MRD to Bernard Charles Ecclestone within twelve months of Jack jumping a Qantas 707 to enjoy his boat on the Georges River.
Yeah, well you may well be the boss of McLaren in a decade cocko but to soften the front bar turn it the other way! Tauranac, Brabham and Ron Dennis at Monaco in 1970- BT33 Ford Cosworth, second after that last lap mistake- Jochen Rindt the winner in Lotus 49D Ford
Repco RBE640 2.5 litre ‘Tasman’ V8 in the back of Jack’s Brabham BT23A at Warwick Farm in the summer of 1967 (B Wells)
The precise start of Brabham’s relationship with Repco- when they gave him his first free part is unknown and never will be but from little acorns did big things grow. Jack saw close up Charlie Dean and his Repco Research Team and their work in building and racing the Maybachs, got a further sense of their facilities and capabilities in the manufacture of the Repco Hi-Power cylinder heads for the Holden ‘grey-six’ cylinder engine- designed by one PE Irving. At some stage, probably via Charlie Dean, Jack met ‘Dave’ McGrath, Repco Ltd CEO, Frank Hallam saw on opportunity to look after Jack’s Coventry Climax FPF’s in Richmond circa 1962, and the rest- a cuppla world titles is history.
The final T-Intersection call was to retire at the end of 1970- its significant in that Brabham pulled the stumps at the top of his game and was able to die in his Gold Coast bed, an opportunity Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and Jochen Rind- statistics in 1970 did not have. Davis relates how Jack thought he still had a year or three in him but Geoff Brabham speculates that Brabham knew it was getting harder for an older guy to run at the front as cars became more aero dependent and developed greater G-forces. Jack was 44 in 1970, Ronnie Peterson was 26 to put the Australian’s challenge into some kind of competitive perspective…
She’ll be ‘comin down The Mountain, Easter Bathurst 1969. Brabham BT31 Repco RBE830 2.5 V8- its practice, he raced with the rear wing only- first place in his last commitment to Repco in Australia (D Simpson)
Betty, Jack and his self built monoposto, all enveloping bodied Cooper T40 Bristol during his championship F1 debut at Aintree in 1955. Happy times and the world at their feet (S Dalton)
This is the fourth book on Brabham but the first biographical account- what makes it different are the perspectives of Geoff and David Brabham, Ron Tauranac, Stirling Moss, John Surtees, Denny Hulme, Frank Matich and many others rather than the account being largely Jack’s perspective.
There is plenty of ‘nuts and bolts’ for we uber-enthusiasts, i do like Tony’s ‘Cooper T45 Climax’ rather than ‘Cooper’, much of the story will be familiar to those of us of a certain age but there are a heap of fragments which were new to me. What was interesting throughout the process- i need to declare a bias here as i was engaged twelve months ago to read and comment upon the manuscript along with a few others, was to get to know Tony and understand some of the commercial elements of publishing. The intended readership is much broader than you and i, targets extend to more casual observers and those from outside racing, i believe Tony has made that ‘straddle’ of ‘average punter’ to enthusiast masterfully.
Australian readers of the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review will be aware of Davis as a motoring writer but he is also a noted author of adult and kids fiction as well as a number of motoring books. He is the son of Pedr Davis, who turned 90 in November, one of the doyen of Oz ‘muttering rotters’ from the sixties to nineties.
After reading the first few chapters of the manuscript i rang Tony and advised him that he was a Perick! ‘Why?’, he enquired. ‘Because you write with a beautiful descriptive fluidity, and i have been made acutely aware of my own limitations’ i responded.
Do buy the book, its a great read over the festive season or otherwise!
‘Brabham- The Untold Story of Formula One’, published by Harper Collins, ISBN: 978 1 4607 5747 5 (hardback) and ISBN: 978 1 4607 1122 4 (ebook)
Photo and other Credits…
Terry Wright’s ‘Loose Fillings’, Stephen Dalton Collection, Dick Simpson, Getty Images, Nye/Brabham, Bruce Wells
Jack loved the races he did for Matra in 1970- all he had to do was rock up and drive rather than have responsibility for ‘the lot’.
Here he is in the MS650 3 litre V12 prototype during the Brands Hatch 1000km- he shared the car with Jean-Pierre Beltoise to twelfth, Jack’s best result was a win at Montlhery later in the year, the Paris 1000km, his co-driver on that occasion was Francois Cevert in an MS660.
Look at that packed grandstand, grid for the first Lakeside International, 11 February 1962…
Jack Brabham is on pole from Bib Stillwell, Cooper T55 Climax 2.7 ‘Slimline’ and T53 2.5 ‘Lowline’ respectively, a great performance by the Melbourne Holden dealer. On the second row in the blue #10 Cooper T53 2.7 is Bruce McLaren and alongside the very quick John Youl in a now ageing Cooper T51 2.2. Then its Angus Hyslop’s white Cooper T53 2.5 and a smidge further back you can just see the red nose of Lorenzo Bandini’s Cooper T53 Maser 2.8. Other top-liners on the grid were Lex Davison’s T53, Ron Flockhart Lotus 18 and Arnold Glass in a BRM P48.
Brabham won the short 30 lap race in 30 minutes by a second from Stillwell, Hyslop, Davison, Youl and Bandini.
This photograph is another by Bill Miles, an enthusiast with a fine talent for composition. The eyes of Brabham and Stillwell are riveted on the starter, who is just about to commence his flag upswing with the hatted Judge of The Start ready to pounce on anybody with a jittery clutch foot…
Angus Hyslop with microphone in hand accepts the Presidents Cup for winning the 1962 Renwick 50 (MCC Inc)
I didn’t realise Kiwi up-and-comer Angus Hyslop had raced in Australia. He was sixth at Warwick Farm, fourth at Longford and ninth at Sandown that summer off the back of a pair of sixths at Wigram and Teretonga and seventh in the NZ GP at home.
Even more impressive was his 1963 season in the same Cooper T53, not exactly the latest bit of kit by then.
Q8 and second behind John Surtees’s Lola Mk4A Climax at Pukekohe in the NZ GP was a stunning start, buoyed by that performance he was Q2 behind Brabham’s new Brabham BT4 Climax in the following round at Levin for DNF halfshaft, a rare non-finish. Q5 and fourth at Wigram and Q6 and fifth down south at Teretonga were strong results- in addition all the fast boys were running 2.7 ‘Indy’ Climaxes whereas Hyslop’s FPF was only an ‘F1’ 2.5.
Clearly a driver of promise, the Hastings sheep farmer went on to win the NZ Gold Star Championship in 1963 and then retired which is a shame as he was clearly a very fast racer who finished motor races.
(MCC Inc)
The shot above is a better one of Hyslop’s Cooper T53 Climax, this time it’s the start of the Renwick 50, a road race held about 6 miles west of Blenheim in New Zealand’s South Island in November 1962.
Angus’ white Cooper T51 Climax is on pole from Maurie Stanton’s Stanton Chev and then Tony Shelly’s partially obscured Lotus 18/21 Climax. Bob Eade’s Maserati 250F dwarfs the Barry Cottle Lola Mk1 Climax sports, the distinctive nose between and back a bit from these cars is the youthful Amon C, Maserati 250F.
The front-engined car behind Eade’s Maserati is John Histed in a Lola Mk2 Ford FJ and finally at right the Bob Smith’s Ferrari 555 Super Squalo 3.5. Angus won from Chris Amon and Barry Cottle.
Angus Hyslop’s Jag D-Type sandwiched at left by the Roy Billington Elfo Special (yes, as in the famous Brabham mechanic) and Graham Pierce’ Austin Healey 100S at the Levin Spring meeting in December 1958 (Natlib NZ)Bill Hanna, Angus Hyslop and Ross Pederson before Angus’ 1961 European season (Hawkes Bay Digital Archives Trust)
Hyslop, born 1928, first rose to prominence in a Jaguar D-Type (XKD534 ex-Jack Shelly/Sam and Bob Gibbons/Hyslop/Taylor/Bremer/Foster) he raced from October 1958 to 1961, successes included twice finishing second in the national Sports Car Gold Star competition.
After the 1961 internationals at home in a Cooper T45 Climax 2-litre FPF he before travelled to Europe to race in a half-dozen or so British FJ events in a ‘New Zealand Grand Prix Racing Team’ Lotus 20 Ford running immediately in the top ten- fourth behind Allan Rees, Gavin Youl and Dennis Taylor on 19 August at Goodwood was indicative of his pace.
During that year he also shared a works Fiat Abarth 850S with Denny Hulme at Le Mans- the pair finished fourteenth in the little car and won their class.
He returned to New Zealand and continued to raced the Cooper T45 in 1961/62 towing it behind the D Type!
The other apocryphal Hyslop/D-Type story is that after the wet 1961 Wigram meeting in which Angus finished third behind Brabham and Moss in his 2-litre Cooper T45 but ahead of the 2.5-litre Coopers of McLaren and Hulme his bank manager, who had been staying in the same hotel as Angus to watch the race, complimented him on his wet weather driving whereupon Hyslop responded that he thought the skill had been learned by using the D-Type to round up the sheep on his farm…
Looking contemplative aboard the Tourist Motors of Hawkes Bay Cooper T53 Climax during the 1962 NZ GP weekend at Ardmore, seventh and first man home after the internationals (Bay of Plenty Times)Again the summer of 1962, enroute to sixth in the Lady Wigram Trophy (P Basire)
He ‘hit the bigtime’ when the New Zealand International Grand Prix Executive Committee approved a loan to allow him to buy an ex-Yeoman Credit Parnell Cooper T53 – the car carried the same chassis plate as Angus’ T45 in the usual Antipodean manner to avoid import duty- the Cooper was sold to Jim Palmer after Hyslop retired.
I’m intrigued to know how far he strayed from the sport though- not far is my guess given his fourth place in the 1972 New Zealand International Heatway Rally in an Abingdon prepared Group 2 Mini 1275GT- Andrew Cowan won in the sister car crewed by Jim Scott.
Hyslop died in 1999, aged 71.
Hulme, Amon and Hyslop at Hampton Downs circa late eighties (NZ Classic Car)
Etcetera…
Angus Hyslop and Mike Langley in their works Mini 1275GT, Heatway Rally 1972 (unattributed)
Angus Hyslop and Mike Langley in their works Mini 1275GT, Heatway Rally 1972.
BLMC/New Zealand Motor Corporation went all out to win the event, entering four cars- two 1275GT’s and two Morris Marina 1800TC Coupes, one of which was driven by Jim Richards finished 61st, the other 52nd, both the updated ‘Morris Minors’ had suspension problems.
Jim was unlucky- Cowan had been allocated a Marina to rally but he was having none of that so Jim got the bum seat and Andrew the car he wanted, which he put to rather good effect!
(CAN)
Hyslop at Dunedin in 1961, D-Type in a support race. He qualified second behind Denny Hulme’s Cooper T51 Climax in the feature Dunedin Road Race on the ‘Oval Circuit’ finishing third in his Cooper T45 behind Denny and Pat Hoare’s Ferrari 256 3-litre V12.
Credits…
Bill Miles, Allen Brown’s oldracingcars.com, Bay of Plenty Times, Peter Basire, Marlborough Car Club Inc, Alamy, NZ Jaguar D-Type History ‘Nostalgia Forum’ thread, Hawkes Bay Digital Archives Trust
Tailpiece: Hulme/Hyslop works Fiat Abarth 850S, Le Mans 1961…
Tony Gaze during a pitstop for plugs, HWM Alta 2 litre s/c, chassis ’52/107′ during the New Zealand Grand Prix, Ardmore January 1954…
Hersham & Walton Motors (HWM) came to prominence in the immediate postwar years. Based in New Zealand Avenue, Walton, where the business still is today as an Aston Martin dealership- the company was a partnership between two great motor racing enthusiasts – driver George Abecassis and engineer John Heath.
George made his name aboard a single-seater Alta pre-war. When racing resumed post conflict both Abecassis and Heath campaigned a variety of Alta single-seaters and sportscars. John Heath developed Alta-based sports-prototype cars in 1948-49 and since George Abecassis had been racing his postwar GP Alta internationally with success – the pair planned a team of dual-purpose Formula 2/sports-racing cars to campaign at home and abroad in 1950.
The duo were adept talent-spotters recruiting along the way Stirling Moss, Lance Macklin and a little later, Peter Collins.
In 1950 the new HWM works team of three, or four HWM-Alta ‘F2’ cars were entered in a hectic program of racing. The team was well organised and its cars competitive with all but the best Continental factory machines.
HWM’s mechanics, including such later prominent names as Alf Francis and Rex Woodgate were capable and dedicated to putting the cars on the grid. They worked horrendous hours, transporting their steeds from race to race in epic journeys overcoming all odds.
George Abecassis, leaning on the fuel tank and John Heath at left with one of the single-seaters coming together at Walton, which one I wonder? (unattributed)Men of the moment- HWM’s John Heath and George Abecassis Alta ‘GP1’ and Alta’s Geoffrey Taylor at Goodwood on 18 April 1949. George was 6th in the Richmond Trophy won by Reg Parnell’s Maserati 4CLT (S Lewis Collection)Lance Macklin, HWM Alta F2, Crystal Palace Coronation Cup May 1953. Fourth in the race won by Tony Rolt’s Connaught A Type. Doug Nye attributes the sexy bodies of the HWM’s to Leacroft of Egham (Getty)
In a hand to mouth, time honoured existence, start, prize and trade-bonus money from one weekend’s racing financed the next, under Heath’s technical direction and leadership HWM built a fleet of Formula 2 single-seater team cars for 1951, followed by developed variants into 1952-53.
In face of Ferrari, Maserati, Connaught, Cooper-Bristol and others HWM results deteriorated as time passed, 1951 being the teams best season, but in 1952 Lance Macklin and Tony Rolt drove their HWM Alta’s home first and second in the prestigious BRDC International Trophy race at Silverstone. The cars held together for two hours and won from the Emmanuel de Graffenreid Plate-Maserati 4CLT/48 and Rudy Fischer’s Ferrari 500.
The chassis campaigned in New Zealand was originally built as an F2 car in 1952 powered by an unsupercharged 2-litre four-cylinder Alta engine and was later re-equipped with a supercharged GP Alta motor specifically for Formula Libre racing in New Zealand in 1954.
In 1952 HWM entered cars for George Abecassis, Peter Collins, Macklin, Stirling Moss, Paul Frere, Roger Laurent, Yves Giraud-Cabantous, Duncan Hamilton, Johnny Claes and Dries van der Lof- many of these drivers gained good start money in their home-country GP’s.
Lance, the ‘playboy’ son of Sir Noel Macklin was said to be the most stylish and glamorous British racing driver of that period, team-mate Stirling Moss credits him with having taught the new boy “an enormous amount, not just about racing, but also about how to enjoy life in general…”.
Chassis ‘52/107’ was predominantly the car raced by Macklin in 1952-53.
Bonham’s spiel about ’52/107′ before its June 2016 sale relates that ‘Lance Macklin was relaxed about which car he drove – too relaxed according to George Abecassis. Each of the drivers had specific and often different requirements which extended to tyre pressures, final-drive ratios, seat position, they were not readily adjustable- bolted down, steering wheels etc. Macklin retained the pre-selector gearbox for the early part of 1953 as opposed to the ‘C’ Type Moss box adopted on the other cars.’
‘There is evidence of this on chassis ’52/107′ not seen on ’52/112′ the sister car. Macklin also had his logo ‘LM’ painted on the side of his car at some time in 1953. Finally the mechanics recorded plug types, pressures and gearing race by race for future use…Heath and Abecassis only appeared briefly for practice/racing and returned to the UK without corporate records. ‘52/107′ has the mechanics’ notes, scribbled in hand in a school note book, the car is recorded as Macklin’s car in several books and was confirmed personally by Tony Gaze as ’52/107′.
Tony Gaze in ’52/107′ in England date unknown but 1990’s perhaps (unattributed)Macklin ’52/107′ date and circuit in the UK unknown (unattributed)
Macklin contested 1952 championship grands prix at Bremgarten, Spa, Silverstone, Zandvoort and Monza for a best of eighth, and six or seven non-championship races the best of which was the splendid BRDC International Trophy win at Silverstone in May.
He had a shocker of a run in 1953 starting six GPs, his only finish was at Zandvoort where he was fifteenth, the run of DNFs was due to engine and clutch failures at Spa, Reims, Silverstone, the Bremgarten and Monza. Macklin also contested a similar number of non-championship races as in 1952, his best was third at the Circuit de Lac in Aix-les-Bains and two fourths at Crystal Palace in the Coronation Trophy and Crystal Palace Trophy.
The ‘winningest’ cars in British non-championship 2 litre F2 races in 1953 were Connaught A-Types and later in the year Cooper T23 Bristols.
It seems George Abecassis sent the ‘52/107’/Gaze combination to New Zealand out of simple commercial expediency.
He had the ex-Joe Kelly Alta ‘GP3′ sitting in the workshop- this car contested the 1950 and 1951 British GP’s, his view was that the supercharged 1.5 litre, four cylinder engine would form the basis of a good Formula Libre car when mated with one of his F2 chassis’.
Similarly the ‘GP3’ chassis fitted with a Jaguar engine was also saleable, in addition Macklin was moving to sportscars and George was frustrated with him.
On top of all of that, critically, the writing was on the wall for HWM and several other teams needing a competitive engine for the new F1 commencing on 1 January 1954.
The 2½ litre Climax ‘Godiva’ FPE V8 engine was not being proceeded with, Coventry Climax famously ‘took fright’ upon reading of the claimed outputs of their Continental rivals, and Alta’s Geoff Taylor had contracted exclusively with Connaught for the provision of his 2½-litre, DOHC four cylinder engine.
Commercially therefore, without a suitable F1 engine, sportscars made the greatest sense and so it was that HWM made good money out of converting both HWM and Alta single-seaters into sportscars powered by Jaguar engines.
HWM never to let an opportunity to pass, proceeded with their plan albeit the 1.5 litre supercharged engine was upgraded by Taylor to 2-litres using the same bore and stroke as the 2 litre F2 units to improve reliability and power whilst simultaneously ensuring commonality of parts- bearings, pistons, rings and the rest for operators of the car in the colonies- a new crank was obtained from Laystall to suit.
Aussie fighter-ace Tony Gaze was chosen as the driver given his strong performances in his Alta, HWM and other cars since the war- his brief from George was a simple one, win a couple of races including the NZ GP if possible and then sell the car before returning back to Europe.
Looks major ‘dunnit- Macklin (or Peter Collins?) and the mechanics- perhaps pointing is Tony Rudd left in profile is Tony Gaze and ‘head to head’ alongside Tony is John Heath with ’52/107′ (unattributed)Joe Kelly’s Alta ‘GP3’ during the 1950 British GP weekend at Silverstone- Geoffrey Taylor in the suit. Q19 and DNF, the race won by Nino Farina’s Alfa Romeo 158 (unattributed)
In New Zealand in January/February 1954, Gaze drove it to third in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Ardmore behind Stan Jones, Maybach 1 and Ken Wharton’s BRM P15.
It was a pretty competitive field which included the Wharton BRM, Peter Whitehead’s Ferrari 125, Jack Brabham and Horace Gould in Cooper T23 Bristols, Lex Davison’s ex-Gaze HWM Jaguar and others.
Gaze’ race was a great mighta-been. He relates in ‘Almost Unknown’, Stewart Wilson’s biography of the great Australian, that Shell, his contracted fuel supplier did not have any of the required brew on raceday so he started the race with what fuel was left in the car after practice to at least obtain his start money payment.
When the flag dropped he tootled around, knowing he had sufficient juice for half the race at best, but the car was running on only three cylinders, a plug change rectified that. A lucky break was teammate Peter Whitehead’s Ferrari 125 (shortly to become Dick Cobden’s car) clutch failing which allowed Tony’s mechanics to siphon the fuel from the V12 2 litre Ferrari and pop it into the Alta.
Tony sped up, he still didn’t have enough juice to finish, passing Wharton’s BRM which had its own problems- at this point he was gaining three seconds a lap on Stan Jones’ Maybach. Then the car ran out of fuel on lap 92, as Tony coasted into the pits with the engine dead a fuel churn appeared- ‘borrowed’ from BRM. Topped up, with mechanics Peter Manton and Alan Ashton totally spent after pushing the car the length of the pitlane before it fired, third place was Gaze’s. Tony’s regret to the end of his life was that the race was his had Shell fulfilled their contractual obligations. The two-hundred pounds paid in compensation was no substitute for an NZ GP win…
In the month long gap between Ardmore and Wigram Tony and Peter contested the 24 Hour race held at Mount Druitt in Sydney’s west on 31 January. The duo led by an enormous margin in Peter’s C-Type Jaguar only to have a suspension failure when the car hit an enormous hole on track- it was repaired but failed again later in the race. They restarted the car and limped over the line to win the sportscar class- seven of twenty-two starters finished led by the Jaguar XK120 driven by Doris Anderson, Charlie Whatmore and Bill Pitt- well known racers to Australian readers.
Superb shot of the HWM Alta on the hop at Wigram in 1954 (J Manhire)Sybil Lupp susses her HWM Alta on the evening before the 1955 NZ GP at Ardmore, its said there was a possibility she would drive the car, but John Horton raced it. Car #77 is also ex-Gaze- Lex Davison’s HWM Jaguar, the 1954 Australian GP winner started life as Tony’s 1952 Alta engined F2 machine. Car #3 is Reg Hunt’s just arrived in the Antipodes Maserati 2.5 litre A6GCM (CAN)
Back in New Zealand and off to Christchurch on the South Island for the Lady Wigram Trophy on 6 February, he was second behind the Whitehead Ferrari after Peter ignored Dunlop’s advice and completed the race without a tyre change on the abrasive track- they were ‘well shredded’ but it was a winning if somewhat risky ‘racers’ decision.
At the end of Tony’s tour he successfully completed the second part of his assignment, selling the Alta to Sybil Lupp for John Horton to drive.
Gaze had a great taste of racing in New Zealand and returned again the following year, he and Peter Whitehead raced a pair of Ferrari 500/625’s, Tony’s chassis ‘005’ famously the ex-Ascari 1952/3 World Championship winning car, it was not the only chassis the Italian used but the ‘winningest’.
Horton raced ’52/107′ from February 1954 until February 1956- in which his best results were two second places, setting fastest lap both times at the February 1954 Hamilton Trophy at Mairehau and the April 1956 NZ Championship Road Race on the Dunedin ‘Wharf’ road circuit.
In the January 1955 NZ GP, back at Ardmore, Horton struck trouble and was classified fifteenth- Bira won that year in a Maserati 250F from the Whitehead and Gaze Ferraris in second and third places.
Other than the NZ GP meeting it seems Horton did not race the car throughout 1955, nor was the machine entered in the 1956 NZ GP, but he ran at Dunedin- tenth and in the South Island Championship Road Race at Mairehau, finishing second on handicap. Onto the Southland Road Race at Ryal Bush he qualified a very good fifth on this challenging road course but only completed 9 of the 41 laps- Whitehead won.
The last meeting that summer was the Ohakea Trophy held at the airfield of the same name on 3 March, Horton didn’t enter but the race was won by (later Sir) Tom Clark who was clearly impressed with the Alta having raced against it for a while in his pre-war Maserati 8CM- he acquired it from Sybil Lupp shortly thereafter.
Tom Clark, I think, in ’52/107′ Levin, New Zealand circa 1956 (BV Davis)Tom Clark, Ardmore NZ GP 1957 (T McGrath)Ron Tucker, Ransley Riley DNF, Tom Clark HWM Alta 6th and Bob Gibbons Jaguar D Type DNF during the 1957 Southland Road Race at Ryal Bush. Peter Whitehead won this race from Reg Parnell in identical Ferrari 555’s powered by 750 Monza engines (J Manhire)
Tom Clark, of Crown Lynn Potteries fame, began his stint with it by setting FTD at Whangarei hillclimb before finishing second at Levin in October 1956.
Clark shipped the car to Australia for the ‘Olympic’ Australian GP at Albert Park that December– finishing eleventh following various delays having run strongly early on in a world class field, Stirling Moss won in a works Maserati 250F.
Ninth place followed in the January 1957 NZ GP at Ardmore, Reg Parnell, Ferrari 555 Super Squalo triumphed that day.
Tom raced the car at Wigram DNF, Dunedin DNF, Ryal Bush where he was sixth and in much the same way that he had had a good look up close at the Alta decided the Ferrari 555’s were the go so acquired the Whitehead car, racing it to its first win at the South Island Championship Road Race meeting at Mairehau the weekend after Ryal Bush.
For sale, Johnny Buza was the purchaser.
He practiced at Ardmore for the 1958 GP, as the photograph below shows but appears as a DNA in the sergent.com results. He entered Dunedin and Teretonga but failed to take the start on both occasions. With plenty of mid-engined Coopers on the scene the older of the front-engined cars were finding the going tougher- the Alta didn’t race throughout 1959 or 1960.
(CAN)Jim Boyd during the 1961 Dunedin Road Race, HWM Alta. Allan Dick wrote ‘This car was never really competitive in NZ but by 1961 it was very much a tail-ender, but Boyd competed for many years in a variety of old, outdated cars, finally striking it good with the Lycoming, followed by the Stanton Corvette and finally a Lola T70’ (CAN)
Jim Boyd – more famous for his aero-engined Lycoming Special, raced the HWM throughout 1961- at Ardmore, Wigram, Dunedin, Teretonga and Waimate, failing to qualify for the NZ GP but otherwise finishing the events with a best of eighth at Waimate towards the season’s end.
In 1962 it was driven by Lindsay Gough to win a beach race at New Brighton. J.G. Alexander also appeared in the car while Lindsay Gough raced it into 1963, although I can see no records of his events, by that stage though it was a ‘club car’ rather than a machine contesting the national level events reported upon by Bruce Sergent’s site.
By 1980 the car had been acquired by Russell Duell in New Zealand before passing to Colin Giltrap in 1989, the car has been in the United Kingdon since 1997.
Etcetera…
(autopics)
Stirling Moss goes around the outside of Tom Clark during the December 1956 AGP at Albert Park. Maserati 250F and HWM Alta, Moss won from teammate Jean Behra.
(CAN)
Cracker of a shot- the kid with a proprietorial hand on the car is perhaps indicating ‘my dads car!’ During John Horton’s ownership probably at Cleland hillclimb perhaps. Input welcome!
Typical Kiwi/Oz kids of the period wearing their school ‘jumpers’ (jerseys) on the weekend.
Gaze and Davison driver profiles from the 1954 NZ GP race program (S Dalton)(unattributed)
Cockpit of one of the 2-litre F2 Altas.
Doug Nye relates the story of Stirling Moss pitching out of his car a fire extinguisher which had come loose from its mount in the cockpit, when he reported this to John Heath back in the paddock the thrifty team owner promptly despatched his young star back in the direction of the track to find said expensive item…
(Motorsport)
These HWM Jaguar’s were and are attractive, fast racing cars. Here George Abecassis in his DB3S inspired ‘025′ ‘XPE 2’ at Goodwood, circa 1955.
‘Abecassis himself sketched out the bodies of each HWM and, for the second generation HWM-Jaguars in 1955 he designed a neat functional new body. Two works cars were built: George’s was registered XPE2 and the second, for John Heath, took over the HWM1 number plate. It was in this car that John Heath decided to enter the 1956 Mille Miglia…In driving rain he lost control near Ravenna and the car hit a fence and turned over. A few days later Heath died from his injuries.’
David Abecassis on hwmastonmartin.co.uk continues, ‘That sadly, was more or less the end of HWM which still promised so much. Abecassis did build up one more chassis as a dramatically styled road-going coupe, but he gave up racing to concentrate on his burgeoning garage business. Today, HWM, still in its original premises on Walton-on-Thames thrives as a prestigious dealer in Aston Martins and other desirable and exotic road machinery.’
In an apt tribute to the role HWM played in the march of British motor racing post war Abecassis concluded, ‘Like all good racing cars, however, the handful of HWMs that came out of this courageous little team lived on, and most of them have never stopped being campaigned. Today they are cherished by their handful of lucky owners as important, and very effective, historic racing cars. Britain’s all-conquering motor racing industry owes a great debt to those pioneering European forays of John Heath and George Abecassis.’
Indeed!
John Heath and a mechanic work on one of the 2 litre Alta engines- Weber fed, during the 1953 British GP weekend at Silverstone (unattributed)
Alta Engine’s…
This summary of the Alta engine’s design is a trancuated version of Doug Nye’s piece in ‘History of The Grand Prix Car’.
Geoffrey Taylor’s twin cam, four cylinder design had a bath shape bottom end casting whose sides rose to provide cooling water jacketing.
The cylinders were formed in a separate Meehanite iron casting which fitted tightly into the crankcase bath. Crankcase rigidity was enhanced by box sections within its side walls and by horizontal cross-bolts positioning the main bearing caps.
Circumferential grooves were machined into the top of the cylinder-bore casting which matched grooves machined into the face of the alloy head- in assembly these matching grooves would clamp Wills pressure ring seals to create a joint which was water and gas tight.
The head was secured by thru bolts positioned by the tall outer crankcase casting, it carried two overhead cams operating two valves per cylinder via rocking fingers, valves were inclined at an included angle of 68 degrees- combustion chambers were hemispherical. Cam drive was by chain off a sprocket on the three main bearing crank. The Roots type supercharger, of Alta manufacture was driven off the crank nose drawing fuel from an SU carb delivering a maximum of 22psi.
In 1.5 litre supercharged form the engine was square- a bore and stroke of 78mm- 1480cc and was good for 7000rpm using Specialloid pistons and a Nitralloy crank.
The basic architecture was retained for the 2 litre normally aspirated F2 engines- the HWM engines of 1950 were fed by twin SU carbs burning a methanol/benzol/petrol mix. The 2 litre motors had a bore and stroke of 83.5 x 90mm- 1970cc and were claimed to give 130bhp @ 5500rpm.
Tony Gaze had twin Webers adapted to his engine when he ran at Monza in 1951, his lead was followed on other Alta motors.
For 1953 new type cranks were adopted, HWM’s engines that year were Alta based but the heads were HWM’s own design with gear driven cam drives rather than chain- the head, camshafts, rear-gear drive and other moving parts were made by HWM or its subcontractors.
Bonham’s piece noted the following, ‘There are major differences between the Alta GP and Formula 2 engines. The GP engine was dry-sumped with the crankcase going right down to the bottom of the motor with what is virtually a flat plate bolted to the base, whereas the F2 engine has a wet sump with the crankcase split in half along the centreline of the main bearings. There is a deep pan beneath the engine. The GP engine has a different crank which is extended at the front to drive the blowers- the ancillary drives for magneto(s) and oil pump(s) are also completely different.
The engine in ’52/107′ is marked ‘GP3’ in two places which is compatible with Joe Kelly’s ‘GP3’ as are the two blowers which were unique to ‘GP3’, it is thought the whole unit came from chassis ‘GP3’.
Photo Credits…
Getty Images, Bruce V Davis, John Manhire, Simon Lewis Collection, Allan Dick’s Classic Auto News, Motorsport, autopics.com
Bibliography…
Bonhams ’52/107′ sale material 2016, ‘History of The Grand Prix Car’ Doug Nye, ‘Almost Unknown’ Stewart Wilson, sergent.com, hwmastonmartin.co.uk, Terry McGrath Collection
Tailpiece: Lance Macklin, HWM Alta ‘52/107’ on the way to a win in the BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone 1952…
(Getty)
George Abecassis, on HW Motors letterhead wrote a letter to the cars then owner, which said in part: “I have often wondered what happened to the supercharged HWM which we sent to New Zealand, because it was undoubtedly the most exciting and fastest HWM that we ever made.’
‘It was one of the 1952 two-litre team cars and we fitted it with a two-stage supercharged unit especially for the Tasman series of races, and we lent it to Tony Gaze on the condition that he sold it for us in New Zealand, which he succeeded in doing’.
He concluded: ‘If ever you should get tired of the car, I would always be pleased to buy it back from you! I think it was the best car we ever made…’
When shots of a bloke at the same circuit pop up randomly a week apart whilst looking for other stuff its an omen right?…
The photographs of Bob Muir a year apart at Warwick Farm aboard his Mildren ‘Yellow Submarine’ Waggott and Lola T300 Chev (below a bit) say much about his fast ascent during this career phase.
The first shot is during the F5000 Tasman 1971 ‘Warwick Farm 100’ in The Esses- he is on the way to sixth amongst the 500bhp beasties in the little, lithe, nimble 275’ish bhp 2 litre Waggott powered ‘Sub- the speck in the distance is, I think, Ken Goodwin’s Rennmax BN3 Ford DNS, it must be practice as he didn’t race. Frank Gardner won come raceday in his works Lola T192 Chev.
Bob raced a Rennmax Formula Vee initially after a dabble in a road Austin Healey Sprite and after showing immediate pace progressed through a Lotus 23B Ford in 1968/9 to a Rennmax BN3 which was raced with a Coventry Climax 2.5 litre FPF and later a 2 litre Waggott TC-4V acquired from Alec Mildren as the long time team owner and patron wound down his race operations.
The Waggott was then transferred to the Sub, when he bought it- his first meeting with that motor fitted appears to be the Mallala Gold Star round in 1970.
Jack Bono, Elfin, from Bob Muir, Mako then Elfin, Nota, uncertain and then probably Ken Goodwin, Rennmax back up the road Warwick Farm 1967 (oldracephotos.com/Phillips)
Muir, Rennmax BN3 Waggott during practice for the Oran Park 1970 Gold Star round- Q4 but DNS after a run bearing (oldracephotos.com/DSimpson)
Money was always tight as Muir’s motor-dealership provided the funds to race, he did so when he could afford to.
Throughout 1970 he ran his Waggott engined BN3 at Warwick Farm and Sandown for strong thirds stepping into the Sub for the first time at Mallala in October and then the AGP at Warwick Farm in November where a blown tyre caused an accident in the race won by Frank Matichs’ McLaren M10B Repco-Holden.
He sensibly did not contest the Kiwi 1971 Tasman rounds as by then the ‘more modern’ F5000’s had eclipsed the 2 litre cars which could still, in the right circumstances, give a good account of themselves the year before- he raced at the Farm for sixth
Contradicting myself, Max Stewart won the 1971 Gold Star in the Mildren Waggott despite Bartlett’s McLaren M10B being demonstrably the quickest car that season- reliability let him down, and Bob would have given Max a shake had he the wherewithal to run the Mildren. His sole GS 1971 appearance was at Oran Park in Ken Goodwin’s BN3 fitted with his Waggott which blew in testing so he didn’t race, by June the Sub was advertised for sale in Racing Car News ‘Sell as is. Needs rebuild, engine repair’- Ray Winter bought it and did very well in it as an ANF2 car fitted with, in time, a Hart 416-B Lotus-Ford twin-cam. The Sub in period only had aces behind the wheel- Gardner, Bartlett, Muir and Winter.
Bob had bigger plans to have a crack at F5000 with a new car rather than the ‘hand me downs’ he had raced hitherto.
Muir’s Lola T300 Chev, DNF battery from 1972 Tasman Champ Graham McRae, Leda GM1 Chev 4th. Matich won from Gardner and Bartlett- Matich A50 Repco, Lola T300 Chev and McLaren M10B Chev (L Hemer)
Niel Allen’s misfortune created an opportunity for Bob.
Allen missed racing after his retirement at the end of the 1971 Tasman so he acquired a new Lola T300, chassis ‘HU-4’.
Whilst testing the car he lost control of the twitchy jigger- quite a different beast to the McLaren M10B had jumped out of twelve or so months before. Muir bought the car when Niel said ‘enough’ and rebuilt it around a new tub- he was ready for the Australian 1972 Tasman rounds where he was immediately quick- Q4 at both Surfers and Warwick Farm.
This was mighty impressive as the competition were ‘match fit’ having done four rounds over the five preceding weeks so the fact that a young fella had jumped right into these thoroughly demanding machines and was immediately on ze pace was a mighty strong effort.
Great Dick Simpson shot shows Bob hoiking an inside left at Oran Park with Kevin Bartlett’s T300 up his clacker during the 1972 Gold Star round. Bob Q2 behind Matich and DNF tyre/brakes. Matich, A50 Repco won from Bartlett and Max Stewart, Elfin MR5 Repco (oldracephotos.com/DSimpson)
Lynton Hemer’s shot of Muir heading thru BP and onto Oran Park’s main straight during the 1972 Gold Star round highlights some key aspects of the T300 design- the F2 T240 derived aluminium monocoque chassis, mid-ship, hip mounted radiators the ducting of which gives this whole series of cars (T300/330/332) their thoroughly sexy look- the cars worked rather well too. 5 litre Chev sits reasonably high, in this case fed by four 48IDA Weber carbs (L Hemer)
He spun at Surfers, had a battery problem at the Farm and an engine failure at Sandown’s AGP from Q5 but a point had been made despite not having the dollars to do the final Adelaide round.
His Gold Star appearances were similarly sporadic- Sandown Q2 and second behind the dominant Frank Matich A50 Repco, Q2 and DNF at Oran Park and that was it apart from some ‘Repco Birthday Series’ events at Calder.
He went jumped up into the big league in 1973 contesting most of the US F5000 ‘L&M Championship’ in a new Lola T330 Chev. The car was bought by Australian Garry Campbell and, a bit like the Allen Lola twelve months before, Campbell crashed in testing at Oran Park- Bob repaired it with the assistance of John Wright, later to be a very fast F5000 driver himself and shipped it to the US with a couple of nice, strong Peter Molloy 5 litre Chevs.
He hooked up with Chuck Jones and Jerry Eisert (the exact nature of the commercial relationship is not entirely clear) and together ‘Jones-Eisert-Racing’ attacked the L&M.
In an amazing run of raw pace Bob qualified fourth at Michigan International on 20 May for third in heat and DNF final, then off to Mid Ohio for Q3 and DNS heat and final and then off to the demanding Watkins Glen, a circuit on which he had not competed before for Q2 behind Jody Scheckter and ahead of Brett Lunger, Brian Redman, Peter Gethin, Mark Donohue, Tony Adamowicz, David Hobbs, Kevin Bartlett, John Walker, Vern Schuppan, Frank Matich and others.
Whilst Jody Scheckter was THE find of the series Bob’s performance was amazing, to say the least
His seasons in the US and the UK in F5000, Formula Pacific and a fleeting but impressive F2 appearance or two- is a story for another time.
Michigan International during the 1973 US L&M F5000 Championship, 20 May. Lola T330 Chev- a Peter Molloy Chevy at that. Scheckter, Trojan T101 Chev won from Derek Bell, Lola T330 Chev and Peter Gethin, Chevron B24 Chev. Muir Q4 3rd in heat and DNS final (M Windecker)
Etcetera…
(J Lemm)
Still wearing Bartlett’s usual #5, Bob sets to work on the Sub during the October 1970 Mallala Gold Star round- his first meeting in the car. Rare photo semi-nude.
‘Racing Car News’ June 1971 read it and weep…
(oldracephotos.com/Hammond)
Cruisin’ the Calder paddock during one of the ‘Repco Birthday Series’ (fiftieth) F5000 races during 1972, Lola T300 Chev. KB won this four or so championship rounds title from Frank Matich and Muir- all events held at Calder title.
(L Hemer)
Bob during the 1972 Warwick Farm Tasman round, not sure if it was practice or the race which was wet- Lynton has captured the reflections beautifully.
Credits…
Rod MacKenzie, oldracephotos.com/Dick Simpson/Hammond, Lynton Hemer, John Lemm, David Cutts
Tailpiece…
(oldracephotos.com/DSimpson)
The Muirs Sports Cars Mildren Yellow Submarine leads Teddy Pilette, Team VDS McLaren M10B Chev through the Warwick Farm Esses during the 1971 ‘100’ Tasman round- sixth and fifth respectively- a good dice, there were two seconds between the cars at the races end. Gardner won in his works Lola T192 Chev from Chris Amon, Lotus 70 Ford and Bartlett’s Mildren Chev.
primotipo... 