How often do you see Bruce McLaren and his boys gathered around to hear his assessment of the latest bunch of tweaks?
Motorsport’s caption, “The McLaren team are seen during a private practice session with Bruce McLaren seated in his new F1 car with B.R.M. V8 engine – McLaren M4B BRM P111 2.1-litre V8 – holding conclave with Robin Herd (designer) and Mike Barney (mechanic) on his left, and technicians Charlie Scarrano and Tyler Alexander on his right. On their knees at the front of the car are Wally Willmott and Gary Knutson.’ : https://primotipo.com/2016/10/07/mclarens-19667-f1-cars/ ‘
‘In the foreground, less its nose cowling is one of the 1967 F2 cars of the McLaren team. The cars are painted red because “our sports cars were red, and they seemed to go pretty fast” to quote McLaren.’ It’s Bruce’s 1967 F2 weapon, McLaren M4A-1 Ford FVA, another Robin Herd/McLaren collaboration.
He first raced the M4A at Snetterton on March 24. The Guards 100 was the first round of the European F2 Championship – the first ever round of a European F2 Championship – where Bruce was fifth in the race won by F2 King, Jochen Rindt’s Brabham BT23 FVA, very much the story that year! See here: https://primotipo.com/2019/11/02/the-wills-barc-200-f2-silverstone-march-1967/
Etcetera…
McLaren M4B BRM, Oulton Park Spring Cup, April 15, 1968 (enwheels.org)
McLaren had contracted to run BRM’s new customer 3-litre V12 in 1967 and built the M4B powered by the tried and true Tasman spec 2-litre V8 as a stop-gap pending the twelve’s delivery.
The car used a modified M4A chassis cut away to accommodate the bulkier V8 rather than the FVA for which it was designed. The fuel capacity was increased, too.
M4B-1 at Monaco in 1967. Note the short ‘Monaco-nose’ and additional tankage for 200 mile Grands Prix now fitted (enwheels.org)
Bruce raced the car five times: in the March Race of Champions at Brands Hatch DNF, the April Spring Cup at Oulton Park, fifth, and the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone in late April where he was again fifth, at Monaco, where he was a splendid fourth behind Denny Hulme’s Brabham BT20 Repco, Graham Hill’s Lotus 33 BRM 2-litre and Chris Amon’s Ferrari 312.
(enwheels.org)
In Monaco (#16 shots), Bruce was fourth, and in the Dutch GP, he crashed; the car was then written off in a testing accident at Goodwood.
Not that it’s about racing at all. These pages from the Christmas 1964 issue of Repco Record, Repco Ltd’s in-house staff magazine, make it crystal clear exactly when Repco commenced their European operations in London on August 1, 1957.
Mind you, that might not be correct. The History of Repco records that Rob Paddon first hung up a shingle at 59 James Street in the West End in 1954. ‘That started with the bold move of joining the UK’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders that year. Membership enabled Repco to exhibit at the earls Court Motor Show from 1957.’
(1957)
I’d always thought Repco’s arrival in the UK was ‘hand in glove’ at about the time the Repco-Brabham branding of Motor Racing Developments Ltd’s racing cars occurred circa-1963. Not so, Repco popped a stake in the ground much earlier.
The global expansion dealt with on the published pages indicates the good marketing sense of the tie-up with Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac given the international nature of motor racing and therefore the brand-building available to Repco by hitching themselves to Brabham’s coat-tails.
A little later still, Repco’s engineering skills were laid bare – revealing that they weren’t just a sponsor’s name on the nose of Brabham racing cars – for all to see when Repco’s family of 2.5-5-litre racing V8s took to the circuits from January 1966.
So, this stuff is contextual, not racing as such, and is popped up here to be on the public record.
This Autocourse piece written by Robin Herd – March co-founder amongst many other credits – in late 1968 about the use of wings on racing cars is of great interest and matter of record by one of the best qualified engineers of the day.
John Youl, left and Lex Sternberg aboard their Cooper T51 Climax’s at Symmons Plains circa 1961-62…
There were four of the eleven Cooper T51s that had ‘permanent residency’ in Australia, based in Tasmania for a while, this pair and those of Austin Miller. We know it’s before 15 April 1962 as Andrew ‘Slim’ Lamont tells us the Youl car passed to Jack Hobden then.
John Youl accepts the plaudits of the crowd and Tassie Premier, ‘Electric Eric’ Reece. Probably after winning the December 1962 Examiner £1,000 in the Cooper T51 (HRCCTas)Symmons Plains 1961-62 (K Thompson Collection)David Sternberg ascends Penguin hillclimb in the family T51, date unknown, but welcome, where is my copy of that book I wonder? (G Hartley)
Youl’s car history is simple, he says confidently, John acquired F2/9/60 new from the factory whereas Sternberg’s F2/7/59 or F2/9/59 was an ex-works 1959 car brought to Australia for Jack’s 1960 Summer Tour and then sold to Bib Stillwell after Bathurst 1960. Bib bought it to obtain the 2.5 Coventry Climax FPF with which it was fitted; they were as rare as Rocking Horse Poop in the colonies at that stage.
Bib raced it a few times, including Longford’s 1961 meeting before selling it to Burnie’s Lex Sternberg, both he and his son David raced it. The later ownership has the usual twists and turns of many of these cars, which is beyond the scope of this pictorial. Click here for The Nostalgia Forum thread in relation thereto, it’s content rich; https://forums.autosport.com/topic/150838-cooper-t51s-in-tasmania/
(R Lambert)
Jack with T51 F2/7/59 or F2/9/59 at Longford in March 1960.
Brabham consorting with a couple of chaps during practice. Is that Alec Mildren in the straw hat or is my imagination running riot? Look at the monster mouths of those 58DCO Webers.
Jack had a good run with this car that summer winning at Ardmore – the New Zealand GP – and Wigram before shipping the car across the Tasman and was then victorious at Longford and Phillip Island in March, and then Bathurst in October.
Brabham won the March 5 Longford Trophy from Mildren’s Cooper T51 Maserati and Stillwell’s T51 Climax.
(unattributed)
Jack Hobden (30/8/1942-18/9/2022) aboard the ex-Youl F2-9-60 at Baskerville?
The defunct Longford Grand Prix Expo FB page wrote that ‘Jack was requested to represent Tasmania in the 1965 Australian Grand Prix at Longford by then Premier Eric Reece. Upon being told of a lack of finances, he funded Jack’s race.’
Hobden was 12th in the race won by Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T79 Climax from Jack Brabham and Phil Hill.
Etcetera…
(N Barnes)
Noel Barnes was prowling the paddock at about the same time as Ron Lambert!
(N Barnes)(N Barnes)
Credits…
Historic Racing Car Club of Tasmania, Ron Lambert, G Hartley, The Nostalgia Forum, Ellis French, Andrew ‘Slim’ Lamont, oldracingcars.com, Greg Ellis Collection, K Thompson Collection, Noel Barnes
Tailpiece…
(G Ellis Collection)
An early Baskerville grid containing two Youls, #38 Gavin’s Porsche 356 and #55 John’s NSU Prinz, #7 is Ross Larner, #29 David Lewis’ Humpy Holden, the white Morris Minor is Greg Ellis and #51 is Dick Crawford
Tyler Alexander at left with Phil Hill’s Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Cooper T70 Climax FPF 2.5 at Pukekohe, Auckland during the January 9, 1965 New Zealand Grand Prix meeting. Car #17 is John Riley’s Lotus 18/21 Climax.
This car was an updated version of a chassis Bruce and the late Tim Mayer raced the year before – T70 FL-1-64 – while The Chief raced a new design designated the T79: T79 FL-1-65. It’s pretty familar turf to us, see here: https://primotipo.com/2016/11/18/tim-mayer-what-might-have-been/
(D Shaw)
That’s the chassis of the T70 above at Pukekohe – with a Brabham BT4 in the foreground – while Bruce is settling himself into the T79 at Levin, the second Tasman round below.
Bruce and Jim Clark collided in one of the Pukehohe heats. While Jim started the GP in his works Lotus 32B Climax, Bruce’s Cooper’s T79 was hors d’combat for the weekend, so he commandeered Phil’s T70 but succumbed to gearbox failure after 13 of the race’s 50 laps. Clark lasted only 2 laps before suspension problems, leaving Graham Hill to win the race aboard his Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT11A Climax.
(unattributed)
McLaren was fifth at Levin, with Jim Clark’s Lotus 32B Climax the race winner. Jim was the Tasman Cup victor too, with four wins from the seven championship rounds or five wins from eight races, including the Lakeside 99 non-championship round. Not to forget, however many heats Clark won.
Bruce’s Tasman plans were thrown somewhat up in the air. The two Coopers were designed around 13-inch Dunlops but Bruce had signed a contract with Firestone for supply of tyres. Defining though the deal was commercially, in the short term the hard, American 15-inch covers were shite for road racing.
The bigger wheels resulted in handling problems which would normally have been sorted before the long trip south. As it was, the necessary makeshift modifications were made between races.
NZ GP at Pukekohe, Bruce didn’t start the T79 having collided with Jim Clark in a heat. Note the Hewland HD 5-speed transaxle and tall Firestones (D Shaw)(unattributed)
The Levin International start on January 16, with Phil and Bruce alongside Clark despite problems adapting Bruce’s new Firestone tyres to a chassis designed with Dunlops in mind.
Despite these difficulties McLaren did Wigram and Teretonga races in faster times than those which gave him his 1964 victories.
In Australia, once 13-inch wheels were available, McLaren was fourth at Sandown and won the Australian Grand Prix final round at Longford from pole to finish the Tasman series runner-up to Clark, while Phil Hill was a well-merited third. There is no doubt that if pre-trip testing time had been on their side, the Cooper-Climax drivers would have made a much better showing in New Zealand.
Pop McLaren, Wally Willmott, Bruce Harre, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark, Tyler Alexander and Colin Beanland David Oxton informs us, in the Wigram paddock, over the January 23, 1965 weekend.
Showing real progress, McLaren, below, was second to Clark’s Lotus with the well-driven Brabham BT7A Climax of Jim Palmer in third.
(CAN)(A Horrox)
Teretonga, above, was better still with a team two-three – McLaren from Hill – but Jim Clark was still the man in the front of the field with three wins on the trot, only Graham Hills Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT11A Climax win in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe at the start of the month ‘rained on Jimmy’s Lotus parade.’
(K Wright)
Bruce McLaren leads Graham Hill and Jack Brabham early in his victorious run in the AGP into Longford village: Cooper T70, and Brabham BT11A’s by two, all Coventry Climax FPF 2.2-litre powered. McLaren and Brabham below.
(GP Library)(MotorSport)
Every Dog Has its Day – perhaps every car too!
At the end of the Tasman, Bruce McLaren sold the T79 to South African ace, John Love. The shot above shows him on the way to a brilliant second place in the 1967 South African Grand Prix.
The machine was a star-car in Africa, winning the 1965, 1966 and 1967 South African National F1 Championships, co-credits to Love’s Cooper T55 Climax and Brabham BT20 Repco in 1965 and 1967 duly noted.
Keith Greene on the occasion of his appointment as Team Manager of Brabham by Bernie Ecclestone, the new owner of Motor Racing Developments Ltd in 1972.
Ron Tauranac would have approved of this povvo-PR announcement out front of MRD in Byfleet Road, New Haw, Weybridge, Surrey. The prop is a BT38 (?) nosecone.
At the wheel during the August 5, 1962 German Grand Prix. Gilby BRM, Q19 0f 30 and DNF suspension after 7 of 15 laps. Graham Hill won from John Surtees and Dan Gurney: BRM P57, Lola Mk4 Climax and Porsche 804.
Now here’s a bit of McLaren history you didn’t know.
McLaren Cars ‘entered’ a Holden in New Zealand’s annual touring car endurance classic, the Benson & Hedges 1000 at Pukekohe in 1976.
The four-door Holden Monaro GTS 308 V8 was crewed by Mike Hailwood and Phil Kerr with none other than 1967 World Champion, Denis Clive Hulme as Team Manager.
Phil Kerr ahead of the Dave Winter/Ron Findlay Datsun 1200. DNF in the race won by the Jim Little/Graeme Richardt Chrysler Valiant Charger.
He bagged the Tasman Cup, Indianapolis 500, World Drivers Championship, the French – read Eiropean – F2 Championship plus a swag of touring car and sportscar victories.
The shot above is of Clark enroute to victory at Indianapolis on May 31, 1965, Lotus 38 Ford-Indy 4.2-litre V8.
Hethel circa-1967 (unattributed)Lakeside 99, March 1965. Lotus 32B Climax. Jim won from Frank Gardner and Spencer Martin in Brabham BT11As (Daily Telegraph)
‘Can you give us a hand with the car Jimmy? Yep, no worries Ray (Parsons) I’ll do the fronts.’
Clark and Parsons ready Clark’s Lotus 32B Climax FPF 2.5 for the Warwick Farm 100 during the February weekend. That’s Roy Billington, Jack Brabham’s mechanic on the far left by the pit counter and Lanky Frank Gardner in the white helmet. Meanwhile, Frank Matich blasts past in his Brabham BT7A Climax.
Clark romped home in the Tasman, winning four rounds. He won Levin, Wigram, Teretonga and Warwick Farm on-the-trot, then picked up the Lakeside non-championship round at the end of the tour. Bruce McLaren was second and Jack Brabham third.
No way did Jim get home to Scotland on too many occasions in 1965.
By my reckoning – aided by and improving on Peter Windsor’s article of 10 years ago – Clark had 29 winning drives in 1965, ranging from short Tasman Cup heats to the 500 miles at Indianapolis.
Peter’s list of 26 wins missed two Grands Prix, amazingly, and one F2 victory, so for mine, it’s 29 wins in that very big year.
(IMS)
Clark was edged out of pole at Indy by AJ Foyt’s Lotus 34 Ford but Jim took the May 31 win that had been coming for two years, leading 190 of the 200 laps.
Parnelli Jones was second, Lotus 34 Ford, and Mario Andretti aboard a Hawk 1 Ford wad third. Al Miller’s Lotus 29 Ford was fourth; yes it was a great race for the Lotus lads.
(IMS)(IMS)
The win was well merited to say the least. Fortunate for Colin Chapman too, Ford would have pickled his testicles had there been a fuck-up like the year before!
In Team Lotus’ first year at the Brickyard in 1963 the Indy Establishment simply shafted the interlopers in favour of one of their own…
Of course Clark’s main programme for the year was Grand Prix racing.
That season he won three non-championship F1 races: the first heat of the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch, the Syracuse GP and the Sunday Mirror Trophy at Goodwood. He also took six of the ten championship events, four from pole: the South African, French, British, German, Italian and Mexican Grands Prix.
(unattributed)Clark on the hop at Goodwood during the August 1964 RAC Tourist Trophy, Lotus 30 Ford (Sutton)
Team Lotus wasn’t all beer and skittles. Every now and then Chapman built a shit-box, the Lotus 30 Ford 289 V8 was one of them.
While the concept of a backbone-chassis somewhat akin to the Lotus Elan made marketing, and, perhaps, theoretical sense, in practice it had a level of flaccidity the engineering equivalent of a couple of Blue-Bombers was never going to fix.
Clark wrestles with the gorgeous but recalcitrant 350bhp machine above, and with the ‘ten more mistakes’ – as Richie Ginther described it – aboard the Lotus 40 Ford in the LA Times GP at Riverside in October 1965; he was second to Hap Sharp’s Chaparral 2A Chev in a marvellous drive. One of Clark’s many attributes was to get the best out of a car, even a sub-optimal one. A bit more Lotus 30 here:https://primotipo.com/2016/08/30/rac-tourist-trophy-goodwood-1964/
Of course, just when you think The Boss might give you a weekend off he comes up with the notion of doing a hillclimb or two in your Indy winning Lotus 38 Ford in the Swiss Alps.
‘Don’t fret Jimmy, we’ll give you a car with symmetrical suspension – it was chassis 38-4 rather than the Indy winner, chassis 38-1 – and off to St Ursanne-Les Rangiers we go on August 22.
Clark did a demonstration run in 5:20.8 while Jo Siffert did FTD in his Brabham BRM 1.5 V8 F1 car. Charles Vogele was second and Silvio Moser third.
Next was Ollon-Villars also in Switzerland on the following weekend, August 29.
Lou Drozdowski wrote, ‘Clark spun off the course during practice and spent much of the afternoon among the sheep and pastures making his way back. He did however set a time of 4:34 compared to Ludovico Scarfiotti, Ferrari 206P FTD of 4:09.’ Gerhard Mitter was second and Gianpiero Biscaldi third.
Ollon-Villars (unattributed)Ollon-Villars (unattributed)Big-bertha’s butt at Ollon-Villars (B Cahier)(LAT)
Lotus’ relationship with Ford was strong and multi-faceted, one element of which was the Ford Cortina Lotus Mk 1 and 2 and the Escort Twin-Cam, all of which were fitted with the Lotus-Ford twin-cam, two-valve twin-Weber fed engine.
While it could be seen as hit-and-giggle in the context of his other ‘65 race-programmes, moving-metal was a very serious business so Clark approached his Lotus Cortina races that year in the UK and North America just as seriously as he did everything else.
Here he is giving Jack Brabham a run for his money at Oulton Park during the British Saloon Car Championship round on September 18, 1965. Jack’s mount is Alan Mann’s Ford Mustang. More on the Lotus Cortina here: https://primotipo.com/2014/11/16/jim-clark-lotus-cortina-sebring-1964/
Etcetera…
The Lotus 49 first ran in Gold Leaf Team Lotus colors during the Lady Wigram Trophy on January 20, 1968.
The transformation from Team Lotus’ perfect livery to fag-packet occurred during the week between the Levin International on January 13 and Wigram.
With a done deal in London, the Lotus team arranged for a skilled signwriter at Hutchinson Ford in Christchurch to apply the new Gold Leaf livery to Jim’s Lotus 49.
Clark, Amon, Gardner: Lotus 49 Ford DFW, Ferrari 246T and Brabham BT23D Alfa Romeo. Wigram 1968
Outside the US and some other countries it was the beginning of big corporate sponsorship in motor racing.
Ever the leader, Chapman’s quick commercial response and applying the new sponsorship colours demonstrates just how rapidly change took place once advertising restrictions in racing were lifted prior to the 1968 season.
(unattributed)
Credits…
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), Bruce Wells, The Jim Clark Trust (TJCT), Lou Drozdowski in lotuseuropa.org
Tailpiece…
(TJCT)
Jim Clark’s first race was at Crimond, aboard Ian- Scott-Watson’s DKW Sonderklasse on June 16, 1956.
That’s JL Fraser Lotus 11 front-and-centre, then from the left #18 AR Millar Saltire, LDA7 Kenny McLennan’s Kit MG, #4 Clark in Scott-Watsons DKW Sonderklasse, and John Campbell, MGA.
The Jim Clark Trust wrote that ‘In the sportscar race there was no handicap, so the DKW was hopelessly outclassed. Clark did pass one car but his joy was short-lived. The tailender was heading for the pits with broken halfshaft and the DKW finished in last place.’
