Giancarlo Baghetti relaxes during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, he had a ‘one off’ drive of the Team Lotus spare ’49, backing up Jim Clark and Graham Hill…
He qualified well back on the grid, 17th, and retired on lap 50 whilst running 6th with an engine failure. John Surtees took a fabulous last corner win from Jack Brabham, winning Hondas’ first Grand Prix since Ginthers’ victory in the last race of the 1.5 Litre Formula in Mexico, 1965.
Baghettis’ career started with immense promise, famously winning his first championship Grand Prix, the French in a great dice with Dan Gurney (Porsche) in a Ferrari 156 in 1961….
The stone chips on the nose of Baghettis’ 156 bear witness to the closeness of the race, third place went to Jim Clarks’ Lotus 21 Climax. (sutton images)
Toto Roche waves the chequered flag for Baghetti, winning a famous victory over Dan Gurneys’ Porsche 718, French GP Reims 1961, his championship race debut. (Unattributed)
Baghetti started racing in 1956in an Alfa Romeo 1900Ti and built a solid reputation as he moved into Formula Junior in 1959. In early 1961 he was selected to drive for the Italian FISA team, an organization formed to promote young Italian drivers by entering them in Non-Championship Grands’ Prix.
FISA struck a deal with Scuderia Ferrari to run a 1960 F2 Ferrari Dino 156 (in effect the prototype of the 1961 F1 car) in the first non-championship races of 1961. The results were amazing, Baghetti, not necessarily the best credentialled candidate won on his GP debut in Syracuse in front of Gurney, Surtees, G Hill, Brabham, Moss, Salvadori, Ireland and Bandini.
Giancarlo Baghetti ahead of Dan Gurney Syracuse GP April 1961. Ferrari Dino 156 from Porsche 718. The first of Giancarlos’ wins against stong opposition. (Unattributed)
He followed up with another win in the Napoli GP in May beating Ashmore, Lotus 18 Climax and Bandini Cooper T53 Maserati 2nd and 3rd as well as Roy Salvadori, Andre Pilette and Tim Parnell.
FISA persuaded Ferrari to hire them a 1961 ‘Shark Nose’ for their driver to make his championship GP debut at Reims, he was allocated the car which was to be driven by Equipe National Belge driver Olivier Gendebien, the car quickly repainted from yellow to red.
Phil Hill took pole from Ferrari teammates Von Trips and Ginther, Baghetti 12th fastest. The 3 works Ferrari’s disappeared at the start, only Moss managed to stay near them. Even a quick spin by Ginther dropped him behind the Lotus, but he was soon able to re-pass Moss such was the Ferraris’ power advantage.
Baghetti had made his way to the front of the chasing pack. When Moss was forced to pit with brake problems, the four Ferrari’s lead, this didn’t last as Von Trip’s engine died in the heat.
Hill spun on the melting road surface. The American lost over 2 laps as he tried to restart his hot engine. This left Ginther in the lead with Baghetti fighting the Porsches of Dan Gurney and Jo Bonnier to hold on to second place, a battle that became even more significant a couple of laps later as Ginther pulled off the track with no oil pressure.
Baghetti recounts the last laps …’It was a very hard race. It was hot. The asphalt was melting, the radiator was blocking up and I saw the temperature starting to soar. Luckily I was behind the two Porsches of Gurney and Bonnier and relied on getting a tow along the straights. What you must remember is that this was my first Grand Prix and both Gurney and Bonnier were trying to frighten me by running on either side of me, but I thought that if they could do things like that and get away with it, then I could do it too.
Three laps from the end Gurney and I were fighting for the lead and I realized that to finish first I needed to be in the perfect position to slipstream. Going into the last corner I was right behind Gurney so that as we came out I was on his tail. He sat right in the middle of the track because he obviously knew what I was going to try to do. I waited and when I saw him glance in his mirror when I was on his left, I quickly switched to the right and got past him to win the race.’
Giancarlo Baghetti became the first man in history to win his debut World Championship Grand Prix.
James Allingtons’ cutaway drawing of the 1960 Ferrari 156 F2 car, chassis ‘008’ the car used by Baghetti at Syracuse and Naples was the prototype 1960 car fitted with ’61 ‘Sharknose’ body. Multi-tubular spaceframe chassis, suspension by upper and lower wishbones front and rear. 1476cc 65 degree DOHC 2 valve Weber carbed V6, 185bhp@9200rpm. 5 speed ‘box. Later spec ’61 cars had the 120 degree V6 190bhp@9500rpm. (James Allington)
Baghetti qualified mid-grid for the British GP, spinning off the wet Aintree circuit during the race. For his home GP at Monza he qualified 6th, the other four Ferrari’s were faster. This was the day that von Trips was expected to win the world title, but it was not to be, ‘Taffy’ crashed to his death after contact with Clarks’ Lotus 21, the car flew into the crowd killing 11 spectators on lap two. Baghetti raced at the front until his engine blew on lap 14 and Phil Hill won the race to seal the first World Championship for an American driver. Giancarlo set the fastest lap.
His season ended with his 4th and last GP win, he took victory in a little known event to decide the ‘Prima Coppa Italia’ (Italian Championship for Drivers) at Vallelunga, Baghetti won the 2 heats in a Porsche 718 when his Ferrari was not available for the event. Lorenzo Bandini and Baghetti were tied for the Championship , this event was organised to decide the winner.
What a debut GP season!
1961 spec Ferrari 156. (Scuderia Ferrari)
For 1962 Baghetti joined Phil Hill, the ’61 champion in the works Ferrari team (Rodriguez driving a third car occasionally). Enzo rested on his laurels thinking that the 156’s didn’t require evolution to continue their dominance but the Brits had caught up.
BRM, Lotus and Cooper produced cars to beat the Ferrari’s. Lotus debuted the epochal monocoque chassis Lotus 25 at Zandvoort and Coventry Climax produced their FWMV 1.5 V8 in quantities, the BRM team also built a V8, the Type 56 available to customers as well as the ‘works’ BRM P57’s. The British teams shortcomings in 1961 were their engines, the relatively old 1.5 litre variant of the Climax FPF not ‘man enough’ for Ferrari’s powerful V6. It was different in 1962 when their engine power was equivalent to their chassis mastery…
Baghetti scored points at Zandvoort and Monza, but Ferrari was in total turmoil and for 1963 he joined Hill in the mass exodus to Carlo Chiti’s ATS team, an unmitigated disaster for all involved, it effectively destroyed his F1 career. Baghetti drove Centro Sud’s old BRM P57 in 1964, he returned to race in F2, F3 and sports and touring cars, also making an annual apperance at the Italian GP, his last in the Lotus 49 in 1967.
‘Hitchin a ride’: Baghettis’ BRM P57 gives Phil Hill and Bob Anderson a lift at the end of the 1964 Belgian GP, Spa. Giancarlo was 8th in the race won by Clarks’ Lotus 25 Climax. Hill raced a Cooper T73 Climax and Anderson a Brabham BT11 Climax (G Clayton)
Brabham entered a third car for Giancarlo at the 1965 Italian GP. He qualified the BT7 Climax poorly in 19th, the engine failed on lap 12 in the race won by Stewarts’ BRM P261. (Unattributed)
Baghetti at the wheel of a factory Ferrari 275 P2 during Targa 1965, DNF with Jean Guichet. (Unattributed)
After a huge accident at Monza in a Ferrari Dino 166 F2 car in the ‘Monza Lottery GP’ in June 1968 he retired from driving, working as journalist and photographer. He succumbed to cancer in 1995 age 60.
No-one has ever repeated the feat…a quasi factory Ferrari drive on the results of a ‘journeyman’, won his first 3 GP’s, 4 for the year, one of them a championship event and then so rapidly disappeared from sight…
Baghetti at the wheel of a Ferrari Dino 246, Monza, Italian GP 1966. Q16, raced Spences’ Lotus for 5th until the car failed in the race won by Scarfiottis’ Ferrari 312. Car was lent to him by Scuderia after his Parnell Lotus BRM failed in practice. (Unattributed)
Giancarlo Baghetti, Ferrari 156 1962. The class of the field in 1961 were at best also-rans in 1962. He is smiling so it must be at the seasons commencement… (Unattributed)
Photo and other Credits…
Mel Turbutt, motorsportretro.com, Sutton Images, James Allington, Scuderia Ferrari, The Auto Channel
Spencer Martin tips his Ferrari 250LM into the fast Homestead Corner at Warwick Farm before unleashing the cars 3.3-litre V12 on the long Hume Straight, what a sound it must have made! August 1965…
Spencer Martin was one of Australia’s champion drivers of the 1960’s winning the Gold Star, the Australian Drivers Championship in 1966 and 1967 in a Brabham BT11A Climax.
His career could be summarised thus; he saw, he came, he conquered from 1960-1966, retired to marry and have a family, focus on business and then returned many years later…
Spencer Martin in his racing heyday, Lakeside 1965. (Bruce Wells)
I don’t cover Spencer’s career in detail but rather introduce an interesting article i discovered in a rally guide for an event held in memory of David McKay. Martin outlines his experiences as a driver/mechanic with McKay and Scuderia Veloce, if not the first, then certainly one of the first of Australia’s professional racing teams formed in 1959…
Martin commenced racing at Gnoo Blas, Orange NSW in 1960 in a Nota, he built from a kit himself, then progressed through the Prad Holden, a very successful sportscar and into ‘Appendix J’ sedans. He beat some of the heroes of the day in his ’48-215′ or FX Holden and was approached by McKay to join SV. Martin picks up the story…
Spencer in the ‘Boomerang Service Station’ Holden FX, Catalina Park, Katoomba 1963. It was consistent ‘giant killing’ performances against Norm Beechey and the like which attracted McKay to Martin. (Autopics.com.au Collection)
‘Work on the racing cars was carried out in a garage at the rear of his (McKay) house in Wahroongaon Sydney’s upper North Shore. We later moved to new premises beneath the Shell Service Station on the Pacific Highway at Wahroonga.
At this time I was driving the ‘Boomerang Service Station Holden’ for Joel Wakely and was keeping Norm Beechey very busy around Catalina Park, Warwick Farm and Sandown Park. In 1963 David brought Brian Muir back from the UK to drive in the Hardie Ferodo at Bathurst and I was to be Brian’s co-driver. Brian had been driving a Ford Galaxie in the UK and had won the British Touring Car Championship
David was, thankfully very impressed by my driving with Brian and told me he was about to retire and would I like to take over driving his Brabham. (Ex Jack Brabham BT4 Climax) Well you may imagine how I felt getting out of an EH Holden into an F1 Repco Brabham! We took the car to the short circuit at Warwick Farm for a few familiarisation laps where I was shocked by how much power the car had, especially how the far the nose lifted when you put the ‘pedal to the metal’.
It was not long before David entered the car at Bathurst. It was now 2.7 litres and running on methanol. He told me to keep it under 4500rpm down the straight for a few laps and be careful over the hump. I ‘pulled the string’ on the third lap and was doing 172mph over the hump. The car became completely airborne with a very much nose up attitude. I was wearing a Les Leston helmet with a small peaked visor to help keep the sun out of your eyes. Well the wind at this speed would catch under the visor which gave the effect of lifting you out of the car. It didn’t take long for me to remove the peak!’
Its 1967 as the painted date on the Longford Viaduct says. Martin eases his Bob Jane Racing Brabham BT11A Climax ‘IC-4-64’ into the right hander to exit the turn, ’67 Tasman ‘South Pacific Trophy’ 5 March 1967. He only lasted a lap of the race, his Climax FPF suffering ring failure. Jack Brabham won the race in his Brabham BT23A Repco. Clark took the series win in his Lotus 33 Climax FWMV 2 litre V8. Love the local ‘topography’, sturdy stone viaduct!, hay bales, painted, slippery white ‘no passing’ lines on the public roads. (oldracephotos.com/David Keep)Spencer Martin exercising all of his Coventry Climax’ lusty 235 horses through Leger Corner, Warwick Farm, December 1966. ‘Hordern Trophy’ Gold Star round won by Frank Gardners’ Brabham BT16 Climax from Kevin Bartletts’ Brabham BT11A and Martins’ similar car in 3rd. (Autopics.com.au Collection)
‘The biggest difference in driving the cars of David’s and my time was the safety aspect.
No seat belts, no fuel cells, no on-board fire extinguishers, no roll cages, no fireproof clothing. I was driving the Tasman Series in New Zealand and was wearing a polo-shirt made of nylon. When Jim Clark saw me in this he explained how dangerous nylon was in the event of a fire. Jim gave me a pair of his Dunlop Racing overalls. Boy, did I think I was smart wearing these and they were fireproof so I could go faster! Actually they gave you about 5 extra seconds in the event of a fire. They were made of cotton and soaked in a fire retardant. Rather different from today’s suits.
Another extremely dangerous factor was the aluminium fuel tanks which were placed either side of the drivers seat. We needed to have over 18 gallons of Avgas for a long race, so we packed dry ice around the tank prior to the race on hot days.’
Spencer Martins’ Ferrari 250LM ‘6321’ leads the ‘Country Club GT Race’ at Warwick Farm September 19 1965. The chasing Lotus Elan 26R’s are Niel Allen and Fred Gibson. (Heinz Federbusch)Graham Hill and a quizzical Spencer with the SV Brabham BT4 Climax Hill raced during the 1964 Tasman- here in the Warwick Farm pitlane (unattributed)
‘Graham Hill was driving our new Brabham (BT11A Climax) at Warwick Farm in 1965.When we fuelled the car, an hour before the race, one tank was leaking through a crack in its top edge. I went into panic mode, Graham, however, asked me to go to the toilet and bring him back a bar of soap. He made this into a putty mixture and plastered it into the crack. As he explained, the leak was on the top of the tank, so after a few laps the fuel would be below the problem area. I used this fix a few times over the years. Can you imagine this sort of thing happening to an F1 Ferrari or McLaren?!
One of the biggest events to materialise at SV was when David talked Archie White, the Shell Racing Manager, into buying the 250LM Ferrari. I was not allowed to go to the wharf to bring it home as I had work to do on the Brabham. However I’ll never forget seeing it for the first time and David saying it was mine to drive!’
‘David was the best motoring journalist at this time. Not only was he able to write about cars, he could also drive them.
David was at the front of the grid for the 1963 Australian Grand Prix at Warwick Farm alongside Surtees and McLaren. He was the first Aussie home and all this on a 40 degrees Celsius day when many of the younger drivers stopped due to heat exhaustion. The temperature inside his car was measured at over 50 degrees.
Front row of the AGP grid, Warwick Farm February 1963. Surtees on pole, Lola Mk4a Climax, McLaren Cooper T62 Climax and McKay Brabham BT4 Climax. Jack won in his BT4 Climax from Surtees, McLaren and McKay.(Autopics.com.au Collection)
David, in his motoring column, was very critical of the cars which Ford, GMH and Chrysler were building at that time. Sir Frank Packer allowed David to continue his reports in the Sydney Telegraph because his column was selling newspapers. When News Ltd took over the Tele, they would not allow him such a full hand as they explained they needed the advertisers money from the motoring industry so David left.’
Spencer Martin in one of his early drives of the SV Ferrari 250LM at Murrays Corner, Bathurst, Easter 1965. (Autopics.com.au Collection)‘Australian Autosportsman’ magazine July 1965. Shell ‘Advertorial’! Martin on the cover in the SV Fazz 250LM, picture taken probably on the same day as the one above, but this time, i think, ‘Hell Corner’, which leads onto the uphill ‘Mountain Straight’ having gone past the pits. (Stephen Dalton Collection)
‘The first race for the 250LM was the Sandown Park Tasman round sports car race in February 1965…
Graham Hill was to drive the Brabham in the Tasman race, however he put it on David to allow him to also drive the LM. David kept his word to me and told Graham that ‘the boy’ was going to drive it. Well, Frank Matich was leading (in Elfin 400/ Traco Olds) then suddenly we did a ‘Stephen Bradbury’ as Matich blew up and we went on to win it’s very first race. In reality it was no match for the more powerful Elfins and Lola’s. It did however win every long distance race in which it was entered.
The ‘Old Red Lady’ as David affectionately called the LM, was a fantastic car to race. With the V12 very low slung in the engine bay behind the driver, and with 8000rpm, the noise inside and out was certainly something to remember for driver and spectator alike.
David was a vary hard taskmaster. He expected me to work on customer road cars during the day and maintain the Brabham and Ferrari after hours. I was made an offer by Bob Jane which I decided was better for my future so I moved on. Years later David wrote me a letter saying he was sorry for being so hard on me. This lead to a rekindled friendship where we travelled overseas together to many of the F1 races.
I really miss ‘The Old Man’. He was a true Ferrari-ist, and gave us all the true pleasure of seeing the two best cars ever to race in this country, the 250LM and P4 Ferraris!’
This ‘RCN’ cover David Atkinson painting depicts Spencer winning the 10 July Gold Star race at Lakeside, Queensland 1966 ahead of Kevin Bartlett #14 Brabham BT11A Climax and John Harvey Brabham BT14 Ford 1.5…1-3rd in the race en route to Martins 1966 Gold Star title. (Racing Car News)
David McKay had this to say about Spencers’ departure and career in his wonderful autobiography, ‘David McKays Scuderia Veloce’…
’I was both surprised and disappointed but in retrospect I had expected too much and had been too hard on the young man. I had treated him as I would a son and no doubt Martin thought ‘the son’ had had a lucky escape. Sadly I had planned to take Martin to Maranello where I was sure Mike Parkes would have got him a drive at Le Mans and he would eventually have graduated to F1.
However, instead of telling me he’d been waiting for this chance and had his bags packed, Martin said he didn’t fancy Le Mans with its dangerous mix of cars and drivers and thank you but no thanks. I still consider to this day Martin would have achieved a successful career with Ferrari and we have often joked about what might have been. Martin argues that he has all his arms and legs in place and that his successive Australian Championships in 1966 and 1967 fulfilled his motor racing ambitions. It was twelve years before we were to speak again and it was the LM which brought us together’.
Front row of the Symmons Plains, Tas 1966 ‘Gold Star’ grid. #7 the winning ex-Clark Lotus 32B Climax of Greg Cusack, #5 Brabham BT11A Climax of Kevin Bartlett and on the near side Spencer in his Brabham BT11A Climax. The nose of John Harveys’ Brabham BT14 Lotus/Ford TC is on row 2. Cusack won from Harvey and John McCormack, Brabham BT4 Climax. (oldracephotos/David Keep)Martin on the way to 6th place in the SV Brabham BT11A ‘Warwick Farm 100′ Tasman race 13 February 1966 won by Clarks’ Lotus 39 Climax. This is not long before Martin left SV for Bob Jane Racing, this same chassis ‘IC-4-64’ won his 1966/7 Gold Star titles. (Autopics.com.au Collection)
As Spencer says he left SV and Sydney to join Bob Jane Racing in Melbourne, both Shell sponsored teams at the time and a controversial move albeit a very successful one for both driver and team…
Jane acquired the Brabham BT11A Climax Spencer had been racing for SV, it was this car in which he won the Gold Star in 1966 and 1967. His toughest competitor was Kevin Bartlett in a similar car entered by Alec Mildren, the pair having many close dices with Bartlett famously setting the first over 100mph lap of Bathurst during their Gold Star encounter at Mt Panorama in 1967.
A touch of understeer for Spencer in his Bob Jane Brabham BT11, ‘Hordern Trophy’, Warwick Farm in December 1966. Race won by Frank Gardner from Kevin Bartlett. This shot is from a ‘period’ Shell magazine ad. (Spencer Lambert Collection)
In 1967 Repco’s 2.5 litre Tasman ‘740 Series’ V8’s powered the cars of Greg Cusack (SV Brabham BT23A), Leo Geoghegan (Lotus 39) and John Harvey (Brabham BT14 ) even though these cars were all competitive they lacked the consistent reliability which prevented Repco ever achieving a Gold Star Series win…Martins’ Climax engined Brabham won 2 rounds, winning his second title by 7 points from Cusack, his replacement at Scuderia Veloce and promptly retired.
Years later he re-established his relationship with McKay as he outlined above, he owned a share in McKays’ LM for a while and raced a range of exotic racing cars in historic racing in both the US and Europe. He still lives in Australia and is in happy retirement with a large extended family to keep him busy…and the occasional competition drive.
Spencer Martin and David McKay pictured on 27 October 2004. Chris Haigh took this shot having just taken David for a lap of Wakefield Park, Goulburn, NSW in McKay’s original Jaguar Mk1 ‘The Grey Pussy’. David died on December 26 2004 at 83 of cancer. (Chris Haigh)
Etcetera…
Spencer Martin stands by the front ‘guard of the SV 250LM, his second meeting in the car, Longford Tasman meeting February 1965. Yellow car is the Mildren Maserati, driven by Ralph Sach (built by Rennmax’ Bob Britton on his Lotus 19 jig) the yellow shirted Mildren mechanics are (L) Stewart Randall and (R) Glen Abbey, the latter behind many Mildren/Gardner/Bartlett/Stewart victories. Driver behind the Fazz perhaps Les Howard. (oldracephotos.com/David Keep)Martin leading and winning the Surfers Paradise Gold Star round in 1966. Shot taken below Repco Hill, Brabham BT11A Climax. (John Stanley)
The ‘Guvnor David McKay steers his 250LM through the Longford paddock in March 1965, the second meeting for the Ferrari driven by Martin. Graham Hill drove the SV Brabham BT11A Climax in the final ’65 Tasman race, the AGP, to 4th place, Bruce McLaren won in a Cooper T79 Climax. (Ellis French)Martin being congratulated before the start of the Gold Star race at Symmons in November 1967. DNF with cam follower failure, race won by Greg Cusack, his replacement at Scuderia Veloce, in a Brabham BT23 A Repco. #2 is Garrie Coopers’ Elfin Mono Ford TC. Its Martins’ final race of ‘his serious career’, he had wrapped up the Gold Star for the 2nd time in succession and retired, the car driven by John Harvey for Bob Jane Racing from then. (oldracephotos.com/David Keep)Martin in the SV Brabham BT11A ahead of Leo Geoghegans’ Lotus 32 Ford 1.5 TC, Lakeside ‘Gold Star’ race July 1965. Martin won from Leo and John McDonalds’ Cooper T70 Climax. (The Roaring Season/Bruce Wells)Car owner, the stocky, strong Bob Jane tests the rear spring rates…whilst driver Martin does his best to ignore the chief. Symmons Plains Gold Star round November 1966. Brabham BT11A Climax, ‘box is Hewland HD5. (Ellis French)Spencer pictured beside the Brabham BT23D Alfa Romeo raced by Frank Gardner in the ’68 Tasman and then Kevin Bartlett to Gold Star success in 1968. Car restored by Paul Moxham and driven by Spencer here at the Eastern Creek, NSW Tasman Revival Meeting in December 2006. (Stephen Dalton Collection)Spencer Martin signed program of the Catalina Park cover on which his Holden starred! (Stephen Dalton Collection)
Bibliography…
‘David McKay Memorial Rally 2012: Rally Guide’, ‘ David McKays’ Scuderia Veloce’ David McKay, The Nostalgia Forum
Photo and Other Credits…
John Ellacott, Bruce Wells, autopics/Richard Austin, The Roaring Season, Chris Haigh Collection, Racing Car News, Heinz Federbusch, Ellis French, John Stanley, Racing Car News, Chris Haigh
Robert Davies captures Alan Moffat is his Ford ‘Cologne Capri’ RS3100, exiting Dandy Road upon its Australian debut at the Sandown Tasman meeting in February 1975…
Whilst Alan Moffats’ car is well known by most Australian enthusiasts, the factory RS2600 campaigned by David Mckay in the 1972 Dulux Rally is a bit more obscure, we will come back to Moffat’s car, McKays’ was the first to appear.
The Dulux Rally was a unique event in the World, whilst influenced by the Tour de France was different in that competitors faced both the challenges of dirt rallying and circuit racing. The Rally only lasted 2 years, such was the cost of running an event over two weeks commencing in Queensland and finishing in distant Victoria.
The Dulux was promoted and run by the Sydney based Australian Sporting Car Club and worked commercially due to the support of ICI Australia, whose research showed the most effective way to promote the name change of ‘Balm Paints’ to ‘Dulux’ to the trade in 1971 was via motorsport. Re-finishers, panel and paint shop proprietors were interested in motorsport, so the key commercial support to get quite a radical event off the ground was made.
McKay very successfully ran an Alfa 1750 GTV powered by the 2-litre race engine out of his friend Brian Foley’s ex-factory GTAm circuit racer, a veritable 210bhp wolf in sheep’s clothing in 1971. McKay finished second to Colin Bonds’ factory Holden Torana LC GTR-XU1. No mean feat, as Bond was one of Australia’s most versatile drivers: a winner in open wheelers, on the dirt and on the circuits as both multiple Australian Rally Champion and a winner of the Bathurst 500 and many other circuit races.
For 1972 McKay was keen on a more competitive mount, the nature of the various hats he wore and his capabilities meant he was attractive to all of the local manufacturers/importers. McKay was invited to breakfast with Ford’s CEO Australia, Bill Bourke, on his departure from Australia who asked if there was anything he could do for McKay in his new appointment elsewhere in the Ford empire.
McKay recalled ‘Ford were running V6 Capris in European Rallies and perhaps Bill Bourke could collar one which wouldn’t be missed in time for the ’72 Dulux? This he did together with a mechanic to look after a car which had been run by Ford France. Howard Marsden (head of Fords racing program in Australia) was enthused and turned on his Ford works crew’.
The 1972 Dulux entry was not large at 27 cars…but included International, Edgar Herrmann, in a factory Datsun 240Z, Colin Bond and Peter Brock in factory Torana GTR XU1’s both of whom were equally at home on tar or dirt, Australian Rally Champion Bob Watson in a Renault 8 Gordini, Stewart McLeod, XU-1 and Bruce Hodgson, Ford Escort Twin Cam and many other top drivers.
The rally commenced after a run from Brisbane to Grafton at Surfers Paradise Raceway.
The Capri had a high speed miss which cost power, McKay finished third on a track tailor made for the car. Due in Sydney on the second night, David organised the SV Team to be on hand to rectify the problem, there, out of the rain which had accompanied the rally since it’s start, a condenser was identified as the cause of the misfire and fixed.
With full power the car won the Silverdale Hillclimb and night racing at Oran Park, then a circuit on Sydney’s Western outskirts. This put a smile on Ford fans faces and gave General Motors Holden and their Torana’s cause for concern…
McKay also won the Dapto Hillclimb, having time to divert to visit his ailing mother in Bowral Hospital enroute to Canberra!
McKay ‘passed’ as he put it on the Mount Ginn event, spitting the dummy over the condition of the track surface, even protesting the organisers conducting the Mt Ginn activity at all…he could do so as the Capri was comfortably in the lead at the time.
Based in Albury, on the New South Wales/Victorian border for several nights the car won the circuit events at Hume Weir, another lost circuit, and several nights of rallying. ‘The Capri was very quick on dirt surprising both (navigator) Garry Connelly who was doing the navigating and myself but it wasn’t to last’.
‘Apparently the wide Goodyear Ultragrips should have been fitted with tubes to give some protection against deflation over the rocky outcrops and we had tyre problems on one section. On another a rear coil spring became detached from its mountings and pierced a tyre. The final blow was hitting a rocky ridge in the middle of the dirt road with the front cross member and pushing the lot back out of alignment. ‘
‘No-one else had noticed the ridge, all driven safely over it as we had expected to do. In our jubilation after the wins at Hume Weir earlier in the day we had inadvertently forgotten to reset the ride height, consequently we were rallying with race track settings and it took the Ford boys a long time to straighten out the mess’.
The Toranas therefore skipped off into the distance. On the final leg towards Melbourne the Capri won a 20 lapper at Phillip Island, lapping the Toranas, McKay finally able to use its ‘moonshot-fifth gear’ on the Island’s long main straight.
The event finished at Melbourne’s Dallas Brooks Hall, the two works Holden Torana LJ XU-1s first and second from Stewart McLeod third, McKay and Connelly seventh in the exotic Cologne Capri.
The car does not seem to have been rallied again but passed into the hands of Melbourne’s Graham ‘Tubby’ Ritter, a noted engineer/driver who mated the car with donor parts from the March 751 F5000 left in Australia by John Cannon; engine, gearbox, suspension, and brakes all used in the cars conversion to a Sports Sedan, the March tub was attached to a VW transmission and sent to New Zealand to deal with the import duty issue which otherwise arose…
If memory serves the cars injected 5-litre Chev was later twin-turboed, if any reader knows of this RS2600’s ultimate destiny I am intrigued to know.
Moffat’s RS3100…
Allan Moffat made his name in Australia as one of our greatest touring car drivers but was born in Canada and emigrated to Australia with his father who was posted here for career reasons in the early 1960s.
Moffat commenced racing in Australia in a Triumph TR3A and progressed to a Lotus Cortina bought from Team Lotus at the end of 1964, Moffat having worked with the team in the United States.
His racing of the Cortinas in both Australia and in the US is a story in itself, suffice it to say that at the end of 1967 he was competitive enough to be invited to join Ford’s KarKraft as a development driver.
Ford was fully committed to the Trans Am Series to promote its image. It was a hotbed of competition with Shelby American representing Ford. Allan co-drove the first two rounds (Daytona 24-Hours, Sebring 12-Hours) of the 1968 Trans Am, with Horst Kwech, the car did not finish either race.
He returned to Australia to work for Bob Jane after Jane purchased a genuine 1968 ex-Shelby Trans Am Mustang, Allan returned to Detroit in early 1969 and met with Jack Passino, Ford Racing Director who organised a brand new 1969 Trans-Am Boss Mustang.
Moffat brought the car to Australia and with support from Coca-Cola in one of the first commercial deals of its type here, and raced the car as a professional becoming one of the most iconic car/driver combinations in Australia.
Moffat and the Trans Am won 101 of its 157 starts but ironically not the coveted Australian Touring Car Championship for which it was intended. ATCC rule changes forced the Mustang into the Sports Sedan category in 1973. The Mustang was competitive but with new rule freedoms during 1974 wins became fewer against the mid engined cars now being developed. Moffat, to his eternal credit chose not to ‘hack the car about’, one of only seven genuine factory 1969 Trans Ams…but he needed a competitive mount to replace the famous car. His immaculate Ford connections secured one of the works Capri RS3100s at the end of Fords successful 1974 European Touring car championship campaign…
This is a slightly truncated version of Mark Oastlers tremendous article about the car in ‘Shannons’ magazine…if you have a hankering for Touring Cars its worth signing up to the Shannons site just to get access to Oastlers’ excellent articles, http://www.shannons.com.au/club/
Why Ford built the ultimate RS…
‘The catalyst for creation of the RS 3100 was the 1973 ETCC, when BMW fended off a gallant season-long challenge by Ford’s less powerful RS 2600 Capris to win the prestigious title.
BMW had caught Ford by surprise that year by equipping its 3.5 litre CSL coupe with a huge boot-mounted inverted rear wing, made even more effective by a full-width scoop mounted along the rear edge of the roof to feed it clean air flow for maximum downforce. Not surprisingly, the big CSL coupe soon earned the nickname ‘Batmobile’!
Ford rightly figured that to overcome the CSL challenge in 1974, the Capri would firstly require more power. However, the RS 2600’s German 2.6 litre V6 engine, which had already been bored out to 2.9 litres capacity and was producing around 320 bhp, had reached the peak of its development.
By comparison, the capacity of BMW’s potent 3.0 litre in-line six had been increased to 3.5 litres under the FIA’s liberal Group 2 rules, providing a big power advantage over the Fords. The obvious answer was a switch to the larger capacity 3.1 litre British-built Essex V6 as used in UK-built Capris.
The CSL’s inverted rear wing also provided a considerable edge in traction and high speed stability so Ford had no choice but to join the aero wars with a large rear spoiler of its own. Wind tunnel and track testing of various designs proved how effective a large ducktail spoiler could be.
As a result, Ford committed to production of a ‘homologation special’ called the RS 3100 that would serve as the road-going production basis for its full-house Group 2 competition cars for the 1974 ETCC attack.
Built in a batch of 250 (the minimum number required for FIA homologation) the British-built RS 3100 came with front and rear spoilers and the 3091cc Essex V6. Use of this engine of course would allow the 1974 race car to increase its engine capacity to 3.5 litres to match the BMW.
The small batch of RS 3100 road cars went on public sale in November 1973 with FIA homologation approved on January 1, 1974. Surprisingly perhaps, these rare homologation cars proved hard to sell. Evidence of that fact is that 50 of the 250 built were shipped to Australia as late as June 1974 where they were eventually sold through selected Ford dealers.
Cosworth to the rescue…
Michael Kranefuss was the man in charge of Ford’s ETCC program. Given Ford’s long and successful association with Cosworth, in particular its 3.0 litre V8 DFV Formula One engine, he approached the Northhampton firm to design the new RS 3100 race engine. Initial discussions between Ford and Cosworth about this engine had started back in 1972.
The Group 2 rules required use of the manufacturer’s standard cylinder block, but a timely change that allowed use of alternative cylinder heads for 1974 left Cosworth with the task of designing new aluminium heads with dual overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and an initial power target of 400-plus bhp.
The Cosworth GAA-V6 was designed by Keith Duckworth and Mike Hall, featuring cast aluminium heads that could be used on either bank. The four overhead camshafts operating 24 tiny valves were belt driven by toothed pulleys at the front of the engine, with one spark plug per cylinder and Lucas mechanical fuel injection.
Cosworth needed to increase the cylinder bore size of the Essex block, but wayward casting tolerances meant that few of these mass produced blocks survived the machining process. They settled on 3412cc as the safe limit. Cosworth also beefed up the bottom end with rugged four-bolt main bearing caps.
In-house dyno testing of the new 3.4 litre GAA-V6 began late in 1973 and it produced 420 bhp straight up, instantly meeting Ford’s 400 bhp plus target. With on-going development these engines reached 450 bhp at a spine-tingling 8750 rpm.
The RS2600’s five-speed ZF gearbox was carried over and matched with a rugged Borg & Beck triple-plate clutch in a feather-weight magnesium bell housing.
The RS 3100 Cologne Capris were built with a win-at-all-costs approach at Ford’s German competitions department in Cologne, under chief engineer Thomas Amerschlaeger. The exotic materials, quality of workmanship and attention to detail evident in the construction of these factory race cars was beyond belief.
The emphasis was on minimising weight, as the lightweight fiberglass doors, bonnets and boot lids used on the RS 2600 were no longer allowed and the new Essex V6 was slightly heavier than the German engine. This resulted in a 50 kg weight increase in the new cars, which would be offset somewhat by the more powerful 3.4 litre Cosworth engine.
They started with standard LHD steel body shells taken from the production line which were rumoured to have spent time in an acid bath to remove some excess metal before they arrived at the workshop.
Large aerodynamically shaped fiberglass wheel arch flares were installed at each corner to shroud huge wheels and tyres and lightweight laminated window glass was fitted throughout the cabin. The large front and rear spoilers, which under Group 2 rules had grown considerably from the road car versions on which they were based, were fitted front and rear.
The increased weight of the Essex V6 altered the car’s critical front to rear weight distribution, which Amerschlaeger’s team addressed by mounting the engine’s dry-sump lubrication oil tank and fuel injection pumps inside the boot area, where the battery and huge 120-litre long distance fuel tank also resided.
Oil cooling radiators for the gearbox and rear axle were also moved to the tail end and mounted directly behind the rear wheels, with oil circulation controlled by a pump driven directly by the tailshaft via a toothed belt and pulley arrangement. The engine oil cooling unit was mounted in the nose where it was fed fresh air through the grille.
The engineers also experimented with a rear-mounted engine radiator but found that there wasn’t sufficient air flow available because of the effectiveness of the huge front spoiler in stopping air from flowing under the car. Amerschlaeger eventually opted for twin side-mounted engine radiators mounted just ahead of the rear wheels.
The standard dashboard pad and door trims had to be retained but the rest of the interior was stripped bare, leaving a full set of competition gauges, remote switch panels, massive roll cage, on-board fire extinguisher system plumbed to every corner of the car and lightweight Nomex covered driver’s seat.
To minimise weight, many suspension components were made from aluminium or magnesium.
Under Group 2, a touring car’s suspension had to keep its original ‘architecture’ so the RS 3100 was equipped with strengthened front suspension towers, Bilstein aluminium McPherson struts with gas-filled adjustable dampers, a wrist-thick anti-roll bar, magnesium hub carriers and solid aluminium replacing rubber in all suspension bushes.
Likewise the Capri’s live rear axle and leaf spring design had to be retained, but Ford got very creative in its rule interpretation. It complied by fitting leaf springs, but they were made from lightweight composite materials and had no springing function at all.
This was performed instead by big coil springs and adjustable gas-filled Bilstein shocks. Ford’s homologation paperwork stated that these coils were simply ‘additional springs’ and the FIA duly agreed!
The rear axle was located fore and aft by upper and lower trailing arms and laterally via a Watts linkage that also allowed adjustment of the car’s rear roll centre.
The brakes were huge with four wheel discs permitted under Group 2, even though the road car had rear drums. The ventilated front rotors measured 12 inches (305mm) in diameter and more more than 1.0-inch thick, clamped by powerful servo-assisted calipers.
The front brakes were also fitted with an automatic water cooling system connected to a large tank in the cockpit which could spray a fine mist onto the disc rotors to cool them down each time the brake pedal was pushed. The rear discs were slightly smaller 10.5 inch diameter units.
The racing wheels and tyres were enormous given the size and weight of the car, capable of generating such huge cornering forces that the works Capris were often seen in the ETCC cornering with their two inside wheels clear off the deck.
German BBS composite rims (magnesium centres with aluminium rims) were secured by a single central locking nut and fitted with tailor-made Dunlop tyres that measured a staggering 16 inches (405mm) wide at the rear and 12 inches (305mm) on the front.
With top shelf drivers the calibre of Niki Lauda, Jochen Mass, Toine Hezemans and Dieter Glemser on the team, Ford was ready for all-out war.
The 1974 ETCC…
‘Unfortunately, the timing could not have been worse for what promised to be the battle of all battles for the ETCC crown between Ford’s new RS 3100 Capris and BMW’s mighty CSL ‘Batmobiles’.
The world’s worsening energy crisis, which had been triggered by the Arab-Israel war, forced car companies to quickly change priorities in their marketing and product development strategies. Motor racing programs were hit particularly hard during this time, including Australia where Ford withdrew its factory support in January 1974.
Sadly BMW also began to scale down its racing activities during the ETCC which left easy wins to the new Capris at several rounds. Even so, despite these outright victories and the vast sums of money spent designing, building and developing the new RS 3100s, it was the German Zakspeed-prepared RS 1600 Ford Escorts which ended up winning the manufacturer’s title for Ford due to a points system that was heavily weighted in favour of smaller capacity cars.
The last time an RS 3100 Cologne Capri competed in full works guise was when Jochen Mass and Toine Hezemans were sent to Kyalami in South Africa to compete in a gruelling non-championship 9-Hour endurance race as part of the Springbok series that featured many sports cars. The Capri was fast and faultless again, winning the touring car class and finishing an outstanding fifth outright.
The same car – chassis number GA ECPY19999 – would not return to Germany after the race, though, as it was destined for a very different life in Australia.’
The Moffat era…
‘In late February 1975, GA ECPY19999 arrived at Allan Moffat Racing in Melbourne after being shipped directly from its last race as a works car in South Africa.
Although the stunning European thoroughbred won first time out at Sandown it soon became apparent that the Capri, which was built for long distance racing on high speed European tracks, was going to be doing it hard against lighter and more powerful V8 competition on Australia’s tighter tracks in short sprint races.
Its V6 engine just couldn’t match the explosive power and torque outputs of rival V8s. And it was restricted to the local maximum wheel width of 10 inches, which was a substantial drop in traction given the car was designed to race on massive 16-inch wide rears and 12-inch fronts in Europe.
It was also comparatively heavy given its touring car racing origins, competing against increasingly sophisticated purpose-built local designs that featured mid-mounted V8 engines, space-frame chassis, Formula 5000 suspension and featherweight composite body panels.
Moffat had his sights set on winning the inaugural Australian Sports Sedan Championship (ASSC) in 1976, so when it became clear he would need V8 power to do it he sourced a state-of-the-art DeKon Chevrolet Monza from the US. With 6 litre Chevrolet V8 power, it was immediately more than a match for the best sports sedans in the land.
Even so, the RS 3100 Capri still had an important role to play as the controversial Monza was sidelined midway during the ASSC due to questions over its eligibility. So while that was being sorted, Moffat dusted off the Capri for two crucial rounds at Wanneroo in Perth (which he won) and A.I.R in Adelaide (where he came second). The Capri proved it was still highly competitive, effectively sealing the title for Moffat and finishing its Australian career on a high note.’
Moffat retained the car, as he did the Mustang for decades before finally selling it to a lucky collector in New Zealand.
The Kiwi Connection…
For the sake of completeness there were only two other, I think, ‘Cologne Capris’ which raced in Australia, both originated from the ‘other side of the ditch’, the colloquial name we Australasians give to the Tasman Sea, which separates Australia and New Zealand.
Grant Walker raced the ex-works RS2600 imported into New Zealand by Paul Fahey which won the NZ Touring Car Championship in 1975 converted to Cossie GAA power.
Don Halliday raced the GAA powered car he and his equally talented brother built up in NZ with many factory parts as well as local ingenuity.
Both scored points in the 1976 Australian Sports Sedan Championship, ironically won by Allan Moffat in the Chev Monza which replaced his Capri. As Mark Oastler points out above the Capri did play a vital role in that series victory.
Bunch of three photographs of David McKay in his RS2600 during the 1972 Dulux- I don’t know the venues though, assistance appreciated. Colin Bond’s Holden Dealer Team Torana GTR-XU1 lined up beside him in the shot below.
The last shot is the same car but has none other than Kevin Bartlett at the wheel, date and place unknown.
Credits…
Robert Davies, Jerry Melton, autopics.com, spooky21, Green Machine, Bruno Betti, oldracephotos, David McKay’s ‘Scuderia Veloce’ autobiography, Mark Oastler/Shannons for the RS3100 article, snooksmotorsport.com, The Roaring Season, Stephen Dalton for the research assistance and material
‘This is the prettiest car I have ever snapped’ said Dick Simpson. Hard to argue…
This is one of four Ferrari P4s built; chassis numbers 0856, 0858, 0860 and 0846, the latter a converted P3.
At the end of the 1967 endurance season two of the cars were lightened and modified to run in the ’67 Can-Am Series in the US, chassis 0860 and 0858. The latter was then acquired by Scuderia Veloce’s David McKay for one fabulous season in Australia. I wrote an article a while back about SV, David McKay and his 250LM #6321, have a read of it rather than repeat the background here.
Simpson’s shot is of Aussie Bill Brown at the wheel on 5 May 1968, the shot taken at the left hander after Warwick Farm’s (Sydney) Shell Bridge, it captures the curvaceous beauty of the thing!
The photographers and their artistry inspired this article, acknowledgement of them all but especially Dick Simpson, John Ellacott, Roderick MacKenzie, Ellis French and Lindsay Ross.
As Mike Spence buckles up his seatbelt in the Chaparral 2F Chev, he is surrounded by FoMoCo vehicles; #1 the victorious Gurney/Foyt, #3 Bianchi/Andretti and Hulme/Ruby Mk4s, and the #5 Gardner/McCluskey and Schlesser/Ligier Mk2s…not a Ferrari in sight! (unattributed)
1967 was a halcyon year of sports car racing, the high point of the ‘Unlimited Formula’…
A 5-litre limit for sports cars and 3-litres for prototypes was imposed by the FIA for 1968 so Ford had one more year to race their 7-litre Mk 2 and 4s.
Chaparral returned to Europe with the fabulous 2F Coupe after an exploratory endurance year with the 2D in 1966. Lola competitors struggled with engine reliability to match the excellence of the chassis, and Ferrari returned with 4-litre engines but with three-valve heads after a year of austerity in 1966. Ferrari mainly entered one P3 at each race while coping with widespread industrial unrest in Italy that year.
The season wasn’t all about just the big three; Alfa raced their T33, Porsche the 907, Matra their M630 V8 BRM engined cars, but in reality the season was about the big outright cars. It was an unforgettable year of sports car racing arguably caused by Enzo’s rebuff of Fords’ desire to purchase the Italian autocrat’s company five years before and the Lola GT/Ford GT40 program which followed.
The Ford Mk4 incorporated all the company learnings, the early failures of the GT40 and Mark 2 in 1964/5 and the triumph at Le Mans in 1966, where Kiwis Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon ‘won’ over the Ken Miles/Denny Hulme Mark 2 in Ford’s farcical Form-Finish.
The Mark 4 was of aluminium honeycomb construction and had much more advanced aerodynamics than the Mk 2, developed as it was from extensive testing of many variations of shapes to get the appropriate mix of top speed and downforce. The mechanical package was largely carried over and incorporated a 7-litre OHV Ford V8 fed by 2-four-barrel Holley carburettors giving circa 530bhp @ 6200rpm. The four speed Kar Kraft gearbox was again used after experiments with a two speed auto. Weight was circa 1100Kg.
All of the major contenders suspension layouts were similar; upper and lower wishbones at the front with coil spring/damper units and adjustable roll bars. And at the rear, single top link, twin radius rods, lower wishbone, coil spring/damper units and adjustable sway bars.
All three big-cars also had rack and pinion steering, and of course cast iron disc brakes front and rear.
The Chaparral 2F Chev was the most exotic of the three carsdespite its pushrod OHV 7-litre Chev V8. Fed by four 58mm Weber down-draught carburettors, the engine developed 575 bhp @ 7500rpm. The chassis was made of fibre-glass, weighed 793Kg dry, the advanced specifications extending to its three speed General Motors automatic transmission and advanced aerodynamics including distinctive high rear wing. The Texans had incorporated all they learned on their European campaign in 1966 with the 2D into the new 2F.
Ferrari’s P4 ‘aero-chassis had slightly wider tracks than its P3 forbear and was the result of evolution over previous seasons. Ferrari’s first mid-engined sportscar was the V6 engined 246P of 1961. Doug Nye records that chassis #0796 was cut up and lengthened slightly to accommodate a two-cam 3-litre Testa Rossa engine. The 1963 Le Mans winning 250P evolved from this prototype. So too did the 1965 winning 250LM, which was essentially a 250P with a roof and 3.3-litre V12, making it a 275LM in the eyes of many…
The 3.3-litre two-cam 275P followed in 1964, 275P2 and 4-litre four-cam 330P2 in 1965. The P2s departed from earlier Ferrari space-frame practice by utilisation of the ‘aero’ tube-frame semi-monocoque structure, whereby the frame was stiffened by rivetted sheet steel panelling. The model range is more complex than this as it also includes different engine/chassis combinations for customers. I will stick to the works cars for the purpose of this article.
The 4-litre P3 followed in 1966 with much improved suspension geometry to address inadequate camber control and to suit the latest generation of ever widening tyres. The 4-litre engine, adapted for Lucas fuel injection developed circa 420bhp @ 8000rpm. As outlined above, Ferrari’s 1966 season was impacted by industrial problems in Italy as well as team leader John Surtees midseason departure. The sports car and quite probably the World F1 Titles which were theirs to take with an ace at the wheel…and some luck with reliability.
The stiffness of the chassis was improved as Nye describes ‘…previous P-series Ferraris had carried their engines on four simple mounts plus plus two for the gearbox, the new P4 engine featured a stiffer crankcase and could be mounted as a semi-stressed structural member, picking up on four carefully triangulated mounts at the front, two each side and four at the rear.’
The engine, the block stressed as above, featured the three-valves per cylinder (two inlet and one exhaust with the inlets between the two camshafts of each bank) layout developed by Franco Rocchi in late 1966, as developed for the F1 cars. There were two plugs per cylinder still fired by good old fashioned coils, four of them. Lucas fuel injection fed the fuel. The engines capacity was 3967cc and developed 450bhp @ 8000 rpm.
Also new was a five speed gearbox made by Ferrari to replace the earlier ZF unit, the ZF5DS25 units as used in the Ford GTs, had been unreliable in 1966. Weight was 965Kg. Firestone replaced Dunlop as the teams tyre supplier.
And so the scene was set…the prototype completed 580 laps at Firestone tyre tests at Daytona in December 1966, Amon was the quickest ahead of Parkes, Bandini and Scarfiotti, the P4 timed at 338kmh along the back straight.
Quick, but as it was to transpire, but not quick enough.
The Parkes/Scarfiotti P4 0858 passes the #18 Casoni/Martini Ferrari Dino 206S, pursued by the Mike Spence/Phil Hill Chaparral 2F Chev, DNF with driveshaft failure. 0858 was second, the win was taken by Bandini/Amon in another P4, 0856 (unattributed)
1967 Endurance Season…
In the first race of the season, at Daytona the new Ferrari was immediately successful leading the race from the fourth hour and taking the first two places, Amon/Bandini ahead of Scarfiotti/Parkes and a modified P3/4 entered by Luigi Chinetti’s North America Racing Team . All of the 7-litre Fords retired or were delayed by maladies.
The Scuderia did not enter Sebring, but Amon and Bandini won again at Monza with Scarfiotti and Parkes second, the factory Fords again did not enter the race. With practice laps only three-tenths of a second apart, Bandini’s Ferrari and Spence’s Chaparral raced wheel to wheel from the off, but Spence retired early leaving Ferrari the rest of the race.
Bandini took the lead with Scarfiotti second in 0858, Rodriguez was third for NART and Vaccarella in the Filipinetti car in fourth. Ferrari’s four-litre prototypes now dominated the first four positions. A failed attempt by Rodriguez at overtaking the second-place works Ferrari resulted in his retirement. Note that RM Auctions in their sale dossier of the car several years ago claim Bandini and Amon won driving 0858, other independent sources say 0858 finished second.
Parkes and Scarfiotti fifth and best of the P4s at Spa in 0858. Ickx won in a Mirage M1 Ford (L’Automobile)
At Spa, ‘Rainmaster’ Ickx prevailed in John Wyers 5.7-litre Mirage Ford, Scarfiotti and Parkes could do no better than fifth in 0858. Vaccarella crashed out of the Targa lead in his P4 at Collesano, his home town…
And then came Le Mans.
As noted above this was the last Le Mans run under the unlimited formula. Ford won the previous year but at Daytona they were well and truly beaten by the P4s. Ferrari missed the Nurburgring 1000Km to be better prepared for La Sarthe. Three P4s were entered by the factory, the fourth an Ecurie Francorchamps entry.
The big V8s had the legs in practice, as proved to be the case in the race, but the Scarfiotti/Parkes P4 0858 was never far behind. A crash eliminated three Fords, the Mairesse/Beurlys P4 moved into third with the works cars chasing the leading Ford Mk4 of Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt. That vastly experienced pair drove a superb race taking Ford’s second Le Mans. Nye noted ‘…the race was decided on the Mulsanne. All the 7-litre Fords topped 320kmh. The 330P4 could not better 310kmh and the poorer breathing of the 24-valve 412Ps left them gasping, slower still’.
The works Ferrari finished four laps behind, the first Ford and second and third placed (Mairesse/Beurlys) Ferraris covered a distance unprecedented at Le Mans. Mike Parkes said to journalist/Le Mans Winner Paul Frere after the race ‘Never in my life have I driven a car so hard for so long’.
0858 on the way to second place at Le Mans in the hands of Ludovico Scarfiotti and Mike Parkes albeit four laps behind the winning 7-litre Ford Mk4 of Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt (unattributed)
The Brands Hatch BOAC International 500 was the final race of the endurance season and was to determine the championship for the year. Jackie Stewart joined Chris Amon in the works team to bolster Ferrari chances, Mike Parkes having badly injured his legs in an F1 crash at Spa.
Both chassis 0858 and 0860 had been converted to Spiders by the factory, removal of the roof and lightening the body saving around 40Kg. (Two independent sources claim 0858 was driven by Jonathon Williams and Paul Hawkins to sixth in this race, and that Amon/Stewart raced 0860 to second)
The race started at noon on Sunday under grey skies. John Surtees took an initial lead before Paul Hawkins replaced him in the third P4. After the first hour, Stewart had Spence’s Chaparral in his sights. Scarfiotti was behind him in another P4, followed by Jo Siffert in a Porsche 908. With regular driver changes and pit stops, the running order was continually evolving over the ensuing four hours. In the final hour, Amon was second.
With ten minutes to go, Stewart took the wheel, held the position and finished the race, securing the Manufacturers Championship for Ferrari, its 12th, defeating Porsche. Mike Spence won the race, the Chaparral 2F Chev finally taking a long promised win.
Factory CanAm 350 3/4 front . (Ferrari)
From P4 to Can Am 350…
With the endurance season over and regulation changes precluding the cars competition in the 1968 championship the factory modified two of the P4s, as mentioned earlier, 0858 and 0860 to better compete in the Can-Am Championship by lightening and modifying the cars, naming them 350 Can Am to contest the prestigious series in their most important market.
The cars were lightened considerably by becoming curvaceous Spiders instead of more curvaceous Coupes! Weight was reduced from 792Kg wet to 700Kg wet. The engine capacity was increased to 4176cc raising the power to 480bhp @ 8500rpm, the cars mechanical specification is as described above otherwise.
Fundamentally it was not enough.
It’s 1 September 1967, Brit Jonathon Williams is about to test an F1 Ferrari 312 for the first time at Modena. In the background is one of the P4/CanAm 350s, still with headlights fitted, also on Williams’ menu for the day – lucky boy. The first Can-Am round was at Road America on 3 Sept, the Can Am 350s first raced at Laguna Seca in Williams/Amon hands on 15 October, there was much work to be done yet! (Pete Coltrin)
Bruce McLaren had been contesting sports car races in the US since his Cooper days in the early 1960s. His first M1 McLarens were quick cars hampered by light but not powerful enough aluminium Oldsmobile engines. For 1967, he and Robin Herd designed and built the monocoque M6 powered by 5.9-litre, circa 525bhp iron Chev V8s and rewrote the record book in terms of dominance of this series.
The Bruce and Denny Show was underway. The Ferraris contested the series entered by Harrahs Casino who were also Ferrari distributors, and were comprehensively blown off along with the rest of the grid.
Factory 350 Can Am butt shot. Absence of lights clear in the weight saving process. Ferrari ‘box in P4 replaced problematic ZF unit of P3, gorgeous if not quite as as much as the P4 parent! (Ferrari)McLarens’ papaya M6A Chev looms in Jim Hall’s Chaparral 2G Chev mirrors. #21 is Parnelli Jones’ Lola T70 Ford and Dan Gurney’s partially obscured Lola T70Mk3b Chev, ALL DNF! The race was won by Surtees’ Lola T70Mk3b Chev (unattributed)
0858 From the US to Australia via Italy…
David McKay had raced his 250LM 6321 in Australia since 1965 but the car was getting older and ‘she was often racing out of class and racing against pure prototypes…During a visit to Maranello I broached the subject with Mike Parkes and the factory’s General Manager Ermano Della Casa. I had seen the P4s at Le Mans in 1967 where Mike and Scarfiotti had finished a gallant second to Fords’ 7-litre steam roller and had fallen in love with the car’.
‘To me it typified all the art, beauty and grace of the old world pitted amongst the brashness and might of the new…In due course I received word that I could buy 0858 for the considerable sum of US$30,000.
Riverside CanAm 1967. #12 Roger McCluskey Lola T70 Chev, #27 Williams Ferrari Can Am 350, #19 Bill Amick McLaren M1C Chev, Jerry Entin McLaren M1C Chev (unattributed)
The car which raced unsuccessfully in the States at Laguna Seca, Riverside and Las Vegas would be fully rebuilt and shipped to Sydney by Christmas 1967. This would be in good time for the Australian Tasman rounds where Amon would conduct it in the sportscar support events and surely set a cat amongst the pigeons…’
Chris Amon raced a Ferrari 246T looked after by Scuderia Veloce during The Australian Tasman that summer and in 1969, the year in which he was Tasman Champion.
McKay ‘The less charitable said the factory wanted the car as far away as possible so that they could forget the ignominy of the Can-Am venture. The car had managed a fifth at Laguna Seca, eighth at Riverside and a DNF at Las Vegas with Amon who had surely wrung everything out of it’.
Note that some sources say Jonathon Williams raced 0858 and Amon 0860 in the Series, another source suggests Amon raced the car twice, at Laguna Seca and Riverside, and by Williams at the final round at Las Vegas. Australian Sports Car World magazine in a feature about the car published in 1985 wrote that who drove which car cannot be accurately determined.
Take your pick…I am inclined to either uncertainty, or, I imagine Amon would have related directly to McKay at the time which car he drove, and by the time McKay wrote his autobiography he had no vested interest in the car his financial investment in it having ended in 1968, vendors or their agents and their claims should be treated with the Caveat Emptor dictum in mind…
The two 350 Can Ams at rest, Riverside paddock 1967. #23 Amon #27 Williams eighth and DNF…0858 and 0860 or…0860 and 0858 take your guess (unattributed)Chris Amon using the big twelves horsepower to good effect at Riverside 1967, eighth. All the drivers who raced the P4 commented on how sweet the chassis was (unattributed)
McKay ‘This should have turned me off but I comforted myself with the thought that there were no 8-litre McLarens in Australia and certainly no Bruce or Denny to worry us. Alas, it only required a local in his own device powered with a local 4.4-litre V8 to unravel our dream. (Frank Matich in his Matich SR3 Repco 4.4 V8).’
In fact the performance of Frank Matich in his self built car should not have been a surprise to either McKay or Amon. Matich had contested most of the 1967 Can-Am, including the three events in which Amon participated and was also flogged by the McLarens. Matich didn’t finish a race in fact…but the Sydney built, space-frame chassis, 400bhp Repco 4.4-litre V8 engined Matich was slightly quicker than the 350 Can Am and was match fit after a tough season in the US.
The Ferrari was not to have it easy in Australia that summer.
Frank Matich, wife Joan, his team and Firestone technicians on the pit apron at Riverside, 1967 Can-Am. Grid 20 DNF accident. Matich SR3 Repco; space-frame chassis car powered by Repco 620 Series 4.4-litre SOHC V8 400bhp @ 7000rpm. Surtees’ Lola T70Mk3B Chev behind (unattributed)
Again David McKay picks up the story ‘As starting money was imperative for such an expensive undertaking I sounded out all the major circuits. All were enthusiastic and all promised to pay a modest enough $350 a start. It goes without saying that when Geoff Sykes (Warwick Farm boss) set the standard, a ‘yes’ on the phone was sufficient to seal the agreement’.
‘There was great excitement at the wharf when the open crate carrying the plastic wrapped P4 was lowered over the liners side. There were a couple more huge wooden crates I hadn’t expected. These turned out to be another engine, gearbox, transaxle, suspensions, disc brakes, all manner of rose joints and sixteen wheels-in reality a second P4 apart from the simple tube-chassis and the brief, skimpy fibre-glass bodywork. That US$30000 was immediately halved in our minds and much of my initial disappointment at seeing the rather unattractive Can Am bodywork evaporated’.
0858 shortly after its arrival in Sydney at SV’s workshop, Wahroonga (WOT)
‘Engineer Bob Atkin and I were keen to get the crate and boxes home to Wahroonga to prod the beast into life. This we did and again I felt disappointment. Where was the distinctive wail I heard in the cold air at Le Mans? It was now deeper, throatier but somehow more common, less exciting.
Unfortunately I never felt any warmth for the P4, certainly not its fault for the car was out of its milieu, away from the understanding hands which cared for it and probably thinking it was back in that coarse country, America, of which it had nothing but bad dreams.
I hoped a reunion with Amon would be beneficial but Chris was more involved with his Tasman Dino and his forthcoming battle with Clark and Hill in their Lotus 49 Ford DFW’s.’
Jim Clark, Chris Amon and their respective mechanics share a joke around Chris’ Ferrari 246T at Longford, March 1968. Clark won the series in his Lotus 49 DFW, Piers Courage the race in a gutsy wet weather drive in his McLaren M4A FVA F2 car. Clark fifth and Amon seventh. Clark was killed that April and Amon returned to take the 1969 Tasman Championship…the P4 was by then sold (oldracephotos)‘Don’t pick your nails Chris!’ Amon and McKay in the cockpit of 0858 at Sandown, Melbourne, February 1968. McKay first assisted Amon in the 1963 International Series, Amon drove the SV Cooper T53 Climax (Rod MacKenzie)Scuderia Veloce Team at Warwick Farm 1968; 250LM 6321, Brabham BT23A-1 Repco and the P4/Can Am 350 0858. This shot was taken at the 18 February Tasman Meeting, 250LM I am guessing was not raced, Greg Cusack in the Brabham was a DNF in the Tasman race won by Clarks’ Lotus 49 DFW, Amon raced the P4 (David McKay’s Scuderia Veloce)Amon gets the drop from Matich in the SR3, Surfers Paradise, February 1968. Ordinary crowd numbers, surfs up at Main Beach maybe? (wolseley680)
Australian race record of ‘0858’…
Ray Bell was a journalist for Racing Car News magazine in the 1960 and 1970s, he wrote evocatively about the car’s race record on The Nostalgia Forum in 2002…
‘The first race for the car in Australia was February 10 at Surfers Paradise.It was the Saturday and it was clear that there were some shocks headed for the lap record after Matich recorded 1:10.2 in practice.
Matich dudded the start, however, but scorched around to be the first to take the lap record over the 100mph mark with a 1:10.6 (101.98mph) to Amon’s 1:10.7, reeling the Ferrari in after four laps and diving under it when a slower car baulked Amon.
Two more 5-lappers were scheduled for Sunday, with Matich and his 4.4-litre tube-framed SR3 leading away and getting a full second advantage on the first lap. The record was equalled as he took another win. In the second, Amon was a non-starter.
Rod MacKenzie’s shot of the Surfers race one start from a different angle. ‘Spare tyre’ on Ferrari was mandated by dopey Australian sports car rules of the day. The Matich carries its spare under the driver’s front screen. Beefy spoiler on the SR3, its 1968 the ‘Year of Wings’ is just getting underwaySuperb John Ellacott shot of Chris Amon looking as relaxed as he can be with Frank Matich ‘up his clacker’! Homestead Corner Warwick Farm, February 1968 (John Ellacott)
A week later at Warwick Farm came the race I speak of so often.
The report says Matich ‘left the Ferrari breathless…’ as he led Amon a merry chase. That they came past us side by side, with a Tojiero between them being lapped and grass clippings flying on one lap in the race shows that it wasn’t all that breathless!
Again, Matich was pressed to a new circuit record (these are outright records, faster than the Lotus 49s and the Amon Dino managed on the day) of 1:28.5 in staving off the Ferrari. Amon retired with reported ignition trouble on lap 7 or 8. (McKay advised the ignition leads were plucked off one bank of cylinders having been taped carefully out of reach of a half-shaft)
Check out the YouTube footage of this race…
WF start. Both Matich #1 Matich SR3 Repco and Niel Allen in the white Elfin 400 Chev get the jump on Amon’s Ferrari at the start. WF is a horse racing facility still, it ceased as an International car race venue after the 1973 Tasman Series (Wirra)Amon leads Matich into Shell Corner, lap 1 , Sandown Tasman Round Sports Car race, 25 February 1968. car with white stripe down the nose at left the Bob Jane Racing Elfin 400 Repco (Rod MacKenzie)
The opening gambit of the Sandown Park report, the next week (February 25), was ‘This was the first time the Sandown crowd has had a chance to see Frank Matich really trying. The reason was, of course, that he had Chris Amon and the P4 Ferrari to worry him.’
Matich bogged down at the start (‘nearly burned a hole in the startline with wheelspin…’) and Chris led away, but after a lap or two ‘braking late for Peters, Frank closed on Chris and went under him as they accelerated out onto Peters (the back straight).’ Matich won by four seconds, took the sports car record down to 1:07.2 (Clark nobbled the outright record in the Australian GP on the same day with a 1:07.1) and Matich bowed out of any further contests. He wasn’t happy to go to Longford.
Matich SR3 Oldsmobile in the Sandown Park paddock in 1966 (Mike Feisst Collection/The Roaring Season)‘Longford March 1968. The wet Monday morning after Amon set off a lap down on the field after battery failure on the grid. The road was wet from the first shower of the day that turned into a deluge later for the Tasman race (won by Piers Courage in his F2 McLaren M4A FVA). The overcast conditions, wet road and river in the background combine to give perfect lighting to highlight the car. Location is coming off Kings Bridge, the shot taken from the old Longford water pump-house station. The 1880s railway bridge is in the background’ So said ‘austmcreg’ on The Nostalgia Forum, photo credit Jim and Pat Smith. Amazing shot and commentary!
There, Longford, of course, Amon had the fastest time ever through the trap on the flying mile and lapped at 2:14.4 in practice to easily take pole.
In the Saturday race Amon set a new outright lap record of 2:12.6, four tenths quicker than Clark had done in the earlier preliminary event for the Tasman cars in the Lotus 49. This was 12.2 seconds better than the previous record, held by Bob Jane.(Elfin 400 Repco 4.4)
At that stage, it was only reasonable to conclude that Amon wouldn’t hold the record over the whole weekend, but the heavens opened and deluged the circuit for Monday, his P4 suffered a battery failure (McKay wrote that mechanic Bob Atkin simply overlooked to charge the dry cell Varley battery) and didn’t even start the soggy sports car race, and the open-wheelers paddled round with Piers Courages’ McLaren M4A FVA 1.6 taking the win.
Longford pit counter scene with the curvaceous Can Am 350 centre stage. Both Amon and Bill Brown drove the car at this meeting. Matich did not enter, having safety concerns about the circuit in the SR3. Little yellow stickers on Fazz rump say Gatto Verde, gifts from Alf Francis to David McKay (Harold Ellis)
In his book, McKay (David McKay’s autobiography ‘Scuderia Veloce’) describes the torment of choosing a driver for the car for the ensuing year. His choice might have been Big ‘Pete’ (Ian) Geoghegan, but there was pressure to give Bill Brown a go. There was also the possibility that Pete’s huge frame might not fit… he was put into the team’s 250LM for the year.
David Mckay again picks up the story ‘After the Tasman Series and Amon’s departure I decided to put Bill Brown behind the wheel despite certain misgivings. I liked Bill, he was a pleasant and helpful fellow who could be faster than some but rather more accident prone than others. He damaged the LM rather too frequently through overdriving…Yet I hoped Bill would mature, the red mists would disappear and he would conduct the P4 in accordance with my instructions. I had no illusions he would run with Matich, Amon hadn’t managed to…I had chosen the easy option rather than taking a chance and putting in perhaps the only local who would have given Matich a run for it-Pete Geoghegan.’
Here is Pete Geoghegan hustling McKay’s 250LM 6321 around Bathurst at Easter 1968 in the manner the SV boss liked so much (Dick Simpson)
‘Pete was already four times AustralianTouring Car Champion and was sweeping all before him in his Mustang. More important, was his driving of the ‘old red lady’ (McKay’s 250LM) in which, despite his big weight disadvantage (Pete was a very big lad, morbidly obese, the medicos would describe it) he was re-writing her lap times. Perhaps had I not been so occupied with other events that year, had not been out of the country so much I would have bitten the bullet, asked Bill to step aside and given Pete the hot seat-but could he have fitten into that little space? We’ll never know now but in the light of subsequent events I was wrong and I am sorry Pete…’
Pete Geoghegan in that car would have been worth travelling a very long way to see, a driver of awesome world class ability as McKay alludes to, if you go back into the early days of Pete’s career he drove the Geoghegan family Lotus single seaters and 23B but in essence most of his career was spent in Touring Cars and other cars with roofs
Another of Dick Simpson’s stunning shots. Bill Brown, Mount Panorama, Hell Corner ,Bathurst , Easter 1968 (Dick Simpson)
Ray Bell…’Bathurst was the first outing on April 14 & 15, which I would have thought daunting enough. With wire fences, rough surface, two serious crashes injuring top drivers in the Gold Star event’s practice sessions and all, one might be a little careful in such a fast car.
But Bill was out to show his stuff. The first race was a 3-lapper mixed in with the open-wheelers. Bartlett won that in the Brabham BT23D Alfa with Bill second about 11 seconds adrift and just 1.6 seconds clear of Niel Allen in the Elfin 400 Chev after Allen had spun on the first lap. Bartlett had fastest lap in 2:19.1, Allen did 2:19.4 and Brown 2:21.6. Maybe he was being careful after all…
As the report points out, ‘The last time anyone went really fast on Mt Panorama was back in 1962, when both David McKay and Bib Stillwell equalled Bill Patterson’s flying eighth time of 169.81mph. It has been said often since that it would probably take a sporty car to better it.’
As mentioned above, Brown took the speed up to 181 mph, a big hike, but he was in pursuit of Allen at the time. The Elfin lapped in 2:18.4 but was parked at the top of the mountain when Brown scored his lucky win, with Geoghegan second in the LM, which improved its personal best time from 2:34.2 to 2:30.8 this first time the big fella got into it. Brown lapped in 2:19.6, just shy of the 100mph mark.
0858 in the Warwick Farm paddock February 1968…the start of wings on the front, added since original factory build (WOT)Bill Brown in the RAC Trophy, Warwick Farm, May 1968. Sand in the throttle slides of the car so DNF (Rod MacKenzie)
Warwick Farm’s annual RAC Trophy race was on May 5.
This was a prize event on the best circuit. Matich lapped in 1:29 for pole, Allen did 1:32.9, Brown 1:33.0 for the outside of the first row. But the Ferrari managed to get ahead of the Elfin off the line and was second into the first corner and stayed there as Matich built up a lead of about ten seconds over the early laps. Sand got into the throttle slides of the V12 engine, however, and the Ferrari retired to give Allen second spot.
This was the race where Matich ‘unwound a blinder on the last lap just to prove the car was still ‘with it’, chopping 1.2 seconds off his Tasman meeting record and leaving the new time at a staggering 1:27.3′
The boss himself having a tilt during practice at Warwick Farm. David McKay in the big car, not so sure he mentioned this in his book (G Lanham)0858 sans rear bodywork, shot at SV workshop in Sydney (WOT)
Lakeside on May 12 brought a pair of Scuderia Veloce 1 – 2s,but the opposition had died in the pre-race buildup. Matich cracked the lap record in practice with a 53.7 in his first appearance at the circuit since his crash there in 1965. Allen did a 55.3, Brown a 57.2.
The minor race came first, with Allen scoring a win and Matich fastest lap (55.2, new record anyway) with the Elfin taking the lead from the start as Matich eased away with a sick engine. Matich pitted, but continued, the Repco suffering a loose valve seat, which prevented him getting top horsepower as he nailed it to get that record in the book. Brown finished 1.5 seconds behind Allen and actually lapped two tenths faster at 56.3, both of them under Allen’s old record.
The main event was a twenty-lapper, and in the minutes before the race Matich declared himself a non-starter and Allen trickled back into the pits with a bolt out of the steering. Brown was able to walk it in (best lap 58.4) as Geoghegan showed all his abilities at the helm of the 250LM to fill second ahead of a Lotus 23B. His best lap was 59.3 and he was less than nine seconds behind at the finish.
0858 cockpit shot taken at Surfers Paradise by Rod MacKenzie. Momo steering wheel, Veglia Borletti instruments all very Ferrari period-fitments. Note venting of wheel arch to release air pressure (Rod MacKenzie)
There was yet another race, an eight-lapper, at the end of the day, with the 2.5 open-wheelers combining with the fastest sports cars. The report doesn’t clearly explain how Allen got to be behind Phil West’s Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT23A Repco, but he was and seemingly couldn’t do anything about it. Brown won as he liked, scoring another SV 1-2 with West second this time.
I would say that West got away best, then the brute force of the bigger engined cars overpowered him, only Allen was stuck behind him as Brown got through to the lead. Anyway, Allen spent the rest of the race back there in a frustrated third, ‘perhaps over-flushed with determination, hounded West in the best showing of brute tactics seen for a long while, the big Elfin almost running over the Brabham into BMC lap after lap as West stopped to look at the view and Brown scampered up over BP. Allen tried to go under into KLG, avoiding disaster by a hair’s breadth, and pushed the Brabham wheel to wheel round the Eastern Loop. This excitement was too much, added to by Geoghegan who forced the 250LM to the front of Scott’s Lotus 27 to fill fourth spot.’
Des White wrote well, didn’t he? He pressed on. ‘The big battle looked worse as the backmarkers were lapped, disaster being forever imminent as very slow cars found themselves caught up in the 140mph battle between Allen and West, the Elfin being stopped and pointed with a dexterity seldom seen these days. Allen failed to get through, perhaps through trying too hard, and it was disappointing to see him slipstream to the flag. Should the big power of the Elfin have carried it from Shell to the flag first? Maybe, and there been breathing space for the initial build up.” Best lap to Brown, 56.6, Allen did 56.7, West 55.9, winning margin less than two seconds (1.6, actually).
SV lined up on the Surfers Paradise dummy grid prior to the 6 Hour in 1968. L.R; Leo and Pete Geoghegan 250LM which won, Des West/Bill Reynolds 275 GTB ninth, and Brown/Palmer 350 Can Am DNF accident (Rod MacKenzie)
Ray Bell, ‘Probably the event dearest to McKay’s heart was the Surfers Paradise 12-hour…
And he had Jim Palmer over from New Zealand to co-drive with Brown. But Palmer wasn’t up to it, lapping over five seconds slower than Brown in practice and wearing himself out in the process. Matich, who was racing quite a lot during this year, even entered the SR3 in this race with Glynn Scott as co-driver (only 2.3 seconds behind Frank’s times), so this car was the pace as the race got going, Brown following it through the field after both started slowly (Le Mans start). Lapping slower cars soon after the start, Brown was pushed off line and ran over some tyre markers on the edge and holed the radiator. The P4 was out…
David McKay saw the race slightly differently ‘…I had asked NZ Champion Jim Palmer to co-drive with Brown. Jim was a fast, safe driver very much in the Spencer Martin mould. I erred by not having Palmer start the race…The field as in the past, was composed of fast and slow open and closed cars and as always the onus is on the overtaking car. A second or two lost by backing off the throttle to make sure the tortoise knew he was about to be swamped was sensible driving…Less than 15 minutes into the race, Brown came up behind a Fiat 125 saloon, on the approach to Firestone, a fairly quick left hander. The Fiat driver, unaware Brown was diving down the inside held his line. The P4 had nowhere to go but over the grass and a white tyre marker demolishing the nose and oil cooler…Brown bought the mortally wounded P4 to a halt in front of our pit’.
Bell, ‘Matich’s Repco engine dropped its bundle very late in the race and Geoghegan and his brother Leo won the race in the Scuderia Veloce 250LM.
‘That was the end of the P4’s racing in Australia. Matich was to debut his SR4 with its 5-litre quad-cam engine in November, cementing his position as top dog in the field and enabling him to go on and take more outright records.’
‘0858’ in cigarette company Team Gunston colours in Bulawayo, South Africa 1969. Note the car now has lights refitted – installed in Australia for the Surfers 6 Hour (unattributed)
Sale of ‘0858’ to Paul Hawkins…
Due to an error in paperwork, the car was invoiced to McKay rather than in Amon’s name, bringing forward the impost of import duty. The Customs Department provided extensions of time with the assistance of the Italian Chamber of Commerce who wanted the car to race in the Surfers 6 Hour and form the centre-piece of a Sydney trade show.
Under pressure to pay the duty, which was close to 100% of the cars purchase price!, or export it, McKay put the word out ‘…dear old Paul Hawkins had heard about the car being for sale from Chris Amon at an Oulton Park meeting. I was in the workshop when ‘Hawkeyes’ call came through ‘Is the car for sale?’ ‘Yes’, ‘How much?’ ‘US$30,000’. ‘If I buy it will you go me halves in a return ticket to Sydney?’. ‘Yes, ok’. ‘I’ll be there the day after tomorrow’. I’ll meet you Paul’
‘Simple and straightforward. Paul was making a name for himself as a successful sports car and GT racer and had been a favourite of Firestone…The car was to be shipped right after Surfers for Paul would drive it in South Africa’s sports car series with tobacco sponsorship and he would win’.
350 Can Am in the East London pits, front lights now faired. The car won this 500km race (royckdboats)
Paul raced the car in South Africa from November 1968 to January 1969 winning the Cape Town 3 Hour, GP of Bulwayo, Pietermaritzburg 3 Hour and the East London 500 Km.
As McKay mentioned above Hawkins was an Australian International plying his trade via his own team and as a ‘hired gun’ by works teams. He was racing a Lola T70 Mk3B Chev during the Tourist Trophy at Oulton Park, his car ending up in the trees, after probable suspension failure, poor Paul dying in the particularly gruesome accident and ensuing fire.
Both Hawkins and Alberto Ascari, the only two drivers to ‘Scuba Dive’ at Monaco both died on May 26, in an arcane bit of trivia. Mike Hailwood raced ‘0858’ at Magny Cours, first and Dijon DNF in May.
Gearbox fettling perhaps, prior to the East London event. 4.2-litre DOHC three valve per cylinder Lucas fuel injected V12. Ferrari 5-speed ‘box with ZF limited slip diff. Battery of coils clear to see (royckdboats)
The car was sold in the realisation of the Hawkins Estate,through David Piper, who raced so many mid sixties sports Ferraris’ of his own, and occasionally as a works-driver, to Alastair Walker who raced the car back in South Africa in November-December 1969 with sometime GP driver Rob Widdows as his co-driver.
The car was uncharacteristacally unreliable, perhaps tired, ‘0858’ failed to finish the Kyalami 9 Hour, Cape Town and Bulawayo 3 Hour events. ‘0858’ was second at the Lourenco Marques, Mozambique.
In 1971 David Piper bought the car from Walker, still with its extensive inventory of spare parts, enough as McKay states to make a second car less chassis…which is what Piper did. Ferrari provided him with all the necessary P4 blueprints in 1974. Piper, Nye says ‘had the chassis made by the original people in Modena. Ferrari gave it the number ‘0900’, a serial number also applied to a Chinetti parts built 312P in the US’. Several run-on cars have been built by Piper since.
David Piper sold 0858 to Florida real estate man/Ferrari collector Walter Medlin in 1971. He retained it until it was offered for sale – having been seized by the US Internal Revenue Service to pay Medlin’s outstanding tax debt – via RM Auctions in 2009. The car was eventually restored by Talacrest in the UK, somewhat controversially in the eyes of some, to its Spyder/Barchetta specification.
At the outset I wrote that four P4s were built, three P4’s and one converted P3 ‘0846’...
In the best traditions of historic racing there are now more P4s than in period…there are three or four ‘run-on’ cars built by Piper’s concern. In addition, ‘0846’, written off by the factory after a crash and fire at Le Mans in 1967 has been reborn, recreated or replicated depending upon your view of it.
I’m not suggesting ‘the experts’ necessarily know it all either.
Etcetera…
Amon at Warwick Farm (G Paine)Chris consulting with his crew in the Sandown pitlane, David McKay in shirt and tie (G Paine)Bill Brown, who drove the car after Amon’s departure back to Europe also had a steer of the Can Am 350 at Longford in both practice and a preliminary race (David Keep)(Rod MacKenzie)
That ‘Australian’ spare tyre which was fitted as a consequence of our local sports car regs at the time. SV solution was a neat one even if the weight is well outside the cars wheelbase, where else to put it!? The yellow ‘Gatto Verde’ stickers were a gift from Alf Francis to McKay. McKay makes mention of it in his autobiography but not actually what the stickers mean/represent. Ideas anyone?
Bibliography…
David McKay ‘David McKays Scuderia Veloce’, Paul Frere ‘Cars in Profile 246SP-330P4 Ferraris’, Doug Nye ‘The Potent P4…A Ferrari Fierce and Fine’ Sports Car World July/Sept 1982
Thanks to Stephen Dalton for the assistance in research material sourcing
Photo Credits…
Dick Simpson, Roderick MacKenzie, John Ellacott, wolseley680, WOT, Jim and Pat Smith, Ellis French, The Roaring Season, David Keep, oldracephotos, royckdboats, Mike Feisst Collection, Pete Coltrin, Harold Ellis, Glenn Paine, Geoff Lanham
Tailpiece…
Lets go out as we came in, with a fabulous shot, this time by Harold Ellis of Bill Brown, the sun gleaming off 0858 before blasting down the Longford public roads, big V12 howling at 180 miles per hour in February 1968…
Robert Davies took this amazing shot of John Walkers’ F5000 Lola T332 scything at very high speed the Sandown Park horserailing on lap 1 of the Tasman Round, 23 February 1975…
Walker survived the accident and lived to fight another day, eventually winning both the Australian Grand Prix and ‘Gold Star’ the national championship for drivers in 1979 in another Lola T332.
The other cars in shot are also Lola’s ; Max Stewarts’ T330 left, Graeme Lawrences’ T332 centre and Kevin Bartletts’ similar car on the right. In fact it was in Bartletts’ T332 ‘HU22′, later owned and raced successfully by Bruce Allison before passing into Martin Sampsons’ hands in which Walker won the AGP and Gold Star in 1979.
The battle for the ’75 Tasman was decided in this race.
Going into the Sandown final round Walker, Warwick Brown and Kiwi 1970 Tasman Champion, Graeme Lawrence all Lola T332 mounted could all win the series depending upon how ‘the cards fell’, with 30 points apiece from 7 prior rounds.
Sandown in February was typically hot throughout practice, Walker took pole from Brown, Max Stewart third and Lawrence 4th, their was nothing between the title protagonists, it was anybody’s race.
John Walker, Warwick Brown and Graeme Lawrence pictured at the Light Car Club, then the Sandown promoters, a day or so before the race. The Melbourne ‘Sun’ was a good paper in which to wrap yer fish n’ chips but had no merit otherwise, much as the Herald-Sun does now. The article rabbits on about Alan Moffats new ‘Cologne’ RS3400 Capri, indicative of the Aussie fixation with ‘taxis’ (touring cars), making no mention of the Tasman finale…nice shot tho!
Warwick Brown, razor sharp after a series of races in the US in 1974 in ‘HU27’. He had been racing the car a full year, he and engineer Peter Molloy understood all of the cars nuances, this chassis the very first of the T332’s, made its debut in the ’74 Tasman. This shot is on the old Pit Straight, the car ‘nose up’ under acceleration in 3rd gear. (Robert Davies)
Brown was perhaps the ‘form driver’…he broke into F5000 in the ex-Alan Hamilton McLaren M10B which was engineered by the very experienced Peter Molloy, Molloy having prepared the sister M10B to this when owned by Niel Allen.
Molloy knew the car intimately and was equally adept as a driver mentor/coach. Brown was immediately on the pace in what was an old car in 1972. He then jumped into the ex Allen/Muir Lola T300, a quicker but twitcher, more challenging conveyance than the M10B and was very competitive in the ’73 Tasman but became a ‘Lola Limper’ in an horrific high speed accident at Surfers which could have taken his life. It was not the last Lola ‘big one’ in Warwicks’ career either.
When he recovered his Patron, Pat Burke, bought the very first T332 which he ran in the 1974 Tasman Series doing well enough to win the final Adelaide round, he competed in the first round of the domestic 1974 Gold Star series, which Lawrence and Walker also contested. Browns’ team then shipped ‘HU27’ to the US successfully competing in several rounds of the ’74 Series before returning for the AGP at Oran Park in mid-November. Warwick ran the final US round in the Talon nee McRae GM2, he would contest the ’75 US Series in. Brown was well and truly ‘match fit’ by the start of the series , his confidence buoyed by his competitiveness in the ‘States.
Max Stewart won the ’74 AGP from Kevin Bartlett, KB also a ‘Lola Limper’ by virtue of his awful leg-breaking Pukekohe Tasman ’74 shunt. Graeme Lawrence was 3rd in his T332 ‘HU28’ which he also raced in the ’74 Tasman and the whole Australian Gold Star series, he was well familiar with the car by the commencement of the ’75 Tasman.
Graeme Lawrence in his T332 Chev ‘HU28’. GL raced this car successfully over several seasons. (Robert Davies)
Graeme Lawrence won the Tasman Series in 1970 in the Ferrari Dino 246T ‘0008’, also Chris Amons’ 1969 Tasman winner…1970 was the first year F5000’s were eligible to compete for the title. He started in F5000 in a Lola T300, that car short lived after Lawrence was involved in an horrific high speed, ‘nobody’s fault’ accident with countryman Bryan Faloon in the ’72 NZ GP at Pukekohe, Faloon losing his life and Graeme breaking both legs and sustaining other serious injuries. Like the other ‘Lola Limpers’ described herein he continued his passion for the sport. After he recovered long time sponsor Air New Zealand supported a Surtees TS15 Ford F2 car he ran in the ’73 Tasman and in South East Asia, before returning to F5000 with the T332 for 1974.
Bartlett and his great friend Max Stewart were not as competitive ’75 Tasman contenders as they hoped.The great friends were the first customers of Lola’s F5000 latest- the trick, schmick but not ultimately quick, rising rate suspension T400.
Bartlett’s 3rd at Levin in the opening round flattered only to deceive, the cars were reasonably reliable throughout the series but not as quick as the T332’s. So unimpressed with the T400 were they, that both contested the Adelaide and Sandown rounds in their old cars. Bartlett his T332, his T330 rebuilt around a new 332 tub after his Pukekohe prang and Max the very first, very fast, very successful T330, ‘HU1’, the prototype tested and raced in the UK in late 1972 and honed to a fine pitch before handover by Frank Gardner to Stewart prior to the ’73 Tasman commencement. It would have been very interesting to see how this pair would have faired had they run their well proven older cars, but there was no reason to believe the T400 would not be a quicker car than the successful previous Lola F5000’s had been. Each one quicker than the previous model.
The T400’s ended up being winners in the hands of Count Rudy Van der Straatens ‘Team VDS’ in Teddy Pilette’s and Peter Gethin’s hands in Europe and by Max Stewart in Australia but were otherwise shunned by most Lola customers who continued to modify and develop their T330/2’s- the T332C was surely THE definitive F5000 car.
John Walker in his Lola T332 Repco in Shell Corner or turn 1 onto the old Pit Straight in practice, Saturday 22 February. Lola T330 ‘HU23’ B, rebuilt as a T332 after the first of its numerous shunts, unique in fitment of Repco Holden F5000 engines. These were ‘carry-overs’ from JW’s previous Elfin MR5 and Matich A50 both cars designed for the Repcos’. Repco withdrew from racing in 1974 but continued to provide parts support to their many customers. JW car fitted for Sandown ’75 with the last specially prepared ‘flat plane crank’ Repco engine developing circa 520bhp in addition to the Repcos’ legendary ‘truckload’ of mid range torque. (Robert Davies)
In many ways the least well prepared of the ‘Tasman Finalists’, at the Series commencement was John Walker.
The Adelaide crash repair business proprietor came into F5000 from F2, swapping his Elfin 600 for an MR5 Repco, the first of Garrie Coopers’ Elfin 5 litre single seaters.
John hadn’t raced the car for long before deciding to compete in the ’73 US F5000 ‘L&M Series’, and bought a Matich A50 to do so, the Elfin lacking the ‘bag tanks’ required for that series and the ultimate competitiveness Walker sought.
Walker and team on the Watkins Glen grid. Matich A50 Repco ‘004’. JW finished 8th in the race won by Jody Scheckters’ Lola T330, T330’s filling the first 6 places, such was their dominance that year. Mind you Scheckter won the L&M US title that year mainly driving a Trojan T101. Mechanic clearly has had a shopping trip to San Francisco…(Chris Parker)
He did well in the US, finishing 8th at Michigan and Watkins Glen in the limited campaign returning to Oz for the ’73 Gold Star series a notably faster driver- and with a Lola T330 he bought from Carl Haas to which he fitted the Repco Holden F5000 engines which had nestled in the back of both the Elfin and Matich. Both cars were designed for the Repco engine, the Lola was not and whilst JW was not at the top of the ‘Repco food-chain’ initially, sponsored driver Frank Matich was- the Lola was always a ‘jet’ with the lighter, torquier, albeit slightly less powerful than the best Chevs, Repco donks.
John Walker looking longingly at fellow Aussie Bob Muirs’ Lola T330 ‘HU4′ in the Mid Ohio paddock on 3 June 1973. He was mightily impressed by the T330s’ he had been chasing around the US circuits…by 24 July Lola had invoiced him for ‘HU23’ in ‘Viking Orange’, the car delivered in the US, the Repco fitted there, but first raced in Australia at the Adelaide Gold Star round in October 1973. (Terry Capps)
JW contested the ’74 Tasman in the T330 winning at Levin and in the first rounds of the ’74 Gold Star series but pranged the car in the second heat at Surfers Paradise doing sufficient damage to require a new chassis. This car had ‘more hits than Elvis’ over the years, as the oldracingcars.com history shows!
T330 ‘HU23’ was then rebuilt around a T332 tub, whilst Walker didn’t do any of the remaining ’74 Gold Star rounds he had done enough test miles around Adelaide International in his new car to be competitive from the start of the ’75 Tasman.
Circuit map of Sandown in its original guise. JW accident occurred at the fast, downhill lefthand kink after ‘Mobil’, the approach top speed in 5th gear, before braking…
By the time the ‘Tasman Circus’ arrived at Sandown in Februarythe 7 rounds had been won by Lawrence (Levin and Adelaide), Brown (Pukekohe and Oran Park), Walker (Surfers Paradise) with Chris Amon winning at Teretonga in his Talon MR1 Chev and Graham McRae Wigram in the Talons cousin, McRae GM2 Chev. (the Talons were cars built in the US by Jack McCormack to the GM2 design sold by McRae to McCormack)
And so the scene was set. There was much excitement in Melbourne with the mainstream media, usually only interested in Aussie Rules, Cricket and Donkeys (horse racing), providing substantial coverage to the cars and drivers for a wonderful showdown of ‘local drivers’ Graeme Lawrence a Kiwi but much admired and respected by local fans as a driver ‘from over the ditch’.
The day dawned bright and sunny, it was with a great deal of anticipation and interest that we fans ventured out to the circuit. I jumped the pit fence gaining my ‘students discount’ to the paddock and took in pre-race preparations and watched the start from the pit counter, JW went past in 2nd behind Brown, John Goss taking 2nd from Walker on the run uphill…
Photographer, Robert Davies described the bellowing field of cars heading up the back straight …’I was pre-focussed on the track at my favorite vantage point at ‘Marlboro Country’ (the top of the back straight on the outside of the corner) ready for my usual shot of the leading cars on the opening lap. JW lost control of the Lola and slid at very high speed along about 100 metres of the fencing that separates the horse racing track from the motor racing circuit. He was very lucky, the fence posts snapped like matchsticks and the water pipe that ran along the top of the fence (to water the horse racing grass, you can actually see the water pipe atop the rail) passed over the top of his helmet’.
Walker was unconscious and was removed from the car and taken to nearby Dandenong Hospital, discharging himself shortly after arrival.He escaped serious injury from what was a very nasty accident with the best of outcomes, some years later Garrie Cooper went off after a wing-post failure at a similar spot in his Elfin MR8, he broke limbs but again was lucky to survive, Sandown is not without its perils.
The reason for the accident has never been clear, mechanical failure ruled unlikely by post race inspection of the wreck.
WB on the downhill plunge from ‘Marlboro Country’ to Dandenong Road in his T332 Chev, past the orange colored remains of Walkers’ car on the way to 6th place in the race and the Tasman Series win. The only occasion on which an Australian won the Tasman title. (Robert Davies)
A good deal of interest in the race was removed with JW’s demise but it was tempered with the knowledge that he was ok, and the subject of mass media coverage in the days which followed as a consequence.
Graeme Lawrence had fuel metering unit dramas and Warwick Brown slowed and had a quick ‘splash and dash’ with low fuel and finished 6th, gaining the vital point to win the title, it was a fitting victory for a driver who jumped back into these awesome cars after an accident as horrific as the one shown above but with far more dire consequences 2 years before…
John Goss won the race, his first F5000 victory in the Matich A53 Repco, the last of Franks’ superb cars…It was to be the last Tasman Series, the Kiwis and Aussies ran F5000 Series in 1976 of 4 races each back to back but the New Zealanders then changed their National Formula to Formula Atlantic/Pacific from 1977 Australia soldiering on with F5000.
John Goss on the way to Sandown victory in his Matich A53 Repco (007). Sandown was a happy F5000 hunting ground for JG, in addition to this, his first F5000 win, he also won the 1976 AGP in a very close race with Vern Schuppans’ Elfin MR8 Chev, Goss victorious in his other Matich, A51/3 ‘005’. Goss started racing in his native Tasmania in sedans and then the ‘Tornado Ford’ a self-built sportscar. But for some FF races in the first Birrana F71 he made his name as a touring car driver in Ford Falcon GT’s…but he became an awesomely quick F5000 driver, immediately on the pace in Matichs’ fantastic cars from mid-’74. Here he is descending the hill below ‘Marlboro Country’, the horse railing mown down by Walker, and the destroyed Lolas’ orange airbox clear to see. (Robert Davies)
So that was that, a wonderful series of 8 races in the Australasian Summer which started in 1964 and had seen the best in the world compete in the Southern Hemisphere annually was at an end.
Both countries continued with summer International Series but the magic of the Tasman was forever lost…the Australian Grand Prix is superb but it isn’t 8 wonderful races in 2 months!
John Walker pictured in Roy Street Melbourne behind the old Light Car Club of Australia premises during a pre-Sandown promotional shoot in 1978. Car is the Martin Sampson/Magnum Wheels owned Lola T332 Chev ‘HU22’ in which Walker won both the 1979 Wanneroo Park, WA, AGP and Gold Star Series. (Ian Smith)
Etcetera…
Lola T330 Chev…
Those with an interest in what makes these cars tick may find this series of articles on Peter Brennans’ restoration of the ex-Lella lombadi T330 ‘HU18’ of interest.
Bib Stillwell leans his Cooper into Homestead Corner, you can see and feel the energy being expended in extracting all the performance the car has to offer in this John Ellacott shot…
Stillwell was four times Australian National ‘Gold Star’ Champion from 1962 to 1965, his early sixties battles with rival Frank Matich in both single-seaters and in sports cars, Matich in his Lotus 19 or 19B, were legendary.
Both were Australian champions in both types of car and fierce rivals- Stillwell the Melbourne motor dealer/semi-professional racer and Matich, the Sydney based, and perhaps first truly professional Australian driver.
Stillwell in the Monaco just ahead of Frank Matich, Lotus 19b Climax, Lakeside, Queensland, perhaps the 1963 Tasman Meeting. (Peter Mellor)
In Sportscars Stillwell won the ‘Australian Tourist Trophy’ aboard the Cooper Monaco in 1961 and 1962. Matich won it in 1964 in a Lotus 19B Climax and in 1966 racing his almost brand new Elfin 400 Olds (aka the ‘Traco Olds’), then in 1967 in his first self-built Matich SR3 Olds and again in 1968 in a Matich SR3 Repco.
The ATT was not contested in 1969 but Frank’s Matich SR4, powered by a 5 litre quad-cam Repco ‘760 Series’ V8 was the fastest car in Australia of any sort that year. It was built to contest the Can-Am Series in 1968 but was too late in completion to compete so Frank used it to destroy the opposition at home a year later instead.
Bib acquired this ex-Moss car in the UK. The chassis number is uncertain but Doug Nye believes it to be the car ordered by Moss in April 1959 as a kit of parts ex-factory which was then built up by Keele Engineering.
The Monaco was lightly raced by the great Brit, commencing with the British GP meeting at Aintree in 1959, DNF after qualifying on the front row. He took the car to Scandinavia in August winning races at both Karlskoga, Sweden and the Roskilde Ring, Copenhagen, Denmark and it was then put to one side as he focussed on a Lotus 19 to which the engine and ‘box from the Monaco were fitted.
Bib bought the car off Moss during a trip to the UK in 1961.
At Stillwell’s Kew, Melbourne Holden dealership workshops it was fitted by Gerry Brown with a 2.5 Litre Coventry Climax FPF four cylinder engine and gearbox out of one of Bib’s Cooper single-seaters upon arrival in Australia and was soon ready in time for the 19 September 1961 Warwick Farm meeting.
Starting a familiar pattern, the Stillwell transporter left its Cotham Road, Kew, Melbourne base to go to Adelaide with two cars- Bib raced both his Cooper T53 in the Australian Grand Prix at Mallala in October 1961 finishing second to Lex Davison- Lex in Bib’s older Cooper T51, and the Cooper Monaco that weekend.
The Monaco arrived in Australia with the standard leaf spring rear suspension configuration but Alf Francis had modified the rear chassis bracketry to also allow the use of a coil spring/damper set-up- both were used in Oz.
Stillwell Cooper at Sandown 1963. Coil spring rear suspension in this shot (Kevin Drage)
Cooper Monaco during the Warwick Farm International meeting in 1961. Transverse leaf spring rear suspension configuration in this shot. Look at all those curvy bits of tube, offensive to engineering purists but effective all the same! Coventry Climax 2.5 or 2.7 FPF engine. Citroen Ersa gearbox (Ray Bell)
In Australia the car also raced with a 2.7 ‘Indy’ Climax FPF with which it was timed at 160mph on Longford’s ‘Flying Mile’ in 1963. In a quest for still more speed, in October 1964 the car was fitted with an ex-Scarab RE/Arnold Glass BRM P48 Buick V8.
Lance Reventlow sold one of his engines to Arnold Glass after the one off appearance of his mid-engined Scarab RE Buick Intercontinental Formula car raced by Chuck Daigh at Sandown’s opening meeting in March 1962. Glass replaced the somewhat temperamental BRM 4 cylinder engine with the lightweight, 3.9 litre aluminium, pushrod V8.
In Stillwell’s hands the car won the 1961 and 1962 Australian TT, the Victorian Sports Car Championship in 1962 and 1963 and the South Pacific Sports Car Championship at Longford in 1962.
Stillwell at Warwick Farm in the Cooper in 1965, at this stage fitted wth the ex-Scarab/Glass Buick V8 (R Austin)
The Cooper Monaco with the ex-Scarab/Glass Buick V8 behind the car and ‘George, a mechanic at East Malvern Motors where we both worked for Ray Gibbs’ quipped Mike Kyval. This is during the period Tony Osbourne owned the car. Gibbs was one of the cars drivers in that period of ownership- and prepared the car (M Kyval)
Sold to ‘Pitstop Motors’ Dick Thurston, he first raced it at Calder in January 1966- shortly thereafter he was fifth in the 1966 Australian Tourist Trophy at Longford- a race won, as mentioned above by the Matich Elfin 400 Oldsmobile.
The car was was soon sold on, still in Melbourne, to South Yarra’s Tony Osbourne of ‘Argo Racing’- as in Argo Street South Yarra, who raced it at Calder in May 1966 and then contested the first Surfers Paradise 12 Hour race together with Murray Carter and Ray Gibbs- the beast completed 96 laps of the race won by the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM crewed by Jackie Stewart and Andy Buchanan.
The car subsequently passed through many owners hands including Fred Wheelhouse, Peter Nielson, Charles Dominelli before acquisition by Pat McLernon of Dandenong, Victoria who fitted a new body built by Ted Proctor in Sydney, by this stage a Ford 302 V8 was fitted. Stan Rumble owned it for a while before the wonderful machine fell into the loving hands of Paul Moxham who restored it to original Coventry Climax engined form.
In 2000 Frank Sytner and John Coombs acquired it, the car has raced in Europe since then.
Mallala is a wonderful, challenging shorter circuit built on a former RAAF airfield 60 Km North of Adelaide. (Kevin Drage)
‘Scuderia Stillwell’ arriving and unloading the Monaco and Cooper T53 at Mallala- South Australia Gold Star meeting in October 1962 after the long haul from their Kew.
Mallala is a fabulous little 1.6mile/2.6Km circuit 55Km north of Adelaide. It was built on the site of former ‘RAAF Base Mallala’, which was acquired by a group of enthusiasts in 1961..the opening meeting in August 1961 was won by Bib Stillwell in a Cooper…
Stillwell had a good start in life…
He attended Trinity Grammar and Scotch College in Hawthorn and at 22 had parental support for his original small MG dealership in 1949, but over the decades grew his business.
He was awarded a Holden franchise in 1953 operating from Cotham Road Kew, and later as a Ford, BMW and other prestige marques dealer building a large group with his own talent and entrepreneurial flair which prospers in his families hands today long after his death.
His management skills were world class, his interests included aviation. After success in that field from the mid-sixties in Australia- distributing Beechcraft and later Lerjets he was appointed President of the Lear Corporation in the US in 1982, a position he held for 3 years before returning to Australia to a ‘second motor dealing career’ in luxury franchises and historic racing, he died on June 12 1999.
Stillwell happy in victory, Cooper Monaco, Mallala October 1962. He took wins that day in this car and the Gold Star event in his Cooper T53 Kevin Drage)
I rather like this observation Michael Lynch made in his obituary of Bib published in the Melbourne ‘Age’ newspaper.
‘The links between business and sport, and the characteristics required to succeed in both, have often been drawn. Drive, determination, persistence, talent, luck, the ability to think outside the obvious and seize opportunities that others don’t see – and then make them work – are all characteristics shared variously by top sportsmen and the leading lights of the business world.’
’Stillwell, who died suddenly last weekend from a heart attack, had all of them in good measure, showcasing them in both his sporting career, which ran until the mid-1960s, and then his business career, which was still being developed at the time of his death’.
Cooper T49 ‘Monaco’ Specifications…
The Cooper Type number is 49- the car was given the ‘Monaco’ name in recognition of Jack Brabham’s victory in the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix, his first GP win on the way to his, and Coopers first World Championships as driver and constructor.
Of typical curved Cooper space frame construction, the car owes most of its hardware to its single-seater siblings. Front suspension is by upper and lower wishbones and coil spring/damper units with an adjustable roll bar. At the rear top location is provided by a transverse leaf spring, with a lower rear wishbone. Brakes are disc all around, steering rack and pinion and typical Cooper alloy wheels of the period were used.
Most of the cars were fitted with Coventry Climax FPF engines of varying capacities, Stillwell’s mainly with a 2.5 but it was raced with other engines as recorded above. Gearbox was the Citroen ERSA or Colotti units- the Moss/Stilwell car was first fitted with a Cooper CS5, 5 speed transaxle.
Stillwell again at Lakeside. Cooper Monaco 1963. (Peter Mellor)
Etcetera…
(Sparks Family)
Another successful Mallala weekend for Stillwell, this time after winning the 19 August 1961 ‘Mallala Trophy’ Gold Star round.
Looking very natty in his BRDC badged blue blazer, it’s perhaps a posed BP publicity shot, whatever the case, a top shot.
(P Skelton)
Stephen Dalton reckons this shot of the Monaco is at Calder in January or February 1962.
Credits…
John Ellacott, Kevin Drage, Ray Bell, James Allington cutaway, Ken Devine Collection, Reg Sparks Collection via Craig Sparks, Phillip Skelton via Tony Johns Collection
The Nostalgia Forum, Richard Austin, John Blanden ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’, Mike Kyval
Tailpiece: Equipe Stillwell during the November 1962 Caversham AGP weekend…
(K Devine)
The open-wheeler is a Cooper T53 Climax- Bib was third in the AGP behind Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T62 and John Youl’s T55 at Caversham off the back of winning the Gold Star from Youl and Patterson- he took victories at Bathurst and Mallala on the way to the title.
Leo Geoghegan victorious in the 1969 JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) Grand Prix. Lotus 39 Repco.
One of Australia’s racing greats of the 1960’s and early 70’s, Leo Geoghegan died of cancer aged 78 on 1 March…
Leo won the Australian GT Championship in 1960, (Lotus Elite) the Australian Formula Junior Championship in 1963 (Lotus 22 ) the Australian Drivers Championship, the coveted Gold Star in 1970 in Lotus 59 Waggott and the AF2 Championship in Birranas’ 273 and 274 in 1973 and 1974.
Internationally he won the JAF Japanese Grand Prix in his Lotus 39 Repco in 1969. It was in this car, raced by Jim Clark in the 1966 Tasman Series in which Leo stepped into the premier 2.5 litre ‘Tasman’ class, initially Coventry Climax powered and later with Repco V8’s that Leo more than held his own against the visiting Internationals in what was progressively an older car.
The Geoghegans’ held the Lotus franchise in Australia for many years, it was in a new Lotus 59 powered by one of Merv Waggotts’ 2 litre DOHC engines in which Leo finally won the Gold Star in 1970 after years of plugging away in the evergreen ’39.
Hamming it up for photographer Bruce Wells at Warwick Farm, before the ‘WF 100’ Tasman round February 1966. (Bruce Wells)
Leo and his brother Ian or ‘Pete’ were crowd favourites throughout the 60’s in particular, Leo mainly in open wheelers and Pete in Touring Cars in which he was 5 times Australian Champion.
Most of you outside Australia (85% of you by the way) won’t be aware of the Geoghegans’, this lovely period movie by Castrol ‘The Racing Geoghegans’ positions them nicely into the pantheon of Australian Racing in their day.
Leo was concentrating more on Touring Cars as the lead tester/driver for Chrysler into the early ’70’s in their Valiant Pacer/Charger ‘Series Production’ program but returned to open wheelers when offered the ‘works drive’ by Birrana’s Malcolm Ramsay, these jewel like cars a story in themselves, in AF2 in 1973 and in 1974.
The 1974 AF2 series was one of the most competitive domestic Australian open wheeler championships ever (series sponsorship attracted both the top up and comers and F5000 stars) Leo winning the title against the very best…to watch him in these cars, I didn’t get to see him in his Tasman days, was to see a bloke at the top of his game, a very smooth, precise line driver and aggressive with it. His battles with Bob Muir in another Birrana in ’74 spring to mind especially a very soggy Calder. A magic driver for sure.
Leo in the ‘Warwick Farm 100′ Tasman round February 1966. He finished 7th in the 1.5 litre Ford/Lotus engined Lotus 32. Race won by Jim Clarks’ Lotus 39 Climax, the car Leo acquired at the end of the series. (Bruce Wells)
Ray Bell ‘in period’ journalist with ‘Racing Car News’ had this to say about Leos’ commitment and precision, writing in ‘The Nostalgia Forum’ in 2002.
‘It’s time to look at Leo a little more closely. Maybe at Warwick Farm, his real home circuit and in the Lotus 59, equipped with a nice toey Waggott TC4V engine and good enough to win him the Gold Star… let’s wander over to Homestead Corner… the cars are whistling through, taking that line that clips the two apexes and is so important for their speed down Hume Straight.
Lap after lap, Leo is precise and fast. But look there, on the outside edge of the circuit, where he drifts to between the apexes… see the white line, and then the drop of two inches or so where the bitumen’s been laid over an old entry road? Watch Leo’s rear tyre as he drifts out there…
The wheel had only a couple of inches on the white line… the rest of the tyre was hanging out there with two inches between the tread and the bitumen… two inches from disaster at that speed… every lap!’
One of the greats. RIP.
Leo G in the racesuit, Fuji paddock JAF GP 1969. Lotus 39 Repco. Engine here is Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 Tasman V8, the ‘ultimate version’ of the Tasman Repcos’ , circa 295bhp@9000rpm. Packaging of this later Repco engine not as ‘neat and cohesive’ as the exhaust between the Vee ‘740 Series’ pictured below. (Unattributed)
Leo in the Lotus 59 Waggott at WF approaching the ‘Northern Crossing’. AGP November 1970. 3rd in the 2 litre Lotus behind the winning Frank Matich McLaren M10B Repco F5000 and Graeme Lawrence’2.4 litre Ferrari Dino 246T. (Rod Mackenzie Collection)
Quintessential combination for many years, Leo G and Lotus 39 Repco…1969. (John Stanley)
Wonderful portrait of Leo G by Rod MacKenzie in 1970. (Rod MacKenzie Collection)
Tailpiece…
Wonderful ‘Alec Mildren Racing’ film about the 1969 JAF GP won by Leo Geoghegan and contested by several Australians including the Mildren Racing pair, Kevin Bartlett and Max Stewart.
Etcetera…
Black helmet and black T-Shirt…Leo G Lotus 32 Ford 1.5, Hordern Trophy, Warwick Farm December 1964. This was a huge win, the little 1.5 beating the big 2.5 Climax engined Tasman cars in this ‘Gold Star’ round. (Richard Austin)
Leo G (left) & Jackie Stewart Warwick Farm Tasman round February 1967. JYS won the race in his BRM P261, Leo 5th and holding the trophy for first local resident home in his Lotus 32 Ford 1.5. (Dale Harvey)
Leo, Lotus 39 Climax heading for 5th place during the 1967 ‘Warwick Farm 100’ Tasman round, Kevin Bartlett? perhaps behind, Brabham BT11A Climax 6th. (Unattributed)
Leo and Pete Geoghegan won the Surfers Paradise 6 Hour in 1968 in the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM
Leo G in his Lotus 39 Repco & Chris Amon Ferrari Dino 246T on the cover of MRA 1968. In this form the car was about as good as a 60’s open-wheeler looked. The conversion from Coventry Climax 2.5 FPF to Repco ‘740 Series’ 2.5 Tasman V8 was done by Geoghegans’ crew lead by John Sheppard, the marriage between chassis and engine superbly executed.
Leo Geoghegan leading his compatriot Max Stewart during the 1969 JAF GP. Lotus 39 Repco 2.5 & Mildren Waggott 1.6. Race was F Libre. (Unattributed)
Leo campaigned this Lotus 59 Waggott in 1970 and 1971, winning the Gold Star in the 265bhp 4 cylinder, DOHC injected four valve engined car in 1970. Here at Warwick Farm (lyntonh)
Geoghegan manhandling his Chrysler Valiant RT Charger around Warwick Farm in October 1971. These cars were powered by 265cid in line 6 cylinder OHV, triple Weber 45DCOE engines…together with the Ford Falcon GTHO and Holden Torana GTR XU1 comprised a much loved period of Touring Car racing in Australia. Shortcomings of the Charger were its 3 speed ‘box, 4 speeder from 72’ and under-developed relative to the opposition. Leo G chief test driver/developer and lead driver for Chrysler, cars built at a long since closed factory in Tonsley Park, Adelaide. (Jeff Nield)
Leo Geoghegan and Enno Buesselmann, Sandown 1973. Both Birrana 273 Hart Ford T/cam. (autopics)
Photo and Other Credits…
Bruce Wells, theroaringseason.com, lyntonh, Dale Harvey, autopics.com.au, John Stanley, Rod MacKenzie Collection
Jack Brabham winning the 1969 Australian Gold Star Series event at Easter Bathurst in his Brabham BT31 Repco…he is heading across Mount Panorama between ‘Skyline’ and ‘The Dipper’…
Introduction…
Those who have read the first three Repco articles may recall that we have been chronologically going through the history of Repco’s F1 and Race Engine program of the mid 60’s partially through the eyes of Rodway Wolfe who worked for the company as both technician and storeman during the glory years from 1966.
This article is out of sequence, its’ about Jacks’ 1969 Tasman mount, the Brabham BT31 powered by the Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre V8, logically the 1967 and 1968 F1/Tasman/Sportscar engines and race records come first. Rodways’ manuscript is running ahead of my own research so we will run with this article now, one he is intensely passionate about for reasons which become obvious, i will re-number once we have covered 1967 and 1968 down the track.
‘In the historic vehicle world there are some fascinating stories of various cars and some seem to just keep accumulating historic events and happenings throughout their existence. The BT31 Repco Brabham is one such car. The following story is mine, I was lucky enough to purchase the BT31 early in its history making saga…
Brabham, BT31, Bathurst Easter 1969. It is such a shame the car did not arrive early enough to compete in the 1969 Tasman and/or the 1970 Tasman, it was potentially a winning car in 1970. ’70 Tasman won by Graeme Lawrences’ ’68 updated Ferrari Dino 246T despite F5000 cars also being eligible that year…(Unattributed)
BT31/1 was constructed by Brabham Cars for Brabham Racing Organisation…(Sir Jack Brabhams works racing team, a separate entity from Jack and Ron Tauranacs’ race car production entity) It was built especially for the 1969 Tasman series, not just a modified Formula 3 car as some have suggested. It was bright red, unique itself as the FI BRO cars were all green and gold.
The engine was a ‘Tasman’ 2.5 litre ‘830 Series’ the car fitted with low profile wheels and tyres and various other features. It was consigned by sea freight to Australia, there seemed to be ample time for its arrival for the start of the Tasman series of races in New Zealand in January 1969.
I managed Repco Brabham Engine Company’s spare parts operation, we awaited the cars arrival with great anticipation. By a twist of fate the Melbourne ‘wharfies’ went on strike due to some industrial problem. They were cooperative and sympathetic to us and offered to unload the car if possible. A search revealed the car crate to be under many hundreds of tons of freight so it was not to be.
Eventually the strike ended and the crate arrived at RB on the Wednesday prior to the last race of the ’69 Tasman Series at Sandown Park, Melbourne. It was very disappointing but Jack being Jack he still wanted to be on the Sandown grid, Repcos’ home town race.
If anyone has been lucky enough to purchase a new Brabham they will know what I am talking about. The cars arrive in a very long crate just wide enough for the chassis and suspension, tanks and body parts are packed along the crate in front of the chassis. In this case a tubular space frame.
As despatch and receiving was part of my job I had the great pleasure of assisting Jack to unpack the car. I have been lucky in my life to have many days I enjoyed to the fullest but that Wednesday with Sir Jack has to rank as the best. I spent the day helping the World Champion assemble his car, imagine a star of today doing that!
Every part went together like a dream, Jack sat in the cockpit while we fitted instruments, adjusted pedals, steering wheel reach etc. We discussed many subjects including his flying in Europe. He asked if I had seen any ‘Brabham Holden Toranas’ in my travels. At the time he had done a deal with General Motors Holden, it was possible to buy a Torana with Brabham badges and gear knob, steering wheel. It was truly a memorable day for a boy from the bush!
Meanwhile my RB colleagues were power testing the ‘830 engine’. It was one of the best and most reliable of our engines. Finally it was fitted and the car was ready for testing mid Friday afternoon prior to the Sandown meeting on Saturday/Sunday.
We loaded the car on an old open trailer of Jacks and set out for Calder Raceway, near Keilor, an hour from Melbourne. Kevin Davies went in his car, I went in mine and I think Michael Gasking took his too. (1959 Australian Gold Star Champion) Len Lukey and his wife took Jack and Betty Brabham and one of the toddler Brabham boys.
Brabham testing at Calder the day before Sandown and the day the cars assembly was completed by Brabham and Wolfe…the DIY World Champion! Brabham is belted in but driving in a ‘parka’, no racesuit.(Rodway Wolfe)
Len Lukey towed the trailer. We stopped at Keilor and Jack disappeared into a house for a few minutes. He borrowed the key to the circuit from Calder owner, Jean Pascoe. We proceeded to the circuit, unloaded the car and with just a handful of us there Jack started testing.
The fuel cam was causing a hesitation coming out of corners but Michael Gasking had a selection of test cams and soon had the fuel mix OK.
Len Lukey parked his car on the infield and they all stayed in the car watching. At one stage Jack walked over and carried his small son to BT31 and took him for a few laps as he sat on Jacks lap, no wonder all those boys raced! Another memorable moment for me. It was such a lovely casual setting with Jack just wearing his Parka jacket, no fireproofs.
We had been there about an 1.5 hours, Jack seemed happy with everything and suddenly into the gate roared a car which skidded to a stop and out jumped a very irate man. He started shouting at us all, especially Jack who was still sitting in the cockpit. He yelled something about no engines were to be started at the circuit after 6pm at night and it was a council by-law etc. He would report us etc. When he finally managed to get a word in Jack calmly said ‘we will pack up now fellas’ the irate man left as fast as he had arrived.
I have often wondered how funny it was that he never knew he was abusing our World Champ!’
Needless to say the car was at Sandown next day for practice…
Jack Brabham, Brabham BT31 Repco, Sandown Tasman 1969, ‘Dandy Road’ corner. Winged in the race, he tested also sans wing. Note the ‘old style’ Buco helmet…Jack was wearing Bell Magnums in Europe, i suspect this is an old helmet left in Oz, ditto the goggles! (Rod MacKenzie)
sergent.com reported the race as follows…
‘It was a battle for pole again between Amon and Rindt, although the dark horse of the meeting was Jack Brabham hurriedly arranging a marriage between a Brabham BT31B F3 chassis and the 2.5 twin-cam Repco V8 engine. It was certainly the smallest and lightest of the V8 powered cars at the meeting, and although he fitted a wing to the rear, Brabham was down on horsepower compared to the other Internationals.
John Harvey was having his first competitive drive in the Bob Jane Repco Brabham BT23 Repco V8 since his Easter accident at Bathurst in 1968, and was using the outing as an extended test session for the coming Gold Star rather than trying to drive a hard race first time out. This was born out by Harvey’s practice time which put him 14th on the grid among the 1.6 F2 cars.
Brabham BT31 #9 beside Derek Bells’ Ferrari Dino 246T, Sandown Tasman grid 1969. Grey haired gent just in shot is Scuderia Veloces’ supremo, David McKay who entered the successful Amon/Bell Ferraris’ in both 1968 and 1969 Tasman. (Mildren Films)
Rindt (Lotus 49 DFW) got the start and lead the field through Shell Corner and held it through the very slow Peter’s Corner, but Amon (Ferrari Dino 246T) used his better gearing for the straight and took the Austrian as they headed over the hill and down toward the Esses. Hill (Lotus 49 DFW) had started in third position but dropped back sharply on the first lap when his throttle linkage came adrift and Courage (Brabham BT24 DFW) broke a previously twisted half shaft down the back of the circuit.
Amon and Rindt started to open a gap to Brabham, who was holding off Bell for third place. Kevin Bartlett (Brabham BT23D Alfa) pulled sharply into the pits on lap 5 with a broken exhaust which threatened to set fire to exposed oil and fuel lines while Hill re-joined the race and set about climbing back through the field. John Harvey spun when his Repco engine overheated and poured out scalding water at Dandenong Corner and he retired with a very sore neck from the results.
Meanwhile Hill was forcing his way back up and he took Levis on lap 33 for sixth place but couldn’t get any higher after his four lap deficit after the start. Garrie Cooper drove steadily throughout the race to finish eighth and first resident Australian home in his own Elfin 600B. Leo Geoghegan hadn’t started as mechanics found a leaking fuel cell in the Lotus 39 Repco V8 and they couldn’t repair it in time.’
Amon won the race and the Tasman Series that year from Rindt and Courage. Rindt and Brabham were second and third in the race.
Check out this fabulous film made by Alec Mildren Racing of the Australian Leg of the 1969 Tasman Series…
After that Sandown event, Jack returned to Europe to commence his F1 campaign for the year. Brabham’s BT26’s fitted with the Ford Cosworth DFV V8 for 1969 rather than the RB 860 Series 3 litre V8’s which had been so unreliable for he and Jochen Rindt in 1968, and caused his decision to bring the F1 partnership with Repco to an end.
The BT31 returned to the Maidstone factory, the engine was removed and the car stored for a while. We had two 830 2.5 litre engines for the car, one of course the spare.
Brabham, Bathurst Easter 1969. (Dale Harvey)
In April 1969 the car was brought out of mothballs and taken to Bathurst for the Easter ‘Bathurst 100’ race…
‘This race has also been widely reported over the years needless to say the BT31 started from the rear of the grid and hosed off all the Australian cars and set a new lap record for open-wheel cars of 2 min 13.2 seconds.’
‘Of course that was the old track layout with the full Conrod Straight and notorious hump. Typical of Jacks foxiness, he fitted both front and rear high wings for Saturday practice which resulted in some teams working frantically all night to install front wings as well to their cars. Of course Jack rolled out the BT31 on race morning minus the high front wing’.
Bi-winged during Easter Bathurst practice. One-off car based on BT28 F3 chassis. Multi-tubular space frame, front suspension by upper and lower wishbones and coil spring/damper units. Rear suspendsion by single top link, inverted lower wishbone, twin radius rods, adjustable sway bars front and rear. Cast magnesium front and rear uprights. Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre SOHC 295bhp V8, Hewland FT200 5 speed box. (Rodway Wolfe)
The car was suffering some fuel starvation problems in practice. Very hastily the electric fuel pump was borrowed from Charlie Deans’ Lancia road car, some of you may remember Deans contribution to Australian motor racing in the Stan Jones article published a while back;
It assisted fuel flow into a reserve pot arrangement in the fuel system and a switch fitted to the instrument panel. Jack turned the pump on each lap for either the climb up the mountain or the run down Conrod I cannot recall which.
I do remember how great the car sounded down Conrod. It was the days of the apple orchards at Bathurst and BT31 looked magical going down through the apple orchards. When I purchased the car later it retained the Bathurst gearing, Peter Holinger and i calculated 5th gear at 186 mph at 9500 rpm so it was flying!
After the Bathurst meeting the car went to Sydney for display at Jack Brabham Fords’ Bankstown showroom.’
Brabham during Bathurst practice pondering fuel starvation problems…(Rodway Wolfe)
‘Finally the BT31 was returned to our Repco factory at Maidstone…Jack Brabham had since returned to the UK, the cars engine was removed and it sat in a corner gathering dust.
Meanwhile Repco had been negotiating with Jack to purchase the car for the Repco Export Company to place on display in Japan at the upcoming ‘Expo 70’. Repco exported engine components around the world, most people would not know that Rolls Royce in the UK were supplied with Repco piston rings. So the display in Japan was a crucial part of the company’s export drive.
We will never know the details of Repco’s purchase of BT31, all I know it was involved with import duty with the amount paid dependent on the car being used as a race car or for advertising purposes.In other words, if the car was raced a higher level of duty applied than if the car was not.
One morning the works superintendant, Kevin Davies came out of his office and went down to John Brookfield in the welding shop, (John was our magic welder of all things aluminium) and was an excellent engineer. We all heard a bit of a discussion and Kevin disappeared back into his office. John was a big guy, his nickname, ‘Lurch’. We all knew something was wrong as Lurch came out of his welding bay with a red face, set to explode.’
‘Chop up BT31…
He told us with an incredible look on his face; ‘Kevin came and asked me to cut the BT31 chassis in half!!!??? I told him to F….k off and if he wanted it cut in two pieces he would have to find someone else to f…….g cut it for him…’
‘We all rebelled, the entire factory agreed on no destruction of BT31. It was something to do with Repco buying the car from Jack for advertising only, a space frame cut in half of course destroys the car and prevents it being raced. Anyway it was all to do with the usage of the car and the marketing idea at ‘Expo 70′ in Japan was to setup a display using a tunnel with the rear of the car disappearing in one end and the nose coming out of the other.
After a lot of discussion and refusal to damage the car the nose was removed and the bracket holding the radiator cut off the front. I didn’t visit Expo 70 but I understand the display did feature the car entering a tunnel. The car’s front high wing, the nose cone and the front wheels were in my care in our RB store until the car was returned in 1971’.
Editors Note: Without being an expert on Australian race car import laws of the past, the legislators allowed racing cars to be imported free of duty into Australia on the basis that the car left the country annually…perfect for Tasman series competitors as the cars left Oz for NZ to compete each year before returning. Eventually, when the car stays in Oz, duty is payable, therein commenced, often, a lot of ‘jiggery-pokery’ with chassis numbers as impecunious racers, seeking to avoid the taxmans net, applied very old chassis numbers to very new cars! Repco, as an audited public company could not afford to play ‘ducks and drakes’ in this manner. I suspect the scenario Rodway outlines is around the points outlined here. That is, how to minimise the punitive duties whilst remaining ‘kosher’ in the process as large public company.Mark.
BT31/1 cockpit shot taken in 1983 at Sandown. Quintessential 60’s English racing car cockpit; Smiths chronometric tach, oil/water temps/oil pressure, leather bound Mota-Lita wheel and right hand change for the 5 speed Hewland FT200 gearbox. Chassis tubes clear as is aluminium fuel tank to left and right. (Mark Bisset)
‘When the car was returned by sea freight from Japan Repco had undergone huge changes in their motor racing policy…
The whole Repco Brabham project had been dismantled and the factory in Maidstone was being converted to a new company, Repco Dynamics, which was to construct a new concept in automotive wheel balancers. Most of the RB employees, about 70 at the time, were given their marching orders but a few were selected for the new entity or other Repco companies.’
In essence what occurred was the commercial flow on of Jack Brabhams decision to change from Repco to Ford Cosworth power in F1 with effect the 1969 F1 season.
RB Engines raison d’etre was the supply of engines to Brabham; Brabham received race winning engines and Repco reaped the advertising and promotional spinoffs.
The sale of Tasman 2.5 and 4.4/5 litre sports car and other engines in Australia and elsewhere did not generate a commercial return, the parent companies subsidy to keep its RB Engines subsidiary afloat was increasing each year. The PR rub off ended when Jack turned to Cosworth and had lost its gloss in ’68 due to the engines unreliability in F1. Whilst the 2.5 Repcos’ won Gold Star races they never won a Tasman or Gold Star series. Frank Matich’s 1969 Australian Sports Car Championship Matich SR4 Repco win was laudable but again did not, in Repco’s view, justify the significant investment made.
Repco therefore ‘flipped’ the stock of unsold engines and other assets of RB Engines into Redco, a new company, which it continued to support. The deal was probably done that way to maximise the tax effectiveness of the transaction, with Redco then looking after the needs of RB Engine customers needing spares etc, and taking on development of the new Holden ‘308 V8’ as a race F5000 engine, CAMS having finally made the vexed decison of the new ANF1 category between 2 litre race engine and 5 litre F5000 stock block alternatives.
These are topics we will explore in later articles, in essence this is a summary of the circumstances around the issues Rodway addresses above.
Bi-winged BT31 during Bathurst practice. At ‘The Dipper’. (Unattributed)
‘In a corner of the RBE factory a wall was constructed with big doors and ‘No Entry’ signs, the new domain of ‘Repco Engine Development Company’ (REDCO) was set up with Mal Preston as Chief…
The former General Manager of Repco Brabham Engine Co, Frank Hallam was transferred to Repco Research at Dandenong. Don Halpin, John McVeigh, John Mepstead and Brian Heard were placed in the new company with Malcolm Preston.
Being the spoilt brat from the bush, i refused to accept the closing of Repco Brabham which was my life really. I wrote a nice letter to the board and thanked them for employing me through the RB project and told them I was returning to Gippsland. I asked them to re-employ me when they started building F1 engines again. I had been offered a job as Service Manager assistant to Michael Gasking who was the new Chief Engineer of Repco Dynamics.
It did have a huge future and I could not have found a better guy to work with than Michael Gasking but I was young and stubborn.
One day Charlie Dean arrived and said ‘What’s all this about you going home to the farm Rod’ I explained to him how I was not keen on the heavy cast iron 308 Holden engine. I had loved and appreciated my time on the Repco Brabham Engines. Anyway he said ‘right, I want you to work with Malcolm, he will need you to keep up the RB spares around the world as we have to maintain supply’.
‘The Repco Brabham engine spares represented $340,000 in value at that time!, were retained by REDCO, to sell the parts to RB engine owners. I ended up behind the wall with Don Halpin and the other boys. Looking back it was great to have Charlie Dean tell me I couldn’t leave! The time I spent at REDCO with Malcolm is another story altogether.’
Bi-winged BT31 during Easter Bathurst practice, car won sans front wing…and high wings shortly to be banned globally by the FIA during the 1969 Monaco GP weekend. (Dale Harvey)
Buying the Brabham BT31…
‘BT31 arrived back from ‘Expo 70’ in its crate and no one cared. Repco Brabham Engine Co did not exist, all the staff had gone. Mal Preston had not seen the car and was not interested as Charlie was continually on his back about Holden F5000 developments.
I did not envy Mal in those early months of the F5000 project he was under lots of pressure. Charlie Dean was like a small tornado wherever he went.
One day Mal asked me to unpack the BT31 as it was needed for a car show in Mornington. I spent a couple of days reassembling it around a mock ‘830 2.5’. It was rare for us to display a going engine. I recall once doing so with our one magnesium 3 litre, (which disappeared off the planet anyway) so at all times we used mock ups. They were mostly complete but had no internals.
There was no interest in the car, so i decided to write to the Repco Board asking to acquire it. I was a lot younger then but I did have some nous. I decided not to discuss it with anybody as I knew I was a ‘very small gear in a massive gearbox’. I pulled out a figure I would pay and got secretary Coral Allen to type the letter for me but I left a gap where the price offered was to be added later by me! Coral typed it and I duly posted it to the Repco Board. I trusted Coral completely but not all the bosses she typed for!
I really didn’t think I had any chance and I had not even given a thought to how i would pay for it. Malcolm asked if I would take the car to Mornington for a car show that Jim and Bill Leech had a lot to do with. I loaded the car on Jacks old farm trailer and took the car to the show, kept it polished and handed out Repco brochures and answered questions.
It was about mid afternoon when up bowled ‘Tornado’ Charlie Dean. Charlie told me he had read my letter and asked why I wanted to buy the car. I very politely (in Repco you rarely got to speak to a director anyway) told him I loved the cars history and it was important to both Repco’s and Australia’s history. He quickly replied yes we will discuss the matter next week.
He then commented on how good it looked and went to leave but just at that moment up walked one of the Leech brothers, these guys owned some serious cars including a Maserati 300S and Bugatti T37A, Jim was enquiring about the value of BT31, the conversation fortunately stopped when the entourage of Lancias’ arrived which Dean and the Leech boys joined…a close call!
A couple of weeks later I was cleaning the car. All of a sudden the double doors flew open with a crash and out came Mal Preston in ‘full flight’ RODWAY he shouted, ‘Did you write to the Repco Board offering to buy this car without even consulting me? I am your boss and the least you could do is tell me’ He was furious. He asked ‘Why didn’t you consult me first’. I replied in a rather shocked state, because you possibly would have talked me out of it Mal. He shouted at me for a minute then disappeared back to his office again. I was very low. I realised I had done my dash and might not even have a job!
A few minutes later Mal appeared very quiet and subdued. ‘I am very sorry for that outburst Rodway, I have thought about your reply and you are probably right, I would have bloody well talked you out of it’. It is of great credit to Malcolm that he was that sort of boss. He treated us all as equals and he got the most out of his employees that way. As he went to depart I called to him. Are you with me or against me Mal, he turned and said I will help you all I can. The matter was never discussed between us again.
During the following weeks I heard all kinds of stories about BT31. Several people wanted to buy it internally. BT31 was built in 1968, by then it was 1971, it had only raced twice by Sir Jack himself and was still setup as he raced it including all decals, accessories, gear ratios etc. It certainly was not an old car as some have suggested. There must have been many discussions and arguments about what was going to happen to the car within Repco until one night about 6 pm I was consigning some parcels, when Mal Preston came storming out of his office over to my desk.
RODWAY he shouted again, ‘I want you to get that F…..g car out of this f…..g workshop tonight, load it on a f……g trailer and I never ever want to see the f…….g car again ! As he stormed back to his office I called what about the money, as I had to get it. He shouted out he didn’t care at all about that just get it out of here now’.’
‘And so, BT31/1 was Mine…
BT31 spent the night on Jack Brabham’s old trailer in suburban Burke Road, Kew where I was living at the time with not much car parking. Anyway it was still there next morning! I rang up my good friend Peter Holinger who was now, after the Repco Brabham closure working in his own workshop in Warrandyte. He was happy to store the car in return for making a duplicate chassis for himself. He had decided to build another hillclimb car to replace the Vincent powered one that had brought him so much success.
Now that I had it I had to pay for it!, fortunately a wealthy uncle, who had a large, successful bakery business came to the party. It took a while for Repco to process my cheque, i firmly believe had i not paid for the car no-one would have asked for the money.
I left the car in Holingers’ care, it was in the safest of hands. He photographed the suspension and measured all the lengths of the components and duplicated the space frame so well that years later at Morwell Hillclimb he borrowed the shock absorbers and a few bits from BT31 and won the event with some of my suspension parts. He even used the fibreglass seat insert to make a pattern for another one.’
‘830 Series Engines, Paperwork and BT31’s Rarity…
Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre ‘Tasman’ V8. SOHC gear driven per bank, Lucas fuel injection, 295bhp @ 9000rpm. Note the heavily ribbed block, and below the ribbing socket head cap screws to ‘cross bolt’ the main bearing caps. This engine is ex Garrie Cooper Elfin 600D and has the later ‘Indy’ sump assy and combined oil pressure/scavenge pump. (TNF)
BT31 was fitted with Repcos’ latest ‘830 Series’ Tasman V8. The engine was first used by Brabham in his BT23E in practice for the 1968 Sandown Tasman round, he raced with an ‘840 Series’, which failed, Jim Clark winning the race in his Lotus 49DFW.
The ‘830’ incorporated the shorter, more rigid ‘800 Series’ block developed for the 1968 F1 engines by Norm Wilson with the ’30 Series’ cross-flow SOHC heads. With a bore and stroke of 3.34X2.16 inches, the engine developed 295bhp @ 9000rpm and weighed 150Kg.
‘The 830 was such a good reliable engine Jack stated that had Repco developed a 3 litre version (despite what people may tell you, we never EVER built a 3 litre 830 but I think Don Halpin has since) we would have quite possibly have retained the World Champioship in 1968.
Jack said that the 830 was such a great engine in 2.5 form and was so much lighter than the oposition despite being down on horsepower by comparison. I remember Jack saying to us fellows in the engine assy area one day. ‘If Ferrari had the horsepower they claim to have they would be leaving me behind by a much bigger margin than they are leaving me behind’ !!! We will never know what the 830 would have produced at 3 litres capacity?’
At the time, two 2.5 Litre 830’s were built for the car. Other 830’s were subsequently built for other Tasman competitors.
‘Now as our commercial manager Bob Sippo had been moved on to the Repco Replex Company we had no-one really able to make any commercial decisions. One night the Bob Jane Racing fellas turned up and I was informed that we were lending them one of the 2.5 litre 830 engines. (for the Bob Britton built ‘Jane Repco’, a car constructed on Brittons BT23 Brabham jig at his Sydney, Rennmax facility)
What the various companies and individual teams were charged was up to the manager and the accountants, this applied to all customers including Jack Brabham, he was of course sponsored by Repco.
So I did as I was told. Later the Bob Jane Racing boys arrived again, their car was going to Tasmania for the next meeting and they needed a spare! Well that of course meant the spare BT31 engine went too. Now as this was while the car was in Japan on display with a mock up engine and I never of course dreamed of ever owning the car I just did as instructed. The person instructing me never really had the authority to lend either engine but the factory was in disarray and the Jane organisation had been great ambassadors of our engines, the decision made sense at the time.
Neither engine ever came back of course as many others did not either. I knew about stock control and the hazards of stuff being squirreled away, the amount of stock of RB parts and even engines that were removed from my store illegally is staggering. No names, no packdrill!
I was not the least concerned about obtaining an engine, i had a good mock-up engine anyway and their were still enough bits around to build an engine.
I was not ambitious enough to buy the car to drive it as at the time I believed it was ultra valuable as an historic car, totally original as described above.
To me it is as collectible as BT19, Jacks 1966 World Championship car now in the Victorian Historic Racing Register, Melbourne, museum in Box Hill. One of the BT31 engines lay under a work bench at Bob Jane Racing for quite a time so was available to any collector.
In contrast I went to Sydney and called at Jack Brabham Ford to see BT19 when it arrived from the UK. A salesman showed me what was left of an F1 car. There was not too much of the car there, no engine and lots of parts missing. I am not sure if the wheels were there. Later BT19 was totally restored by Jim Shepherd to as new condition, Don Halpin built an original ‘620 Series’ Oldsmobile engine for it.
What I am saying is that BT 19 did not have an original engine or body and was mostly built up to original, BT31 in contrast even had the Bathurst tyres still on it and was totally original with an original engine available.’
Rod Wolfe, Brabham BT31/1 and faithful Leyland P76 towcar, mid ’80’s Sandown. Car fitted with mock-up ‘740 Series’ exhaust between the Vee, V8 in this shot. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Working on the Repco F5000 Engine and home to Gippsland…
With the BT31 safely stored with Peter Holinger I continued at REDCO assisting with the new Repco Holden F5000 engine. We were all busy with only 5 of us to do everything, Mal Preston had a big job to do. Don Halpin was in charge of the workshop, he was exactly the right choice to work with Malcolm. Malcolm was always thinking, I mean always! so he would expect problems before they had a chance to happen in an uncanny sort of way and Don was seemingly unruffled at any problem so the combination worked very well with some very amusing conversations between them at times.
I had a variety of duties as I did stuff including porting cylinder heads and all the consignment of RBE parts and acquisition of F5000 bits. I enjoyed working with all my mates from the RB project and despite our regular ‘innings’ on various subjects I admired Mal Preston very much and learnt a lot from his rather unusual management style. He did tell me once after one of our sparring matches that out of all the boys I was the one most likely to end up working for myself eventually! I never worked out if it was a compliment or not.
Mal Preston was the right man for that F5000 project, his passing recently was very sad.
As I was not that happy with the situation, it was not a personal reason but a Repco political situation, eventually I resigned to go home to Gippsland. I ended up at Peter Holinger’s working with Pete and his wife Bev, after a period with them I departed Melbourne and towed BT31 behind to Gippsland. The car was a bit out of place on a farm in the country and various articles were appearing in motor magazines about it.
In my spare time I used to fully dismantle it and got to know every nut and bolt. My small son was toddler size and I used to make up a bed for him in the cockpit where he slept until the early hours of the morning and loved it. I am sorry to inform subsequent owners that my son holds the record for most hours in the cockpit!
I had the chassis gently sand cleaned and repainted by a good friend. You have to be very gentle with a space frame as you can upset the tension of the various tubes if it is sandblasted too severely. It was a satisfying pastime getting to know exactly what went into a Repco Brabham design.
I was a Kawasaki motorcycle dealer for a time and used BT31 as a display feature in the country showroom, it enabled me to meet lots of interesting people.
I would have loved to convert the BT31 to a hill climb car for myself as I had hill climbed a Cooper Mini and usually won my class at Morwell Hill Climb and loved it but I really believed to break that magic of Jack Brabham being the only driver and all original condition I would be a fool. One of my aims was to get recognition of Repco Brabham in Australia, even Phil Irving told me how Repco had totally missed the boat when it came to claiming the fame that they should have been recognised for.
I wrote to Ampol (Australian oil company) first giving them all the details and informing them of their association with the car. The car still had the Ampol decals on the nose cone too. A little secret here, we never did use Ampol oil, it was Shell ‘Super M’ in Ampol drums but that’s normal in advertising, only because Ampol did not make a racing oil. But even at director level they were not really interested. I have a file of old letters from various Australian Companies and museums. There was just no real interest.
I eventually moved to Metung on the Gippsland Lakes in the late ’70s and began a new sort of engineering with boats and became a Volvo Penta service agent.
BT31 gave me a huge insight into motor racing and motor sport generally. Many people were attracted to the car and i got to know them as a consequence. The legendary race car engineer John Sheppard spent holidays at Metung, we had many hours talking about his times including managing the Holden Dealer Team after Harry Firth.
The great Peter Brock and his engineer at the time, Bruce Nowacki spent hours leaning on the cars rear wing, Pete was a fantastic source of driving and handling technique so I was in another world. He and Bev even came and stayed at our holiday accommodation in Metung.
One day a guy showed up wanting to see BT31. He introduced himself as Austin Miller, or Aussie Miller. He was a fantastic character, he owned a crop dusting and spraying company in Northern Victoria. On looking up his past I realised just who he was. The fastest man on wheels in Australia prior to the Bluebird of Donald Campbell. A legend of Australia’s Motor Sports’ past and in the Guinness Book of Records.
I also featured the car on display at various race meetings. One Sandown meeting was very special. I met and talked for an hour or more with the great John Surtees. He was so down to earth and discussed the Italian Grand Prix between he and Jack Brabham at Monza in 1967. I also met and talked to Tom Wheatcroft, he told me all about Donington Park, his race circuit in the UK.
All these people could see my dedication to the Repco Brabham engines and they responded by letting go on their own particular Motor Sport interests.’
BT31/1 and ‘Penthouse Pet of The Year’ Tracey Wallace..shot of poor resolution sadly. AGP Calder auction 1980. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Time To Sell…
Finally as the salt air beside the lake at Metung was getting to the car, I was disappointed with the lack of interest in preservation of BT31.
So I sent the car to auction prior to the 1980 Grand Prix at Calder. I set a reserve price, there was lots of hype and Alan Jones and Tracy Wallace (Miss Penthouse of the year) and other Australian motoring greats.I passed it in after a very good bid but slightly under my reserve. So I returned to Metung and kept the car for another term.
One day I received an offer from a museum owner who wanted the car for his collection. At last I thought I was on to something to keep me happy with the RB history. I believed this guy had the resources to purchase a going engine from Bob Jane. The guy purchased the car and forwarded a deposit and made several payments but never the full amount so the sale fell through.
I decided if Australia didn’t want the car I would advertise it in ‘Road and Track’. There were problems in placing the ad as they decided the car was a replica and didn’t want to run the advertisement! In the meantime a guy showed up in a Rolls Royce asking about it. He was a Sydney specialist Doctor. He specialised in repairing people after bombs had exploded, especially facial damage. He made up new jawbones from other body parts etc. It was a gruesome job, he had worked for many years in Ireland for experience. He never smiled and actually reminded me a bit of the film star Jack Palance. The Rolls Royce was filthy, covered in mud and he explained it had been in a motorkhana the weekend before!
He wanted BT31 and as I was browned off generally as all my attempts to preserve it for Australia had flown out the window. I had the advantage of already obtaining most of the required funds due to the museums closure and failure of the previous sale. So I agreed to sell the car, it was 1984. We did a deal and Don Halpin arranged to construct an engine for him.
Finally the ‘R&T’ ad bore fruit as Bib Stillwell contacted me. He was President of the LearJet Corporation in America at the time and wanted to buy BT31. Of course being a mate of Jack Brabham’s he knew all about the car. I explained that I had received a deposit and had sold it to the Sydney doctor subject to his final cheque arriving. Much to Bibs’ frustration, he tried hard to convince me to sell the car to him but i had committed to Dr William Marshall. Bib got his wish and did buy the car later, he won a lot of races ‘in period’ with Brabhams and was keen to own it.
Marshall put a team together and did race the car for a time and had a fairly serious crash during his term of ownership.’
Dr William Marshall in the cockpit, older gent former RBE Commercial Manager Bob Sippo and a mechanic, Sandown, not long after the cars ‘re-debut’. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Bib Stillwell and BT31…
Some time later I was invited to an historic Sandown meeting and sure enough there was Bib Stillwell with BT31 looking great in the Stillwell green colours, he bought the car from Marshall in 1987. I was looking at the car in the pits and had not made myself known and said in my typical fashion. ‘Hey what’s with this green’ a big guy stood up and said and why shouldn’t it be green. I piped up that it was built red, raced red and Bib hearing all this came over and said hello.
We ended up very good friends. At one stage he said ‘You should have sold it to me first Roddy’. I was impressed with his driving that day. He really put in. I also suspect a little extra effort because I was there in his pit, when he came back he was covered in perspiration and all red in the face. He walked over and put his arm around my shoulder and said ‘How was that Roddy did I do a good enough job?’. I was pleased that he cared what that I had kept the car in original shape for so long. He was a born racer as Bob Jane was as well. They were not just collectors they were users and drivers.
We Repco boys were invited to Geelong on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay for a special sprint meeting on the waterfront. The Geelong sprints are a wonderful spectacle on a good day. During the afternoon Don Halpin came in to the RB tent and said to me ‘Bibs gone in’ of course meaning an accident. We did not all rush down there of course and later I became aware that somehow it had been a very bad accident and Bib had multiple fractures of his legs. He had an extensive stay in Geelong hospital and sadly I think that he never recovered fully from that accident.
It was a long and tough call on Bib and he was no spring chicken. He also had lots of problems as the bottom had dropped out of new car sales in Australia. Sometime later he tragically collapsed and died of a heart attack in his Kew showroom. I don’t think that the BT31 had added much to his fine racing career.
The car was rebuilt and sold overseas and has since changed hands numerous times, but is back in Australia.
Nowadays I have the great pleasure of occasionally seeing BT31 in flight under various owners and I was impressed to see the car looking so good at Phillip Island in 2014. It gives me a lot of satisfaction in my older age and the reception I get from the younger owners is pleasing to say the least.
Long live BT31, the only one built and built specially as a works car for Sir Jack Brabham to race in Australia. You cannot get a car much more historic than that’.’
BT31 Phil Irving and Bib Stillwell, Sandown, late 1990’s. Stillwell won 3 of his 4 1960’s Australian Gold Star Championships in Brabhams, a World Class steerer in his day. (Rodway Wolfe)
Kevin Bartlett track testing BT31, whilst owned by William Marshall in 1987 at Oran Park, Sydney for ‘Wheels’ magazine. Bartlett typically sideways! (Wheels)
Etcetera…Track Test of BT31/1 by Kevin Bartlett in 1987…
Australian Gold Star Champion in 1968 and 1969, Bathurst Winner and ex-Brabham racer Kevin Bartlett track tested the car for ‘Wheels’ magazine, the article written by Graham Howard was published in August 1987. These are excerpts from that article;
‘…The car fires up and Bartlett hops right into it, giving it three hard bootfuls of throttle on the way to the first corner. Just so the car knows whos’ boss right? To the onlookers there is no doubt. All the gearchanges go in, the throttle work is smooth and confident. Progressively he is getting faster everywhere, braking later-tho still a bit early, it seeems, and now after a few laps starting to find the outside of the kerbs on the way out of corners’. Then he comes in.
KB, ‘It doesn’t like getting its power to the ground, does it. And the brakes are a worry. The front to rear balance is not right. The throttle needs heavier return springs’. He removes the seat and goes again. ‘Its a good torquey little engine from 3100-3200’. He suggests shock and tyre pressure changes. Present day Australian Historic Regs don’t allow a wing which Bartlett concludes it needs.
‘You can see the understeer into the corner but his exits are clean, decisive much steadier as he steers the car with its own noise, vanishing away with successive upward shrieks of acceeleration, gearchange, more acceleration. He is fast and accurate and the impressive thing is how, with a very peaky engine and a car with a willingness to break into wheelspin, Bartlett is stringing together lap after lap without a slip. No extravagant wheelspin, no attitude on the car, this mate, this is car control.’
Says KB, ‘Its understeering, just, which is the way they used to be. A bit, thats all on turn in, but you fix that with the throttle. It is better with the lower tyre pressures and stiffer rear shocks, not perfect but better. The engine starts to work at 5000 and at 6000 the cams come in, so you’ve got to drive it between 6000-7500. Any engine like this you have to work it right thru its range. No point having your gears too close. Its a good engine though, a good car.’
Graham Howard asked KB how his 1968 Gold Star winning Brabham BT23D Alfa (2.5 litre T33 V8 engine) would go up against BT31…’It would be very even, it would depend on the driver. I feel the chassis we had, with the Alfa V8, might have got the power to the ground better. But with the right tyres and a wing this car could be fantastic. The actual driving position is full of memories. I did my championship years in cars like this. It feels like home again.’
Bartlett BT31 in profile, Oran Park 1987. KB raced Brabhams BT2 Ford, BT11A Climax, BT23D Alfa, BT43 Chev and others in his successful single-seater years…(Wheels)
PhotoCredits…
Rodway Wolfe, Dale Harvey, Rod MacKenzie, Dick Simpson, Mildren Films,The Nostalgia Forum, Bob Frankel
Bibliography…
sergent.com, ‘Maybach to Holden’ Malcolm Preston, ‘Historic RacingCars in Australia’ John Blanden, Wheels magazine, Rodway Wolfe Collection, Racing Car News
Alf Barrett leads Frank Kleinig, Alfa 8C2300 Monza and Kleinig Hudson Spl, Australian Grand Prix, Mount Panorama, Bathurst 1947…
This was the race within the race, these quite different cars were outright contenders but the AGP was a handicap Formula Libre event in those days, the race was won by Bill Murray in an MG TC, neither Barrett nor Kleinig finished.
Alf Barrett and the Monza were the fastest combination in the immediate pre and post-war periods in Australia, he was and is regarded as one of the country’s greatest drivers.
Noted motoring writer and journalist Mike Kable wrote in 1998 upon Barretts’ death, ‘Alf Barrett was known as the maestro. It was an appropriate nickname because of his achievements between and after World War 2 in a supercharged straight 8 Alfa Romeo 2300 Monza at his favourite circuit – Mount Panorama at Bathurst, New South Wales.’
‘The dapper Barrett drove the thoroughbred Italian car with world class finesse and flair with exceptional physical and mental coordination and intense concentration that enabled him to control sliding the car at its absolute limits with a calm smooth flick-of-the-wrist precision. Seeing the black-helmeted Barrett in action, sitting high in the cockpit, wearing his trademark dark blue short sleeved shirt was a never-to-be forgotten treat.’
‘In an era of self funded amateurs who drove for token prize money, the challenging 6.2 mile Mount Panorama circuit was the standard setter by which the best drivers were judged. Barrett became the master in 1940 with an against-the-odds victory in the New South Wales Grand Prix. The classic race was a handicap with Barrett starting from scratch position, many of his rivals had already covered several laps before he started. He went on with a stunning performance where he set a new outright lap record that made the ‘King of the Mountain’. He had started last and finished first’.
This quite stunning, evocative shot was taken by racer/specials builder George Reed at Bathurst during the 1947 AGP weekend. Barrett is in the car, Alan Ashton being passed ‘plugs by Gib Barrett during a pitstop. Its a wonderful juxtaposition of the ‘high technology’ of the day with the rural NSW backdrop (George Reed/Dacre Stubbs Collection)
Barrett was born in 1908 to a well to do family in the affluent Melbourne suburb of Armadale. He and his brother Julian or ‘Gib’ inherited their father’s passion for cars. Before too long the boys were experimenting with all kinds of petrol powered devices in the large grounds of their home.
Not too far away a young mechanic, Alan Ashton, was serving his time as an apprentice at AF Hollins Motors, the three of them met and were messing around with cars and bikes which they tested at Aspendale Speedway. Alf and Alan built their first racing car, a Morris Bullnose Special in 1933, initially entering hillclimbs, it was competitive too, winning the Junior 50 and Winter 100 at Phillip Island in 1934.
Ad for AF Hollins, Australian Motor Sports 1947
Barrett then bought the ex-Jack Day Lombard AL3 in late 1935, and raced the car in his first Australian Grand Prix at Victor Harbor (correct spelling), in South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula on December 26, 1936.
It was the first AGP held outside Victoria and has been known over time as the 1937 AGP despite being held on Saturday 26 December 1936…and named when held as the South Australian Centenary Grand Prix. It seems this ‘corruption of history’ as historian John Medley called it, commenced in the 1950s, whence it originated nobody seems to know.
The Sporting Car Club of South Australia was formed in 1934 and played an active part in the celebration of 100 years of European settlement of South Australia, the piece de resistance of the organising South Australian Centenary Committee was SA’s first real road race held 50 miles from Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula, only a few miles from the mouth of the mighty Murray River on public roads between Port Elliott and Victor Harbor, then as now a summer playground. The event was run over 32 laps, 240 miles.
The race attracted the best cars and drivers from all around Australia, the limit men of the handicap race drove MG K3s and Bugatti Types 37 and 43 and over 50,000 paying customers came to an event then a long way from Adelaide.
Barrett entered the Morris for Colin Anderson, his MG P type for Tim Joshua, driving the Lombard himself. He had a handicap of 21 minutes but lost a supercharger pop-off valve and failed to finish, Anderson’s Morris was delayed by overheating problems and was flagged off. Tim Joshua drove an exceptional race in the P-Type and was leading the event for some laps before a seven minute stop in the pits for unidentified maladies, he finished the race second behind the winning MG P-Type of Les Murphy.
The Victor Harbour road circuit used for ‘the 1937 AGP’ used public roads as the map shows close to the Southern Ocean, joining Port Elliott and Victor Harbour (The Advertiser)Barrett racing his Morris Cowley Spl in the 1938 Kings Birthday Grand Prix, Wirlinga road circuit on the outskirts of Albury, NSW (unattributed)
In the 1938 AGP Barrett again raced the 1927 Lombard but the Cozette supercharged car, running off 22 minutes, retired from the race held at Mount Panorama. Visiting Englishman Peter Whitehead won in his ERA Type-B off a very favourable handicap winning from Les Burrows’ Terraplane Spl.
As part of the Albury 150th anniversary celebrations a new 4.2-mile circuit was laid out on public roads at Wirlinga, an Albury suburb. Albury is a town on the Murray River on the New South Wales/Victoria border.
Barrett contested the Kings Birthday Grand Prix or Interstate Grand Prix – the event seems to have been attributed a variety of names – in the Cowley on 19 March 1938, it was won by local Wangaratta boy Jack Phillips in his self built Phillips Ford V8 Spl.
Barrett competing in the Morris Bullnose Spl, Lobethal 50 Mile Handicap in 1938. Kayannie Corner. The practice would be put to good use the following year (Norman Howard)This is the fabulous cover of John Blanden’s seminal book ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’. The fact that Barrett and the Monza, of the hundreds of cars and drivers written about in the publication made the cover says everything about the noted late historian’s opinion of Barrett and his place in the pantheon of Australian drivers…the scene depicted is at Bathurst 1938. Alan Ashton and Alf changing a wheel on the Monza.‘The Maestro, Alf Barrett, with the Alfa Romeo Monza at Rob Roy on 30 January 1939. The Black Friday fires preceded this photo by just sixteen days’ wrote Bob. Barrett right on the limit, glorious shot (Bob King)
In late 1938 Barrett acquired and imported the Monza from the UK, it had been raced successfully there by AP ‘Ginger’ Hamilton.
Chassis #2211134 was built in 1932 and sold to Raymond Somner. He won the Marseilles Grand Prix at Miramas in September 1932 and several other events selling the car back to the factory, having acquired a Maserati for 1933. Hamilton bought it in late 1933 and raced the car extensively in the ensuing five years, there is a comprehensive record of the car’s competition record in Europe in at the end of this article.
When the Monza arrived in Australia it was prepared by Alan Ashton, he acquired a reputation as one of the most talented engineers in the country, fettling cars for Barrett until the end of his career and later Tony Gaze and then Lex Davison throughout his reign in the 1950s and 1960s as well as various international drivers who sought his talents.
The Alfa arrived in time for the last pre-war AGP held on the fast, daunting road course at Lobethal in South Australia’s Barossa Valley.
Barrett Lobethal 1939 AGP, superb Norman Howard shot. Sandbags, barb wire fences, eucalypts, crowd on the hill, wonderful. Dangerous but wonderful…Bucolic Lobethal in the late 1930s. The race progressed into, through and out of the main road shown in this aerial shot (State Library of SA)Barrett during practice with a passenger, a fearsomely quick ride on this roller-coaster, technically difficult circuit of the brave, skilled and committed. Kayannie Corner, Lobethal AGP 1939. Railway line to Adelaide behind, bucolic delights of Lobethal clear to see (Norman Howard)Barrett sorts himself and his new Monza out at the start of the 1939 AGP at Lobethal SA. He stalled the car and was well behind the field by the time he cleared fouled plugs (Norman Howard)
South Australian, Patrick Atherton in his website ‘Lagler Racing’ paints a vivid picture of the circuit, these are still public roads upon which you can drive thus…
‘From the old start-finish and grandstand area north of Charleston you could be forgiven for thinking it’s nothing special. No really challenging corners just sweeping curves. But put it into context; these cars had spindly wires and tyres, cart springs and beam axles and near useless drum brakes. These ‘curves’ are all blind. There are crests preceding all of them, particularly the bridges, which funnel into chutes. Think of these machines dropping on to their suspension in mid-air whilst turning at 100mph.
Through the little town of Charleston, with it’s pub (still there) the crowds were thick. Stories abound of drivers stopping, mid practice sessions for a pint or two.Out past here are frightening kinks, all blind, all crests and dips. Then a blind right hand kink sucks you into Kayannie corner, the tight right hander leaving Woodside Road and heading towards the township of Lobethal. Here the spectators got off the train from Adelaide straight into spectator areas at the side of the track, driver’s left.
The climb up the hill is significant, mostly straight for almost two km, but at the top, this track steals straight from the soul of Nurburgring. Lined by trees, the blind crest plummets away left, bottoms out right, drops away again, into a rollercoaster left. Then it flattens, raises slightly, then another drop into the braking area for the hard right hander (Mill corner) into Lobethal’s main street. Even the main street isn’t straight. Past the pub on the right there’s now a little ribbon of paving (Indianapolis-style) across the road and a plaque to commemorate the racing era.
Up the hill it funnels between shops and houses and then there is the blind, off-camber Gumeracha Corner, which claimed lives. The stretch from here to the start-finish hairpin has to be experienced. 5 km of crests, blind curves, feature changes and major undulation. Here is where the truly great drivers would have made up time on nothing more than sheer bravery. Indeed they did, and one in particular, winner Alan Tomlinson.’
Wonderful high speed pan of the 8C2300 Monza, and its dark blue shirted driver, Lobethal 1939 (Norman Howard)AGP Meeting crowd scene, Lobethal 1939…captures the atmosphere and undulatig nature of the roads. (State Library of SA)
Jack Saywell had the car with the most potential, an Alfa P3 fitted with a 2.9-litre supercharged straight-eight, Barrett’s Monza, also designed by Vittorio Jano, had a less sophisticated 2.3-litre supercharged straight-eight. A big incident in practice involved Barrett’s avoidance of a slow moving MG, the Monza ran off the road at high speed, a rear wheel hitting a gutter and throwing the car high into the air before landing 20 metres down the road. Alf brought the car back under control, but the incident caused a bent back axle and buckled wheel, both of which were fixed by Ashton overnight. However, the wheelbase was two inches shorter on one side of the car than the other.
60,000 people attended the event, Barrett stalled at the start, losing five minutes in the process. He finished eighth, the handicap event was won in legendary fashion by Alan Tomlinson in a supercharged MG TA Spl.
Despite his handicap Tomlinson ‘punched way above his weight’, his preparation for the race was meticulous. He walked the circuit in the weeks prior to the event and drove around it in another TC practicing each section patrticularly the 5Km stretch from Gumeracha Corner to the Start-Finish hairpin, he knew that section would be key for a driver in a notionally slower car, if you were brave enough…Tomlinson was to say after the race that Saywell’s Alfa held him up on that stretch! Tomlinson returned to Lobethal in 1940 for the SA Trophy and almost lost his life in an horrific accident after colliding with another car, careering off the road through a wire fence, lucky not to be decapitated, and hit a tree. The young WA driver did not race again but lived into his 90s.
Check out this fabulous documentary on the short but sweet history of Lobethal road circuit…https://vimeo.com/83756140
The Monza quickly established lap records at Lobethal, Bathurst, Albury Wirlinga, Nowra, Ballarat and Point Cook. It’s last pre-war start was at Wirlinga in 1939, winning a short handicap and setting a lap record of over 90mph on the gravel course.
During WW2 Alf and Gib served in the RAAF, returning to racing after hostilities ceased, in late 1946 the Monza was again race prepared.
Barrett showing the deftness of touch and relaxed driving style for which he was famous. Monza, Bathurst AGP 1947 (John Blanden Collection)
The first race meeting organised by the LCCA in Victoria was at Ballarat Airfield in February 1947, the RAAF made the facility available for creation of a road circuit.
Over 30,000 people attended the meeting which featured all of the stars of the day. Barrett thrilled the crowds with his driving and the sight and sound of the fabulous supercharged straight-eight engine. Alf didn’t beat the handicappers though, off scratch, he gave away 22 minutes to the limitman, Hollinshead’s MG J2, victory in the feature race, the Victorian Trophy went to Doug Whiteford in ‘Black Bess’, the Ford V8 Spl later to win the 1950 AGP.
This fantastic bit of footage shows both the Ballarat 1947 event and 1961 international meeting contested by Dan Gurney, Graham Hill and many others. Don’t be put off by the commentary, Barrett is driving his Monza not an Alfa P3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2uwd7m6UGo
At Nowra, a new airstrip venue in June, Barrett won both the over 1500cc event and 110 mile NSW Championship in the Monza achieving both the fastest lap at 93mph and time, despite a pitstop.
Whilst motor racing recommenced post-war in Paris on September 9, 1945 the first post-war Australian event seems to be a hillclimb at Foleys Hill out of Sydney, whilst the AGP was not held until 1947 at Bathurst.
Despite problems with the police in getting the requisite permit and dissension in the ranks of the drivers, there were 29 acceptances and 22 race starters.
The caption of this photo is of ‘Alf Barrett receives the chequered flag October 1947’, he DNF’d the AGP so perhaps this is the finish of a preliminary race. Wonderful shot all the same (unattributed)
Barrett’s Monza was off scratch due to the absence of Saywell’s faster P3, it’s engine was dispatched by sea prewar to Italy for a rebuild, never to survive the voyage. Lex Davison entered a Mercedes SSK 38/250, the first of many successful AGPs for the Victorian, other fast cars included the Kleinig Hudson Spl of Frank Kleinig, Hope Bartlett’s Dixon Riley and Ewing’s Buick Spl.
Lex Davison leads Alf Barrett AGP 1947. Mercedes 38/250 and Alfa Monza respectively…it would not be long till Lex imported a Jano designed Alfa of his own – a P3 in 1948 – Davison set the fastest overall race time in the fearsome 7.6-litre SSK but was classified third under the handicap system (Byron Gunther)
Practice was on the preceding Thursday and Sunday, Barrett enlivened proceedings by taking all and sundry for rides around Mount Panorama in the Monza, as did Lex Davison in his Merc complete with linen helmet, goggles, coat and tie!
Barrett gave away 37 minutes to the first car away, Alf lapping at 3:08 and 124mph down the ‘narrow, bumpy and spooky Conrod Straight between the trees’ but retired on lap 27 with valve insert trouble – he really didn’t ever have a surplus of AGP luck!, the race was won by Bill Murray’s MG TC.
‘Alf in his 8C2300 was the fastest driver in Australia in 1947’ according to John Medley but for 1948 the level of competition increased with Tony Gaze and Lex Davison importing a 2-litre supercharged Alta and Alfa Romeo P3/Tipo B respectively.
Barrett with a passenger sans helmet…before the 1947 AGP at Mount Panorama. What a wild ride it must have been (Byron Gunther)
The 1948 AGP was held at Point Cook, it’s easy to forget the context of the post war times in a low key year for motor racing in Australia, John Medley in Cars and Drivers #3 wrote ‘The post war age of austerity with its restrictions and ration books still prevailed with a shortage of fuel, oil, paper, steel, food and power.’
’In fact fuel rations were tightened during the year which placed a limit on the number of events…The mainstay of Australian motor racing still remained the homebuilt sprecial, a few of them single-seaters but most two seaters used on the road with number plates and lights, and for racing.’
With ‘B24 Liberator’ and one Bristol Beaufighter aircraft as a backdrop Barrett leads Bill Ford’s Hudson Spl (seventh) and Dennis Curran’s Willys Ford V8 Spl (fifth) during his brief race in conditions which were amongst the hottest of any AGP. Fantastic evocative shot (George Thomas)
Point Cook is in Melbourne’s inner western suburbs, it was the first time the AGP was held at an airforce base and the first AGP not held on a course using public roads.
26 cars entered the event held on Australia Day, 26 January. It was over 42 laps of a 3.85 km circuit comprising airfield runways, taxiways and service roads, a total distance of 100 miles. Only 10 cars completed the race which was held in excruciating hot conditions, no shade was to be had on the desolate airfield. The handicap event, AGPs were not held as scratch events until 1951, was won by Frank Pratt a Geelong, Victoria motorcycle racer/dealer in a BMW 328.
Barrett started the race poorly having some issues which slowed him down then was the fastest car in the race for a while before withdrawing from the event with heat exhaustion on lap 22. He was far from alone, only 10 cars finished as stated above.
Alf contested the Easter Bathurst meeting which comprised some short handicap races, he didn’t win but set fastest lap in his Alfa, Gaze blew the Alta’s 2-litre engine and Davison retired early after troubles arising from a spectacular practice crash. The feature, handicap race, the NSW 100 was won by John Barraclough’s MG NE with a fine battle between the Barrett and Davison Alfas. Barrett in the older car broke the lap record at 3m 01 seconds with Davo recording 144mph down Conrod in the P3, a new straight line speed record at Mount Panorama.
Melbourne Cup Weekend in November seems to have been Alf’s final race with the Monza, winning his class at Rob Roy Hillclimb at the Australian Hillclimb Championship.
With a growing family and a business to run Barrett sold the Monza and retired from racing, not entirely though! He retired at the top, John Medley commenting about 1948 as follows…’Cars new to the scene included Lex Davison’s Alfa P3 and Tony Gaze’s two Altas with Alf Barrett’s Monza Alfa Romeo still the car to beat in major races’
The Monza passed into the hands of Rupert Steele in late 1949.
A Victorian, he was very quickly on the pace, his previous experience in a Bentley, practising the Alfa on the back roads between Beaconsfield and Dandenong to help get the feel of the fabulous machine.
He raced at Fishermans Bend, was sixth in the SA Championship at Nuriootpa in 1949 and put that practice to good effect in the 1950 AGP, which was also held on that quick road course in the Barossa Valley.
The race was still a handicap event, Steele finished second to Doug Whiteford’s Ford V8 Spl ‘Black Bess’ and shared the fastest lap with Whiteford who was a formidable driver with vastly more experience than Steele, albeit driving a much less sophisticated car. Black Bess was famously based on an ex-Victorian Forestry Commission Ute!
Steele didn’t own the Monza for long, later in life he became a notable Victorian in business and horse racing, the car was advertised again for sale.
Rupert Steele in the Monza contesting the 1950 AGP at Nuriootpa in the SA Barossa Valley. He finished second and shared fastest lap with Doug Whiteford, the winner (John Blanden Collection)(Tony Johns Collection)
The next owner was Victorian ‘Racing Ron’, a very experienced driver who was very competitive in the Monza racing it around the country, an initial win at Ballarat Airfield in the 1950 Victorian Trophy against strong opposition was impressive.
The car raced at the Bathurst October meeting in 1951, finishing fourth in the ‘100’ and third in the 50 Mile Redex Championship, Edgerton’s year was capped with a fourth in class at the Australian Hillclimb Championship at Rob Roy, in Melbourne’s Christmas Hills.
Ron Edgerton in the Monza #2211134 ahead of Frank Kleinig’s Kleinig Hudson Spl, Hell Corner, Bathurst in the 50 Mile Redex Championship in October 1951 (WJ Farncourt)With the inside front wheel pawing the air, Edgerton drives the Monza hard up Rob Roy, January 29, 1951 (unattributed)Alf Barrett hadn’t entirely retired, here he is at Bathurst in 1950 driving Tony Gaze’ 2-litre Alta Monoposto #56S, whilst the latter was overseas (John Blanden)
The Winter 2012 issue of Loose Fillings the wonderful Australian Newsletter about air-cooled racing cars had an article by the late lamented Australian Historian/Enthusiast/Racer Graham Howard.
‘He (Barrett) was at Bathurst in October 1951 as a spectator when offered a drive in Misha Ravdell’s Firth-prepared Mk4 Cooper Vincent… after Ravdell himself had been injured in a local road accident. Not having driven a racing car of any kind for more than a year and with no experience whatever of a Cooper-style car, he won a six-lap under 1500cc handicap and was well placed in the main event when he ran over a displaced sandbag and broke a driveshaft universal joint. He vividly remembered the Cooper’s vibration. ‘It was like driving a lawnmower– dreadful. You’d get out of it as if you’d been driving a lawn-mower.’ But everything else compared to his beloved Alfa was a revelation.
‘The Cooper made my hair stand on end. It ran so straight and it stopped straight. The brakes were like running into cotton wool. With the Alfa you always felt you were a foot off the ground and it would get such dreadful brake tramp. ‘The thing I noticed with the Cooper, it held on until all four wheels went together. You could go too far with the Alfa and cars like that, and they’d still hang on, the Cooper would just go snap. ‘But that little Cooper – it just went straight, it stopped straight. So when I say the Alfa was good, it was good-until the Cooper’.
Barrett in the borrowed Cooper Mk4 Vincent, Bathurst October 1951, he finished first in a race despite not having sat in the car before! He is in his civvies – collar and tie…and with a noticeable smile on his face! (John Medley)
Its fascinating to get the insights of the day from a top driver of the comparison between ‘the old and new paradigms’ of front and mid engined cars…Cooper won their first Grand Prix in Argentina 1958, in Stirling Moss’ hands, himself a former Cooper 500 exponent.
The Monza was offered for sale by Edgerton in Australian Motor Sports in April 1951 and was bought by Toorak, Melbourne enthusiast Earl Davey Milne, it is still owned by the family and whilst in good hands and complete it remains disassembled and unrestored.
Alf racing and sharing brother Gibs BWA, in the early laps of the 1953 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park. The car was a fusion of MG TC Chassis, Lancia front end and steering box, Lancia wheels, brakes and 1935 Chev truck driveshafts powered by a 1.5 litre supercharged Meadows four cylinder engine from a Frazer Nash! (unattributed)
Alf made a comeback of sorts in the 1953 Australian Grand Prix, the first held at Albert Park.
Gib built a two-seater sports car called BWA, colloquially the ‘Bloody Work of Art’ pre-War but actually named after the car’s builders, Messrs Barrett/Ashton/White. The BWA was converted into a single-seater post war, the 1953 AGP regs allowed two drivers so Alf started the race and handed over to Gib.
It wasn’t their best of events, the pair lost 15 minutes at the start with fouled ‘plugs and then managed to set fire to it after a fuel spill at a pitstop. Still, they finished twelth, Doug Whiteford won the race in his first Talbot Lago T26C, it was his third and final AGP win. The Lago was as aristocratic as Black Bess, his 1950 AGP winner, was proletariat, having won the AGP at Bathurst in 1952 in the Lago as well.
The BWA ablaze at the Albert Park pits. This was the end of the conflagration, the BBQ was immense at the point of ignition…the Barretts got the car going and finished the event (Youtube)
Barrett remained a motor racing enthusiast and in a neat bookend to his career commencement also finished it in a Morris.
He contested the 1969 Bathurst 500 in a Morris 1500 shared with Kyneton, Victoria motor dealer/racer Mel Mollison, they finished 37th. Barrett drove the car with the same verve and flair for which he was famous if not wearing the blue T-Shirt for which he was also renowned, he died in 1998.
Etcetera…
Alf Barrett racing brother Gib’s BWA in early unbodied form. The car was a fusion of MG TC chassis, mainly Lancia componentry and supercharged 1.5 litre Meadows engine. 16th Rob Roy Hillclimb (State Library of Victoria)A close up of Alf Barrett and his Morris ‘Bullnose’ Cowley Spl, Wirlinga, Albury 1938. Car built together with brother ‘Gib’ and Alan Ashton. Historian John Medley noted that this car was destroyed in a bushfire, only the engine survived (unattributed)Alf giving his new Monza plenty at Rob Roy on 30 January 1939 (B King)Barrett AGP Lobethal 1939 (Norman Howard)Yet another stunning Norman Howard AGP Lobethal 1939 Barrett shot.Monza in the Lobethal paddock 1940. To the left is the Jack Phillip’s Ford V8 Spl which won the main event at that meeting, the South Australian 100 and at far left a Bentley Ute used as a tender vehicle. Barrett DNF with rear axle failure but set fastest lap at 5m 48sec, 92mph average (Ean McDowell)Barrett and the Monza at Ballarat Airfield in February 1947 (John Blanden Collection)Barrett, Monza, Bathurst AGP 1947…the fastest car driver combination again that year (Byron Gunther)Doug Whiteford’s Talbot Lago in front of the Monza, then owned by Ron Edgerton at Bathurst in 1951… a happy hunting ground for both cars (unattributed)
Monza # 2211134 History…
The following article was published in Motor Sport by Denis Jenkinson in 1976 with input from Earl Davey-Milne, a Melburnian who still owns the car.
Bibliography and Credits…
John Medley in Graham Howard’s ‘History of The Australian Grand Prix’, John Blanden ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’, ‘Loose Fillings’ Winter 2012, Motor Sport, MotorMarque, Patrick Atherton Lagler Racing, ‘Cars and Drivers’, John Medley
John Blanden, George Reed, Dacre Stubbs Collection, John Blanden Collection, Ean McDowell, John Medley, autopics, State Library of Victoria, W J Farncourt, George Thomas, Byron Gunther, Norman Howard, Allan Griffin Collection, Bob King Collection, Tony Johns Collection
Tailpiece…
Barrett and Monza, descending the mountain thru The Dipper, Bathurst 1939 (unattributed)
Michael Andretti aviating his Reynard 941 Ford over the Surfers Paradise kerbs. Andrettis’ victory in The Australian Indycar Grand Prix in March 1994 was just the fillip the American needed after his abortive McLaren F1 season the year before…
Nigel Mansell started ’94 where he left off, the Brit a winner in the 1993 ‘Indy championship in his Lola Ford, the season after his F1 World Championship victory for Williams in 1992. Nige was on pole with Andretti alongside in the brand new Malcolm Oastler designed Reynard 941 Ford, the marques first Indycar.
The race was restarted 3 times, first lap contretemps famous on the Surfers circuit. In the final restart Michael got the jump on Nigel and lead all 55 laps, the race shortened by 10 laps due to lack of light.
Michael won again in the Reynard later in the season at Toronto but the Penske PC23 was the best car of the season and the ‘Dream Team’ of Al Unser, Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy extracted all the car had to offer winning most rounds and Unser the drivers title.
By seasons end Mansell had returned to F1 albeit briefly, with Michael competitive again with 2 victories and 7 top 5 finishes in a year where the pickings were slim for all but Penske.
Same car, driver and kerb but lower altitude…Reynard a lovely car and the first of many successful Indycars by the late, lamented marque. (Unattributed)
So what Went Wrong in F1 for Michael?…
Andretti came into racing via Karts, Formula Ford, Super Vee and Formula Atlantic. Before long he was an established Indycar Star and after a dominant season in CART 1991, on pole 8 times, winning the title and demonstrating his versatility with a Porsche drive at Daytona, he was looking to F1 as the next challenge.
Joining McLaren for 1993, alongside established team leader and candidate for the Greatest Grand Prix Driver ever was always going to be a tough ask, the Brazilian famous for taking no prisoners and intimidating his teammates in all ways possible.
Into 1992 things were looking a bit grim for McLaren…the teams performances were down, Honda were withdrawing from F1 and Ron couldn’t achieve the alternative factory engine deal he wanted. He attempted to buy Ligier to get the Renault engines, a deal vetoed by sponsors. The best he could achieve was Ford customer engines, one spec below those used by Benetton, who had the factory Ford deal, Michael Schumacher of course the driver.
Ayrton was watching all of this but couldn’t get a better drive, the best seat was with Williams, and engine supplier tipped Alain Prost into it rather than arch rival Senna.
Andretti, European GP Donington Park 1993. McLaren MP4/8 Ford. (Unattributed)
Ron needed a name driver in the event Senna decamped and signed Andretti…on paper a driver with potential albeit unfamiliar with both the cars and circuits. His announcement was made at the 1992 Italian Grand Prix to a bemused media.
The plot thickened somewhat with the signing of Mika Hakkinen, lately of Lotus, who was to be either test driver or race driver in 1993 depending upon what Senna decided, the Brazilian ultimately signing for the team again but on a race by race basis.
Michael optimistic early in the season at Kyalami, South African GP. (The Cahier Archive)
For Andretti things started badly with rule changes which limited testing…he badly needed seat time in both the car and on as many circuits as possible, the differences in characteristics between the relatively heavy single turbo 2.65 litre V8 Indycars, and 3.5 litre normally aspirated peaky, light, nimble and ‘very nervous’ Grand Prix cars immense.
The delivery of the Ford engine was late, only a month before the season opener at Kyalami, so was completion of the car and critical systems testing and checking which became clear with many failures particularly on Andrettis’ chassis during the year.
His season could be summarised as a series of own goals, accidents of his own making and mechanical or electrical failures which were entirely beyond his control.
Mixed in with that was his sheer pace which justified Andretti a second season in F1, at least.
F1 wisdom seems to be, including McLarens website, that the American didn’t really commit to F1. Indicative, in this view is continuing to live in the US, commuting by Concorde to the UK and the races as required. The theory is that living closeby to Woking, shootin’ the breeze with the Ronster and technicians would have helped.
It probably would have, as he would have done the testing miles Hakkinnen did but it’s too simplistic a view.
Andretti started the season behind the eightball, noting he was ‘silly enough’ to sign for McLaren alongside Senna in a team ‘he owned’…
Jackie Stewart was smart to sign with BRM not Lotus for his debut F1 season in ’65, he had the choice but figured the lower pressure environment at BRM would be better for him, and allow him to come up to speed without the pressure of going head to head with Jim Clark, the standard by which all other drivers assessed themselves at the time. Noting that his BRM team leader, Graham Hill, the ’62 World Champ was at the top of his game at the time.
But these guys aren’t like you and I, they have towering self belief, why not go up against Senna in a great team, the chance may never come again? In that sense Andretti is be admired for putting his balls on the line, he was not the first or last Ace to be blown off by the Brazilians mesmeric other worldly skill.
On balance, looking from everyone’s viewpoint; McLarens’, Andrettis’ and the sponsors’, the deal made sense.
The McLaren MP4/8 Ford was a competitive car, Senna took victories at Monaco, Donington (one of his best) Brazil and Suzuka in the rain and in Adelaide, his last GP for McLaren and final victory.
During the rest of the season the Williams of Prost and Hill were the class of the field, Prost taking the title and retiring.
McLaren MP4/8 Ford 1993. Neil Oatley designed Carbon fibre monocoque, suspension active with wishbones all around actuating coil springs and dampers. Carbon ceramic brakes. Ford HBE V8 ‘customer spec’ 3494cc circa 640bhp. McLaren 6 speed semi-automatic gearbox. 505kg. (Unattributed)
Let’s look at Andrettis’ year race by race…
Interlagos contretemps with Gerhard Bergers’ Ferrari. Could have been a lot worse. (Unattributed)
.Kyalami clutch failure on the line, fundamental preparation or lack of testing issue. He then ran into Derek Warwick on lap 4 trying to make up for lost time.
.In Brazil he goosed the start having muffed the 1-2 shift, qualified 5th (Senna 3rd), Wendlinger jigged one way, Michael the other collecting Bergers Ferrari initiating a spectacular shunt with the two cars cartwheeling thru the air.
.At Donington for the European GP. Q6 whilst Senna disappeared into the gloom in a sublime drive, from 5th to 1st in 10 corners and a lead of over 4 seconds at the end of lap 2. Andretti again took out Wendlinger leaving the Sauber and McLaren beached in the Leicestershire mud.
European GP, Donington Park 1993 lap1. Prost & Hill Williams, Wendlinger Sauber, Senna McLaren, Schumacher Benetton, Andretti McLaren, the Ferraris’ and the rest…Senna to the front and gone in 10 corners from Q4. (Unattributed)
.At Imola for the San Marino GP Q6 again, he completed 32 laps before spinning, whilst dicing for fourth with, you guessed it, Wendlinger. The spin was induced by a brake or suspension balance problem.
.In the Spanish GP Andretti finished fifth behind Prost, Senna, Schumacher and Patrese, the latter duo Benetton Fords with the factory engines.
. At Monaco Q9, his clutch did its own thing, up shifting early, losing revs and power, he was engulfed by the field, then hit Barbazzas’ Minardi up the chuff at Loews. He pitted to replace his front wing but then had a great run from last to 8th…but Senna won.
Andretti Monaco 1993. (Unattributed)
.In Canada the car again ‘cacked itself’, this time a dead battery, he started the race 3 laps down and was classified 14th, Senna also had electrical gremlins that day, finishing 18th with alternator failure. Whilst in more recent times (2008) there have been claims by Marco Andretti that McLaren ‘sabotaged his fathers career’, the claims don’t hold water as Senna had as many gremlins as Michaels’ cars did. Hakkinen was ‘standing in the wings’ but McLaren had every commercial and sporting reason for Andretti to succeed not fail.
Andretti was the only American F1 driver at the time, their was no USGP either, the US is the largest global economy which McLaren was keen to tap into via the interest provided by their American driver…the conspiracy theory makes no sense to me at all and contradicts the facts.
.In France at Magny Cours the semi-automatic shift misbehaved resulting in Q16 but a strong showing, finishing 6th and getting valuable mileage.
.Michael looked forward to Silverstone as he had tested there pre-season, but his qualifying run was spoiled by rain, Q11. He started well but spun on lap 1 again going too hard too early.
.German GP, Hockenheim he qualified 12th after more mechanical dramas unrelated to him. But he thumped Berger on lap 4, DNF.
.At the Hungaroring, his fly-by-wire throttle failed in a run as high as 4th. Senna experiencing similar problems 2 laps later.
.Belgian classic, Spa. He had a long tyre change during which the engine stopped, Andretti 8th
.Monza, Italy. Andrettis’ final GP. He qualified 9th, Senna 4th. In the race both cars had brake balance problems, both spinning, Senna into retirement. Andretti continued after having grass removed from the radiators, fighting his way back through the pack from 20th to 3rd, a great run and his only podium finish, ironically in his last race, Michael being sacked, the drive going to Hakkinen.
San Marino GP, Imola 1993. (Unattributed)
Andretti returned to Champcars successfully…he was competitive throughout his career but didn’t win another title and famously lead the Indy 500 for 431 laps in multiple 500’s the most of any driver without taking victory…
There are so many ‘Ifs, Buts and Maybes’ in life and racing…
If McLaren had done a better engine deal or installed the Ford earlier, maybe the glitches both drivers experienced all year would have been sorted in pre-season testing.
If the testing rules hadn’t changed Andretti would have driven the miles he needed in cars alien to him rather than doing his testing and familiarisations in the full glare of race weekends…and as worked so well for Villeneuve at Williams 2 years later who did a million miles in the car on all sorts of circuits.
If he had lived in the UK maybe his intent and commitment to McLaren would have been clearer.
Hakkinens’ signing added to the pressure on Michael, if he hadn’t been signed, the imminent potential replacement would not have been there.
If Andretti had started some of his races less agressively the DNF’s would have been reduced giving him the miles he needed and making him look less of a novice.
But, as the saying goes, ‘if yer Aunty had balls she’d be yer Uncle’ …
At the end of the day none of the above happened and it made more sense for McLaren to sign Hakkinen to partner Senna for 1994 albeit Senna went to Williams and Martin Brundle got to race the McLaren Peugeot in 1994, a combination which made the ’93 cars look like paragons of speed and reliability. In short had Andretti raced on with the team in 1994 he would not have had a car capable of running at the front.
Michael Andretti and F1 is still one of racings intriguing ‘mighta-beens’ all the same?
primotipo... 