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Jim Clark and Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 39…

Posted: February 12, 2016 in F1, Features
Tags: 1966 Tasman Series, 1969 JAF Japanese Grand Prix, 1970 Australian Gold Star Series, Birrana 274 Ford, Jim Clark, Leo Geoghegan, Lotus 39 Climax, Lotus 39 Repco, Lotus 59 Waggott

(Vintage Racecar)

Leo Geoghegan slices his venerable Lotus 39 Repco into the Warwick Farm Esses, Tasman Series, 15 February 1970…

Terrific shot, the focus is on the driver, the rest of the car blurred giving the impression of speed, something Geoghegan had in abundance.

Leo ‘made his name’ in this car, he was a front-runner from the time he bought it off Team Lotus at the end of the ’66 Tasman Series; Jim Clark was third in it, until the time it was put aside to make way for his Lotus 59 Waggott later in 1970.

Faster! Deep in thought on chassis changes with his very hot mechanic, AGP practice 10 February 1963. Lotus 20 FJ 1.5 Ford 9th just behind Frank Matich in the quickest of the 1.5’s. Winner Brabham in a BT4 Climax 2.7 (David Mist)

Geoghegan had a long background in Lotus single-seaters after he graduated from sedans and sportscars in the team his father, Tom founded. Starting with an 18FJ in 1961 he progressed through 20, 20B, 22, 27 and then a 32, which, when fitted with a 1.5 Ford Lotus Twin cam engine gave him two 2nd placings in 1965 Gold Star events. He stepped up to the ‘big time’ with the Tasman Lotus 39.

Leo G on his way to 8th in the little Lotus 32 Ford/Lotus 1.5, ‘Warwick Farm 100’ Tasman Series, 14 February 1965 (Bruce Wells/The Roaring Season)

The ‘old girl’ Lotus 39 was frustrating in many ways, its unreliability, like other Repco Tasman users, was notorious, but it gave him the critical 6 points at Symmons Plains in March 1970 before he switched to his new Lotus 59 Waggott. This won him the Gold Star he coveted and deserved…by 6 points from Max Stewart’s similarly powered Mildren. Max’s Gold Star turn would come for the first time in 1971.

Easter Bathurst Meeting, 15 March 1970, thru ‘The Dipper’. Lotus 39 Repco (Jeff Nield/autopics.com.au)

Lotus 39 ‘R12’….

The Lotus 25/33 series of cars are amongst motor racing’s most famous, the Lotus 25 the first ‘modern monocoque’, Jim Clark took the 1963 and 1965 World Championships’ in Loti’ 25 and 33 respectively.

The 39 is one of this series of cars and like Jack Brabham’s 1966 championship winning BT19 chassis was built for the stillborn Coventry Climax FWMW Flat-16 engine.

Coventry Climax FWMW 1.5 litre Flat-16 engine of 1964/5 (unattributed)

The story of this amazing engine is an article in itself; in a nutshell CC’s Wally Hassan and Peter Windsor-Smith were convinced the best route to more power was higher revs (than their FWMV V8) a ‘multi’ was chosen partially due to Harry Mundy’s exposure to the BRM Type 15 supercharged V16 in the dawn of the fifties. Design commenced in 1963, the prototype was on the test bench in 1964.

Torsional problems of the crank were major issues, the engine also failed to deliver more power than the 4 valve versions of the FWMV, which themselves took a bit of development to better the FWMV 2 valve outputs. Then the 1.5 litre GP formula ended and Jaguar took over Coventry Climax; that combination of factors ended CC’s pivotal role as a successful supplier of racing engines for better than a decade.

Graham Hill’s BRM P261 leads Clark’s Lotus 39 Climax and Jack Brabham’s Brabham BT19 Repco off Long Bridge, THAT post in front of GH’s LF wheel marks the apex…Wonderful Longford 1966 (autopics.com.au)

Colin Chapman needed a mount for Jim Clark to defend his Tasman title, he won it in 1965 with a Lotus 32B Climax, the unused 39 sitting in the corner of the Team Lotus workshop was ideal.

He tasked designer Maurice Phillippe to modify the engine bay of the car to accept a Coventry Climax 2.5 litre FPF engine. The 39 was different from its siblings in that the ‘D-shaped’ side pontoons of the chassis were ‘chopped off’ at the bulkhead aft of the drivers seat and a tubular steel subframe substituted to carry the CC Flat-16. Changes were made to the frame to accommodate the FPF.

Big thirsty Weber 58DCO carbs fed 2.5 Climax FPF. The frame to support the engine can be seen as can the rear of the Hewland transaxle (I MacNeill)

The 39 side pods also had a more pronounced belly than the 25/33 to ensure sufficient fuel could be carried, having lost capacity by hacking the ‘rear horns’ off the tub on each side. The suspension of ‘R12’ was pure Lotus 33 and was period typical; top rockers actuating inboard coil spring/damper units and lower wishbones and at the rear inverted lower wishbones, single top link and two radius rods for fore and aft location. Adjustable roll bars front and rear as well of course. Steering by rack and pinion and outboard disc brakes on all wheels.

Chapman bought two Climax engines from Bruce McLaren who didn’t contest the Tasman in ’66, he was too busy building cars for his F1 and CanAm programs having just left Coopers.

The 39 was soon on its way to the Antipodes for its race debut in the NZGP at Pukekohe on January 8 1966.

AGP, Lakeside 20 February 1966. Clark 3rd behind Hill’s BRM P261 and Frank Gardner’s Brabham BT11A Climax (autopics)

By 1966 the Tasman game had largely moved beyond the old FPF. Brabham debuted his Repco Brabham RB620 V8 engine and BRM modified its F1 P56/60 V8 engines to 1930cc, Jackie Stewart took the title in a P261 with 4 wins from Hill’s 2 with Clark and Attwood (BRM) 1 win apiece.

Clark had a tough start to his 1966 Tasman campaign partially because Colin Chapman switched his Lotus tyre contract from Dunlop to Firestone not long before the Tasman commenced. The tyres had been developed by Bruce McLaren, he had used them for over a year and they were competitive but the 39 had to be adapted to them.

In addition Clark had a run of misfortunes which also reduced testing time; an abortive race at Pukekohe (gearbox) no practice at either Wigram (oil leak and engine replacement/accident when Gardner’s Brabham brakes failed) or Levin (snapped radius rod in practice/2nd). At Teretonga the cars speed was shown with a heat win from Stewart. He was moving away from Jackie in the final only to go out with a spin on dropped oil on lap 3.

In Australia he took a win at Warwick Farm, always a happy hunting ground for Clark. Graham Hill won the AGP at Lakeside from Gardner and Clark. He was 2nd to Stewart’s speedy BRM at Sandown and was 7th at Longford, he had carburetion problems in practice and a plug lead came off in the race requiring a stop and dropping him to the back of the field. Stewart was again the victor, with Jim finishing third in the series behind the BRM duo.

Clark had an amazing 1965 season winning the Tasman Series, Indy 500 and the World Drivers Championship, his start to 1966 was not quite so good, a portent of a tougher year!

Superb Clark portrait by Lindsay Ross. Lotus 39 Climax, Longford 1966. He was 7th after a troubled run, Stewart’s BRM taking the win. Note the cars ‘aero screen’ and truncated monocoque which ends at the drivers bulkhead (oldracephotos)

Geoghegans’ were the Australian Lotus importer so a deal was done to buy the car…

John Sheppard is a legendary mechanic/engineer/car builder and team manager with some of Australia’s greatest cars in his CV; the Geoghegan’s cars, Bob Jane’s Repco Torana, Laurie O’Neills Pete Geoghegan driven Holden Monaro and the Holden Dealer Team amongst an extensive and ongoing career of car construction and team management. Early in his career he was appointed as chief mechanic to the Geoghegans. Tom took a liking to his work preparing the Youl brothers Cooper, the Tasmanian team were using the Geoghegan’s Sydney workshop at the time. John’s first event with the team was preparing Leo’s car for the Australian Formula Junior Championship at Warwick Farm in September 1963, which he won in his Lotus 22 Ford. He shares some of his recollections about his time with the Geoghegan’s throughout this article.

John Sheppard in the 39 Repco cockpit circa 1967, hat is the Mickey Mouse Club! (John Sheppard)

Equipe Geoghegan during the Gold Star meeting at Lakeside in July 1966. Total sponsorship, rare colour shot of this livery. Note the addition of lower side panels to the 39 by Sheppo. Leo also raced a Lotus 32 Ford 1.5 and no doubt took some flops off that machine which was fitted ex-works with such panels (P Cross)

Essentially 1966 was a learning year for Leo in the big cars in the domestic Gold Star Championship. His limited campaign excluded the Mallala and Sandown rounds, 2nd to Spencer Martins Brabham BT11A at Surfers Paradise his best result. A duff wheel bearing was the cause of a DNF at Lakeside, he didn’t start both the Symmons Plains and Warwick Farm rounds with Coventry Climax engine problems.

Sheppard recalls; ‘The Lotus 39 was a great car although the engine problems we had were a function of very tired engines, the blocks were cracked so it was a problem keeping them running in that first year. When we took over the car they had a strange set-up to deal with the vibrations of the big Climax-four, they put rubber o-rings between the cylinder head and inlet manifold letting them flop around, and i mean flop around so Jim had problems with throttle control. We easily fixed this with a more conventional set-up of putting the o-rings between the inlet manifold and carbs’.

‘We didn’t have problems with the Firestones but i recall Leo, having fiddled around with set-ups based on tyre temps and the like at an early tyre test embarrassing the Firestone guys a bit when his ‘seat of the pants’ set-up changes gave immediate results. Leo was quick in the car straight away, i asked Bob Jane to get his driver (Spencer Martin) to stop baulking mine at Warwick Farm and Bob of course telling me to piss-orf…’

Fifth in the Australian Grand Prix ’67 Tasman Round at Warwick Farm and 2nd the following weekend behind Clarks Lotus 33 Climax FWMV 2 litre V8 at Sandown was indicative of speed and better Coventry Climax reliability.

Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 sharing the AMR 1968 cover with Chris Amon’s Ferrari Dino 246T. 39 here with ‘740 Series’ Repco V8 and quite the prettiest thing with its carefully, thoughtfully aerodynamic rear bodywork developed for it by John Sheppard. Knock on wheels, Castrol color scheme just gorgeous with the speed if not always reliability to match

In 1967 Sheppard and his team did a beautiful job converting the car to a 2.5 litre Repco ‘640 Series’, ‘exhaust between the Vee’ spec engine in April. They created quite the most beautiful sixties single seater. OK, maybe Gurney’s Eagle T1G gives it a run for its money! The FPF developed around 235bhp, the ‘640’ 275bhp@8500rpm.

Sheppard; ‘It was an easy decision to go with the Repco, our Climaxes were old and tired and Repco were keen to do business with everyone. It wasn’t the biggest saga to adapt the Repco V8, we made new chassis tubes to accommodate the wider engine and used the original Hewland HD5 gearbox. The suspension geometry wasn’t touched, in fact it wasn’t the whole time i worked on the car (to the end of 1968) which shows the bloke who designed and built it knew what he was about. As tyres evolved we still got the results by simply getting the best from the tyres making set-up changes based around getting tyre temps even across the tread. Basic but important stuff.’

‘The chassis and bodywork, we made a nice rear cowling or engine cover, was done by Alan Standfield who worked out of his fathers ‘Supreme Mousetraps’ factory out near Mascot. (near Sydney Airport) It was all a bit bizarre but he did good work in grotty conditions with loads of noisy machines making springs and sawdust from the ‘trap bases all over the place!’

Leo took his first Gold Star round win at Sandown in September, Sheppo recalls; ‘Early in the Repco piece i said to Frank Hallam (GM Repco) ‘you should be nicer to us because we will win the first Gold Star race for you, he turned and walked away. I had great delight in walking up to him and telling him ‘I told you so’ when we took that Sandown win which was Repco’s first Gold Star win too’

The Climax FPF engined Brabham BT11A’s were superbly driven by Spencer Martin and Kevin Bartlett and just had the legs and reliability to pip the more powerful Repco engined cars of Greg Cusack, Geoghegan and John Harvey that year. Martin took the title.

On the end of a tow rope as was the case all too often. Here its a Coventry Climax engine failure; the FPF popped back into the car after early 1967 Repco frustrations for the final WF Gold Star round, DNF with overheating (Peter Windsor)

Leo was so miffed by the lack of reliability of the Repco that his team popped the Climax back into the car for the final Gold Star round, the Hordern Trophy’ at Warwick Farm, not finishing that race either, the Climax overheated.

Sheppard; ‘We didn’t have a good run with the Repco’s early in the piece. The 640 Series Repco, the Olds block engine chucked its oil out of the crankcase, the scavenging arrangements were poor, the stiffener plate was ‘out in the breeze’, oil sat on that and got thrown around. Leo said the engine was hard to drive as there was little power below 6500-7000rpm. The 700 Series blocks were better but in many ways by then the opposition had caught up with the Cosworth and Ferrari Dino engines competing in the Tasman. The engine was a clever design though, you could take the heads off without disturbing the timing chest and vice-versa, i give Repco ten out of ten for the way they went about things.’

For the 1968 Tasman Series all local Repco clients engines were updated to the latest specifications with 700 Series blocks.

Leo’s 39 chases Richard Attwood’s BRM P126 at Surfers Paradise 1968. Great butt shot of both cars and a contrast of the beautifully faired Lotus and messy, bulky BRM V12. Neat packaging of the 1967 World Championship winning ‘740 Series’ V8 clear (here in 2.5 not 3 litre form). ‘Between the Vee’ exhausts easy for the chassis designer, no complex plumbing issues of pipes and tubes or an ‘ally tub. Trumpets for Lucas fuel injection and Bosch distributor cap clear also between the Vee. Car uses the same Hewland HD5 gearbox as it did with the Cov Climax FPF engine. Diaphragm to which ‘everything’ attached also clear at the very back of the chassis. Suspension at rear period typical; single upper link, inverted lower wishbone, 2 radius rods forwards for location and coil spring/damper unit with an adjustable roll-bar (Brian McInerney)

Into 1968 the Tasman Series got even tougher as the International Teams brought 2.5 litre variants of their current GP machines; the Lotus 49 DFW and the BRM P126 V12. The Mildren Team acquired a one-off Brabham BT23D powered by a 2.5 litre version of Alfa Romeo’s Tipo 33 sports car engine and Ferrari brought 2 2.4 litre Dino V6’s, the 246T.

Geoghegan, as in the prior year did only the Australian rounds; his 4th at Surfers on the same lap as the new Lotus 49’s in his 3 year old car his best result.

Who is the Belle of the Ball? Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco DNF beside Brabhams Brabham BT23E Repco 7th , Rodriguez BRM P126 6th in a P261 with Clarks Lotus 49 1st. Warwick Farm practice, Tasman 1968 (The Tasman Cup)

He lost an oil line at Warwick Farm, finished 7th at Sandown, both events won by Jim Clark’s dominant Lotus 49 and elected not to start the final, very wet Logford round given the lack of a suitable tyre for the treacherous circuit.

Hill, Gardner, Geoghegan and further back Kevin Bartlett squabble over 2nd place on lap 2 of the Surfers ’68 Tasman round, Clark is up the road. Lotus 49 DFW, Brabham BT23D Alfa, Lotus 39 Repco and Brabham BT11A Climax (Rod MacKenzie)

Kevin Bartlett was the class of the Gold Star fields in 1968 winning the title by 10 points in the Brabham Frank Gardner drove in the Tasman. Geoghegan’s old Lotus was still fast; he took pole at Sandown and Mallala and won the race but otherwise the car lacked the consistency and speed to win the title.

Geoghegan Catalina Park, Blue Mountains, NSW 1968 (Paul Hobson)

Chris Amon took the 1969 Tasman in his superbly driven and prepared Ferrari Dino 246T from Jochen Rindt, Lotus 49 DFW Piers Courage, Brabham BT24 DFW and Derek Bell’s Dino 246T.

Geoghegan, still driving the ‘old lady’ contested the full series; 5th at Pukekohe in the series opening NZGP behind the four drivers above, 4th at Levin, he missed the final NZ, Teretonga round.

Leo’s Lotus 39 Repco ‘730 Series’ NZGP paddock, Pukekohe 4 January 1969. 5th in the race won by Amon’s Ferrari Dino 246T (Habu/The Roaring Season)

Straight to Queensland he was a splendid 3rd in the AGP at Lakeside behind Amon and Bell. He was 5th in his home, Warwick Farm race and had fuel tank problems in the final Sandown round.

Lakeside in the AGP; 4/5 year old car 3rd at Lakeside behind the Ferrari 246T’s of Amon and Bell (Rod MacKenzie)

Seventh in the series, the highest placed local was a superb result for a small team running a 4 year old car against GP Teams running their latest car.

Leo running wings at the Warwick Farm Tasman round on 9 February 1969. Sydney the teams home base. With very low angle of attack mind you. He chose not to run them at the fast Tasman final round at Sandown the following week. He was 5th in the ‘pissin wet race won by Jochen Rindt’s Lotus 49B Ford DFW, therefore this dry day is practice (Dick Simpson)

Sandown Tasman practice, 15 February 1969. Running head of Alfie Costanzo’s McLaren M4A FVA. Leo DNS with a fuel tank leak, Alf DNF engine (Rod MacKenzie Collection)

For the 1969 Gold Star Series the 39 was more competitive than in ’68 being fitted with the latest Repco’730 Series’, crossflow head V8 used in the Tasman, this gave 290bhp@8600rpm. The car was now running wings and whilst less aesthetically pleasing than its earlier form was fast.

Symmons Plains Gold Star 3 March 1969. Leo was 2nd to Kevin Bartlett’s Mildren Alfa (right) (Ellis French)

Interesting shots at Symmons Plains, Tasmania 3 March 1969 above and below. Both the 39 and Kevin Bartlett’s Mildren Alfa ‘Yellow Submarine’ sporting the hi-wings de-rigeur for the previous 12 months and soon to be outlawed over the Monaco GP weekend a month or so hence. My two favourite ‘Australian’ open-wheelers of the 1960’s albeit not in their most aesthtically pleasing form. Bartlett won the round with Leo second.

Repco ‘730 Series’ Repco V8, notice the steel ‘A-Frame’ to brace the wing supports referred to in the text and wider rear wheels but same sized fronts compared with earlier shots. Tyre widths increased dramatically from cars build in 1965 to 1970.

Locating stays for the 39 rear wing beefier than most, the failure of these in a whole swag of cars, notably the two Lotus 49’s of Rindt and Hill during the 1969 at Montjuich Park, Spanish GP the catalyst for the CSI to mandate changes to wings.

Symmons Plains Gold Star 1969, Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco, KB’s Mildren ‘Yellow Submarine’ Alfa behind (Ellis French)

Bathurst Gold Star round 7 April 1969; Max Stewart Mildren Waggott, Niel Allen McLaren M4A Ford FVA and Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco on pole. Brabham won in his BT31 Repco from the back of the grid with the front row all DNF. An accident took out Stewart and Allen, Leo had a gearbox problem (Wayne McKay)

Kevin Bartlett took the Gold Star championship again using the Mildren ‘Yellow Submarine’, initially Alfa Romeo V8 engined and later in the year in Waggott TC4 valve form. This engine developed by Sydney engineer Merv Waggott is a story in itself, it won Gold Stars for Bartlett, Geoghegan and Stewart in 1969-71 beating 2.5’s and in 1971 F5000’s to the title.

Leo was 2nd with 20 points to Kevins 33 and had reliability but perhaps not the ultimate speed, seconds at Symmons Plains and Mallala Gold Star season highlights for the old beast.

The 39’s day finally arrived 4.5 years after it was built; Geoghegan won the 1969 JAF Japanese Grand Prix in the Lotus from Roly Levis Brabham BT23C FVA and Sohei Kato’s Mitsubishi Colt F2-C 1.6. I covered this great win in an article about Leo last year, click here for the link; https://primotipo.com/2015/03/02/leo-geoghegan-australian-driving-champion-rip/

By 1970 F5000 was adopted as the new Tasman Formula albeit 2.5 litre Tasman cars were also eligible, the smaller cars gave the big V8’s ‘plenty of curry’ in that first year with Graeme Lawrence winning in Chris Amon’s victorious 1969 Ferrari 246T ‘008’. Bartlett took the Warwick Farm round in the 2 litre Mildren ‘Yellow Sub’, another small-car win..

Tractable these Repco’s! Chugging thru the 1970 Sandown paddock. Nice shot showing the 33 style tub, fuel filler in front of dash bulkhead and late ’69-70 wing (Jeff Scriven Collection)

Same day as above with Leo in the red hat alongside his mount. Hard to see but front suspension is top rocker, lower wishbone and inboard spring/damper actuated by rocker (Jeff Scriven Collection)

Geoghegan raced the Australian rounds only for 7th at Surfers and Warwick Farm, he was DNF at the Sandown final round.

Into the domestic 1970 season Leo raced the car in the first Gold Star round at Symmons Plains, here below he shares the front row of the grid with John Harvey’s red Brabham BT23E Repco and Kevin Bartlett’s Mildren Waggott ‘Yellow Submarine’. KB’s absence racing in the US for much of the year took out a tough adversary in 1970.

Gold Star round 1 1970. Symmons Plains 2 March 1970. John Harvey won in his #2 Brabham BT23E Repco from Leo obscured this side and Bartlett’s #5 Mildren Waggott (autopics.com)

The last significant meeting in which the 39 raced was the March Easter Bathurst meeting in which Niel Allen’s McLaren M10B Chev F5000 car set a lap record which stood for decades. ‘Outright’ open-wheelers have not raced at Mount Panorama given the speeds of the cars and inherently dan gerous nature of the circuit as it was then. And still is, despite huge improvements in circuit safety.

Easter Bathurst 1970, contrast this shot with the hi-wings from the year before above. John Harvey’s #4 Bob Jane Brabham BT23E Repco ‘830 Series’ Repco V8, Leo’s 39 Repco ‘730 Series’ V8 and Niel Allen’s obscured McLaren M10 B Chev F5000 (Rod MacKenzie Collection)

Leo in the new Lotus 59 Waggott, Warwick Farm’s Pit Straight 1971 (oldracephotos/Schell)

Whilst the 1970 Tasman series was run to F5000 the Gold Star Series in an interesting piece of CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motorsport) decision making driven by politics was run to the 2.5 Tasman Formula.

From Leo’s perspective the path was clear; the circa 275bhp 2 litre Waggott engine was powerful, light, reliable and better still would bolt straight into the back of the Dave Baldwin designed F3/F2 Lotus 59. As the Lotus importer, the core of the Geoghegan’s business road cars of course, his preference was a Lotus which could win the title, his F5000 options were a domestic season away.

The Geoghegan’s cars; Leo’s and Pete’s Touring cars were always beautifully presented, giving the sponsors great exposure. Here the 59 Waggott, in Castrol colors. As beautifully integrated a package as the 39 Repco in its ‘740 Series’ Repco days. Oran Park Gold Star round, 27 June 1970 (Lynton Hemer)

The 59 already had a successful season of racing in Europe with Emerson Fittipaldi taking the 1969 British F3 title and Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill winners in European F2 events; 4 rounds for Jochen and 1 for Graham. In essence the engine and chassis were a proven package.

And so it proved to be; Leo took wins at Warwick Farm and Mallala and seconds at Oran Park and Symmons Plains when the ‘old lady’ 39 held together and scored 6 valuable points…

Leo G during tyhe driver parade before the 27 June Oran Park 1970 Gold Star round won by Max Stewart (Lynton Hemer)

Leo Geoghegan’s Later Open-Wheeler Career…

This article was to have been a ‘quickie’ around the few shots at the start but as usual i have ‘rabbited on’.

The article isn’t intended to be a Leo G whole of career one, the focus was the Lotus 39. Leo raced the Lotus 59 Waggott on into 1971, that chassis is still in Australia, i will write about it separately.

Geoghegan was a factory driver for Chrysler, as covered in the other article link provided earlier, he developed and raced Valiant Pacers and Chargers for the Tonsley Park, Adelaide based company in the incredibly popular Series Production (showroom stock essentially) races which proliferated, like a disease, in Australia in the late 1960’s, the growth of ‘Taxi Racing’ in Oz remains undiminished and omnipotent.

Leo at Oran Park, ‘works’ Grace Bros sponsored Birrana 274 Hart Ford 1974. Jewels of things, fast ones. Aluminium monocoque chassis, Hart Ford 416B injected, often ‘ally blocked, Twin-Cam circa 205bhp, Hewland FT200 5 speed ‘box (oldracephotos.com/Peter Schell)

But Leo was a ‘died in the wool open-wheeler man’ and accepted a works drive with Adelaide’s nascent Birrana Engineering; Malcolm Ramsay and engineer Tony Alcock built some fabulous cars in three short years which turned upside down the local single-seater market, the jewel like cars winning the Australian F2 Championship from 1973-1976.

Leo took two of the titles in 1973 and 1974, finally retiring from single-seaters at the end of 1974. He went out with a bang though. The 1974 AF2 Championship was one of the most closely contested and competitive openwheeler championships in Australia ever. ‘Van Heusen’ shirts tipped in good sponsorship and established F5000 aces and young thrusters made for some sensational racing. But wily Leo, at 38 still very fast took the title by 4 points from Aussie International Bob Muir in another Birrana.

Birrana Cars is a story for another time.

John Sheppard on Leo as a driver; ‘He was incredibly fast, as good as anyone he competed against capable of just not keeping up with but beating world champions. Leo in a way kept to himself, Pete was more ‘one of the boys’ so Leo and i didn’t discuss his career aspirations but he got a lot of satisfaction from racing with the drivers that he did; world class drivers. He was very precise, Pete would throw around what he was given, Leo used the same bit of road lap after lap, very consistent, precise and fast’.

R12 in Modern Times…

Leo focussed on the 59 but gave Formula Vee ace Bernie Haehnle a test of the 39 in the wet, at Amaroo Park in May 1970. With predictable results, poor Bernie took the left-rear corner off the car. The difference from a 40bhp Rennmax FV to 280bhp Tasman car in the wet would have been marked!

39 after Bernie Haehnle’s Amaroo Park 1970 shunt (D Simpson)

Leo G, 1970 Gold Star champion in his old car later in the year at Warwick Farm. 22 November. Lotus 39 Repco (Dick Simpson/oldracephotos.com)

The car was tidied up visually, Leo gave it a run at Warwick Farm late in the year in its original color scheme but still running a Repco engine, it was then offered for sale. The Repco engines on loan were returned to Melbourne and those owned by the Geoghegans sold. Australia’s sports-racing car fields were the beneficiaries of a surplus of ‘cheap’ 2.5 litre Repco V8’s; two Elfin 360’s and two Rennmax’s specifically.

Darryl Pearsall’s Lotus 39 Ford Twin-Cam ‘R12’ in the Winton, Victoria paddock in 1973/4 (oldracephotos.com)

The long racing life of R12 continued on for a year or so as an AF2 car, Darryl Pearsall the new owner. F2 then was a 1.6 litre, 2 valve class effectively mandating the Lotus/Ford Twin Cam. The car was fitted with a Twin-Cam and when sold was purchased by John Dawson-Damer for his superb collection of Lotus’s in 1976.

The car was restored to its original Coventry Climax FPF engined form and fortunately when sold after JDD’s death and realisation of some of his collection remained in Australia, fitting given the cars Australian history. It lives in Tasmania loved to bits by a lifelong Jim Clark fan, Chas Kelly.

Lotus 39 Climax ‘R12’ at the Longford Revival Meeting in April 2011. Restored but not over-restored, a balance we tend to get right in this country! (Ellis French)

Etcetera…

Clark Lotus 39.

Longford front row 1966. #1 Clark’s Lotus 39 Climax and the two BRM P261’s of Hill #2 and Stewart beside the fence (Ellis French)

Clark and mechanics looking typically relaxed during the Tasman. Here at Warwick Farm with R12. February 1966 (unattributed)

Click on this link for a lovely story related to the photo above about the ’66 Tasman.

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/45668

Geoghegan 39.

Leo G portrait circa 1963. Colors on helmet ‘Team Total’, the French oil company a strong supporter of motor racing in Australia at the time. Lotus 22 or 27 (Ray Berghouse)

Sandown Park paddock, Tasman ’67. Leo finished 2nd to Clark’s Lotus 33 Climax FWMV 2 litre V8 in ‘The Sandown Cup’. Nice shot shows the car in its Coventry Climax FPF engined/Castrol Racing colors. This is 26 February 1967, the Repco V8 was installed that April (Mike Feisst/The Roaring Season)

This is a nice shot of the 39 of the Repco 740 Series V8 installation, Surfers Tasman round in February 1968. Cooper S is that of top touring car driver John French (Rod MacKenzie)

These days the crowds are all over the ‘Taxis’, in the days of yore the focus was where it should be, on fast open-wheelers! Sandown paddock, am guessing Tasman Meeting 1969 (Jeff Morrall)

Leo’s Lotus dips under brakes for Creek Corner at the end of Hume Straight in 1970 (Lynton Hemer)

Lotus 39 business end in its Repco ‘740 Series’ 2.5 V8 days. 275bhp@8500rpm, the engine weighed 345lbs/157Kg. Gearbox Hewland HD5. Note Repco logo on LH cam cover, Smiths tacho drive on the RH cam cover. Lucas fuel injection, Bosch distributor between the Vee. 1967/8 (John Stanley)

Bibliography…

Thanks very much to John Sheppard for his time and recollections

Graham Howard and Ors ‘History of The Australian GP’, oldracingcars.com

Photo Credits…

Vintage Racecar, oldracephotos.com, Peter Schell, Dick Simpson, Bruce Wells, Habu, Mike Feisst/The Roaring Season, Lynton Hemer, Rod MacKenzie, Ellis French, John Stanley, Paul Hobson, Wayne McKay, Jeff Scriven Collection, Ray Berghouse, David Mist, John Sheppard, Brian McInerney, Jeff Nield/autopics.com.au, Tony Loxley ‘Tasman Cup’, Peter Windsor, Ian MacNeill, Paul Cross

Tailpiece: Leo takes Miss Queensland for a squirt around Lakeside in the family Lotus 23 Ford. Brother ‘Pete’ raced this car, not certain of the date, but 1965’ish…

Testing, Testing…

Posted: February 10, 2016 in F1, Fotos
Tags: 2013 F1 Season, 2013 Formula 1 Season, 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours, Jerez, Mark Webber, Porsche 919 Hybrid, Red Bull RB9 Renault

Mark Webber’s Red Bull in a great late afternoon shot at Circuito de Jerez, in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain on 6 February 2013…

Webber is grinding around honing the RB9 Renault chassis into a fine pitch before the start of the 2013 GP season, his last before departing to sportscar success with Porsche.

He is, pictured below in the Porsche 919 Hybrid he shared to 2nd place at Le Mans in 2015 with Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard, the Porsche trio of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb won the classic.

I have tried hard to find photos which show the efficient, complex, fast machines lines to best effect but no angle is a visually pleasing one.

Porsche 919 Hybrid; Chassis: composite carbon fibre honeycomb Suspension: front and rear multi link actuated by pushrods Steering: hydraulically assisted rack and pinion Brakes: carbon fibre discs front and rear: Wheels/Tyres Michelin 310/710mm-18inches in diameter front and rear Weight circa 870Kg. Engine: 2 litre V4 turbo developing circa 500bhp with accumulator type lithium-ion battery, with Engine Generator Unit developing circa 400bhp on front axle Transmission: rear wheel drive, all wheel drive via KERS on front axles, gearbox itself 7 speed sequential with hydraulic actuation (Getty)

Click here for a fantastic detailed technical description of this amazing car in ‘Racecar Engineering’…

Porsche 919 (9R9-2014)

Webber’s teammate Sebastian Vettel took the 2013 F1 title for the fourth year on the trot but it was a lean year for Mark in terms of race wins, he was second in Malaysia, Britain, Japan and Abu Dhabi and third in the drivers title chase behind Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Off to challenges anew in Stuttgart for Mark including the Drivers Title win for Webber, Hartley and Bernhardt for Porsche in 2016…

Le Mans 2015; Porsche 919, Mark Webber (Getty)

Credits…

Paul Gilham, Getty Images

Tailpiece: Webbers #17 Porsche 919 at Le Mans in 2015…

(Getty)

Motori Porno : Stackpipe BRM V8…

Posted: February 5, 2016 in F1, Features
Tags: 1962 Dutch Grand Prix, 1962 F1 Season, 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, 1966 Tasman Series, BRM P261, BRM P56 V8, BRM P57, BRM P60 V8, Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart

The ‘Stackpipe’ 1.5-litre P56 BRM V8 nestled in one of Graham Hill’s BRM P57/578 chassis’ during his and BRM’s victorious 1962 season…

This series of engines was immensely successful being competitive throughout the 1961-5 1.5-litre F1 and was a bit stiff not to have won the title on multiple occasions. Later in its life it became, in 1.9 and 2.1-litre capacities an effective Tasman Series weapon. It was victorious at 2.1 litres against new 3-litre F1 cars too, winning the 1966 Monaco GP Jackie for Stewart that May. Surely it’s one of GP racing’s great engines?

This is the first in an occasional series of articles focussing on engines, mind you, as usual it’s longer than intended. As is the case with most of my stuff the article is a function of a great photo (above) inspiring the piece rather than me thinking strategically about the relative merits of one engine to another in a particular era, and has grown a bit like Topsy over time!

Graham Hill’s P56 engined Stackpipe BRM P57/578 on its way to victory at Zandvoort, Dutch GP 1962, the engine’s first championship GP win (B Cahier)

Background…

BRM commenced the new 1.5-litre F1 in 1961 by using a Coventry Climax FPF Mark 2 engine, it’s ‘Project 56’ 1.5-litre V8 started late and was running behind schedule.

The teams long serving but ‘too dilettante’ technical director Peter Berthon was ‘shunted sideways’, seconded to work at the Harry Weslake Research consultancy in Rye, 280km away leaving Tony Rudd, his assistant, in charge.

By the time this 1960 Dutch GP change was effected, Berthon, with the assistance of consultant engineer Charles Amherst Villiers, an old school friend of BRM founder Raymond Mays and a long term associate of Berthon’s too, was already laying down the conceptual design and detailing of P56. The Shell oil companies research boffins also contributed their knowledge via a project they were completing at the time on ‘combustion in high speed transport engines’.

The great Tony Rudd in glasses overseeing Graham Hill’s P56 engined BRM P57 (DNF) with Cyril Atkins beside him. Dutch GP, Zandvoort 1963. It’s Jack Brabham in the helmet about to board his BT7 Climax DNF. I wonder if the chap closest to camera is Keith Duckworth? The back of that BRM is all-breathers, engine and gearbox isn’t it? Clark won the race in his Lotus 25 Climax (GP Library)

A core conceptual design foundation was efficiency at extremely high rpm by the standards of the time, and, for the first time BRM was to offer the engine for customer sale in addition to its works-role. There was money to be made, as Coventry Climax had proved in recent years by flogging engines to those with the readies. On Sir Alfred Owen’s insistence BRM were to contest that customer market.

In keeping with the BRM charter of using British suppliers if at all possible, Lucas’ new fuel injection system was chosen. Several design features of the old V16 were used including its timing gear, camshaft drives and similar con-rods, higher inertia loads of heavier pistons (than the V16) involved different big-end bolt arrangements though.

The engine was/is a 90 degree V8 with a bore and stroke of 68.1 x 50.88mm for a capacity of 1498cc, it’s heads and block cast in LM8 aluminium alloy. The sump was magnesium and the crank machined from nitrided EN40U alloy steel and ran in five Vandervell, 2.5 inch wide plain metal bearings. The cams, water pump and distributor for the transistorised ignition system were driven by gears off the crank’s nose.

P56 engine cross section showing gear train, ‘inverted cup tappets, which allowed cooling oil to reach valve springs. Exhaust valve guides in contact with water’. 90 degree V8, two valves per cylinder. First series cross-flow head engine shown (grandprixengines.co.uk)

Two ring die-cast pistons and forged con-rods were used initially but forged pistons with a different profile were experimented with later in the successful search for more power. Results justified Berthon’s original concept of minimising rotating and reciprocating mass with a very over-square bore/stroke ratio by the standards of the day to facilitate high rpm.

Up top the four cams ran in five roller bearings operating two inclined valves per cylinder via inverted tappets. Valve sizes were 1.5625 inch inlet, set at 45 degrees from the bore axis, and 1.20 inch exhaust, set at 30 degrees. Double valve springs were used and proved effective even at 11,000rpm, the valve-gear was designed for a maximum of 13,000rpm.

The new Lucas fuel injection system was of the port type, throttle slides were used after early butterfly throttles were tried and rejected. The compression ratio using mandated 100-octane fuel was 11.5:1. The fuel injected works engines claimed 10bhp more than the Weber carbed customer units in the first year. The metering unit was driven by a toothed rubber belt.

P56 V8 again 1962 first series cross-flow, two valve heads. two plane crank (grandprixengines.co.uk)

Lucas also provided the transistorised ignition system made necessary by 11,000 rpm. A conventional coil setup produced around 400 sparks per second, and a magneto 500 whereas the BRM needed 733 sparks per second at 11,000 rpm, a task the Lucas transistors achieved. Ignition timing was controlled by pole pieces mounted on the back of the flywheel in conjunction with a magnetic pick-up on the engine backplate. Current was provided by an alternator driven from the right-side inlet cam.

P56 in Trevor Taylor’s BRP Mk2 BRM, Belgian GP, Spa 1964. seventh in the race won by Clark’s Lotus 25 Climax (R Schlegelmilch)

The prototype P56 engine #5601 was assembled at Bourne in June 1961, without starter motor it weighed 251 pounds. On 12 July in the Folkingham Aerodrome test house it first burst into life.

A second engine was built and run at Monza, in practice only, in 1961. That engine, 5602, produced over 184bhp. During 1962 maximum power was 193bhp@10,250rpm, the engines dyno curves showed 110@6,000, 150@7,500, 173@9,000 and 190bhp@9,750rpm.

At Monza in 1962, Hills victorious P578’s P56 engine achieved 10.6 MPG. Graham Hill’s 1962 season is briefly covered in this article, click here for the link; https://primotipo.com/2014/10/12/graham-hill-brm-p57-german-gp-1962/

Initially the engines were fitted with separate individual megaphone exhausts raking back at near to vertical on each side but they fatigued during a race and progressively broke. A low level system made its debut at Spa in 1962 but by then the Stackpipe BRM label had stuck!

A cross-over exhaust and flat plane crankshaft liberated a bit more power as did new Shell low viscosity oils, by February 1963 the works engines gave 200bhp from 9,750-10,500rpm. Four valve heads were tried for 1964 but ‘flopped fearfully’. Reversed port two valve heads and between-the-Vee-exhausts at the Italian GP provided 208bhp @10,750rpm.

Eventually, by filling combustion chambers with weld and re-machining, trial and error stuff engine 5618 produced 220bhp@11,750rpm. This engine was used by Hill at the 1965 BRDC Trophy and became his regular engine thereafter, ‘maxxing’ at 222bhp.

For the sake of completeness the P56 engine family also includes the P60 used in various capacities for 2-litre sportscar, endurance, Tasman and hillclimbing competition as follows;
1965/6 1880cc, 1966 1916cc, 1966-7 1998cc and 1966-8 2070cc.

Jackie Stewart heads for the BRM P56 engine’s last championship GP win in his P261, 22 May 1966 in Monaco. He won from Lorenzo Bandini’s Ferrari Dino 246 and teammate Graham Hill’s P261. The BRM P261 was an exquisite, successful, long lived car. It was slippery and quick partially due to its power but also the small, beautifully packaged engine, its between-the-Vee-exhausts and compact ancillaries allowing the rear cowling which helped it slip thru the air (R Schlegelmilch)

Race Record…

The P56 and its big P60 brother was a remarkably long-lived engine at International level, let alone its national level wins.

The engines first International win was in the rear of Graham Hill’s BRM P57 in the 1962 Brussells GP on 1 April, its first Championship GP win the Dutch on 20 May 1962, its last Jackie Stewart’s 1966 Monaco GP victory in 1966 amongst the new 3-litre GP cars. Jackie Stewart also scored the engine’s last International win in taking the Australian GP at Warwick Farm on 19 February 1967 in his BRM P261.

This is the butt of Jackie Stewart’s BRM P261 #2614 pictured in the Warwick Farm paddock on 19 February 1967, the engine’s last International win. JYS won the AGP from Clark’s Lotus 33 Climax FWMV V8 and Frank Gardner’s Brabham BT16 Climax FPF. P60 engine now at 2070cc, the weak link of the car by then was the transmission which was struggling with power and torque for which it was not originally designed in 1.5 litre GP spec (M Feisst)

Pedro Rodriguez in the Longford pitlane in 1968, P261’s final race as a works entry (D Cooper)

The engine’s final entry as a works engine was in the back of Pedro Rodriguez’ P261 at the Longford Tasman round in March 1968, he was second to Piers Courage’ McLaren M4A Ford FVA.

During that period the engine won the 1962 Drivers and Constructors titles with Hill. Hill/BRM were second in both the drivers and constructors titles in ’63 to Clark/Lotus, in ’64 to Surtees/Ferrari and in ’65 again to Clark/Lotus. The BRM P261 won the 1966 Tasman Championship for Jackie Stewart in a dominant display, BRM won seven of the eight rounds.

For the sake of completeness the wins for the engine. Note that i have not included heat wins in Non-Championship events, only Finals are as below. What comes through strongly is just how much Hill.G’s career was intertwined with this engine and how smart it was to sell them to all-comers.

1962;

Championship; Dutch, German and Italian GPs, all Hill in BRM P57 chassis

Non-Championship; GP Brussells, Glover Trophy Goodwood, Intl Trophy Silverstone all Hill BRM P57, Crystal Palace Trophy Innes Ireland Lotus 24 BRM, Kanonloppet Karlskoga Masten Gregory Lotus 24 BRM

Piers Courage, BRM P261, Teretonga International, the most southerly race circuit in the world perhaps. NZ Tasman 28 January 1967. Piers DNF engine in the race won by Clark’s Lotus 33 Climax, teammate Richard Attwood was second in the other BRM (I Peak)

1963;

Championship; South African, Monaco and US GPs all Hill BRM P57

Non-Championship; Int Trophy and Aintree 200 both Hill BRM P57, Glover Trophy Ireland Lotus 24 BRM, GP Siracuse Siffert Lotus 24 BRM

1964;

Championship; Monaco and US GPs both Hill in BRM P261

Non-Championship; Daily Mirror Trophy Ireland BRP BRM, GP Mediterraneo Enna Siffert Brabham BT11 BRM, Rand GP Natal Hill Brabham BT11 BRM

1965;

Championship; Monaco and US GPs Hill, Italian GP Stewart all BRM P261

Non-Championship; Int Trophy Stewart BRM P261, GP Mediterraneo Siffert Brabham BT11 BRM

1966;

Championship; Monaco GP Stewart BRM P261

Tasman; Pukekohe NZGP and Lakeside AGP Hill and Wigram, Teretonga, Sandown and Longford rounds, Stewart all in BRM P261

1967;

Tasman: Pukekohe NZGP and Warwick Farm AGP both Stewart in BRM P261

Relaxed scene at Longford on the 5 March 1967 Tasman weekend. That’s JYS on the wheel of P261 2614, Clark’s Lotus 33 Climax is alongside. #9 is Spencer Martin’s Brabham BT11A Climax with his car owner Bob Jane the stocky little dude in the drivers suit beside Stewart. The nose of Chris Irwin’s P261 2616 is also clear. On raceday Jack Brabham’s BT23A Repco won the South Pacific Trophy from Clark and Irwin.

Etcetera…

BRM P60 power at the Lakeside, Australian Grand Prix Tasman round on 20 February 1966. JYS and Graham lead in BRM P261s, Clark in Lotus 39 Climax, Gardner’s yellow nosed Brabham BT11A Climax, Jim Palmer’s Lotus 32B Climax, Spencer Martin’s red Brabham BT11A, Leo Geoghegan’s white Lotus 32 Ford 1.5 and the rest. Hill won from Gardner and Clark

Graham Hill’s BRM P60 engined Lotus 33 at the 29 April 1967, BRDC Intl Trophy Silverstone. That’s Damon practicing in the cockpit! DNF but fastest lap, the race was won by Mike Parkes’ 3-litre Ferrari 312. Graham had just left BRM for Lotus for the ’67 season but not the P56/60 engine which gave him so much success! Lotus’ engine of choice for ’66 was the BRM H16 but Chapman used the V8s as a stopgap with the H16 running late. Chapman’s Lotus 33s comprised a 2-litre Climax engined chassis for Clark and 2070cc P60 BRM engined one for Graham

Bibliography…

The bibles on all things BRM are Doug Nye’s three books, hopefully Vol 4 is not too far away! This article is a précis of Nye’s article on the P56 engine in his seminal, sensational ‘History of the Grand Prix Car 1945-65’

Photo Credits…

Rainer Schlegelmilch, The GP Library, Cahier Archive, Ellis French, Mike Feisst Collection & Ian Peak Collection/The Roaring Season, G Howard and Ors ‘History of The Australian GP’, grandprixengines.co.uk, Dennis Cooper Collection, John Saltinstall Collection

Tailpiece: Top Fuel Dragster…

Trevor Taylor’s BRP Mk2 BRM and its P56 V8 at Spa in 1964. Taylor was seventh, the race was won by Clark’s Lotus 25 Climax. It’s interesting that the stackpipe exhausts were still being used by BRP this late when the low level exhausts were producing more power, budgets and all that no doubt…

Finito...

Le Mans French GP 1967: Powerrrr…

Posted: February 3, 2016 in F1, Fotos
Tags: 1967 French Grand Prix, Dan Gurney, Eagle T1G Weslake, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham Brabham BT24 Repco, Lotus 49 Ford

As Jeremy Clarkson would say. The 3 litre Formula 1 ushered in another era when a surfeit of power over chassis grip made the cars spectacular to watch and a challenge to drive…

Here Graham Hill #7 gets off pole with a minimum of Firestone wheelspin, not so Jack Brabham #3 and Dan Gurney #9, Repco V8 and Gurney-Weslake V12 leaving behind plenty of ‘Goodyear’. The noses of the cars behind are Clark’s yellow striped Lotus and Bruce McLaren in Dan’s second Eagle, his own car being not quite yet ready.

Bruce McLaren getting the feel of the Eagle T1G Weslake. Q5 and retired on lap 26 with ignition failure. He also raced the car at Silverstone and the Nurburgring (The Cahier Archive)

Dan was on top of his game, he won the Belgian Grand Prix a fortnight before in his Eagle T1G and Lotus the first race for the 49 and its Cosworth engine two weeks before that. But it was the ‘old stager’ Brabham who took the French Grand Prix win in his BT24 from teammate Denny Hulme and Jackie Stewart’s BRM P261.

Brabham’s BT24 ahead of Dan Gurney’s Eagle T1G DNF fuel line. Circuit Bugatti 1967 (unattributed)

The Automobile Club de France laid out a ‘pissant’ circuit built for the racing school which also used the start-finish straight of the classic 24 hour circuit but the ‘Circuit Bugatti’ had none of the atmosphere, grandeur or challenge of Reims, Rouen or Clermont Ferrand the other options available to them!

The ‘punters’ reacted accordingly, only 20000 showed up, the race was held at Rouen the following year.

Grid ready to go, G Hill popping on the Nomex, Bruce McLaren in an Eagle T1G and to his right Jochen Rindt’s Cooper T81B Maserati DNF engine (Getty)

#4 Hulme’s Brabham BT24 Repco 2nd in front of Jack’s car, #16 is Guy Ligier’s Cooper T81 Maserati N/Class. Le Mans paddock 1967. How small, light and neat do those BT24’s look? Champions in ’67 of course with Hulme D (unattributed)

Superb shot of Chris Amon’s Ferrari 312. He qualified 7th and ran as high as 3rd before the throttle cable broke at half distance (Sutton)

Jack lookin’ pretty happy with a good days work in his BT24 Repco both before the race and after its successful conclusion…

(Getty)

Credits: The Cahier Archive, Getty Images, Sutton Images

Tailpiece: You can take the Racing Driver out of the Engineer…

Ever the engineer Bruce helps with a plug change on his Weslake V12. Le Mans 1967 (Getty Images)

Shell Ad 1962…

Posted: January 31, 2016 in F1, Fotos
Tags: Shell Ad 1962

Often the more subtle ads are the most effective? From Automobile Year #10…

Chuck’s T-Bird…

Posted: January 27, 2016 in F1, Sports Racers
Tags: 1958 LA Times GP Riverside, 1959 Sebring 12 Hour, 1960 Grand Prix Season, 1960 Le Mans, 1962 Sandown International, Chaparral 1 Chev, Chuck Daigh, Ferrari 250TR/59, Ford Thunderbird, Maserati T61 Birdcage, Scarab F1, Scarab Mk2 Chev, Scarab RE Buick

(Racing One)

Chuck Daigh rumbles his big Ford Thunderbird across Daytona Beach during the February 1956 Speed Trials…

Born in Long Beach, California on 29 November 1923 he commenced fiddling with cars at his fathers garage business. Whilst still at High School, he ‘ran’ a Union Oil garage in Long Beach close to his home in Paramount. Both he and his older brother were typical ‘hot-rodders’, prior to WW II they ran at the Dry Lakes, one of the cars the marriage of an A-Model Ford chassis and Alfa Romeo engine.

Purple Heart Winner…

Prior to enlisting in the Army he worked for Morrison-Knudsen to build the Long Beach breakwater.

He served as a paratrooper in the ‘517th Regiment/82nd Airborne’ during WW II seeing action in France, Belgium and Germany, including fighting in ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ in the Ardennes Forest where he was later to race a Scarab at Spa-Francorchamps in 1960.

He was a remarkable leader and brave soldier awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Medal and a Purple Heart for heroic acts in 1944, he was shot in Luxembourg and ‘mustered out’ of the army in 1945.

Chuck Daigh in his Scarab F1 car during the teams fraught 1960 GP season, very wet! place and date unrecorded. Check out the ‘Reventlow Automobiles Inc’ logo on the cars scuttle (Popperfoto)

Post war he worked for Bill Stroppe preparing the Bob Estes entered Lincolns for the Carrera Panamerica Mexican road race. He was the co-driver on three occasions, in 1952 and 1953 with Walt Faulkner, finishing 8th in 1953, and with Chuck Stevenson in 1954 when they didn’t finish.

By this stage Daigh’s engineering capabilities were widely known and highly respected, Carroll Shelby remarked; ‘There are only two people i can think of who can sit down, take a welding torch, build their own chassis, go out and test it and then win races with it. They are Jack Brabham and Chuck Daigh. I put Chuck in the same category as Jack.’ Shelby was well placed to judge, he engaged Daigh as Shelby American’s carburetion expert on its ongoing Ford GT40 campaign in both North America and in Europe after Chuck’s driving days were over in the early-mid sixties.

He started road racing in the mid-fifties, his first sportscar race was at Moffet Field, California in 1953 driving Jim Lowe’s Frazer Nash. He ran a modified Kurtis 500S Lincoln special owned by Frank Kurtis, winning the Willow Springs and Santa Barbara sports car races in 1954. He also won races at Paramount Ranch and Santa Barbara driving the Troutman-Barnes Ford powered sports car.

In the early SCCA days drivers were suspended for racing professionally. Chuck occasionally raced in USAC pro stock car events as ‘Charles George’ to avoid the SCCA’s wrath, setting a lap record in the USAC 250 Mile Stock Car Race in September 1957 on the Milwaukee Mile at 90.614 mph.

He joined Pete DePaolo Engineering, chosen in 1957 by Ford for an assault on the Daytona Beach Speed Week Trials in February. Chuck managed the works supported Ford stock car team and helped build the 4 special Thunderbirds nicknamed ‘Battlebirds’ achieving better than 200mph in one of the T-Birds, the first to do so.

RAI’s race shop in Culver City, LA October 1958, 2 Scarab Mk2 Chevs being fettled. Note superb standard of workmanship. Spaceframe chassis and bracing from drivers back bulkhead via the roll bar to the rear unusual for the day, huge finned brake drums, front wishbone IFS, you can just see the end of the de Dion tube @ rear and its locating linkages. Beautiful, huge ally fuel tank. Angle of steering wheel naff! and uncomfortable no doubt. Halibrand alloy wheels on the floor (Bill Bridges)

Later he worked for the Rathmann Chevrolet NASCAR stock car team until its demise then joining Lance Reventlow, on the Scarab Sports Car and Formula One projects. Chuck was engaged as number 1 driver and chief mechanic/engineer.

The FIA announced a 3-litre limit for the World Sports Car Championship from the start of 1958 so the Chevrolet-engined sports car had to run in SCCA races rather than internationally as originally planned by Reventlow in 1957.

The Scarabs were all superbly built and prepared and dominated the opposition in ‘B Modified’. Daigh beat Phil Hill’s Ferrari at Riverside and also won the Governor’s Cup, beating Hansgen’s Lister, and the Nassau Trophy sharing the drive with Reventlow in 1958.

The purpose of this article is Daigh’s career not the fabulous Scarab’s of which Daigh played a key roll, albeit i get a bit carried away with the Scarab RE later in the article. The Scarab’s are topics for another time.

Daigh #5 and Reventlow #3 back to camera in blue helmet, ‘saddle up’ their Scarab Mk2 Chevs prior to Chucks 1958 Riverside LA Times GP win. Spaceframe chassis, Chev injected V8’s of varying capacities, wishbone front IFS and de Dion rear suspension with Watts linkage, huge finned drum brakes, Borg Warner 4 speed ‘box all clad in the sexiest body this side of Northern Italy (unattributed)

Daigh, Scarab Mk2 Chev, LA Times GP Riverside 1958, he looks lonely out there! (Dave Friedman)

Celebrating his 1958 Riverside LA Times US GP Sportscars win in October 1958 with his children. Guy at left is the promoter and famous entrant JC Agajanian (The Enthusiast Network)

Daigh in the Scarab Mk2 Chev during the Nassau Speedweek in early December 1958, Lance Reventlow had the luck at this meeting, but Chuck shared Lance’s car after his car, this one retired with driveshaft failure to win the ‘Nassau Trophy’. Superb lines of the car obvious, Scarab derivative of everything at the time in terms of its styling but individual with it (Dave Friedman)

In 1959 he co-drove the winning Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa/59 at Sebring sharing the factory car with Dan Gurney, Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien. Gurney said of Daigh; ‘ Chuck was not only a good engineer, but he could also drive the wheels off a car. When i got into racing, i soon found out who the real heavyweights were, in those days Chuck was like a god to us.’

Gurney/P Hill/Gendebien/Daigh factory Ferrari 250TR winning the 1959 Sebring 12 Hour (Dave Friedman)

He also attempted to qualify for the the Indianapolis 500 in 1959, in fact he had three qualification attempts, never contesting the event with inferior equipment the problem. In July he drove a Maserati 250F at Lime Rock in July, finishing 2nd in the 60 lap final having posted two 3rd’s in the heats.

Nassau Speedweek 1958, Daigh facing this way, Reventlow left smiling and winning the ‘Governors Trophy’ and ‘Nassau Trophy’, the latter with Daigh sharing the drive in a Scarab Mk2 Chev. Carroll Shelby to the right of the fella with the hat, drove a Maser 450S in the ‘Nassau Trophy’ DNF. They all look fairly ‘chillaxed’! (Dave Friedman)

By the time the front-engined Scarab F1 car appeared at Monaco in 1960 it was obsolete, the first rear-engined Cooper Climax GP victory was in the 1958 Argentinian Grand Prix.

Quite why Reventlow thought a front-engined car was ‘the go’ by then is a topic to explore separately in some articles about the fabulous Scarabs themselves; Lance raced for most of 1957 in the UK including a number of F2 events in a Cooper T43 Climax so had a first-hand experience of the new generation of mid-engined single-seaters. The ‘writing was surely on the wall’ by the time the key decisions about the conceptual design of the Scarab GP car were determined…mind you no less than Colin Chapman built the front-engined Lotus 16 in 1959 i guess! Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Reventlow racing a Cooper T43 Climax FWB at an F2 event at Crystal Palace, and signing a few autographs on 10 June 1957. 6th in the ‘London Trophy’ won by Brabham’s works T43 FPF. Having raced a mid-engined car how could you not build your F1 car in the same configuration?! (Ron Burton)

Scarab GP; spaceframe chassis, IFS front by wishbones and coil spring/dampers, IFS rear suspension with wide based lower wishbone and coil spring/dampers, drum brakes all round, 4 cylinder DOHC, injected Offenhauser built engine, circa 220bhp@7500rpm, Borg Warner 4 speed ‘box (unattributed)

(B Thatcher)

Both Reventlow and Daigh struggled, the GP car was withdrawn before the seasons end but raced in the US GP at Riverside to keep the faith with local fans. Daigh drove the third works Cooper T51 at the British GP in 1960, having proved the quicker of he and Reventlow who also tested the car, qualifying 19th and retiring on lap 3 with an overheating engine.

Daigh showed enough promise in very difficult circumstances to have a decent GP drive in 1961, its a shame that did not occur.

Monaco GP 1960, the Scarabs race debut. #46 Reventlow, #48 Daigh. The 2.5 litre DOHC, fuel injected 4 cylinder/spaceframe chassis cars impressed all with their build quality and finish if not their weight and speed. Indicative of the paradigm shift was Ferrari racing their first mid-engined car, the 246P at this meeting; even the most conservative of manufacturers were testing the waters with a view to change, the Scarab’s were at least 2 years too late (Dave Friedman)

Daigh Monaco 1960. Both cars DNQ, Stirling Moss also did some laps of the Scarab in practice to give his opinions of the car. The difference between his light, nimble mid-engined Lotus 18 Climax and heavy front engined Scarab complete… (Dave Friedman)

Daigh at Monaco, nice profile shot of the big Scarab (Dave Friedman)

Zandvoort, Scarab Dutch GP 1960, Daigh here in practice. The Scarabs didn’t race after a squabble with the organisers over start money resulted in 4 cars electing not to take the grid (unattributed)

Richie Ginther and Daigh at Zandvoort (Dave Friedman)

Spa, Belgian GP 1960. Daigh Q17 and retired his Scarab on lap 16 with engine failure. RHF wheel off the deck on this fast, daunting circuit (unattributed)

Riverside, November 1960 USGP. Daigh Q18, 10th in the cars only GP finish having missed the French, German, Italian and Portuguese GP’s. Reventlow quickly realised they were ‘on a hiding to nothing’, the paradigm had moved on but the car raced for the American fans in California, RAI’s base in Venice Beach, LA (unattributed)

In 1960 Daigh also raced Lucky Casner’s ‘Camoradi’ Maserati Tipo 61 ‘Streamliner’ at Le Mans with Masten Gregory. In practice the car topped 170 mph on the Mulsanne, 10 mph faster than the next quickest.

Gregory couldn’t get the car underway, finally departing in 24th place. By the end of the Mulsanne Straight he was in the lead! At the first driver change the starter motor failed, an hour later Chuck returned to the track. Over the next four hours they took two laps back from the leader but on lap 82 retired officially with ‘electrical problems’, although it appears that Gregory was driving when the engine failed. Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill won the race in a Ferrari 250TR59/60.

Gregory/Daigh Maserati Tipo 61, Le Mans 1960 (Klemantaski)

In 1961 the Scarab F1 contested the European InterContinental Formula, a class created to allow the 2.5 litre GP cars to race, the class’ upper limit was 3 litres.

Chuck finished 8th at Goodwood in the Lavant Cup and 7th in the wet International Trophy Silverstone race. In practice for the British Empire Trophy at Silverstone he crashed sustaining a cracked pelvis in a bad accident. And that was that as far as the GP car was concerned, RAI raced it no more.

Chuck Daigh, Scarab, Lavant Cup, Intercontinental Formula race, Goodwood 1961 (unattributed)

Daigh recovered from his Silverstone shunt and raced Jim Hall’s Chaparral 1 at Sebring in 1962, the Chev engined car strongly derivative of, and developed with the knowledge gained by the Troutman/Barnes duo on the earlier Scarab sportscar program. It was co-driven by Daigh, Hap Sharp, Ronnie Hissom and of course Jim Hall to 6th place, the race won by the Bonnier/Bianchi Ferrari 250TR/61.

The Sharp/Hall/Hissom/Daigh Chaparral 1 Chev at Sebring in 1962 (unattributed)

‘Formula 366’ was being explored as a single-seater class at the time and was a precursor to Formula A in proposing cars with a mix of stock-block 5 litre and 3 litre racing engines.

The proposed/possible class was well suited to Reventlow Automobiles knowledge of stock-block V8’s, so they built a spaceframe chassis, mid-engined car powered by the then new, light aluminium Buick V8, a Colotti 5 speed transaxle the other key component. The Scarab RE Buick with its Travers/Coons modified 3.9 litre V8 was shipped out of LA, RAI’s base at 1042 Princeton Drive, Venice on Culver City’s ‘Speed Alley’ and set off for Australia to race. Lance wanted to build cars commercially, to sell the cars he needed to demonstrate the strength of his product so a one-off race in far away Australia with Daigh strutting its stuff against a world class field made sense. He was punting on ‘Formula 366’ getting up but then again money was no object!

In those Pre-Tasman 2.5 litre formula days Australian National Formula 1 was Formula Libre. The promoters of brand new Sandown Park were happy to assist Lance Reventlow’s booming V8 Scarab to attend the circuits opening meeting in amongst the mainly 4-cylinder Coventry Climax engined hordes on 12 March 1962.

Drivers gather before the start of the 1962 ‘Sandown International’, the dudes in uniforms are members of the band. L>R; orange clad Daigh, dark blue jumpered McLaren, nattily dressed Reventlow, light haired John Youl at rear, with a flat-cap official type chap. Roy Salvadori in front of Youl, Lex Davison in the light colored flat-cap. To his right Jim Clark, a balding Angus Hyslop beside and behind Jimmy, the similarly hirsute Stirling Moss in front of Hyslop, obscured Ron Flockhart, (shortly thereafter in April to die 25Km away in the Dandenong Ranges when his Mustang P51 ex-fighter crashed shortly after take off on a record breaking attempt to Europe) sports-blazered Bib Stillwell, then Doug Whiteford behind Jack Brabham, Bill Patterson and far right Austin Miller (John Ellacott)

Other entrants included Jack Brabham, John Surtees, Bruce McLaren, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Roy Salvadori, Ron Flockhart and others.

Jill St John was Reventlow’s wife at the time, sleepy Melbourne was abuzz with the attendance of a Woolworth’s Heir and his glamorous actress wife to the suburban wilds of Sandown Park. The ‘Movie Star’ was all great stuff for the local tabloids so there were plenty of ‘bums on seats’ during the race weekend pleasing the Light Car Club of Australia, the promoters, no end.

(John Ellacott)

Jack won the ‘Sandown Park International’ in a Cooper T55 from Surtees and McLaren in Cooper T53’s all three cars powered by 2.7 litre Coventry Climax ‘Indy’ 2.7 litre engines. Daigh gave a very good account of himself, the brand new car qualifying on the front-row of the grid alongside Brabham and John Surtees. The cars straight-line grunt was impressive and exhaust note despite running rudimentary mufflers outstanding, its performance under brakes, into and through corners was inferior to the well-developed Cooper hordes; Chuck was 4 th, with the cars potential clear.

Sandown International grid; Surtees on the outside (left), Daigh’s Scarab the meat in a Cooper sandwich, Jack on the inside on pole (autopics.com)

#5 Daigh’s 3.9 litre V8 Scarab RE Buick at Sandown, attractive, effective first attempt at a mid-engined car. It looks long but isn’t, wheelbase at 91 inches 1 inch longer than a T51 Cooper. Yellow Cooper Austin Millers T51 Chev engined car DNF and #9 Bill Patterson’s Cooper T51 Climax 7th (John Ellacott)

In the wider scheme of things in terms of the machinations of the CSI’s decisions making about future racing classes, Formula 366 didn’t eventuate, Sandown was the RE’s only race although the learnings of a mid-engined V8 racer were applied by RAI to its successful Mk4 Scarab Sportscar.

‘Sports Car World’ clipping, date wrong. Daigh, ‘Sandown Park International’ 1962

Historically significant photo; Jack Brabham is taking a close look at the Scarab RE’s 3.9 litre aluminium Buick V8, the first time he had seen one. The sister engine to this, the ‘Oldsmobile F85’ was the basis of Brabham’s Repco Brabham ‘RB620’ 1966 World Championship winning 3 Litre GP engine (Jack Brabham by Doug Nye)

Chuck worked for Frank Arciero in 1963. He rebuilt their Lotus 19’s Coventry Climax FPF engine and won the Player’s 200 at Mosport beating a class field including Graham Hill, Parnelli Jones and Roger Penske.

Outside racing…

Chuck married in 1950 and had two children, Denise and Daniel. His interests extended outside car motor-racing to offshore ocean boat racing having a successful career in ‘Thunderball’ and other powerful craft.

One of his last projects was construction of a Flat-Head Ford ‘Lakester’ to try to break the class land speed record. he didn’t complete it passing away at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, California after suffering a brief heart and respiratory illness, on 29 April 2008 at 84.

A remarkable man and World Class soldier, engineer and driver.

Etcetera: Scarab RE Buick ‘Intercontinental’ Sales Promotional Brochure…

Bibliography/Photo Credits…

historicracing.com, racing.nimmo.com, Dave Friedman Archive, Getty Image, Bill Bridges, Popperfoto, The Enthusiast Network, Ron Burton, John Ellacot, Klemantaski Collection, autopics.com, B Thatcher

Tailpiece: Chuck Daigh cruisin’ the dusty Sandown Paddock in the Scarab RE Buick and its wonderful 3.9 litre Coons/Travers built V8…

(John Ellacott)

Finito…

Patrick Depailler Formula 3/2 Years…

Posted: January 22, 2016 in F1
Tags: 1971 European F3 Cup, 1972 F3 Monaco Grand Prix, 1972 French Grand Prix, 1973 European F2 Championship, 1974 European F2 Championship, Alpine A360 Renault, Alpine A364 Renault, Elf2/Alpine A367 Ford, March 742 BMW, Patrick Depailler, Tecno TF71 Ford, Tyrrell 004 Ford

Jean Redele’s Dieppe ‘Alpine’ workshops evolved into Renault’s competition arm from the early 1950’s and were absorbed by the Regie in 1973. The F3 A360 had a spaceframe chassis, Renault R16 based pushrod OHV engine giving circa 120-125 bhp breathing thru the mandatory F3 air restrictor. Gearbox 5 speed Hewland Mk8 (Mike Fairholme)

Patrick Depailler slices through the Thruxton chicane in his Alpine A360 Renault on 19 September 1971 during his victorious French F3 season…

At last really! He had been thrashing around in F3 since 1967; he was 5th in the ’67 French Championship won by Henri Pescarolo, 6th in the ’68 title won by Francois Cevert and 4th in ’69 when Francois Mazet won.

1968 Monaco GP winner Jean Pierrer Jaussaud smiles at camera before the off, he won in a Tecno 68 Ford, Depailler sits on the tyre of his Alpine A330 Renault (DNF crash) and Ronnie Peterson is in the yellow Tecno 68 Ford 3rd. # 57 is Charlie Lucas’ Titan Mk3 Ford DNF. Ronnie won the race in ’69 and PD in 1972. Jaussaud very fast in single seaters and victorious at Le Mans twice; in a Renault Alpine in ’78 with Didi Pironi and a Rondeau Ford with Jean Rondeau in 1980 (Schlegelmilch)

Monaco F3 GP 1968, Peterson’s Tecno in front of Depailler’s Alpine, chassis as per pic above (unattributed)

In 1970 Depailler did some F2 events in a Pygmee and Tecno and then stepped back to F3 in 1971 taking the French title from Jean-Pierre Jabouille also Alpine A360 mounted.

Just look at that roll call of French drivers at the time fuelled by a mix of the Volant Shell drivers program, Elf, Matra funding and talent!

European F2 championship1970, here at Rouen in Pygmee MDB15 Ford FVA, DNQ in the race won by Jo Siffert’s BMW 270 (unattributed)

F2 Pygmee MDB15 Ford with PD left of cockpit. Marius Dal Bo (MDB) built around 42 F3 and F2 cars from 1965 to 1973 in Annecy, France, initially to provide more competitive cars for his son Patrick. 4 MDB15 F2 cars were built in 1970, the cars aluminium monocoques of the day using the circa 215bhp 1.6 Ford FVA engine and Hewland FT200 gearbox (unattributed)

The F3 event pictured at the articles outset is a team one ‘The European F3 Cup’ held at Thruxton won by a French Team comprising Pierre-Francois Rousselot, Jacques Coulon and Jean-Louis Lafosse. Depailler was in the second placed team along with Jean-Pierre Jabouille. Other future F1 drivers contesting the event representing their respective countries included Alan Jones, Vern Schuppan, James Hunt, Roger Williamson, Jochen Mass and Conny Andersson.

The individual finishing order of the talent filled Thruxton race was Rousselot in a Brabham BT35 Ford from Depailler with Brit Barrie Maskell third in a Chevron B18 Ford.

I tripped over the shot of PD researching an article on Dave Walker, an F3 contemporary of Patricks who took a similar length of time to break free from the F3 ruck, what a tough school of talent it then was. And has always been I guess.

Walker perhaps peaked in F3, noting the twice badly broken arm which impacted him from ’73 whereas perhaps PD never really peaked, he improved as time went on right until that fateful day at Hockenheim in 1981? James Hunt was another who was ‘thereabouts’ in F3 and peaked in F1. Conversely Jan Magnussen an example of unfulfilled F3 promise in F1 from a more recent era.

Depailler contested the Hockenheim, Thruxton, Pau and Nurburgring (here) rounds of the 1971 Euro F2 Championship in a Tecno TF71 Ford, he was classified 21st having retired with a loss of oil pressure, Francois Cevert won in another Tecno TF71. Ronnie Peterson took the title that year, the last of the 1.6 Litre F2 in a factory March 712M Ford FVA (Schlegelmilch)

PD on his way to winning the Monaco F3 GP in 1972, he is ahead of Michel Leclere (6th) here, both in Alpine A364 Renaults. (unattributed)

In 1972 Depailler contested the European F2 Championship finishing 3rd in a March 722 Ford, winning the Enna round. Mike Hailwood won that year in a Surtees TS10 Ford…but not completely done with F3 stepped back into an Alpine and won the Monaco F3 GP, the F3 race which matters beyond all others.

He also made his F1 debut with Tyrrell in the French Grand Prix at Clermont Ferrand in July.

He qualified the Tyrrell 004 16th of 24 starters and was non-classified with mechanical problems. It was a strong debut with Patrick invited to drive a third car for Tyrrell again at the season ending US GP at Watkins Glen, he finished 7th having qualified 11th with teammates Jackie Stewart and Francois Cevert 1st and 2nd in a great day for the team, the Tyrrell regulars in the later 005/006 chassis.

F1 Tyrrell oo4 Ford test for PD prior to French GP, circuit unknown, interested to know if anyone does (unattributed)

Depailler contested the 1973 Euro F2 Championship in an Elf2/Alpine A367 Ford finishing 3rd in the title won by Jean-Pierre Jarier’s factory March 732 BMW. Here PD #9 on pole for the 5 May 1973 Pau GP, alongside is Tino Brambilla’s March 732 BMW, DNF. Winner Francois Cevert is behind PD in the other John Coombs entered Elf2/Alpine A367. Alongside Cevert is Roger Williamson’s white GRD 372 Ford 7th, the red car is Jarier’s 2nd placed STP March 732 BMW and the other orange Beta March 732 behind Jarier is Vittoria Brambilla, DNF (unattributed)

Patrick stepped up to F1 full time in 1974 together with Jody Scheckter joining Tyrrell taking the seats vacated by Jackie Stewart’s retirement and Francois Cevert’s sad death at Watkins Glen in late 1973. An article about his F1 career is for another time.

Above and below photos, PD Tyrrell 004 Ford, French GP, Clermont Ferrand 2 July 1972. GP debut (Schlegelmilch)

As well as a full season of Grand Prix racing he scored one of the two prized works March F2 seats in 1974 having finished third in 1973 in an Elf 2/Alpine A367 Hart.

He and Hans Stuck in the other works March 742 BMW slugged it out all year with Hans taking the first two wins of the season and Patrick the better results from then on winning at Pau, Mugello, Karlskoga, Hockemheim, Vallelunga and with it the title.

PD March 742 BMW, Rouen Euro F2 round 30 June 1974, 7th in the race won by teammate Hans Stuck (unattributed)

Patrick Depailler was a personal favourite of the era; he was one of those guys who loved racing for its own sake, raced for the love of it, if championships came along then well and good but it was all about being a professional driver, racing and enjoying life with all of its elements.

Ken Tyrrell had this to say of the Frenchman;’ In a lot of ways Patrick was like a little boy all of his life. He was always wanting to go skiing or motorcycling or hang gliding. And he had this trusting belief in the end that everything would be alright; when he was driving for me full-time i had it written into his contract that he had to keep away from dangerous toys.’

A driver of another era perhaps, an incredibly talented and charismatic one at that…

Depailler at Rouen in the cockpit of his March 742 BMW in June 1974. BMW engine guru, designer of the 2 litre, 4 valve 290 bhp M12 engine powering the March, Paul Rosche taking the notes (unattributed)

Etcetera: Tyrrell 007 Ford, Nurburgring 1976…

(Getty)

Credits…

Mike Fairholme, Rainer Schlegelmilch

Tailpiece: Renault Alpine Ad circa 1969

Surtees First Car Races…

Posted: January 18, 2016 in F1, Obscurities
Tags: 1956 Isle of Man Senior TT, 1960 BARC Members Meeting Goodwood, 1960 Oulton Park Trophy, Cooper T51 Climax, Cooper T52 BMC, John Surtees, John Surtees First Car Race, MV 500

(Getty)

John Surtees smiles for the cameras with his Ken Tyrrell Racing Cooper T51 Climax in April 1960…

The much anticipated switch of the British multiple bike champion to four wheels took place when he contested the Formula Junior races at the ‘BARC Members Meeting’ at Goodwood on 19 March 1960.

Ken Tyrrell entered him in a Cooper T52 BMC, the ‘novice’ raced into second between the Team Lotus duo of Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor both mounted in Lotus 18 Fords, more competitive cars. The field also included other later GP drivers Peter Arundell and Mike Spence.

John Surtees, Cooper T52 BMC FJ, Goodwood, 19 March 1960 (Getty)

It was a great debut so why not jump into the deep end?

The Non-Championship F1 ‘Oulton Park Trophy’ took place at the Cheshire circuit on 2 April, with limited testing the talented Brit took on a field of some depth, starting the race from pole and again finishing second. Innes Ireland took the win in a Team Lotus 18 Climax with the very experienced Roy Salvadori third in another Cooper T51 Climax. The field also included Harry Schell and Chris Bristow.

Surtees had arrived in cars! He mixed racing two wheels and four in 1960 but focussed on cars from 1961…

Photo Credits…

Getty Images

Tailpiece…

Surtees winning the Isle of Man Senior TT in 1956. MV Agusta 500 (Getty)

Shadow DN7 Matra…

Posted: January 15, 2016 in F1, Features, Obscurities
Tags: 1975 Austrian Grand Prix, 1975 Italian Grand Prix, 1975 US Grand Prix, Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Ligier JS5 Matra, Shadow DN5 Ford, Shadow DN7 Matra, Tom Pryce, Tony Southgate

Jean Pierre Jarier nips a front brake during qualifying for the 1975 Italian Grand Prix, pushing his Shadow DN7 Matra ever so hard…

One of the revelations of the early 1975 GP season was the speed of the new Shadow DN5 Ford, an evolution of the 1973/4 DN1 and DN3 designs penned by Tony Southgate. Frenchie Jean Pierre Jarier rocked the socks off the established aces setting a time eight-tenths/second clear of the rest of the season opening Argentinian GP grid.

There were mutterings of Shadow getting development Cosworth engines but the truth was an aero tweak which is indicative of the importance of aerodynamics over the coming years.

Tony Southgate, ‘ I spent half my life doing aero at Imperial College and DN5 was the first to use the new rolling road wind tunnel, as far as i know, the first in the world. What we discovered was a massive split, front to back, in downforce. People always thought they had about 30-40% on the front. In fact it was no more than 20. And only we knew.’

Southgate moved the driver forward 2.5 inches within a longer wheelbase (with removable spacer between engine and gearbox), developed deeper nose fins and placed the front springs and dampers inboard.

‘The car was an aero jump. We matched downforce to its static weight distribution-about 35/65% front/rear – and the spacer allowed us to tune the chassis to different circuits; we would find 1.25 seconds at Silverstone just by removing it. Immediately it was clear that our car had more downforce than the others and was very well balanced. In its short chassis specification Jarier was taking the fast bend after the pits at Interlagos, Brazil without lifting…’

shadow paul ricard — Shadow hierachy at an early 1975 season Paul Ricard DN5 Ford test. L>R Chief Mechanic Phil Kerr, Tom Pryce, JP Jarier, Team Manager Alan Rees, Tony Southgate and El Capitano Don Nichols (unattributed)

pjpj argentina — JPJ Shadow DN5 Ford, Argentina 1975. Pole and DNS with CWP failure on the warm up lap (unattributed)

Despite being on pole in Argentina, raceday was a disaster with a crown wheel and pinion failing on the warm-up lap. ‘I had been pursuaded to use Hewland’s latest TL200 gearbox instead of the FGA400, I think we and Copersucar did so. It was meant to be more reliable, with helical gears 20% stronger and more bearings in the pinion shaft, improper heat treatment was blamed for the failure’.

In Brazil Jarier was running away with the race from pole when the metering arm of the Lucas injection unit seized. In fact JPJ’s season was a mix of spins and mechanical failures, teammate Tom Pryce getting the better results with a win in the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch and third in the Austrian GP after qualifying on pole for the British GP before retiring from the lead.

Southgate; ‘Our budget was tight and there was little development left of the car. It wasn’t good on fast circuits where we had to unbolt downforce so we weren’t swamped on the straights. Plus better funded teams cottoned onto what we were doing and were ringing Imperial College to ask if they could use its wind tunnel.’

‘Shadow’s Grand Prix results for 1975 were very disappointing, especially in view of the competitiveness of the DN5. Our finishing record was simply poor. The cars either broke down or crashed. Jarier only finished two Grands Prix for the year. Pryce’s statistics were better, but he still only finished six GP’s…I often think that, if the DN5 had been prepared and raced by one of the top teams it would have won the Championship.’ said Southgate in his autobiography.

pryce brands — Tom Pryce on his way to winning the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch on 16 March 1975 from pole, the Welshman’s only F1 win sadly. He won from John Watson’s Surtees TS16 Ford and Ronnie Peterson’s Lotus 72E Ford. The field included Ickx, Scheckter, Emerson Fittipaldi, Mass, Donohue and others, it was a great win for both him and the DN5 in a classy field (Autosport)

The Ford Cosworth DFV and alternative engines…

The diligence of team owner, Don Nichols’ designer had given the team the ‘unfair advantage’ of which Mark Donohue spoke so eloquently, with a car whose origins dated back to Shadow’s first year in GP racing in 1973. Whilst Southgate pursued this aero approach Nichols eventually concluded discussions with Matra to use its glorious V12 in a modified DN5 chassis christened the DN7.

The Ford Cosworth DFV 3 litre V8 was the dominant engine of the 3-litre formula, by the end of 1974 it had taken drivers titles in 1968/9 and 1970-4 but Ferrari’s speed in 1974 gave pause for many team managers – Cosworth users – to find an alternative which allowed them to leap clear of the garagiste pack as Enzo Ferrari christened the British Cosworth/Hewland hordes! The DFV was a tough proposition to beat given its blend of power, packaging, weight, economy, reliability, price and Cosworth’s servicing backup.

Shadow DN7 Matra. Type 73 3-litre V12 – circa 500bhp – engine installation at Monza in September1975. Note single plugs and distributor driven off the rear of the inlet camshaft, also exhausts and neat brackets to which the top radius rod at the front and shock/spring mount attaches at the rear – the main bracket runs the length of the cylinder head. You can just see the roll bar behind the spring, radiator header tank also clear (MotorSport)

The obvious alternatives were the Matra V12 and Alfa Romeo Flat-12, both 3-litre endurance engines, and the venerable BRM V12. The latter was easily ruled out as being way past its prime, the BRM P207 was a sad joke in 1974/5 for all concerned. The Matra and Alfa were successful endurance engines. In the event BC Eccclestone, then Brabham’s owner, did a deal to use Alfa engines from 1976 whilst Nichols pursued the Matra option.

While the French V12 last appeared in GP racing in Matra MS120s driven by Chris Amon in 1972, the engine had been continually developed as an endurance unit. Given Matra’s Le Mans wins from 1972-74 and a whole swag of other endurance events; so it was not too difficult to adapt Matra’s learnings to a sprint-spec of the engine, from whence it originated in any event way back in 1968.

silverstone — Silverstone Shadow DN7 Matra first test, July 1975 (unattributed)

Evolving the DN5 Ford into the DN7 Matra…

Whilst commercial negotiations dragged on between Nichols and Matra, Southgate and his team focussed on keeping the DN5 competitive while concepting the DN7, which was essentially a DN5 adapted to fit the longer, heavier, thirstier but more powerful V12.

Major differences were increased fuel tankage and a longer wheelbase, otherwise the key elements of both cars – chassis, body, aero and inboard front suspension by rockers, conventional outboard rear suspension and Hewland TL200 gearbox were the same. This gearbox was developed by Hewland for endurance purposes and was used by Matra in their MS670 sports cars.

Three body-off shots in the Monza paddock 1975. Exquisite standard of fabrication clear (MotorSport)

Tony Southgate spoke of the challenges of adapting the Matra engine to the DN5 in his autobiography.

‘In view of my V12 experience with Eagle and BRM the powers that be most likely thought I was a bit of a V12 expert and that I might be able to resurrect the old Matra engine and get it to the front of the grid. Fitting the Matra engine was not that straightforward and of course the V12 engine required a lot more fuel cell capacity. The engine ran at 12000rpm, about 30% more than the DFV, so extra tanks were fitted into the sides of the car alongside the existing seat tank.’

‘Due to the extra engine RPM and horsepower the cooling system needed to be increased in size, so I fitted larger side pods and set the water radiators further forwards to maintain the weight distribution of the Cosworth engined DN5. The V12 was longer than the DFV, of course, so the wheelbase was increased a little’.

‘The end result was a longer, heavier but more powerful DN5 which we called the DN7. I thought that it would do about the same lap times as the DN5 and that proved to be the case’.

Matra MS73 V12 ultimately successful in Matra sports prototypes and Grands Prix winner in Ligier chassis. Famously aurally erotic, circa 500bhp @ 11600rpm when a good Cosworth DFV gave circa 470bhp. Note Lucas injection trumpets, inboard rear discs and duct, engine electronics behind radiator header tank (MotorSport)

When finally completed the car was tested by ‘Jumper’ at Silverstone in July and made its race debut in practice for the Austrian GP on 17 August.

Tom Pryce drove his usual Ford engined DN5 and offered a direct comparison, both drivers being more or less equivalently FAST. The car was heavier than the DN5, it wasn’t bespoke, but still provided the team and of course Matra a sense of competitiveness of the package.

The Austrian GP was a horrible weekend, Mark Donohue crashed his Penske March 751 in practice as a result of a Goodyear tyre failure, dying in a Graz hospital several days later of brain injuries sustained in the high speed crash. Half points were awarded to finishers of the rain shortened race won by Vittorio Brambilla’s works March 751 Ford, that teams first, long overdue win.

Denis Jenkinson in MotorSport had this to say about the re-appearance of Matra in GP racing; ‘Another welcome return was made by the Matra V12 engine, this time in the back of a UOP Shadow DN7, but somehow it seems to have lost that car-splitting scream that it used to have in the days of Beltoise and Pescarolo in the blue cars from Velizy. Perhaps the Ferrari and Cosworth engines have caught it up on the decibel scale, for they certainly have on bhp output. None-the-less it was nice to see and hear a Matra V12 in Grand Prix racing again’.

‘Particularly pleasing was to see the enthusiasm with which JPJ was tackling the job of driving the DN7. It was not a half-hearted attempt, with one eye cocked over the Cosworth powered DN5 standing in the paddock, or a dickering between the two cars. As far as Jarier was concerned there was only one car for him and that was the DN7. With that approach in the cockpit the Shadow Matra V12 project could get somewhere. It certainly started well by being ahead on the grid of Pryce in the Shadow Cosworth V8, even if it was only 0.2 sec ahead’

Jarier qualified the DN7 13th, one grid slot in front of Pryce, Tom had a great race finishing third while the Matras fuel injection system malfunctioned causing JP’s retirement on lap 10. It was an ok start for a car with limited testing, the Shadow boys prepared the same mix of cars for the Italian GP held on 7 September.

Jarier, DN7 Matra, Monza 1975. GP cars of the era don’t look better than this (LAT)

italian grand prix — 1975 Italian Grand Prix, just look at the variety of aero approaches in this shot let alone mechanical specification, Oh for the days before F1 was a ‘control formula’?! Regazzoni’s winning Ferrari 312T Flat-12 from Jarier’s Shadow DN7 Matra V12, Carlos Pace’s Brabham BT44B Ford V8 and Ronnie Peterson’s similarly powered Lotus 72E (unattributed)

In between the Osterreichring and Monza the non-championship Swiss Grand Prix was held at Dijon, France, there being no circuits in Switzerland, with Jarier putting his Shadow on pole. He led the first 23 laps until retirement with gearbox trouble; but he was back in his Ford engined DN5 while the DN7, the team only built one chassis – #DN7/1A – was readied for Monza. Clay Regazzoni won the event in his Ferrari 312T and then doubled up also driving to victory at Monza.

The Shadows qualified in Italy exactly as they had at the Osterreichring, the results similar as well; ‘Jumpers’ Matra failed, this time with fuel pump failure and Pryce was sixth after a good mid race battle with James Hunts Hesketh. Niki Lauda won his first drivers championship, his third place in his Ferrari 312T assuring him of the championship.

shadow us — Shadow DN5 Ford in the nuddy, Kendall Centre, Watkins Glen US GP 1975. Pryce DN5, 16th in the race, non-classified with Jarier’s similar car DNF. Car getting a fresh Ford DFV. Rear suspension/’box assy at the rear, with the Cossie about to be unbolted, aluminium monocoque and quality of build and finish clear. Note cast alloy instrument bulkhead (unattributed)

At the season ending Watkins Glen race both Shadows were very fast; Q4 for Jarier and Q7 for Pryce but both were in DN5s, the Matra experiment was, sadly for the sport, over.

‘Jean-Pierre Jarier was fighting hard with the Shadow V12 during the first session, a revised fuel system and some titanium exhausts from the sports car endowed it with appreciably improved performance at the top end of its rev band. Alas, Jarier’s enthusiasm would be channeled into the Cosworth powered DN5 after it was calculated that the engine would consume fuel at the rate of 4mpg under racing conditions, and the French engined car was sadly pushed away for the remainder of the weeekend’ (therefore the car would not hold sufficient fuel to complete the race without a stop) said Denis Jenkinson in his MotorSport race report.

It may be that that was the case, or simply that Don Nichols had learned that Matra engines would be used exclusively by the new Ligier team for 1976 and simply put the car to one side to focus on the quicker DN5 Cosworths.

Lauda won the race, both Shadows well down the field despite qualifying times which showed just how quick a package the car was on a circuit which was a great test of a car’s medium to high speed handling characteristics.

shadow watkins — JPJ in the DN7 during the first practice session at Watkins Glen, the last time #DN7/1A turned a wheel before its restoration by Grant Beath in recent times. Car was for 35 years part of Don Nichols collection fitted with a dummy, blown V12 (unattributed)

Both Nichols and Ligier wanted exclusivity in terms of engine supply, from a France Inc perspective the choice of the well connected former rugby international’s team made more sense than the American owned British based concern; French car, team and driver.

From Matra’s viewpoint it makes more sense to me, given the aerospace conglomerates immense resources, to supply two teams in 1976 especially given Shadow’s speed, if not reliability in 1975.

Ligier were an unknown 1976 quantity, Shadow were. Both Shadow drivers had shown prodigious speed in 1974-75, one was French and Southgate did a neat job integrating the Matra V12 into an existing chassis designed for a different engine. His bespoke 1976 Matra chassis would have been lighter overall and designed around the engine architecture rather than an adaptation of what he had based on the Ford Cosworth.

Ligier were to be a one car entry in 1976 so Matra very much had all their eggs in one basket. Ligier’s JS5 1976 car was a horrible looking, bulky thing, mind you it delivered the goods in a a way Shadow did not that year. Jacques Laffitte was eighth in the drivers championship, Pryce 12th and poor Jarier didn’t score a point in the lightly updated 1976 Shadow DN5Bs and new DN8. Matra finally achieved a GP win when Laffitte won the 1977 Swedish Grand Prix in his Ligier JS7, the whole paddock were delighted for him, Ligier and Matra.

Don Nichols retained ownership of Shadow, but his company, United Oil Products, was no longer the team’s major sponsor and the slippery slope of progressive loss in competitiveness began, whilst noting Alan Jones’ lucky 1977 DN8 Ford, Austrian GP win.

If only Nichols had jagged the Matra deal or the Velizy concern supplied both teams he may have stayed more involved and we would have had the chance of seeing Tony Southgate designed, bespoke, Matra engined cars driven by two of the fastest chargers around at the time. It’s an interesting ‘mighta been’ I reckon?!…

Shadow DN7 Matra Technical Specifications…

Chassis; aluminium monocoque using the Matra MS73 V12 as a fully stressed member. Front suspension by lower wishbone and top rocker actuating inboard mounted coil spring/damper units. Rear suspension twin parallel lower links, single top link, coil spring/damper units and twin radius rods. Adjustable roll bars front and rear. Wheelbase 2667mm, front and rear tracks 1473/1549mm. Weight 612Kg.

Front and rear disc brakes, inboard at the rear. Rack and pinion steering. Wheel sizes front/rear 9.2/20 13 inch in diameter, 16.2/26/13 inches.

Engine; Matra MS73 3-litre, DOHC, four valve, Lucas fuel injected, all aluminium 60 degree V12. 2993cc, bore/stroke 79.7/50mm, circa 500bhp @ 11600rpm. Gearbox; Hewland TL200 five speed transaxle

Etcetera…

More shots at Monza in 1975, probably too much of a good thing…

Tony Southgate on ‘Jumper’ Jarier in ‘MotorSport’…

‘He had such fantastic car control and speed but just didn’t have the commitment. I’m sure he could have been World Champion if only he could have been bothered. Jean-Pierre got bored very easily and in practice or testing he would adapt himself to the car and do the same times after you had made adjustments. He was a typical French driver in that he was more interested in going out of an evening, eating a good meal and chasing the ladies. It soon became clear that he wouldn’t go on to the next level’.

ligier on circuit — Jean-Pierre Beltoise testing the brand new Ligier JS5 Matra at Paul Ricard in December 1975 (unattributed)

1976 Ligier JS5 Matra…

The Ligier JS5 Matra was a sinfully ugly car, it had the looks only a mother could love but its ‘fugliness’ was only skin deep!

Gerard Ducarouge and his team had the aero spot on, the enormous airbox which led to the car’s nickname The Flying Teapot chanelled air beautifully over the car and smoothed it onto the rear wing. Eighth in the drivers title for Laffitte and sixth for Ligier in the constructors race in a one car team entry was an exceptional first year performance.

The pictures are of the JS5’s first test at Paul Ricard in December 1975 with Jean Pierre Beltoise up. JPB had been announced as the driver, perhaps via sponsor Gitanes, but Guy Ligier was not convinced and organised a driver test over two days. Jacques Lafitte the quicker of the two in a car which had been tweaked by JPB who tested on the first day.

There was disquiet in France in some quarters over the choice of Laffitte, JPB at the time was France’s only contemporary GP winner, but Ligier’s choice was sound. Jacques in Frank Williams’ Ford engined Williams FW04 and Martini Mk16 Euro F2 crown ahead of the March BMW hordes in 1975 made it fairly clear that he was the better choice. JPB, fine driver that he was, ‘ultimate speed’ had been shown over the years to be not in the Ace category whereas Jacques’ potential, relative novice that he was, was pretty clear. It was an astute choice if not an entirely popular one.

ligier pits — JPB smiles for the cameras and gets himself comfy in JS5, designer Ducarouge, what a talented chappy! looks at JPB’s feet. Paul Ricard December 1975 (unattributed)

Bibliography…

MotorSport January 2015, Denis Jenkinsons MotorSport Austrian and US GP reports 1975, GP Encyclopaedia, Tony Southgate ‘From Drawing Board to Chequered Flag’

Photo Credits…

MotorSport Images, LAT, Car Blueprints, Alejandro Saldutto

Tailpiece…

‘So waddya think of the engine Jean-Pierre? is perhaps the question Jacques Lafitte is asking JPJ on their way back to the Monza paddock’? He knew full well of course as an ex-Matra sportscar driver…

Finito…

1935 Spanish Grand Prix, Lasarte…

Posted: January 14, 2016 in F1, Fotos
Tags: 1935 Spanish Grand Prix, Auto Union Type B, Bernd Rosemeyer, Luigi Fagioli, Mercedes Benz W25B

Luigi Fagioli’s Mercedes W25B attacks Bernd Rosemeyer’s Auto Union Type B whilst being pelted by rocks on the course covered with them…

The race was help on 22 September 1935 in the Gipuzkoa, Basque region of Northern Spain, Mercedes finished first to third; Caracciola from Fagioli and von Brauchitsch. All drove the 4.3 litre straight-8 engined car. Rosemeyer was 5th in the V16 5.6 litre mid-engined Auto Union.

Caracciola won the European Championship that year with 3 wins of 5 Championship rounds, his other triumphs at Spa and Bremgarten, Switzerland.

Credit…

motormania.tumblr.com

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	markbisset on Photography : Stephen Fry…

primotipo…

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