Dan Gurney raced a Plymouth Superbird for Richard Petty Enterprises in the January 18, 1970 Riverside NASCAR round – the Motor Trend 500 – popping the thing on pole but having mechanical gremlins during the race, finishing sixth. Petty was fifth, AJ Foyt won in a Ford Torino Cobra.
(Unattributed)
The season came good for Petty and Plymouth for this wildest of all homologation specials: King Richard was enticed back into the Mopar fold from Ford, winning 18 NASCAR races and the title.
Swede Savage – where folks? – Plymouth Barracuda during 1970 (Unattributed)
AAR prepared and raced three (some sources have the build number as four) Plymouth Barracudas in the Trans Am that year too: Dan and Swede Savage drove the cars in the 1970 Trans-Am, widely considered as the high-water mark of American pony car racing.
It featured an all-out, factory-backed engineering war between Ford, AMC, Chevrolet, and Chrysler. While Ford and AMC battled for ultimate honours Chrysler entered the fray late with a dual-pronged Mopar assault: the Dodge Challenger T/A and the AAR Plymouth Barracuda,
Chrysler commissioned Dan Gurney late in the piece 1969. AAR built three racers cars from ‘body-in-white’ shells, including acid-dipping the panels to thin the steel and fitting various titanium components carried over from Gurney’s F1 and Indy programs.
SCCA rules limited engine capacity to 305 cubic inches, AAR destroked Plymouth’s 340 V8 to 303.8 cubic inches, yielding over 450bhp.
Savage’s car in the paddock, where? (Unattributed)
Driven by Swede Savage and Gurney (sometimes) the cars were quick in qualifying but were unreliable given late season engine development and underfunding.
Savage bagged three poles (Bryar, Bridgehampton, and Donnybrooke) with the season’s peak at Road America, where Savage was a great second behind Mark Donohue’s AMC Javelin.
Early in the season, Chrysler’s cost cutting downsized AAR’s two-car effort to a single entry for Savage. Gurney retired from driving after the Riverside finale on October 4, 1970. Much more from Revs here:https://automedia.revsinstitute.org/glorious-cudas-and-challengers
Swede Savage 26/8/1946-2/7/1973 and Dan Gurney 13/4/1931-14/1/2018 in 1970 (Unattributed)(Road & Track)
Crazy shot of Joe Leonard’s Lotus 56 Pratt & Whitney gas turbine – complete with heat haze – ‘Turning into Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, towards Phil Hill’s ‘shop in 1968. The Paxton/STP workshop was located on the Olympic Boulevard a couple of blocks away,’ wrote Lotus ex-employee/historian Richard Parramint.
(R Parramint Collection)
Jim Hall, Miss Florida, and Hap Sharp celebrate their Sebring 12-Hour victory on March 27, 1965. Second was the Ken Miles/Bruce McLaren Shelby Ford GT40, ahead of David Piper/Tony Maggs in Piper’s Ferrari 250LM.
Jim Hall ahead of a Chev Corvette at Sebring in 1965 (Unattributed)
The Lotus 49 Ford Cosworth DFV blew the socks off the motor racing industry when it landed at Zandvoort in 1967; here with BRM employees present, Messrs Rudd, Stewart and Spence. The other fella is Keith Duckworth.
Peter Arundell’s Lotus 43 BRM at Spa in 1966 (MotorSport)1967 Lotus 49 Ford Cosworth DFV cutaway (T Page)(Unattributed)
This family affair privateer entry of Enus Wilson in the 1962 Sebring 12-Hours is a bit about what the 2.9-litre, four cylinder, DOHC, two-valve, Weber fed 250bhp Maserati Birdcage was about, a customer racing car.
He shared his T61 Maser with his brother in law, Ernie Grimm, sadly the pair didn’t finish in #2471, a major engine failure caused a DNF and fire. Shortly after this incident an aluminium GM-BOP 3.5-litre V8 was cranked into the engine bay of the ex-Roger Penske car.
Porsche 962C Doppelkupplungsgetriebe, or PDK, for short! Would’t German spelling competitions be a challenge!?
In 1987 Hans Stuck contested and won the ADAC Supercup sprint series in this PDK equipped lightweight 962C, chassis 962-009/962-137, the technology having made its race debut in a 962 raced by Stuck and Derek Bell to an historic win in the 1986 Monza 360km.
Peter Gethin at Brands Hatch over the July 20, 1974 British Grand Prix weekend with his Graham Hill Racing Lola T370 Ford DFV.
(MotorSport)
Q21 and DNF in this one-off appearance, see here for Lola Heritage on this design:https://www.lolaheritage.co.uk/type_numbers/t370/t370.html Team chief Graham Hill was 13th in Lola #26, albeit six laps adrift of race winner, Jody Scheckter’s Tyrrell 007 Ford, from Emerson Fittipaldi’s McLaren M23 Ford and Jacky Ickx’ Lotus 72E Ford
While the Lola Heritage piece relates that the T370 owed much to the uber-successful T332 F5000 design, it’s equally clear that the 1975 T400 F5000 machine bore more than a passing familiarity with the T370.
(Lola Heritage)(M Louche)
Jay Chamberlain in the Lotus Engineering Lotus Mk15 Climax 1.5 leads a gaggle of cars in the early laps of the 1958 Le Mans 24-Hours, DNF accident during the ninth hour after completing 39 laps.
The #9 Lister-Jaguar driven by Freddy Rouselle was out in the fourth hour with plunging oil pressure. Alessandro De Tomaso finished 11th in the #42 OSCA Sport 750 TN he shared with Colin Davis, while the #37 Alfa Romeo Giulietta SV Zagato, driven at this point by Marcel Lauga, was out in the eighth hour after an accident. Up front was the Olivier Gendecbien/Phil Hill Ferrari 250TR 1958.
A couple of not-the-usual-suspects shots of F2 McLaren M4A Ford FVAs at Thruxton in 1968: Graham Lawrence above, and Guy Ligier below.
Ligier was eighth in his Ecurie Intersport machine, while the Kiwi was 13th in his Chequered Flag/McLaren Racing entry.
Their best results in the three Euro F2 rounds they contested that year – Hockenheim, Thruxton and Jarama – were in the first heat at Thruxton where Guy was fifth and Graeme seventh.
(Unattributed)
Credits…
MotorSport, Road & Track, Theo Page, Porsche AG, Lola Heritage, Maurice Louche, Motor-Tony Lofthouse, James Allington, Richard Parramint Collection, Vintage Everyday
Tailpiece…
(Vintage Everyday)
What a shot!
Citroen DS Goddess and a Concorde prototype at Le Bourget Airport, Paris in 1969 just after Concorde 001 F-WTSS made the stunning aircraft’s maiden flight from Toulouse on March 12, 1969.
Australian Top-of-the-Pops racer and Pin-Up boy Peter Brock took on Le Mans aboard a BMW 3.0 CSL in 1976. It was a steep learning curve over yonder but Brocky won races at home and finished the year a more rounded, polished and experienced owner-driver. Mark Bisset recounts an undertaking of great ambition and limited resources!
Peter Brock and John Goss aren’t Australian Racing Icons most readily associated with German cars, but both went foreign in 1976 at Le Mans. Goss’ Porsche 934 was a simple buy-a-ride deal, whereas Brock’s BMW 3.5 CSL had a touch of the Fleetwood Macs about it; Go Your Own Way.
The sky was the limit for Brock in late 1975. Peter, Norm Gown, Bruce Hindhaugh, Bob Gracie and Les Small developed their Holden Torana L34 throughout the Australia Touring Car Championship (ATCC) rounds with a trio of second placings at Calder, Surfers Paradise and Lakeside. Then they brought home the bacon in the Australian Manufacturers Championship (Manchamps) by taking the Triple Crown: Sandown, Bathurst – Brian Sampson shared the drive – and Phillip Island.
BMW 3.0 CSL cutaway drawing (Bruno Betti)
Brocky Thinks Big, Thinks Batmobile…
Interested in broadening his horizons beyond domestic dominance, Peter formed Team Brock then piqued BMW’s interest to assist them to build their brand in the Asia-Pacific if he purchased the low-mileage BMW E9 3.0 CSL (3.0 CSL is the official name but I’ve used it interchangeably with 3.5 CSL given that was the capacity of the racing cars at the time) works-built Batmobile for sale in South Africa in November 1975.
The 3498cc, twin-cam, four-valve, fuel-injected 450bhp racer – chassis/VIN E9-2275991 – was built in early 1974 and raced by BMW Motorsport in one European Touring Car Championship race at the Nurburgring on July 14, Bell/Ickx DNF gearbox. On September 15, Derek Bell ran it in a German Touring Car Championship (Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft-DRM) round at the Norisring. DNF oil-pump in race one and classified 14th in race two with rear axle problems.
BMW then sold it to Alain Peltier who won the European Touring Car Championship together with Siegfried Muller aboard the Faltz-Alpina/BMW Faltz Essen machine in 1975: they won at Monza and Brno and were second at the Salzburgring and Nurburgring.
Brock’s BMW 3.0 CSL #2275991 being raced by Alain Peltier, Jarama perhaps, in 1975 (Unattributed)
That November Derek Bell and Brian Redman raced it in the Kyalami 1000km finishing third despite damaging the left-front strut and replacing it during the race. E9-2275991 was then offered for sale in South Africa.
By the time Brock got back from South Africa, handed over the D-Marks and shipped the exotic-Kraut to Team Brock’s modest Bundoora workshop, BMW HQ had decided that BMW Motorsport had to be self-funding. The net effect was that Brock would have to pay for expensive parts rather than have them supplied/subsidised.
Bill Patterson – 1960 Australian Gold Star winner and Ringwood-based, multi-site Holden and BMW dealer, was a racer to the core – was undeterred, the planned domestic Holden program and Le Mans was on, albeit the sponsorship reflected a Carlton Draught budget, Moët money it was not! Auto Action broke the story in its February 19, 1976, issue #130.
Brock’s glorious BMW broke cover and was the Belle of the Ball in the Sandown Rothmans International paddock over the February 15 weekend. Peter did some demonstration laps using enough revs to give us all an aural taste of that big straight-six.
(Auto Action 19-2-1976)Brock testing/demonstrating the CSL at Calder before its rebuild (S Dalton Collection)
Naturalising the Bavarian Beauty…
Le Mans 1976 was being held on June 12-13 so the small team comprising chief mechanic, Bob Gracie – ex-Gown Hindhaugh – and Garnett Bateson, longtime Brock friend set to work in Unit 1, 30 The Concord, Bundoora, modifying, lightening and preparing the car in addition to building a new L34 for Brock’s assault on the reformatted Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC). Peter acquired a low-mileage L34 driven by Melbourne’s Wayne Mitchell in club racing in 1975 for that purpose.
The Bathurst 1000 was now a stand-alone event while the ATCC and Manchamps became an 11-round ATCC running from February to November.
Brock’s Boys were to prove very busy that year. Before BMW HQ pulled the pin, Bateson had been to Munich and had a crash course on the nuances of these fast Germans.
The CSL’s right front had been damaged at Kyalami and was repaired properly by Myles Johnson and Chris Farrell, and was then painted for a photo shoot at Calder to assist in rounding up additional sponsors before being taken back to Bundoora for stripping to a bare shell.
(B Gracie)(B Gracie)
Brock described the process of preparing the car for Le Mans as ‘Naturalising the Bavarian Beauty’ in his Auto Action column on April 1, 1976 (AA#133).
‘We’re taking off the electric brakes the Germans use and replacing them with the biggest ventilated discs we can get and dual master cylinders. Then the water injection and electric fan to cool the brakes will go, and in their place will be huge air-cooling tubes, ducting air from the front of the car. This should give us a better, lighter, more durable system.’
‘While the Aussies removed the ABS and related, the calipers remained as fitted by BMW; Lockheed, not Girlock as claimed in a couple of Australian articles,’ advises Alex Elliott, whose UK-based Roundel Racing rebuilt and restored the car in the 2000s.
Brock, ‘Then we will attack the engine to extract some more horses. The BMWs have canted engines, but the latest trick is to stand them upright to get a better inlet manifold run and exhaust shape, which are worth 15 horsepower alone! Further modifications, particularly to the cylinder head, should see us with over 490bhp, more than the works cars. We’ll put the standard works engine on the dyno first and then make all our changes so that we really know where we stand in the horsepower stakes. I’ve always been very suspicious of overseas horsepower claims.’
European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) rounds – the series for which the BMW CSLs had been primarily designed and built to win – are typically of no more than about four hours duration. ‘The major problem with these BMW engines in longer races was the head gasket. We spoke to Norman Wilson (designer of the 1967 F1 Championship-winning Repco-Brabham 740 V8) and decided the best fix was to dry-deck the mating of the head and block by suitable machining and use of O-rings,’ Team Brock Chief Mechanic, Bob Gracie recalled.
‘When BMW became aware of that there was a huge fuss, all the details I’m not aware of, but in the end, we ran an engine supplied by BMW. Exactly how the sponsorship worked, who paid for what and so on was Peter’s area. Garnet and I were focused completely on getting the cars ready.’
Brock, ‘The whole wiring and plumbing system is unbelievably complicated and will be completely pulled out, and we will start from scratch using aircraft wiring and procedures to simplify everything.’
Aircraft technician Doug Hure designed and made a new dash and loom. ‘The fabricated aluminium dash, VDO analogue instruments and wiring loom using aircraft components was great, it was a shame to rip it all out!’ Elliott observed.
‘The body will be left pretty well as it is, although we’ve rubbed it back to the bare metal and were happy to find no signs of major damage to the car, which has only done about nine races in its life.’
‘The works cars have some new rear flares, but these were designed for use with rear radiators and produce more drag, so we’ll stick with the old rather than change the car just so that it looks like the current works cars. All the same, we believe we can get the body weight down by about 200 lbs.’
‘The real Australianising is in terms of protection, we’ll protect everything! It might be overdesigned in many areas, but one thing is certain – it is the most immaculate car I’ve ever driven.’
‘We took it for a bit of a burl down at Phillip Island, and even on the bumpy parts, there wasn’t a trace of wheelspin. You can just heave it into a corner, and the thing just hangs on like the proverbial. Len Lukey really looked after us down at the Island, he even locked up the cows for us!’
‘I always like to have my feet firmly on the ground but I really got the message when the Le Mans organisers sent us a letter addressed to “Team BLOCK”! Those Froggies really know how to put you in your place!’
(B Gracie)Bob Gracie and Brock (S Miller Collection)
Brock raced Warren Cullen’s L34 in the second Calder ATCC round in mid-March. The Team Brock-built L34 splendidly debuted at Sandown on April 11, finishing second overall to Bond’s Dealer Team car, but winning the second of the two races counting towards the ‘Marlboro 200’. Brock expressed his delight with the debut win but confessed that ‘with all the work on the L34 the BMW has been a little bit neglected’ in his April 15 AA column.
With Le Mans becoming more urgent, Peter and the team didn’t return to the local fray until the Sandown 400 in September.
During April-May, Gracie and Bateson rebuilt the BMW’s Getrag five-speed gearbox, while John Brookfield was also heavily involved in myriad tasks in the final stages of preparation.
The BMW’s appearance at the March Melbourne International Motor Show was also accommodated. David Segal wrote in Chequered Flag ‘that the star of this year’s show was Peter Brock’s BMW 3.0 CSL, which revolved on an elevated platform in the middle of the main hall. Looking immaculate in its red, white, and blue colour scheme, it attracted huge crowds who gazed in awe throughout the show.’
In early June, Grant Tasker recalls taking the BMW to Tullamarine – 90kg lighter than when it arrived – for loading onto the plane and having Gracie fall asleep at the Camp Road railway boom-gates, he was so tired after months of preparation of the CSL…and the L34.
Brock’s co-driver was to have been Vern Schuppan, but when the occasional F1 driver bagged a ride in an outright contender – he was entered in a Mirage M8 Ford Cosworth DFV, initially without his knowledge – another UK-based Aussie International, Brian ‘Yogi’ Muir jumped at the chance.
Muir was the perfect choice; he had been racing CSLs in sprint and endurance events throughout 1971-72. Not only that, his Le Mans experience dated back to moon-shot-fast works-Ford GT40s in the mid-1960s. See here:https://primotipo.com/2022/09/03/brian-muir/
Brock and Schuppan, February 1976. ‘Can you speak French, Vern?’ (I Smith)
Bon Voyage…
When they boarded their respective Qantas Jumbos to Europe Gossy turned left; his drive was funded by Shell, Citizen Watches and 2UW, whereas Australia’s finest turned right with a much tighter budget. It was Brock’s outfit and he had a close eye on the pennies!
While Goss headed off to find his team owner, Jean Blaton (Beurlys) and co-driver Nick Faure, Brock was immediately involved in a barney at Heathrow over his vast cache of spare parts and applicable import duty in relation thereto.
‘Our base in the UK was at Brian McGuire’s Windmill Caravan Hire business. Brian and Alan Jones went over to Europe together. Brian wasn’t as successful as Alan as a driver, of course, but he did well in business. He ended up dying in a Williams F1 car (Williams FW04 Ford aka McGuire MN1 at Brands Hatch in 1977), Gracie recalled.
‘We were still finishing the car in the UK,’ The team towed the car to Le Mans less most of their spares…
Goss’ mount was a brand new 934 purchased by Blaton and was prepared for Le Mans by the renowned Kremer Racing in Cologne to run in the 4-5-litre GT Class. While Jean was a gentleman racer, Nick Faure was anything but; he was a quick, seasoned British professional. Prima facie, Gossy’s prospects looked pretty good.
The fifth Australian on that ’76 Le Mans grid was Tim Schenken. Tim had been UK-based since 1967. He raced Gelo Racing (Georg Loos) Porsches throughout that year; 24 starts for three wins and five second placings. At La Sarthe, he was paired in a 934 with Toine Hezemans. By then, Tim and Howden Ganley’s Tiga Cars was in full swing.
The Team Brock French Equipe comprised the three drivers, Brock, Muir and Frenchman Jean-Claude Aubriet. ‘He was a good guy, an experienced driver who came up with some money. He owned a Peugeot dealership somewhere not far from Le Mans. Brian Muir brought three of his blokes, on top of that was Garnet and I, Doug Hure, the electrical technician and Mike Ryan from Bridgestone Australia, he took care of the fuelling.’ Bob Gracie recalled.
(MotorSport)
‘The track didn’t worry PB at all, but he was hugely stressed with all of the money issues over the whole weekend, right up until he got into the car for the start. Muir was fantastic and just did everything you’d expect. When he came in after his first laps and said, “I can’t believe it, finally a BMW that stops!” we knew our changes had worked! The car was good, nothing was a problem for him.’
So tight were Team Brock’s finances that Brock qualified the Group 5 4-5-litre class machine down the back, 48th of 58 cars on old tyres.
Despite being the slowest of the 3.5 CSL qualifiers, the team knew they had a fast car on new tyres. It was lighter than the other CSLs thanks to its Oz-mods, was fitted with a 3.5-litre 24-valve M49/2 engine, but not the current, wide-draggy-body that had the radiators mounted at the rear.
A consequence of that lot was a very quick BMW along the 5 km Mulsanne Straight, the Bundoora Boys turned the heads of a few wise-owls in the pitlane both before and after the race.
Brock told David Hassall, ‘The car was very quick, even compared to the works cars. We actually set the fastest BMW lap time during the race, so the car was no slouch at all. We stayed with the old-style rear flares but fitted a new, bigger front air-dam.’
‘We also had a Frenchman (co-driver Jean-Claude Aubriet) helping us, and he modified the rear deck wing. The car was very twitchy, and it wasn’t until after the race that we discovered that it was fitted upside down!’
Le Mans paddock (AElliott-MBisset-WordPress)
4PM Saturday, June 12, 1976…
The race immediately turned into a disaster for Team Brock. The car felt a bit strange to Peter on the warm-up lap before the rolling start. As he accelerated hard past the pits for the start, a humongous bang erupted from the big coupe’s rear as something broke in the right-hand-side independent rear suspension.
Peter limped around for the full, long, 13.6 km lap while the boys found a replacement part. ‘I don’t remember exactly what broke, but we didn’t have all our spares, so we had to use a works part which wasn’t a perfect fit. We had to block off the brakes on that side.’ The drivers contemplated the challenges of 24 hours on the most demanding of tracks in north-western France with brakes on only three of the four BMW’s wheels.
Brock, ‘Of course, it was fairly strange for the first few laps but we got used to it and it actually braked quite truly. We ran like that until the car stopped after 18-hours and the brakes had still lasted. What’s more, we got twice as much pad wear of the factory cars using the same type of Hardie-Ferodo pads we used at Bathurst. They were magic.’
‘The cars themselves were fairly fragile for that sort of race. The engines were only guaranteed for 1000km, and we’d done about 2500km when the head gasket blew. I thought about plugging around to the finish, but the engine was too badly damaged and there wasn’t time to fit the spare.’
Gracie recalled that ‘we had a problem with the Getrag ‘box too, we had to pull it out, I don’t remember exactly what the drama was, but we fixed it and popped it back in, then off we went again.’
Brock ‘We’d made up a lot of the ground we lost at the start of the race, and at one stage we were the last healthy BMW still running. That made the BMW people take a bit more notice of us. Looking back on the race, I guess we did better at Le Mans than I thought at the time.’
According to the ACO’s website, Brock’s quickest race lap was a 4:12.900, faster than all of the 3.5 CSLs except the John Fitzpatrick/Tom Walkinshaw and Harald Grohs/Sam Posey/Hughes de Fierlant machines…with brakes on only three wheels, no wonder BMW’s hierarchy were impressed!
The highest placed of the CSL 3.5s – the only finisher – was the tenth placed works machine driven by Posey/Grohs/De Fierlant.
Derek Bell passes Peter Brock in the Mirage GR8 Ford he shared at Le Mans with Vern Schuppan (A Elliott Collection)The Patto BMW being passed by the fourth-place Manfred Schurti/Rolf Stommelen Porsche 935 (B Gracie Collection)
Up at the pointy end, Porsche dominated. The turbo-charged 2.1-litre flat-six 936 sports-racer driven by Jacky Ickx and Gijs van Lennep won the race by an enormous 11 laps from the French crewed Mirage GR8 Ford DFV handled by Jean-Louis Lafosse and Francois Migault.
Vern Schuppan had a better race than his fellow countrymen, finishing fifth in the Mirage GR8 Ford DFV he shared with Derek Bell. Like Brock, Goss had a tough afternoon at the office. The car started 27th but had a series of turbocharger failures during the race that hampered progress. His new Porsche 934 completed insufficient laps (169) to be classified a finisher. Tim Schenken and Toine Hezemans were 16th in their Gelo Porsche 934. ‘I didn’t ever finish at Le Mans, my best chance was in the Ferrari 312PB in 1973,’ Tim told me at a pre-AGP function last week. In fact, he did finish!
After Le Mans, Team Brock took the car back to their Windmill Caravans base, and repaired and prepared it for the Zeltweg, Austria round of the World Championship of Makes, the Osterreichring 6 Hours on June 27.
Brock shared the car with Guy De Saint-Pierre and Jean-Claude Depince. The trio qualified reasonably well in 13th spot but failed to finish when the engine snapped an oil-pump drive chain after 42 of the winner’s 187 laps. The Schnitzer-BMW crew of Dieter Quester and Gunnar Nilsson were victorious.
There was no shortage of Bathurst competitors on that grid, including Quester, Derek Bell and Vern Schuppan (sharing a Porsche 935 to fourth place), Jacky Ickx, and John Fitzpatrick and Tom Walkinshaw. The latter pair shared a CSL to third place with Tom, so enamoured of the CSL breed that he soon bought Brock’s machine for his racing car collection…
John Stoneham magic…(Auto Action 30-9-1976)
Home Again…
The BMW was taken back to the UK and readied for sale by Gracie while Brock and Bateson returned home to prepare the L34 for Sandown’s Hang Ten 400 on September 12. That Sandown weekend went well for the two Oz Touring Car Le Mans contenders. Brock took a fine Hang Ten 400 win from Allan Moffat’s Ford Falcon XB GT Hardtop.
Gracie, ‘It was such a rush to get the car completed. I was picked up from Tullamarine and taken straight to Repco in Maidstone to dyno the L34 engine before it was popped in the car on Thursday. Peter had won three of the last four Sandowns! ’
Then John Goss was victorious in a thriller-diller of an Australian Grand Prix battle with Vern Schuppan: Goss aboard his Matich A53 Repco-Holden and Schuppan in a works-Elfin MR8 Chev. Irrelevant but ironic is that the last big win for the Repco-Holden F5000 V8 was scored by a Ford Man!
While Brock, Goss and Schuppan were busy in Melbourne that weekend, Tim Schenken won the Nurburgring race in a Gelo Porsche 934. A strong weekend all round for ‘our Le Mans Lads’.
Brock wasn’t finished with Europe for the year just yet. He had tested a factory Dealer Team Vauxhall while in the UK and impressed team chief Bill Blydenstein in only six laps and was invited to contest the RAC Tourist Trophy at Silverstone alongside Gerry Marshall on September 19. The pair had a troubled race with brake problems in the Vauxhall Magnum after running as high as seventh outright.
While in Ye Olde Dart, Brocky did some unpaid marketing for the Australian Racing Drivers Club in the form of a Bathurst 1985 film night at the Steering Wheel Club, attended by many pressmen and interested drivers.
There was much anticipation about Brock racing the Bavarian Beastie in Europe further, but Peter used his final 1976 Auto Action column (issue #152, December 24) to announce the sale of the car which ‘has been completely rebuilt to 1976 specs with vertical engine, Schnitzer injection, 5-speed magnesium gearbox and a heap of spares including diffs, wheels and tyres…’
Perhaps the fact that Holden Dealer Team Tsar, Harry Firth, announced his intention to resign from active competition at the end of 1977 gave PB the possible/probable long-term career progression opportunity he sought! Serious European competition would not necessarily enhance that plan…
Resto of CSL #2275991 in Alex Elliott’s Roundel Racing workshop in the UK (A Elliott Collection)
3.0 CSL #2275991 Sedentary Afterlife…
‘Peter had run out of money, so he had to sell the car. I got the BMW ready to race, ready for sale at Windmill Caravans before returning for Sandown. I left it there with Brian McGuire,’ recalled Gracie.
While the Batmobiles continued to win the ETCC annually until 1979, Brock’s car didn’t race again, making it an unusually low-mileage ex-works machine.
Tom Walkinshaw raced CSLs in the period and bought ‘our car’ for his collection; whether others owned the car before Walkinshaw is unknown. He repainted it in BMW Motorsport livery but in blue rather than white. The current American owner, who prefers anonymity, bought the car in the TWR Auction after things went belly-up for Walkinshaw in the early 2000s.
He engaged Alex Elliott’s Roundel Racing business in the UK to restore the car to its ETCC-winning 1975 specifications. While seemingly a straightforward job, ‘It wasn’t really as the dash had been replaced with a fabricated aluminium one and the complete electrical system was replaced, including instruments etc,’ Alex Elliott recalled.
‘Walkinshaw removed the engine and gearbox and either used them or sold them. By this time, the car had an upright-mounted M49-3 engine, whereas in 1974 it had a slant-mounted M49-2. As there are a few common parts between them, this was a mission to find.’
Great portrait of Brocky; not sure of the date; he was forever young! So it’s hard to guess (primotipo archivio)
Afterthoughts…
There is every possibility that Allan Moffat’s 1975 Sebring 12-Hour win in a works-BMW 3.0 CSL shared with Brian Redman – then later in the race also with Hans Stuck and Sam Posey – stimulated Brock’s BMW thought processes. The Mutually-Admiring Melburnians will have swapped notes for sure.
It wasn’t the last time Brock raced a BMW; he campaigned Group A M3s in 1988.
Some may think, ‘Big Deal’ about a program that cost a heap and delivered little, but Peter Brock had put down a marker or three by the end of 1976.
Holden’s No. 1 Son exited the protective bosom of the HDT at the end of 1974 and simply continued winning with tiny-tot-team Gown Hindhaugh in 1975. ‘I’ll never forget Norm (Gown) telling me, “I’ve got a driver for next year, all I’ve got to do now is buy the car,’ Bob Gracie told Auto Action. ‘Who’s the driver?’ “Peter Brock!’ he said. So, we jumped into Norm’s car and went off to Dustings of Burwood (a long-time, now defunct Holden dealer located on Toorak Road, Hartwell) and bought the yellow L34.’
That small team then did the David and Goliath Thing with that car in 1975. PB then doubled down, raised some money, leased a workshop, assembled a team, built/rebuilt a couple of cars, raced overseas for a couple of months and still won three ATCC races (one heat and two rounds) in 1976.
None of this was lost on Holden’s Heads-Of. So, when John Bagshaw declared that ‘Peter Brock was the best car salesman Holden had’, it was hardly surprising – inevitable – when PB returned to the fold. Those management smarts he had demonstrated in the world outside Fishermans Bend would have been part of the overall talent assessment. That he didn’t always exhibit them is a story for another time!
Brock addicts should buy the September issue of Auto Action Premium.
It has 25 pages on the great one written/contributed by various folks who knew him well: Wayne Webster and Bruce Williams. Williams’ piece has separate big chunks from Ian Tate, Graeme ‘Mort’ Brown, Craig ‘Norm’ Fletcher, Neil ‘Part’ Burns, Dean ‘Curl’ Orr, and and David ‘Davo’ Whitehead, the combination of which makes a fine insiders account of PB’s long career.
Bob Gracie, Stephen Dalton Archive, Alex Elliott-Roundel Racing, 24h-en-piste.com, BMW 3.0 CSL Shannons article by Mark Oastler, lezebre.eu, racingsportscars.com, Auto Action
Wonderful evocative shot taken by Tony Glenn of Max Stewart’s Lola T330 Chev #HU1 during the 1973 Warwick Farm 100 Tasman Cup round in the final months of motor racing at the late, lamented ‘Farm circuit. Q3 and fifth in the race won by Steve Thompson’s Chevron B24 Chev.
(unattributed)
Frank Gardner raced Lola’s prototype HU1, in his capacity as the Huntingdon outfit’s development driver in the final round of the 1972 F5000 Championship at Brands Hatch on October 21, finishing third behind Brian Redman’s Chevron B24 and Graham McRae’s McRae GM1, both cars also Chevrolet powered.
FG keeps tabs on Stewart’s changes made to HU1 at Pukekohe in 1973 (B Homewood-MBisset-Wordpress)
The following day, he entered the World Championship Victory race, also at Brands, which comprised a mix of F1 and F5000 cars. FG qualified 13th of 36 cars. Although he didn’t take the start, it was another marker of the T330’s pace straight outta-the-box.
Practice, Pukekohe in 1973 (B Homewood)
Then the car was sold to Max who had the advantage of Frank’s presence throughout that Tasman summer. Frank had retired from single seaters but raced his Chev Camaro in the Tasman touring car races in order to flog the car, I think ? bought it
Max was sixth in the title chase but he was at the pointy end of qualifying in his new car right from the outset , his best finishes were third placings at Teretonga and Surfers Paradise
(C Parker-MBisset-Wordpress)
Stewart took in US L&M F5000 Championship rounds in 1973 before a broken wrist intervened, at Michigan (above) and Mid Ohio (below).
(C Parker-MBisset-Wordpress)
His best results: Riverside second in heat 2/seventh in the final, Laguna Seca fourth in heat 1, Michigan second in heat 2, fourth in the final.
(J Inwood)
Max in front of the VDS Chevron B24 Chevrolets of Peter Gethin and Teddy Pilette at Pukekohe during the 1974 Tasman Cup.
He was right on the pace throughout, finishing second in the championship behind Gethin, both of whom took two wins, Max’s were at Teretonga and Surfers Paradise
Teretonga 1974 (K Thomson)Teretonga 1974. Note the very far to the rear mount of the rear wing in fashion at the time, which was banned shortly thereafter (K Thomson)(A Radley)
John Walker, Frank Matich and Max on the front row at Adelaide International in 1974, the February 24 Adelaide 100: Lola T330 Repco-Holden, Matich A53 Repco-Holden and Lola T330 Chev. None featured in the results of the race won by Warwick Brown’s Lola T332 Chev, HU27, the first T332.
That’s Kevin Bartlett’s T332 up front, Max won this October 20, 1974 Gold Star round from KB. He won the championship too, several rounds hence, 51 points to KB’s 25.
Either, and Warwick Brown, could have won but in a race of changing fortunes, Stewart takes the chequered flag below. He back to backed it with AGP wins in 1975 at Surfers Paradise aboard a T400 Chev in conditions every bit as grisly as at Warwick Farm in the opening shot.
(Lola Heritage)
Lola Cars claim 54 victories for the T330 across three continents ‘in the day’.
(unattributed-MBisset-WordPress)
That a driver’s legs were part of a car’s progressively deformable structure in bathtub aluminium monocoques – make that all aluminium monocoques – of this period is readily shown by the first of T330 HU1s tubs in an NZ 1973 Tasman paddock…was Graeme Lawrence the first member of the Lola Limper Club?
Credits…
Tony Glenn, Bob Homewood, Chris Parker, Alan Radley, Lola Heritage, Tony Matthews, Brian Stratton, Kevin Thomson, Jack Inwood
This century-old story has finally been told by lifelong Austin 7 enthusiast, car-builder and racer Tony Johns. Austin 7s have been around since 1922, first arriving in Australia in 1923.
Johns’ dab hand as a storyteller was first demonstrated in ‘Vintage Bentleys in Australia’, written with three colleagues.
This book relates their important role in the history of Australian motor sport compellingly, from the early days of amateur owner-drivers competing in trials and hillclimbs to Captain Arthur Waite’s victory in the 1928 Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island aboard a factory supercharged Austin 7 ahead of a classy field including Bugatti, Alvis and Amilcar.
Drawing from historical documents, including original programs, the pre-war era is well researched. The post-war special-building and club racing sections draw on drivers who participated in those events, including the author’s own experience.
Herbert Austin’s most important formative years were spent in Australia from 1882-93. He did his engineering apprenticeship in Melbourne before working for the Sydney-based Wolseley sheep-shearing machine company, an opportunity that led to Austin designing the first Wolseley car in 1891.
Johns relates that the first Austin was built in 1906 and covers the design and development of the epochal Austin Seven in 1922; the boardroom battles to get it built are fascinating.
By the time the Austin 7 became a mainstay of the 1928-35 Phillip Island Australian Grand Prix era, the 7 was already an established competitive car via its performances in the Australian hills and reliability trials that radiated from the various state capitals, on the speedways at Aspendale and Claremont, and on the firm sand of Sellicks and Gerringong beaches.
While Arthur Waite’s – the Aussie was Herbert Austin’s son-in-law – ’28 win is well known, less so is Cyril Dickason’s victory in an supercharged Ulster in 1931. Cyril got the cup, the babe, and the plaudits of the crowd, but the Victorian Light Car Club committee decided overnight that while Dickason won on handicap, the winner of the AGP was the bloke who did the fastest time, Carl Junker in a Bugatti Type 39. Johns notes that more than half the committee were Bugatti owners then and that Clarrie never handed the cup back! God bless him for telling ‘em to get-rooted or the 1931 equivalent thereof…
Like ‘Professor’ John Medley’s Bathurst and John Snow books, Johns’ manuscript is rich with marvellous industry, locational, economic, people and event tangents, the most significant of which are dealt with by way of breakouts. A decent index allows these gold nuggets to be mined.
Tony has amassed a colossal motor racing archive in a six-decade obsession. It’s reflected in stunning period material and photographs, most of which haven’t been published before. The photo content alone is worth the ridiculous, low $A99 price. Plus postage, of course.
There are some fabulous tales; Ron Uffindell features prominently in a couple of them. Driving from Adelaide to Bathurst and back and finishing the 1938 AGP at Bathurst, won by Peter Whitehead aboard ERA R10B, is impressive. Perhaps more influential on motor racing history are the secrets in the Austin 7 engine owned by Derek Jolly and given to Colin Chapman for use in his Lotus Mk3 in 1951; the brilliant machine got its Unfair Advantage with those engine tricks.
Austin 7s competed in the support races at Grand Prix meetings until 1958. The Austin 7 Club, formed in Melbourne in 1950, and the publishers of this book, still have over 400 members and have marshalled the troops down the decades to recraft the rules and keep competitor numbers up.
Johns cites the first race for vintage racing and sports cars as perhaps The Argus Trophy held at Fishermans Bend on February 2, 1956. The point being that as Formula Vee, Formula Ford and particularly Clubmans – the latter very much of the A7 owner-builder mindset – grew in popularity as entry-level categories, Austin 7s always got a run in ‘Division 3’ events and then provided a critical grid mass as Historic Racing got underway; the ’78 AGP Golden Jubilee at Phillip Island, ’76 First Amaroo All Historic and ’77 Winton meetings (organised by the Austin 7 Club) are all covered.
The story ends with the 1981 UK Raid, when five racing ‘Australian Austins’ and their owners spent a month racing the Poms on their home turf in a hard-fought series of races akin to The Ashes! The Brits thought they understood ‘their creations’ better than any other A7 racers on the planet, but they found the colonials’ ahem, interpretation of English was at the very literal end of things…
I need to declare an interest in this project, having worked with Tony, a mate of 30 years, to cut and polish his manuscript. With over 400 pages and nearly 500 photos/images, Sporting Austin Sevens in Australia – professionally written, edited, sub-edited, designed and printed – deserves a place on the bookshelves of Austin 7 enthusiasts, motor racing readers and automotive historians.
The 500 individually numbered books – there won’t be second edition – are on schedule to arrive in Melbourne in mid-November and will be mailed to purchasers then. It’s one to have and hold, love and cherish, folks, email this Austin Seven Club address to secure your copy: mailorderparts@austin7club.org
Carl Williams, McLaren M15A/3 Offy on raceday at Indianapolis in 1970 (Unatt-MBisset-WordPress)
I tripped over the shot above on that internet thingy and thought I know who that is! By the same token Carl Williams is far from the first name that would pop into my head if I was asked for a list of McLaren Works Pilots since day one; an obscurity, I love em!
Bruce McLaren and Teddy Mayer laid solid financial foundations for Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd during 1964-65 not least by signing with Firestone in time for Bruce’s Tasman Cup defence in the summer of ’65. Not far away in New Haw, Jack Brabham did a deal with Goodyear; Dunlop battened down the hatches as the Tyre Wars got underway right about then.
McLaren switched to Goodyear for 1967 and made rock stars of themselves by obliterating the Can-Am Cup in papaya coloured McLaren M6A Chevs steered by Bruce and Denny Hulme. The Bruce and Denny Show was underway.
Bruce McLaren is about to practise his Shelby 68 GE T58 turbine at Indianapolis in May 1968. It looked the goods! (IMS)
In 1968 Goodyear’s support of the papaya boys extended to F1, Can-Am and USAC racing…
Goodyear tipped Bruce and Denny into Carroll Shelby’s Indy 500 project in which British engineer Ken Wallis evolved the 4WD edgy-turbine-wedge concept that came within seven and a half laps of winning the 1967 500. The General Electric T58 helicopter turbine powered Shelby 68 ended up being under-developed and too little too late, hampered as all the turbines were that year by a change in USAC regs that reduced the permitted inlet area, measured at the first compression stage, from 23.999 to 15.99 sq. inches which nobbled their power.
Then Wallis got a bit cute with the regs and created a variable inlet device that made the car a bit quicker – but not enough – but magnified the throttle lag, and had various team members, not least the drivers and sponsors – Goodyear had underwritten the venture to the tune of $1 million – soiling their undergarments with fear about running a blatantly dodgy car. So the team did a midnight-flit from the speedway – literally – and didn’t attempt to qualify.
Ken Wallis contemplating what next? Uber rare colour body-off shot of the Shelby 68 GE chassis. Wasn’t variety a fantastic thing, let’s not think too hard about side intrusion protection. Being offered drives in stuff like this – well remunerated, as Bruce and Denny would have been – must have had an Eastern Front factor about it (Unattributed)
But Bruce could see the benefit of McLaren being involved in USAC racing, he cooled his jets in early 1969, and then via the usual McLaren communal design process tasked Gordon Coppuck to come up with a car for 1970.
Coppuck raided the parts bin to bolt onto the chubby, front radiator, aluminium monocoque chassis. The rear suspension was Can-Am M8 derived, and the 2.65-litre Offy turbo-engine’s power hit the road via Hewland’s four-speed LG500 trasaxle.
McLaren Cars at IMS in November 1969. M15A/1, Teddy Mayer at left; Bruce is on the RF with Tyler Alexander kneeling on the right. Is it Chris Amon at the wheel? (BCahier-MBisset-WordPress)
The first M15 was completed in November and was then shipped to McLaren Engines Inc, in Livonia, Detroit before being taken to Indianapolis and was immediately quick; Denny did 168mph, and Bruce 162. Three cars were built, see Allen Brown’s summary here:https://www.oldracingcars.com/mclaren/m15a/
McLaren’s campaign got complex when Chris Amon decided racing on closed speedways wasn’t his thing and decamped in favour of his March F1 and Can-Am, and Ferrari sports car commitments.
Poor Denny Hulme, while showing plenty of speed was outted from racing for weeks after a USAC mandated fuel filler mechanism failed and discharged methanol over its Kiwi driver and Offy engine, both of which went up in flames. That Denny was wearing leather rather than nomex gloves compounded his problems…
Amon aboard M15A/3 at Indy in May 1968. He’d been to Indy before in 1967? but decided it wasn’t for him (Unatt-MBisset-WordPress)Peter Revson poses for the standard IMS mugshot aboard M15A/2. Note the neat, far-forward rear wing installation, doubtless to accommodate the massive turbo-wastegate (IMS)
So Carl Williams and Peter Revson were drafted into the team as replacements. Both drivers qualified: Q19 and ninth for Carl and Q15 classified 22nd/blown engine for Revvie. Critically, McLaren had a good, close look at Peter Revson who became a key player in the immediate post Bruce McLaren Era; Bruce died testing an M8D Chev at Goodwood on June 2, 1970.
Carl Williams, McLaren M15A/3 Offy, 1970 Indy 500, ninth (IMS)
All things considered, it wasn’t a bad result, and critically it gave Gordon Coppuck a good idea about what it took to win in USAC racing, the M16 Offys that followed were rockets! The shot below shows Johnny Rutherford in a works M16C/5 Offy on the way to victory at Indy in 1974
(IMS)
Etcetera…
(McLaren Cars)
Carl Williams (24/8/1930-24/2/1973) in the McLaren Cars 1970 press release material.
An engineer away from racing, he competed in USAC sprint and champcars from 1965-72; 63 starts, 21 top ten placings, his best was a second place at Springfield in 1970, while his ninth with McLaren at Indy in 1970 was his best in six starts. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1973.
(D Friedman)
Chris had a crack at Indy in 1967, attempting to qualify this BRP 65 Ford (BRP-5-65). Allen Brown wrote that ‘Amon…topped 160mph unofficially in practice but crashed on 10 May and the car was “extensively damaged.” Clearly Indy was unfinished business for Chris, hence the second crack in 1970.
You’d think the chances of finding a shot of the original driver of M15A/3 and his replacement – Amon and Williams – would be slim, but never discount the breadth and depth of David Friedman’s Archive! Here they are in the Indy pitlane in 1967.
(D Friedman)
That year both drove BRPs owned by George Bryant. Williams had a cracker of a month in BRP-4-65 that sadly ultimately fell short. From Q23 he was running third in the 500, but then crashed on the final lap, and was classifed tenth. So near but so far to the podium!
I wonder if Chris suggested Williams to McLaren after he pulled the pin and returned to the UK?
(Hemmings)
Ken Wallis aboard his creation at Indianapolis in May 1968. Botany 500 was an American menswear manufacturer that went bust in 1973.
(Unattributed)
Bruce McLaren shots at Indy aren’t plentiful either. Both Shelby 68s are extant. That’s Dan’s works Eagle Ford behind, second place behind the winning Eagle 68 Offy raced by Bobby Unser.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Allen Brown-oldracing cars.com, Ebay, Hemmings, McLaren Cars, Bernard Cahier, David Friedman/David Friedman Archive, MotorSport
Parnelli Jones and the STP Team push his Granatelli 67 Pratt & Whitney Ferguson 4WD wedge onto the grid of the May 31, 1967 Memorial Day classic at Indianapolis.
The outrageous Ken Wallis built 4WD ‘Silent Sam’ – P&W ST6B-62 gas turbine on the left of the chassis, driver on the right – completely dominated the race, leading 171 laps but not the critical one. When leading comfortably, a small transmission bearing failed, gifting the victory to AJ Foyt’s Coyote 67 Ford.
(A Granatelli)Business end – make that side! – of Wallis’ magic machine (D Friedman)(Unattributed)
Magic shot of the Dieter Benz/Werner Brendel Porsche 911S on the way to 29th place in the 1967 Monte Carlo Rally.
Jim Clark – a wonderful portrait – just before the start of the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa on June 18, 1967.
Clark was sixth in his Lotus 49 Ford Cosworth, while Dan Gurney, in his Eagle Mk1 Weslake, made history up front by becoming a member of the small club of racers who won a Grand Prix in a car of their own construction: Alfieri Maserati (depending upon your definition of a Grand Prix), Jack Brabham, Bruce McLaren and Dan.
Newbee Chris Irwin wrestles the challenging Reg Parnell Racing BRM P83 H16 around the Nürburgring during the 1967 German Grand Prix, Q15 and a meritorious seventh, albeit two laps adrift of the light and nimble Brabham BT24 Repcos raced by winner Hulme from Team Chieftain, Jack Brabham.
Sadly, it was on the Nurburgring that Chris’s impressive career came to an end during practice for the May 19, 1968 1000 km aboard a Ford F3L, see here: https://primotipo.com/2018/06/21/skin-deep-beauty/
(Unattributed)
The Mike Spence/Jim Hall Chaparral 2F Chev leaves the pits after a stop in the 1967 Sebring 12-Hours
Below, the McLaren/Andretti Ford Mk4 rumbles its way to an historic victory over the AJ Foyt/Lloyd Ruby Ford GT Mk2 and Scooter Patrick/Gerhard Mitter, Porsche 910.
The Spence/Hall Chaparral 2F Chev was classified 37th but was out after 145 laps with differential failure, while teammates Bob Johnson/Bruce Jennings in a Chaparral 2D Chev were classified 41st after ignition failure after 128 laps. Feature about the 2F here:https://primotipo.com/2014/06/26/67-spa-1000km-chaparral-2f/
(Unattributed)(Unattributed)
The Owen Racing Organisation in action during the French Grand Prix meeting at Le Mans in July. Helen Stewart and Bette Hill get to work with their copies of The Times to combat the summer sun. More on the meeting here:https://primotipo.com/2016/02/03/le-mans-french-gp-1967-powerrrr/
Team Sweden shot of a Volvo 144 and Saab 96 V4 place unknown…
(Unattributed)(Unatt-MBisset-WordPress)
The third-place Ford Cortina GT Mk2 crewed by Peter Hughes and Robert E Syder (yep, WordPress has fudged Syder’s name) during the March 1967 East African Safari. The Bert Shankland /Chris Rothwell Peugeot 404 won with the Vic Preston/R Gerrish Lotus Cortina second.
(Unattributed)
Jo Siffert, Dieter Spoerry, Rico Steinemann and Charles Vogele set five long-distance world records in a Porsche 911R #001R at Monza between 29 October and November 4, 1967: 72 and 96 hours, 15000 km, 10000 miles, and 20000 km, the latter at 130.02mph. They also bagged 14 international class records.
The victorious Jacky Ickx/Dick Thompson JW Automotive Ford Mirage M1 battles the elements of the Ardennes Forest during the May 1 1967 Spa 1000km. The Siffert/Hermann Porsche 910 finished second, and the Attwood/Bianchi Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 412P finished third (below).
David Fox did some work on identifying the ‘red 906’. It’s one of the Racing Team Holland orange 906s: either the #51 Ben Pon/Gijs van Lennep car which didn’t survive practice thanks to Gij’s misfortune during practice after the car’s rear bodywork parted company with the chassis, or the #54 Gunther Huber/Ben Pon car which was popped on its lid by Huber on the first lap! All good for the Porsche spares dept but sub-optimal for the Dutch team’s budget.
(Unattributed)(Unattributed)
Council of war at Le Mans in 1967: Denny Hulme, Carroll Smith (I think), Paul Hawkins and Stirling Moss.
Paul Hawkins, at the wheel of the Shelby American Ford Mk2B he shared with Ronnie Bucknum during the race below. DNF at 6PM after 271 laps with a dropped valve. See here for a long feature on the race won by the Gurney/Foyt Ford Mk4:https://primotipo.com/2015/09/24/le-mans-1967/
(LAT)(Unattributed)
Mario Andretti togs up for the 1967 Indy 500: pole and DNF after 58 laps; lost wheel, Hawk 2 Ford V8. Nice watch. The bloke behind in the light yellow shirt has to be Mario’s brother, Aldo?
Andretti below on the way to third place in the Rex Mays 300 at Riverside on November 26, 1967.
Quick research of Allen Brown’s Old Racing Cars tells me Mario’s Indy chassis was a new for 1967 Hawk 2, whereas the chassis he mainly used on road courses that year was the Brawner Hawk Ford, one of two copies of Ron Tauranac’s Brabham BT12 commissioned of Clint Brawner, by BT12 owner John Zink after Jim McIlreath crashed it badly at Trenton in October 1964. So, on the balance of probabilities, Mario is in the Brawner Hawk Ford below. What a shot it is too…
(Unattributed)(MotorSport)
Jack Brabham raced BT19-1 – his 1966 championship-winning chassis – into 1967, fitted with Norman Wilson’s RB740 3-litre V8s until Ron Tauranac’s BT24 was ready. Brabham tested his BT24 740 at Zandvoort but elected to race ye-olde-faithful BT19 (above).
BT19-1’s final in-period race netted Jack third place in the November 12, 1967, non-championship Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama.
Below, Jack is working with two Goodyear technicians on his BT24 Repco 740 during the British Grand Prix weekend in July. Clark won from Hulme and Amon: Lotus 49, Brabham BT24 and Ferrari 312. Jack was fourth, having started from pole. More on the BT24 here:https://primotipo.com/2017/12/28/give-us-a-cuddle-sweetie/
(Unattributed)(LAT)
John Surtees blasts his hefty Honda RA273 V12 up the hill from St Devote during the tragic May 7, 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. Q3 and DNF engine after 32 of the 100 laps completed by the victorious Denny Hulme; Denny’s first championship GP victory.
Credits…
Andy Granatelli, David Friedman, eBay, from whence the rest of these unattributed photographs were sourced. In some cases, I’ve guessed the organisation from which the shot came, David Fox
Tailpiece…
(LAT-MBisset-WordPress)
The final F1 championship race win for the first of Repco’s F1 V8s, the Phil Irving-designed and drawn RB620, was in the back of Denny’s BT20 #F1-2-66 – his regular ’66 car – when the Kiwi won the 1967 Monaco GP (above). His first win of the season on the way to the 1967 World Championship.
Barry Nelson with Allan Moffat aboard his Brabham BT16 Lotus-Ford Formula B on the Road America dummy grid on June 17, 1967.
In a very limited campaign, he finished seventh in the Central Division of the SCCA-sanctioned championship.
(BryarRacingMagazine-MBisset-Wordpress)
Moffat’s primary program was running Ford’s Lotus Cortina program. The shot above shows him winning the Bryar Motor Sport Park 250 Trans Am round outright in London-Laconia, New Hampshire, in July 1966.
I’ve already written an epic about Moff’s single-seater racing, but my discovery of AI-enhanced photographs lured me back in this direction, as it meant I could do something with Barry Nelson’s old colour shots which were potentially very good. See here:https://primotipo.com/2020/04/14/allan-moffat-single-seater-racer/
Moffat two-wheeling his Lotus-Cortina at Sandown during the November 1964 6 Hour, he and Jon Leighton were fourth (unattributed)AM racing a works-Bud Moore Mercury Cougar, circuit unknown, 1967 (unattributed)(BNelson-MBisset-Wordpress)
AM ready to rock and roll in the most salubrious of surroundings! In the lane behind Bob Jane Racing, itself behind Jane’s Chrysler/Valiant dealership at 740 Sydney Road, Brunswick, Melbourne, with the ex-Jack Brabham 1968 Tasman Cup Brabham BT23E Repco-Brabham 740 2.5 V8.
Moff was entered in round three of the Australian Drivers Championship, the Gold Star, at Sandown on September 15, 1968, but things quickly turned to custard in practice when the just rebuilt car – from John Harvey’s Easter Bathurst accident caused by component failure – lost a wheel and did enough damage to end the weekend.
(B Nelson)(BNelson-MBisset-CoPilot)
Same time, same place, same car, but this time with John Sawyer, Jane’s team manager and chief mechanic. And a VE Valiant. In both enhanced shots, the car comes up well, but the facial features are much harder for the tool when the original is lacking…
(BNelson-MBisset-Wordpress)
Jack Brabham, below, earlier in 1968 racing the same chassis, BT23E, but fitted with the first 830 Repco-Brabham V8 during the February 25 Australian Grand Prix. DNF engine after 21 of the 55 laps; Jim Clark won the race – his last GP win – in a works Lotus 49 Ford Cosworth DFW.
(RBartholamaeusColl-MBisset-Wordpress)
Moffat exits Honda, maybe, in Bob Jane’s Elfin 400 Repco-Brabham 720 4.4 V8 at Phillip Island in November 1968. It’s a little-known event, and was probably a case of Bob throwing Moffat a bone.
He’d helped Sawyer and Jane buy the Shelby Mustang, and the deal supposedly was that AM would drive the old Mustang and Bob the newie. But Bob had racing drivers up to his armpits by that stage: there was Bob himself, Harvey recovering from his huge Bathurst prang, Ian Cook racing the Brabham and Elfin, and Bevan Gibson – arguably the most promising of the lot – sniffing around too.
(Rob Bartholomaeus Coll)
‘Take the Elfin down to the Island for a race or two and have a good time at the Isle of Wight.’ Before too long, Jane and Moffat had a parting of the ways, then Moffat pulled off the KarKraft Trans Am Mustang deal, and the rest is history…
How’d he go in the Elfin at the Island, folks? Rob Bartholomaeus sent me this magazine shot a decade ago. It’s a shit shot out of the December 1968 PIARC Notes magazine, but it’s amazing how well it came up with a tickle on WordPress. I even colourised it, something I’ve said to all and sundry I’d never do, but being the President of the Australian Society of Hypocrites, I just had to have a go. A brilliant job, too. And yes, the number could be 7. Apart from anything else, I’m intrigued to see how long it takes the colour shot to ‘do the social media rounds.’
(RBartholomaeusColl-MBisset-WordPress)Engine and cockpit of the Jane 400 – ratio change in progress – probably taken during the January 26, 1969 Phillip Island meeting when the car was driven by Bevan Gibson (N Chambers)(AutoAction-MBisset-WordPress)
Moffat hadn’t finished with single-seaters just yet.
Elfin ran a Calder test day for mainly BP-contracted drivers to have a lash in the brand new Elfin MR5 Repco-Holden F5000 car at Calder on Monday, September 13, 1971.
John McCormack finished second in the Sandown Gold Star round the day before in #5711, Kevin Bartlett won it in his McLaren M10B Chev. The steerers that day included Moffat, Henk Woelders, Garry Rush, John Harvey and David McKay, wearing his journo hat.
Moff did an undisclosed number of laps, and with too tall Sandown gearing, worn tyres and fullish tanks, did a best of 44 seconds neat.
There were rumours once or twice about a Tasman F5000 drive, but, sadly, that never happened.
(AutoAction-MBisset-WordPress)
Credits…
Barry Nelson, Rob Bartholomaeus, Neville Chambers, Auto Action
Tailpiece…
Things Go Better With…
Moffat with the Sandown hardware after winning the 1970 Sandown Three Hour aboard a works Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 2. Who is the bloke in the background?
Leo Geoghegan lookin’ not all that joyful in his ex-Clark Lotus 39 Climax on the Symmons Plains Gold Star grid, 13 November 1966. That’s Kevin Bartlett’s Alec Mildren Racing Brabham BT11A Climax alongside…
Geoghegan is swearing, in his mind at least, about the shitful Coventry Climax 2.5 FPF motor he bought from Team Lotus when he acquired Jim Clark’s 1966 Tasman Series weapon of war at the end of that summer. There was nuffin’ wrong with the chassis, but the tired ‘ole engine gave Australia’s Lotus concessionaire all manner of problems.
So he may well be dreaming of a Repco-Brabham V8, not that said acquisition proved drama free either into 1967 and beyond!
Look at the crowd, all well rugged up despite it being mid-November; all eyes are on the Cusack Lotus (perhaps it is he off to the left). I wonder what they’re doing to that car to arouse so much interest. Maybe it’s just a pretty lady standing beside the car; a few things fixate a group of males of all ages as much as a fine specimen of that particular species…
Leo’s Lotus is in Total colours: red and blue stripes on white, sensational too! The Total name could not appear on the car, of course, but I imagine the colour cues to the punters were pretty strong in the day.
That year of Australian elite-level single-seater racing is an interesting one as it represented a changing of the guard, which in the main shaped the grids to come for the next half decade or so.
Bib Stillwell, who raced for a looong time from just after the war, and peaked late in his career, retired at the end of 1965, having won four Gold Stars on the trot and proved on his day, with all of the planets aligned, that he was as good as all but the absolute cream of the international crop.
Spencer Martin won the Gold Star in 1966 with three wins in six rounds- he brought to the table twelve months and a bit of racing the challenging 2.5’s, having jumped aboard David McKay’s Brabham BT11A after Graham Hill vacated it when he returned to Europe at the end of the 1965 Tasman, having won the NZ GP at Pukekohe in the same chassis. Click here: https://primotipo.com/2015/04/30/spencer-martin-australian-gold-star-champion-19667
Spencer Martin, in the ex-SV, then Bob Jane Racing-owned Brabham BT11A Climax, on the Symmons pole. Car still owned by the Jane Family- or, more specifically, his Deceased Estate (R Dalwood)Bob Jane, Elfin Mono Mk1 Ford 1.5 t/c (R Dalwood)
Bob Jane bought the car in 1966 when McKay and Martin had a meltdown in their relationship. They patched up later in their lives, but things were a bit frosty at the time. Jane and McKay were both sponsored by Shell, so it was all kept in the family, but I suspect Jano paid full-tote-odds for the BT11A rather than nick-it the way he preferred to buy stuff…
Kevin Bartlett had done his time, having come into racing circa 1958 and been in Alec Mildren’s care for a year or so. He had been getting some big car experience in Alec’s Mildren Maserati 2.9 sports-racer and showed great speed in his Brabham BT2 Ford t/c 1.5 in the 1966 Australian Tasman rounds, including fifth in the AGP at fast Lakeside.
That KB chucked the BT11A about with the gay abandon he demonstrated in smaller cars surprised no one. The pointy end of the grid was usually these two similarly mounted Sydneysiders- that is, Bartlett and Martin, who were and still are good mates. Click here for Martin and Bartlett and BT11A speed: https://primotipo.com/2018/04/27/kbs-first-bathurst-100mph-lap/
Greg Cusack raced under the Scuderia Veloce umbrella with his Elfins and Brabham 1.5 but struck out on his own in 1966 with Clark’s 1965 Tasman car- a Lotus 32B Climax which had been acquired by Kiwi Jim Palmer after the Tasman and raced by him in New Zealand in 1965, and sold to Cusack after the 1966 Tasman in which Palmer showed plenty of speed.
Greg wasn’t entirely happy with the car, converting the front suspension from inboard rocker to conventional outboard wishbones and picked up the win at Symmons when poleman Martin retired with clutch problems, Bartlett’s Hewland played up, and Leo’s FPF issues did not even allow him to take the grid, hence the shitty look in photo #1!
Greg Cusack in the ex-Clark/Jim Palmer Lotus 32B Climax, Symmons 1966 (R Dalwood)Scratchy but still good in colour- from this side, Greg Cusack, Lotus 32B Climax and the two BT11A ‘twins’ Bartlett in Mildren Yellow and Martin in Bob Jane Racing Red on pole (E French)Ditto above- the nose is John Harvey’s RRC Phillips owned Brabham BT14 Ford t/c(oldracephotos.com/DKeep)
John Harvey was a speedway star before deciding longevity was a bit more likely if he switched to the circuits. After showing speed in Ron Phillip’s Cooper S, he graduated to the ex-Stillwell Brabham BT14 Ford t/c ANF1.5- he made his debut in the car at the Hordern Trophy Gold Star round at Warwick Farm in December 1965 and showed lots of speed and consistency in it during 1966, fettled as it was by Peter Molloy, who very sadly left us several weeks back.
John raced this car with a twin-cam which progressively grew in size until Molloy squeezed an RBE640 2.5 V8 into its spaceframe chassis in time for the opening Gold Star meeting at Lakeside in June 1967- and then became very much an outright contender. By the time they had the package sorted, winning a feature at Oran Park, Bob Jane popped Harves into the Brabham BT11A seat vacated by Spencer Martin at the end of the 1967 Gold Star- he retired prematurely in the minds of many, but in one piece, at his peak.
Jane was in a very good place to observe the talent sharing the grids as he was and being passed every now and again by the 2.5’s in his ANF1.5 Elfin Mono Mk1…
Let’s not forget John McCormack either.
He raced the ex-Jack Brabham BT4 Climax to third place this weekend, albeit three laps adrift of the leading pair of Cusack and Harvey. This car was raced by thrice World Champ Brabham in the 1962 Caversham AGP and our Internationals that summer. It would be a year or three before Mac chased his dream nationally, moved to Adelaide and acquired an Elfin 600C, initially fitted with the FPF out of the Brabham, with his intent really shown when he and the Elfin boys fitted an RBE740 2.5 into that car in the dying days of ANF2.5 in 1970. Success in F5000 followed, of course.
Garrie Cooper didn’t travel across Bass Strait, but he contested four of the Gold Star rounds in his ‘works’ Elfin Mono- he too was stepping up a gear with the luxury of his own car in addition to looking after the needs of his customers.
Let’s not lose my original premise, though- 1966 and the ’emergence at elite level’ of Geoghegan, Martin, Bartlett, Cusack and Harvey shaped our Gold Star races for the next few years to come, with only KB and McCormack racing single-seaters a decade hence.
(R Dalwood)(R Dalwood)
The two photos above are just before the off and a few seconds after the drop of the flag.
In the lower of the two, Cusack on the left has gotten the jump on Martin on the right. Bartlett hasn’t left the line; look carefully, and you can see him mid-grid, arm in the air, praying nobody gives him a hit up the arse, so to speak. KB has Lynn Archer, Elfin Catalina Ford, at left and Stan Keen (I think), Elfin Mono Mk1 Ford, at right. The two cars in between are Harvey’s BT14 on the left and McCormack’s BT4 on the right.
Cusack won from Harvey, McCormack, McEwin’s Elfin Mono Mk1 Ford t/c, Glynn Scott’s Lotus 27 Ford t/c and Archer’s Elfin Ford 1.5 pushrod.
Etcetera…
(R Dalwood)
Symmons 1966 raceday scene.
The track is still in use, having opened on 13 March 1960 using a leased paddock on the Youl family’s Symmons Plains grazing property. The track is 2.41km long and located 30km south of Launceston, the ‘capital’ of Northern Tasmania.
I’m buggered if I know who this is, but I’ve arrived at Mike Champion’s ex-Dave Walker/Frank Gardner/Kevin Bartlett (how’s that for a pedigree?) Brabham BT2 Ford by a process of elimination.
Using good old racingcars.com as my reference source, it ISN’T Bob Jane, Mel McEwin or Stan Keen’s Elfin Monos; Glynn Scott or Les Howard’s Lotus 27s; or Lynn Archer’s Elfin Catalina Ford. Therefore, it is Mike Champion. Is it, though?
There’s More…
Shortly after I uploaded this article, Ray Bell, author/historian and race reporter in the day for Racing Car News and other publications, sent me this email, many thanks, Ray.
Hi Mark,
Your 'Times They Are A-Changin' was indeed how it felt at the time. All of a sudden the relatively new Spencer was up against Leo, Greg and KB. Spencer had been in the 2.5s since 1964, however, having had the joy of driving the BT4 for one season. Another young newcomer in a 2.5 was John McDonald.
Leo's problems are hard to quantify. I tried to talk to Sheppo about some of this, one meeting at the Farm a head stud broke, which he explained was because he'd had them plated. Hydrogen embrittlement was the cause of it breaking, he said that if he'd known he could have avoided it by putting them in the oven. So were the problems partially lack of experience with that engine? Shouldn't have been, but maybe Sheppo applying his perfection to things hit in other ways too.
The conversion of the 32B to Brabham suspension was done in pursuit of the ideal that Greg was used to the chuckability of the little Brabham. Both front and rear suspensions got the changes. See the pic (below). If you go through the RCN reports that year you'll see that Bruce Burr's contribution was pure amateur hour stuff. He told me at Longford that he'd been watching the cars coming down the straight to Mountford and saw that the Lotuses were doing the best job of holding a straight line and so he used Greg's money to buy the Palmer car - yet three months later (or less?) he was pitching the original suspension out.
For KB it was a slow start to the year. The car failed in practice at Bathurst and then didn't appear at the May Warwick Farm, so his first race was Lakeside. Then at Surfers he was showing JB and Jackie Stewart the way around. McDonald, meanwhile, was floundering. But a late start to Leo's and Greg's season wasn't helpful for the competition either.
The other thing about Symmons was that there was heavy rain for the last nine laps of the race, Harvey made good progress in those conditions but Greg still won. And it was Champion, who had a pit stop with engine trouble a few laps before pitting again for good. Funny thing, I don't remember him ever having those stripes around the front, the most memorable thing about that car being a very high exhaust pipe.
Ray
Bruce Burr aboard the ex-Clark/Palmer Greg Cusack Lotus 32B Climax, now with outboard front suspension rather than the factory-delivered rocker set-up used so effectively by others…(R Bell)
Credits…
oldracingcars.com, Reg Dalwood Collection, oldracephotos.com/DKeep, Ray Bell
Jack Brabham, Brabham BT17 Repco, leads John Coundley’s McLaren-Elva Mk 1 Olds and winner Denny Hulme’s Lola T70 Mk2 Chev during the 1966 Tourist Trophy weekend at Oulton Park on April 29, 1966.
It was the race debut of the big-banger 4.3-litre Repco-Brabham 620 V8-powered BT17, a car that only did two races in period before a later lash as a hillclimber: the TT and the Guards Trophy at Brands Hatch on August 29. At Oulton it retired with oil leaks after only two laps, and at Brands engine problems prevented it from starting the race. There is a little more about BT17 in here:https://primotipo.com/2019/02/22/rbe-by-the-numbers/
Given its sedentary life of two meetings, in only one of which it started, and then in the corner of MRD, finding photographs for an upcoming Brabham book is problematic. I was having a whinge to ‘me mate, fellow enthusiast/historian Stephen Dalton, who mentioned the image on eBay below.
Even after a tickle with WordPress, it won’t make the cut, but his idea got me looking at the eBay archive/website; problem solved! The one above will do nicely.
Then yer go looking of course, this article is the first in what will become a regular series. Some of the images are good to go, others need sharpening to use. The captions make clear when I’ve given them a tickle. Sadly, more often than not, the vendors selling the shots don’t disclose the photographer. I’ve disclosed them when I can; otherwise, I’ve listed eBay as the source.
(eBay-MBisset-WordPress)
(eBay)
(Miroir Sprint)
Hmm, WTF I thought? Clearly a 1971 spec 917K, close look, Derek Bell behind the wheel, not the usual Gulf signage package. Miroir Sprint image, so quite possibly a shot in France.
And so it turns out. Derek drove the #18 Gulf 917K #016 at the Le Mans Test Day on April 18, 1971, together with teammates Jo Siffert and Jackie Oliver. David Fox believes it’s the Ford Chicane.
I love Jean-Pierre Froidevaux’ shot of the 2-litre Honda V6 nestled in the back of one of the two works Honda RH6/81s that contested the Hockenheim European F2 Championship round on April 5, 1981.
Mike Thackwell was third, and Geoff Lees fifth in the Deutschland Trophy, a race won by Stefan Johannsson’s Lola T850 Hart 420R. Lees won the championship. More about the Ralt RH6 Hondas here:https://primotipo.com/2023/12/09/ralt-rh6-81-honda-v6/
(eBay-MBisset-WordPress)
Somehow, this poor-quality image of Jim Clark blasting through the Hockenheimer Hardt forest at Hockenheim on that day in 1968 is all the more poignant for it. Works Lotus 48 Ford FVA during the Deutschland Trophy, Euro F2 round on April 7.
Most Australians of a certain age think of the 1978 Sandown Fangio Meeting when you mention Jack Brabham and the Mercedes-Benz W196 in the same breath. Our Jack ‘diced’ in BT19 Repco with JMF in a W196S 3-litre-engined W196R on a day those who were there will never forget. More about that meeting here:https://primotipo.com/2018/08/21/juan-manuel-fangios-sandown-park/
So, what’s the story here? Does anyone know where and when this drive/demo took place? Perhaps the Mercedes test track at Unterkheim, David Fox suggests.
(C Williams)
Graeme Lawrence’s Ferrari Dino 246T leads the mob into Shell Corner – the first corner on the first lap – of the February 22, 1970 Sandown Park Cup, the deciding final round of the seven that comprised the 1970 Tasman Cup.
It was a season of change; F5000 was the future, but the traditional 2.5-litre cars were eligible, and indeed, Graeme won the series with a summer of consistent, reliable pace in the same chassis #246T/69-0008 that carried Chris Amon to victory a year before. The McLaren M10s of Graham McRae, Frank Matich and Niel Allen were faster but were brittle, so Lawrence’s single win triumphed over the GM and FM’s two, and Niel Allen’s one.
The order is Lawrence, I think the front row, poleman Matich and Allen M10A and M10B Chev, respectively, have gone; #3 is John Harvey, Brabham BT23E Repco 830 2.5, #5 is Kevin Bartlett’s Mildren Yellow Sub Waggott TC-4V 2-litre. Tucked up GL’s clacker is Mike Goth’s Surtees TS5 Chev and behind him is his countryman, Ron Grable, in the stars n’ stripes rear-winged M10A Chev.
Niel Allen won a 100-mile race of attrition – six of the eight F5000s that started retired – from Lawrence with third-place man, party-boy, Ulf Norinder, Lola T190 Chev, third but two laps adrift of the front pair. Lawrence won the Tasman in his 2.4; FM was second in his F5000 with the 2-litre Mildren twins – Bartlett and Max Stewart equal third, not a bad distribution of the spoils in a Tasman where the F1 drivers were sorely missed…
Oscar ‘Cacho’ Fangio aboard his Brabham BT15 Ford during the June 26, 1966, Monza Lottery F3 meeting.
Fangio raced his Chas Lucas BT15 Ford to 13th, one place behind Frank Williams’ BT18 Ford. Up front, soon-to-be Ferrari driver Jonathan Williams won in a De Sanctis Ford. See more about Cacho and Tonino Ascari here:https://primotipo.com/2019/08/27/tonino-ascari/
Another French mystery shot…If I knew that Simca had built a 2-litre F2 engine, I’d certainly forgotten! The vendor dated the fantastic shot to 1975, and I can see the Chevron insignia on the steering wheel, so that was enough hints to start with.
Quick search of Allen Brown’s oldracingcars.com race results suggests a Chevron B29, as to which chassis and race meeting, your guess is as good as mine…The shot of Xavier Lapeyre’s Chevron B29 #29-75-10 Chrysler-Simca-ROC at Hockenheim on the June 8 weekend (DNQ) below is there only to show you a B29 Simca; I’m not suggesting the engine shot is this chassis.
The 270-290bhp, DOHC, four-valve, Kugelfischer fuel-injected 1993c (92x75mm bore/stroke) engine was developed by Racing Organisation Course (ROC) from the production Simca-Chrysler 2-litre cast iron block used in the Chrysler/Simca range.
(LAT)
In 1975, the dominant BMWs: M12/6 and Schnitzer 20-4 were good for a reliable 290-300bhp. I’m not sure what a good BDA or BDG gave then, but they were towards the front with good steerers. Lapeyre’s eighth at Mugello and 11th at Hockenheim were the best results for the engine in 1975; Jean-Pierre Beltoise qualified his B29 ROC in the Top 10 thrice, but one of those was a non-championship round.
Note that the Chrysler-Simcas were effective in endurance racing, for example, winning the 2-litre class at Le Mans in the back of Chevron B36s in 1977, 1978 and 1980, a story for another time.
‘Racing Organization of Races – ROC’ is the way the French Government describes (annuaire-enterprises.data.gouv.fr) the ‘public limited company (SA) with a board of directors.’ That entity, founded on January 1, 1973, appears inactive from 1999.
Fred Stalder’s (not Stadler, according to Official 24 Hours Le Mans Archives and other sources) business was founded on January 1, 1973 and was based at ZI Les Buchillions 74100Annemasse (Haute Savoie). Doubtless, he used other entities for his subsequent varied career as a builder/preparer/entrant of touring and endurance cars; Google away yourselves, my French, other than when inebriated, isn’t too flash.
(DPPI)
Well rugged up John Cooper watches as Roy Salvadori settles himself into the cockpit of Derrick White’s new Cooper T81 Maserati V12 for its first, or thereabouts, test at Silverstone in March 1966. Date folks?
He’d driven a Cooper T51 Maserati or two, but this beast – Cooper’s first for the new 3-litre Formula – was an entirely different beast. The wily, quick, entrepreneurial Salvadori’s role in the Maserati-Cooper deal is well-told by Allen Brown here:https://www.oldracingcars.com/cooper/t81/
The business end of John Surtees’ Cooper T81 Maserati during the July 16, 1966 British Grand Prix weekend. Q6 and DNF: rear axle failure; Brabham won in BT19 Repco 620.
Tipo 9 Maserati 60-degree, DOHC, two-valve V12. 2989cc – 70.4/64mm bore/stroke – two 10mm plugs per cylinder, Lucas port fuel injection, Lucas transistor ignition, c-360bhp @ 9500rpm. ZF five-speed transaxle.
(G Molter)
You can get the build-season sense of urgency in this Motor Racing Developments shot taken by Gunther Molter in 1964, 1965 or 1966. The question, for you Brabham historians, is whether the Cosworth SCA-powered 1-litre F2 cars in build are 1964 BT10s, 1965 BT16s…or 1966 BT18s.
The answer is important as I’d rather like to use the image in our upcoming Brabham book, and it would be nice to put it in the correct chapter!
(eBay)
Chris Amon contests the LA Times GP Can-Am round at Riverside on October 30, 1966, DNF dead battery from grid seven after 50 of the 62 laps, winner, John Surtees, Lola T70 Mk2 Chev; and subsequent Can-Am Cup victor.
Amon’s bests were third at St Jovite, second at Bridghampton. The other three DNFs were from the front couple of rows…the youngster was pretty handy in these big cars!
Francois and Jack were tenth in the race won by JW Engineering Porsche 917K driven by Pedro Rodriguez/Leo Kinnunen/Brian Redman. The best-placed 3-litre machine was the ex-works NART Ferrari 312P raced by Sam Posey/Mike Parkes, fourth. More here:https://primotipo.com/2024/07/31/jo-siffert-daytona-24-hours-1970/
(eBay)
Gordon Cooper and Jim Rathman with their Gerhardt 66 Ford during the Indy Month of May in 1967. Watch this space over the next couple of days…
(eBay-MBisset-WordPress)
1978 World Rally Champion, Bjorn Waldegard, was one of the most successful and revered Safari Rally competitors, having won the event five times: 1977 Ford Escort RS1800, 1984 Toyota Celica Twin-Cam Turbo on both occasions navigated by Hans Thorszelius, and in 1986, Toyota Celica Twin-Cam Turbo and in 1990 aboard a Toyota Celica GT-Four ST165, on the latter two occasions, navigated by Fred Gallagher. In the modern era, he won the East African Safari Rally Classis aboard a Porsche 911 together with his son Mathias in 2011.
However…in 1980 he was tenth in the Mercedes 450SLC above. Shekhar Mehta won in a Datsun 160J, Rauno Aaltonen was second in another 160J, and Vid Preston was third in the first home 450 SLC.
(eBay)
Sticking with the Formula 2 thread we seem to have going with this article, shown are shots of the victorious 1-litre Brabham BT18 Honda, which was as dominant in the ‘1966 European F2 Championship’ – there wasn’t one – as the Brabham BT19 Repco was lucky in the 1966 World F1 Championships. I have Ferrari and John Surtees shooting themselves in the feet in mind in saying that.
I love this Pau F3 GP shot taken during the April 17, 1966 weekend. Roby Weber’s Alpine A270 Renault is en route to third place in the 30-lap, 83km race won by Piers Courage, Lotus 41 Ford-Cosworth, from the similarly powered Brabham BT18 raced by Chris Williams.
Weber was second in both the French F3 Championship and the Challenger Craven A-France; Johnny Servoz-Gavin, Matra MS5 Ford-Cosworth, won the former and Courage the latter. There’s more about Alpine here:https://primotipo.com/2022/12/18/jean-pierre-jabouille/
Credits…
eBay, Miroir Sprint, Gunther Molter, Jean Pierre Froidevaux, F Prysen, Publifoto, Allen Brown and oldracingcars.com, David Fox
Garrie Cooper aboard Australian Racing Royalty, the ultimate Elfin 600, the car he built for himself to contest the 1970 Australian Gold Star Championship, Elfin 600D chassis #7012 powered by a 295bhp 2.5-litre Repco 830 SOHC, two valve V8
He’s in the shadows of the Wanneroo Park control tower during the May 3, 1970 Lex Davison Memorial meeting, the feature race of which was the 35-lap West Australian Road Racing Championship.
(SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)
The two raiding invaders were Elfin 600 mounted South Australians, the boss himself, Garrie Cooper, and long-time Elfin customer, the fast-rising John Walker in #6907, the first of his two 600Bs, #7018 being the other. Walker was the reigning WA Champion but had little chance of defending his title against the far quicker 2.5-litre car.
Racing Car News’ Mike Cuss wrote, ‘Both cars were magnificently prepared, and if evaluated point by point would leave many European cars we see here a long way back in second place. Detail design and standard of finish of the Elfin 600 series must be the best bar none.’
(CMunday-MBisset-WordPress)
The flag drops with Cooper on pole, Walker and Craig McAllister in the yellow Macon Ford on this side on the front row, then George Cole, Befa-Ford and Bob Ilich’s on row two
(C Munday)
Team Ilich with their heads chopped off, unfortunately; Brabham BT21B Cosworth SCB, chassis #16. Bob Ilich was a Brabham Racing Organisation mechanic during the 1964-67 glory years and returned to WA with this car, which he raced very successfully for many years. The west had a very strong local 1.5-1.6-litre scene; for most of the 1960s and 1970s, they didn’t have Gold Star rounds due to the tyranny of distance from the east coast. More about Bob here:https://primotipo.com/2026/03/28/australian-racing-random-24/
Ilich fettling his Cosworth SCB 1498cc SOHC, two-valve, twin Weber 40 DCM2 downdraught-fed engine, the 1.5-litre variant of Cosworth’s successful 1-litre F2 engine. Ford 116E block, Heron or bowl-in-crown combustion chamber, Laystall steel crank etc. The literature sez 175bhp, but that sounds like a hand-on-willy number to me? (C Munday)(SLWA)
Cooper led the race comfortably from Walker (above), the pair lapping comfortably in the 61-second bracket, about 3 seconds quicker than the locals. Cooper, Walker, McAllister and Ilich were out front, way ahead of George Cole, Befa-Ford and Bernie Zampatti’s, Zalfa, an Alfa Romeo-powered spaceframe chassis machine.
GC copped a bit of excitement on lap 2 when the right-rear of Ken Gardiner’s GR3 zipped across the ‘main-straightaway’ in front of him, ‘Shades of Barnes Wallis and his dam-busting bouncing bombs!’ as Mike Cuss wrote.
By lap 11 of 35, Cooper was lapping the tail-enders for the second time, ‘leaving a string of slower cars between him and second-placed man John Walker, who was easing the Elfin along with overheating problems.’ McAllister spun and let Ilich through into third place and that’s the way they finished: Cooper, Walker 34 laps, Ilich 33, McAllister 31 and Colin Ekert, Elfin, 29 laps.
Bernie Zampatti’s Elfin Mono-esque in appearance Zalfa, an Alfa Romeo-powered single-seater (C Munday)(C Munday-MBisset-WordPress)Gilbert Motor Bodies was the Walker family’s Adelaide auto body business. Rear wing was mounted unfashionably forward (CMunday-MBisset-WordPress)
John Walker, note the period-correct Marlboro in his gob, did well in his 600Bs, winning the Victorian Joseph Lucas/Stillwell-Davison Trophy in #6907, and finishing second behind Max Stewart’s Mildren Waggott in the one-race, 40-lap, 67-mile 1970 Australian F2 Championship at Lakeside in September aboard his new #7018.
He raced that car on into 1971, finishing fourth in the 1971 F2 championship won by Larry Perkins’ Gary Campbell-owned Elfin 600B/E, then refocused on the Elfin MR5 Repco-Holden F5000 car from late 1971. #5714 was delivered in February 1972. JW had been racing twin-cam Elfins – Mono Mk2 and two 600Bs from late 1966 – so the step up was timely and just the ticket for the new class.
(SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)Garrie Cooper gets the goodies, Bob Ilich behind (SLWA-MBisset-SLWA)
Noting that I am a hopelessly biased Elfin fan, I think the gist of the following piece I wrote a while back about the 1970 Australian Gold Star Championship was, in part, that Cooper’s – designed and built by him and his team – 600D Repco 830 V8 was the COTY (car of the year), albeit one that was under-developed and a tad unreliable, see here: https://primotipo.com/2019/07/05/oran-park-diamond-trophy-gold-star-1970/
Elfin 600 front uprights, please discuss! Alford & Alder (Triumph Herald etc) forgings on the 600, 600B and 600 Formula Ford, cast magnesium on the 600E and fabricated steel on 600C and 600D, as above…
The 600D has always been on my list of favourite Australian Racing Cars along with a Matich A53 Repco-Holden, Bowin P8 Hart-Ford 416B, Elfin 360 Repco 830 2.5, Birrana 374 Ford and the Mawer 004 Formula Ford. Hmm, if I can only have one, it’s the 600D, lucky Frank Arronis, the car’s current custodian.
Etcetera…
(SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)
Walker and Cooper on the Wanneroo dummy grid, I’ve never been to the place, it’s time to go.
(SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)
Howie Sangster took a couple of wins in his Pinocchio (Nightclub) Racing Team Lola T70 Mk2 Chev. #SL71/38 the ex-Jack Epstein machine raced by Paul Hawkins, was gussied up with some McLaren components by this stage and was dubbed the McLaren LT70 or McLola, depending upon your religion.
Howie was a busy boy that weekend, also taking victory in a scratch race for Minis in Jim Mullins’ Cooper S; who are driving the first two cars in the panorama below, folks?
(SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)Bob Ilich (SLWA)Team Ilich and Brabham BT21B Cosworth SCB. I’ll get in touch with Bob, third from the right, to put names to the faces (SLWA-MBisset-WordPress)
Cosworth SCA/SCB/SCC…
The following are the specifications of a Weber-fed 1964 Cosworth SCA F2 engine.
The SC series is a significant engine in Cosworth’s back catalogue and no doubt occupied a bullet point or three in Colin Chapman’s PowerPoint presentation to Ford’s Walter Hayes when our-Col pitched Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin’s outfit as the preferred designer/constructors of his planned 3-litre V8 Grand Prix engine in 1965-66…the Ford Cosworth DFV V8 was the result of the alliance.
Four cylinder engine, capacity 997cc bore/stroke of 81mm/48.36 mm, compression ratio of 12.5:1 giving 115 bhp minimum @ 8700 rpm and torque of 76 lb ft @ 6800 rpm.
Cylinder Head. Cast aluminium alloy; cylinders, cast iron – bored in block. Bore dia. 3.1890/3.1895
Crankcase. Cast iron (Ford 116E) – monobloc type, crankshaft forged-nitrided steel (Laystall), end play .002 – 011″, thrust taken by two half washers. Main journal dia. 2.1255/2.1360″ Conrod journal dia. 1.9370/1.9375″ Stroke 1.903/1.906″ Main bearings shells – ‘Vandervell’ lead-indium, steel backed. Cosworth Part No. F0012 Main bearing caps are special steel, housing bored .015″ o/s
Camshaft. Monikrom, run in five bearings. Driven by a train of seven gears from the crankshaft. Bearings – white metal shell type ‘Vandervell’
Valve Mechanism: Inverted piston-type tappets, running directly on the camshaft. Chill-cast iron. Valve Timing F1 – 102 deg Cosworth camshaft 1O 58 deg BTDC IC 82 deg ATDC EO 82 deg BTDC EC 58 deg ATDC Valve lift .400″ Ramp .010″
Valves. Inlet material: austenitic steel. Head dia. 1.45 “; seat angle 45 deg; stem dia 9/32”. Exhaust. Material: austenitic steel. Head dia. 1.25 “; seat angle 45 deg; stem dia 9/32″. Valve Springs. Double springs, outer variable-pitch wound. Rate 260 Ib/in. Free length 1.65”. Fitted length 1.29″ (both measured on outer). Close coils to be fitted at head end.
Connecting rods material EN.24 Length centre to centre 5.434″ End Play .002 / .006″ Bearings Trimetal (steel backed)
Pistons. Special Cosworth/Hepolite, forged in RR59, one compression, one oil control ring. Gudgeon pins: hollow taper bored. Ground o/d 13/16″ dia nominal Clearance .0002 – 0005″ Retained by flat circlips Compression Ring Material Cast iron. Plain, high radial pressure. Ring gap .019″. Oil control ring Two separate scrapers in single groove
Water Pump, Cosworth, driven from front of jackshaft
Lubrication: dry sump full-pressure system. Main bearings – pressure fed. Connecting rods – pressure fed. Gudeon pins – splash. Cylinder wall, camshaft bearings – pressure fed. Tappets – splash. Timing gears – jet and splash. Oil Pump ‘Hobourn-Eaton’ type, Cosworth designed, mounted on side of cylinder block. Oil Filter. Not supplied with engine; should be full flow with special felt cartridge, and by-pass valve blanked off.
Distributor Lucas 40731 10 deg – 1000 rpm. Rotation anti-clockwise, Firing order 1 3 4 2. Contact breaker arm spring tension 32 oz. Centrifugal advance 20 deg on crank. Contact breaker gap .010 / 012″
Carburation: Two 40 DCM2 Weber. Choke size 32mm Jetted to suit the engine whilst being tested on a dynamometer. Inlet Manifolds: Cast Aluminium alloy, machined to house ‘O’ rings for flexible mounting.
Credits…
Chris Munday, State Library of Western Australia, Racing Car News July 1970, Autocar April 16, 1965, John Marsden, John Scott-Davies
