Jack Myers may well have been the very first Holden Hero, but if not he was certainly an early bird in the very long line of touring car champs to race General Motors Holdens’ products.
Here he is in front of the pack aboard his very quick, self modified 48-215 during a South Pacific Trophy support race at Gnoo Blas, Orange in January 1956.
Hard chargers both, Stan Jones and Jack Myers at Mount Panorama during the October 1960 Craven A International weekend (C Lynch-SLNSW)(B Williamson Collection)Myers at Bathurst in 1958
The Kingsford, NSW racer/mechanic/engineer/retailer was up to his armpits in Holden 48-215s from early on, racing a 110mph cream Humpy from 1953.
Myers soon offered 100 mph Holden motoring to all for £130. His kit involved boring your block to 3 3/16 inches, new pistons and rings, a shaved-head, re-ground cam, 12 inner valve-springs, an additional Stromberg carb, Myers inlet manifold and extractors, sports air-cleaners and a Lukey muffler. Seems as-cheap-as-chips!
Bathurst’s first ‘Production Car Race’ was held in October 1950; the first Holden entered at Mount Panorama was R Isackson’s Uni Motors car during the Easter 1951 meeting, but he didn’t start the race. The first Holden finisher on this holiest of racing turf was the 48-215 driven by R Mitchell who was fifth in a six lap sedan handicap in 1954. He was timed at 91mph down Conrod.
Fittingly, the first Mount Panorama Holden winner was Jack. John Medley anointed him “the Holden wonder-man of the mid-1950s, his black-roofed yellow car going progressively more quickly over the years.” 109.9mph down Conrod during the Easter 1956 weekend to be precise. He took that win in a six lap handicap in October 1955, the following year he was back in one of the swiftest Greys of all.
Myers aboard the Cooper T20 Holden during the 1957 AGP at Caversham. DNF in the race won by the Lex Davison/Bill Patterson Ferrari 500/625Aboard the more advanced, spaceframe chassis, but still Cooper derived, WM Holden Special on Pit Straight during practice for the the Craven-A International at Bathurst in October 1960. DNS in the race won by Jack Brabham’s Cooper T51 Climax 2.5 FPF
After campaigning the winning Holden far and wide: Mount Druitt, Gnoo Blas, Mount Panorama, Strathpine, Lowood, Fishermans Bend and Port Wakefield, Myers was up for the next challenge.
He bought Stan Coffey’s, rolled Cooper T20 (#CB-1-52) single-seater and repaired it at his Anzac Parade ‘shop. Then, together with Merv Waggott, he built and progressively developed the big-daddy of early Holden engined racers, the 2.4-litre DOHC Waggott-Holden WM Holden.
Stirling Moss was so fascinated by this home-grown application of technology to a Cooper type he knew so well, he did some demonstration laps in it at Sydney’s Cumberland Speedway whilst in Oz for the November 1956 AGP at Albert Park. Jack was twelfth at the Park and first Australian car home.
Myers was typical of so many Holden Heroes from the 1950s to 1970s, he serviced them for customers, modified them, made and sold hot-bits and raced them.
Myers Holden 48-215 at Mount Druitt, Sydney in the early 1950s.
Sitting up in the breeze! Myers, Cooper T20 Waggott-Holden, at Caversham, AGP 1957
Myers in the form-up area, or dummy-grid depending upon your religion, Craven-A International meeting at Mount Panorama in October 1960. That’s Austin Miller’s Cooper T51 at left.
While early on in his ownership of the ex-Stan Coffey Cooper T20, the car was rightly called a Cooper, but as Jack crashed and rebuilt the car/developed it, the machine became more Myers than Cooper, and fitted with that extraordinary twin-cam six fitted, more Waggott-Myers than Cooper!
Note the disc brakes above, albeit the front suspension still looks kosher-Cooper T20, the stylised Jack Myers brandmark in a neat touch. Myers didn’t start the car in the feature won by Jack Brabham’s Cooper T51 Climax.
Brabham was present at Bathurst for the first time since 1955, 6,000 people turned up for practice to see the twice World Champ. Unfortunately, as John Medley wrote, “Jack Myers crashed the newly disc-braked WM Cooper on top of the mountain, bending the chassis and destroying the suspension. There would be no overnight (or any) rebuilds this time. The motor was sold, the remains of the car sold separately, Myers borrowed the little Dalro Reno to run at this meeting, and would then turn his attention to his little hillclimb special – the ex-Saywell/Reynolds Mark IV Cooper with his Triumph ‘twin-twin’ engine.”
Tragically, Jack died at the wheel of the Cooper Triumph at Catalina Park, Katoomba on January 21, 1962 (7/1/18-21/1/62). The WM Holden was ultimately restored and lives at the National Motor Museum, Birdwood Mill campus, in the Adelaide Hills.
Myers – famous for racing in these horizontally hooped T-shirts – and crew in the Mount Panorama paddock, Easter 1959. Bonus points for crew-members names folks? That is a Cooper alloy wheel.
The boys push start that Waggott-Holden twin-cam six into life before the start of the 1959 Bathurst 100 on March 31. Stan Jones’ Maserati 250F is in the middle and race victor Ross Jensen’s 250F on pole at right. All the fun of the fair, look at that crowd! Jack was an excellent fourth behind Jensen, Len Lukey, Cooper T45 Climax, and Arnold Glass, Maserati 250F.
Stan is in the early stages of his best season and a bit ever, he was the reigning Gold Star Champion (1958) and at this stage of the year had won the Australian Grand Prix at Longford a month before. Jensen was seriously quick, he ran the Maserati at Bathurst in ’58, but failed to finish the 100, and finish the job he did a year later in convincing style!
WM Holden in the pits at Gnoo Blas, and again at the start of a race below, in February 1960. The ex-Whiteford Talbot-Lago T26C #110007 was raced by Barry Collerson.
While it is true that the WM-Holden was the sexiest and quickest Holden-powered racing car of the period, the most successful was Tom Hawkes’ Cooper T23 Repco-Holden (below). Chassis #CB/Mk2/1/53) was no less a car than the ex-Jack Brabham Redex Special – a Bristol 2-litre six cylinder powered T23 – albeit continuously evolved by Hawkes after Jack sold the car (to Stan Jones then on to Hawkes) when he left for Europe in early 1955. Its Repco Hi-Power crossflow headed engine was far less exotic than Merv’s twinc, but was more reliable.
Very late in its in-period competitive life the T23 was fitted with a Chev 283cid V8, a task commenced by Tom Hawkes and Murray Rainey, and finished by Earl Davey-Milne. It’s still owned by the Davey-Milnes and is shown below last week. Mighty fine it is too…
(C Lynch-SLNSW)
Back where we started, Gnoo Blas in 1956, how did Jack do in the touring car races that weekend, and who is at the wheel of in that little VW Beetle 1200!?
Credits…
Cec Lynch-Pix-State Library of New South Wales, Bob Williamson Collection, Les Mortimer, David Medley, Ken Devine, Kelsey Collection, Kaleda Family Collection, National Archives of Australia, ‘Bathurst:Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’ John Medley
Tailpieces…
(Lynch/SLNSW)
“Don’t even think about it kid, my 48-215 has been worked over by Jack Myers, you don’t have a chance!”
This shot is from a Pix puff-piece in 1955 promoting Italian toy cars for David Jones, a national department store chain. The little dude appears to be a handy-mechanic and would be 80’ish now. Chassis number and make of EV unknown…
Moore and his Kiwi Equipe Cooper T43 Climax FWB during the F2 London Trophy meeting at Crystal Palace on June 10, 1957
Ronnie Moore was an outstanding Kiwi sportsman, an international speedway rider who won the Individual World Speedway Championship in 1954 and 1959. He earned 13 international caps for the Australian national team, 50 for New Zealand and 21 for Great Britain in career that spanned 1949-75. In addition, he was a pretty handy F2 racer in 1957-58.
Born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia on 8 April 1933, his father, Les Moore was also a champion rider who built a ‘Wall of Death’ in his backyard, and later turned it into a business, performing at Royal (Agriculture) Shows around Australia.
Ronnie began riding the wall at 13, then got his speedway start on an old Rudge after the family had moved to New Zealand in 1947.
Les stunned the NZ Speedway world when he rode the Rudge to a track record in Wellington, beating local star Bruce Abernethy. Les then got an offer to help set up a new track in Christchurch so the family shifted south.
While born in Australia, Ronnie always considered himself a Kiwi. He had to wait until he was 15 – the legal age to get a drivers licence – to have his first official race drive and later reckoned he could barely touch the foot-pegs on the Rudge when he lined up on the dirt track at Tai Tapu in 1948.
Kiwis Ronnie Moore and Barry Briggs from Australia’s Jack Young at Wembley during the September 1960 World Speedway Championship meetingWembley, September 1959, World Speedway Championship
In 1949, Moore began racing on a regular basis at his father’s Aranui Speedway in the Sandhills near Christchurch. He remembered counting the trucks as they brought all the dirt from the Lyttelton tunnel to create the track and arena.
Stuff.co.nz records that “His career clicked when he started riding a specialist, secondhand speedway bike his dad brought off Norman Parker,” a leading English racer who competed in New Zealand.
He moved to the UK in 1950. Wimbledon promoter Ronnie Green spotted his potential despite crashing through the wire-mesh safety fence on his first trial ride! He raced for the Wimbledon Dons in the British League, becoming team captain after two years, and continued with them until 1963, apart from two years in the late 1950s when he raced F2 Coopers.
“Speedway was second to football then in people going through the turnstiles, with crowds of up to 15,000 just for a league match.”
Moore was the youngest ever rider to qualify for a Speedway World Championship. He did that in 1950, aged just 17. Four years later, he became New Zealand’s first motorcycle world champion when he took the 1954 championship in front of 80,000 people at Wembley. Even more remarkable is that he was only 21 and took five wins from five starts, despite riding with a leg that had been broken badly not that long before in five places.
He had slid into a safety fence at a meeting in Denmark and stopped dead, his leg was bent around the bike’s handlebars. While the Danish doctors predicted a recovery time of nine months, Moore sought the advice of a Kiwi Harley Street surgeon who had made his name getting fighter pilots back in the sky quickly. His thigh to toe plaster cast was whipped off and the first of two braces were made which allowed the bone to heal, while reducing the rate at which his muscles would otherwise have withered.
Ronnie and Bruce Abernethy, Kiwi Stars both, in 1952 (A Jeffries)The two Moore family Kiefts – chassis C51-2 and C52-3 – as they left the factory en-route to New Zealand in 1951. Yes, the truck remained in the UK…(C Read Collection)
He was World Championship runner up in 1955-56 to England’s Peter Craven and Swede Ove Fundin. Fellow Kiwi, Barry Briggs won the championship in 1957-58 when Ronnie raced Formula 2 cars while at the peak of his powers.
He formed a two car team – Kiwi Equipe – with fellow EnnZedder Ray Thackwell – father of Mike – and they ran a pair of Cooper T43 Climax’s in 1957-58.
The pair of them went very well, not least in Ronnie’s case because he had been dabbling with cars at home each summer. He and his dad bought a pair of Kieft 500s in 1951, the small engines were soon replaced with supercharged 1000cc Vincent Black Shadow Vee-twins. The cars were very much outright contenders in the Formula Libre. Ronnie recalled in ‘The Ronnie Moore Story’ that “The result was electrifying. I was once clocked at 125mph down Wigram’s main straight – and I was still in third gear.”
One second hand Kieft post its Wigram Big One in 1952. Nice road car until that point! (R Dew)
Moore had a very lucky escape at Wigram in 1952. He came through Hangar flat-chat to find Don Ransley in the middle of the track, Ransley had spun Les Moore’s Alfa 8C2300 sportscar, “I piled straight in and the world started spinning around.”
“It was like hitting an express train, the Kieft somersaulted and came to rest upside down with me trapped underneath. I was conscious and couldn’t move, then fuel started running out of the tank and over me. I was in agony and there was real danger of the car exploding. The three or four minutes I was under the car seemed like an eternity. Appalled at what happened, Don Ransley through caution to the wind, leapt out of the Alfa and single-handedly turned the Kieft over…Apart from surface abrasions, there was nothing seriously wrong with me a few days in bed wouldn’t cure. The poor Kieft was a different matter, about all I managed to salvage was a wheel and a few bits of the motor. The Alfa hardly had a scratch!”
Ronnie’s car racing career included testing duties of this speedway car. The Allard designed and built ‘Atom’ was a prototype of a proposed fleet of cars being considered for racing on British speedways the following year. Wimbledon, September 1955. He was caught out and rolled over by track ruts, Ronnie broke his collarbone but recovered quickly enough (G Woods Collection)Cooper T43 Climax FWB, Brands Hatch 1957. Date unknown, the number doesn’t work for any of the Brands meetings Ronnie contested that year (Daily Mail)
In two truncated F2 seasons – about eight meetings in 1957 and six in 1958 – Ronnie did very well against seasoned F1 drivers and up-and-comers. His best results include a win against few cars at Roskilde, third in the Rochester Trophy at Brands and a fourth at Mallory Park. The race winners of meetings Moore contested were Jack Brabham, Tony Marsh and Roy Salvadori aboard Cooper T43s, and Maurice Trintignant on a factory Ferrari Dino 156.
His 1958 results included third at Brands in May and a pair of fourths in the Pau GP and Annerley Trophy at Crystal Palace. Race winners in his six ’58 meetings were the Trintignant, McLaren, Ian Burgess, Stuart Lewis-Evans and Syd Jensen Coopers (T43 and T45 Climaxes) and Cliff Allison’s Lotus 12 Climax.
Moore’s promising and way-too-short car racing career came to an end after a plea from his wife Jill, who was in hospital, giving birth to twin-daughters, Kim and Lea at the time. “She asked me if I’d quit. You break an arm or a leg in speedway, but you get over that. But three of your friends have been killed in car racing this year,” she said.
Ivor Bueb, Maserati 250F from Ronnie Moore’s Cooper T43 Climax during the September 1957 BRDC International Trophy meeting at Silverstone. Jean Behra won in a BRM P25, Bueb was ninth and Moore 17th (Getty)Crystal Palace, June 1957. The pair of Kiwi Equipe Cooper T43s – Ray Thackwell’s is the car beyond (Getty)
So Moore returned to Wimbledon for 1958, then in 1959 became Speedway World Champion again after fellow Kiwi Barry Briggs gave up some of his nitro-fuel so Ronnie could top up his tank before his fifth and final ride that day. He was runner-up again in 1960, to Fundin. Moore won the New Zealand Speedway Championship in 1956, 1962, 1968 and 1969.
He returned home in 1963 after another broken leg, the family was ready to stop shuffling between New Zealand and England. Ronnie invested in a motorcycle business and even re-activated the ‘Wall of Death’ show.
Sure enough he soon got the competitive twitches, feeling as though he had unfinished business and made a return to international racing in 1969, riding for Wimbledon and reaching the World Championship final at the ripe old age of 36. In 1970, he took the World Pairs Championship with fellow speedway great Ivan Mauger, at Malmo Stadium in Sweden .
At Belle Vue Stadium, Manchester in 1969Ronnie working on his bike in 1969. As to the make of frame and engine, your guess is as good as mine (Daily Mail)
1974 saw the first ’Battle of the World Champions’ series held in New Zealand and Australia, featuring four world champions: Barry Briggs, Ronnie Moore, Ove Fundin and Ivan Mauger. It was during the Jerilderie Park Speedway round in New South Wales that Moore nearly lost his life. His gear was stolen and he had to borrow someone else’s to ride. He crashed, suffering serious head injuries and was lucky to survive.
Moore was awarded an MBE in 1985 by the Queen, is a member of the Motorcycle New Zealand, New Zealand Sports and World Speedway Halls of Fame and won the Canterbury Sports Legends award in 2014. The Canterbury Park Motorcycle Speedway was renamed the Moore Park Motorcycle Speedway.
Twice World Champion, three times World Championship runner up, four times New Zealand Champion, World Pairs Champion and many other career achievements, Ronnie Moore is a great icon of New Zealand motorcycle sport, he died of lung cancer in Christchurch on August 18, 2018, aged 85.
(G Woods Collection)
Jill, Ronnie, Shani, Gina, Kim and Lea Moore at home circa 1972.
Etcetera…
While Ronnie was enjoying success in the UK, Les had acquired two Jano Alfa Romeos, an 8C2300 (chassis number please?) and no less a P3 than chassis #50005, the car with which Tazio Nuvolari belted the Silver Arrows by winning the 1935 German Grand Prix.
Moore found the P3 tricky to drive but won the Lady Wigram Trophy on the RNZAF airfield of the same name in 1951-52. Les died at the wheel of a celebrated NZ Special, the RA4 Vanguard, at Saltwater Creek, Timaru in October 1960 after the car rolled.
Valerie, Clarice, Les and Ron Moore with P3 Alfa Romeo after the 1952 Lady Wigram trophy victory (G Woods Collection)Moore at Wimbledon in 1955 (unattributed)
As mentioned above, the Atom was built by Allard to the order and brief of Wimbledon Speedway owner Ronnie Green in 1955, he was keen to ‘spice-up the show’.
Powered by a 500cc JAP speedway and clutch assembly, the 64-inch wheelbase car used an Allard Clipper chassis and many Ford components. Two were built. Click here for a great article about the project on The Allard Register website: http://www.allardregister.org/blog/2010/7/9/the-allard-atom.html
(unattributed)(unattributed)
Showtime! Date and place unknown. “Ronnie Moore on the Bally-rollers and Graham Pickup with the microphone. A free show outside the wall to attract punters to the show,” recalled Lindsay Mouat.
Craig Norman chipped in, “I was too scared to watch the actual show but I vividly remember watching spellbound at his outside display. He had perfect control and balance.”
(unattributed)
Credits…
This piece uses as a base an article written by Motorcycling NZ historian Ian Dawson on the occasion of Moore’s admission to the MNZ Hall of Fame in 2012. Getty Images, F2 Index, Graham Woods, Chris Read Collection, ‘The Ronnie Moore Story’ by Rod Dew, Alan Jeffries, Lindsay Mouat, Craig Norman
Tailpiece…
Ronnie Moore, Geoff Mardon, Ove Fundin, George White and Peter Craven prepare to compete in the Speedway World Championship at Wembley in September 1959.
All of these PR shots were taken during daytime, before the crowds arrived…
“A group of Rileys during the (Victorian) Centenary Grand Prix – January 1 1935 – weekend at Phillip Island,” wrote David Trunfull.
“The Ulster Imp is being driven by Bill Williamson, his passenger is Air Commodore Johnny Summers. The Brooklands #6 is being driven by Bill Galpin from New Zealand, the passenger is MC Shmith. This car is the ex-Riley works car that won the 1933 AGP driven by Bill Thompson. Brooklands 63.902 is being driven by Merton Wreford, his passenger is Alan Wyatt, the source of this photo. Wreford worked for the Riley distributor, BL Cohen.”
Another shot from the same event. “#6 is the Bill Thompson 1933 AGP car. It was brought over specially for the Centenary 300 by Bill Galpin but for some unknown reason it didn’t take place in the race.”
Trunfull, “The ex-Riley team car was raced in the UK by Sir Malcolm Campbell, AK v.d Becke and Sir Chris Staniland.” “The Brooklands also won the 1949 inaugural Lady Wigram Trophy (on the RNZAF Christchurch airforce base of the same name ) in the hands of Morrie Proctor. It still resides in Christchurch,” chipped in John Newell.
The car on the right is another ex-Riley team car which is said to have been a spare for the 1934 Ulster Tourist Trophy. BL Cohen Pty Ltd imported it in 1934, Bill Williamson raced it for them. The Head brothers later owned and raced it, fitting a 12/4 race engine.”
“This car (the Imp) is now one by Ian Ruffley’s family, the original Ulster Imp engine is probably fitted to the late Terry Moran’s car,” wrote Jim Runciman.
This shot from Tony Johns “was taken during the 1932 AGP weekend at Phillip Island.” #14 is the ninth placed Bill Williamson driven Riley, car #19 Ken McKinney’s Austin 7 DNF. Bill Thompson won the race in a Bugatti T37A.
A bit of trivia, “if you enlarge the photo, the open door on the left has CRD (Cyril Dickason) and RCM (Clarrie May) and CRW (Cec Warren) who would have shared the same garage when they raced Austins in the 1931 AGP the year before.”
Credits…
The Car, David Trunfull, Jim Runciman, John Newell, Tony Johns, VSCC NSW Archive
Bruce McLaren tips his Cooper T70 Climax into Shell corner at Sandown during the 1964 Tasman Cup round – the Australian Grand Prix – DNF engine in the race won by Jack Brabham. See here: https://primotipo.com/2020/04/20/mclaren-cooper-t70-sandown/
The ‘first McLarens’ – two Cooper T70s – built by Bruce McLaren and Wally Willmott at Coopers in late 1963 have been very much in the news, and star of the historic show at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix carnival given it’s 60 years since Bruce McLaren won the very first Tasman Cup driving the two T70s that summer. Bruce won three of the eight rounds – NZ GP at Pukekohe, Lady Wigram Trophy and Teretonga International – in this car #T70 FL-2-64, so too did Jack Brabham (Brabham BT7A Climax), but Bruce had the better haul of points.
Sadly, Tim Mayer crashed the car Bruce is driving above, to his death at Longford three weeks after Sandown. The surviving car (#FL-1-64) is owned by Adam Berryman, proudly showing off a car which has been in the family since 1974 at Government House, Melbourne on March 21. See here for more about the T70: https://primotipo.com/2016/11/18/tim-mayer-what-might-have-been/
(M Bisset)(M Bisset)(Eisert Family)
Aussie Ace, Bob Muir alongside the ex-Gary Campbell/Jones-Eisert Lola T330 Chev HU14 during the 1973 US L&M F5000 Championship round at Laguna Seca. Jerry Eisert is alongside Muir, John Wright is attending to the right-front, with Peter Molloy in the white top to the left.
Reg Hunt’s Maserati A6GCM/250 during the 1955 Moomba TT meeting held at Albert Park on March 26-27. I’m not so sure its the prosperous motor dealer owner at the wheel.
Hunt had a great weekend with his new car – a 2.5-litre Maserati 250F engined A6GCM – winning the Argus Cup 50-miler and one heat of the Argus Trophy 50-mile feature. He led the final until the red car’s crown wheel and pinion failed, giving Doug Whiteford’s well driven old Talbot-Lago T26C a lucky win.
Hunt turned the local scene on its head with this car, it was the most recent Grand Prix car imported to Australia for many a long year. All of his motor dealer rivals had to reach way-deep into their pockets to keep up with the Brighton Road dealer. See here for more on this car: https://primotipo.com/2017/12/12/hunts-gp-maser-a6gcm-2038/
Holden 48-215 at Albert Park was about the extent of the State Library of Victoria caption, before 1970 Australian Rally Champion, Bob Watson came to the rescue.
“It’s a BP Rally of the 1950s, possibly Lex Davison driving. A sub-event in Albert Park at the end of the rally, later events finished at Chadstone Shopping Centre on Mother’s day in front of huge crowds.” See here: https://primotipo.com/2018/12/06/general-motors-holden-formative/
(SLNSW-R Donaldson)
Ross Jensen on the way to victory of the 1959 Bathurst 100 held over the Easter long-weekend, Maserati 250F, #2509/2504. He is negotiating Hell Corner before heading up Mountain Straight.
It was a terrific win by the visiting Kiwi, all of our Top-Guns were there but Ross beat the lot: Stan Jones, Arnold Glass, Len Lukey, Alec Mildren, Doug Whiteford and others. He was as sharp-as-a-tack having raced for the works-Lister Jaguar team in Europe in 1958 upon the recommendation of Archie Scott Brown who had raced his works-lister in New Zealand in the Summer of ’58 and was impressed by what he saw.
That’s Len Lukey congratulating him below, #5 is Len’s Cooper T45 Climax 2-litre, the 250F on the far side is Glass’s. Love the proboscis…
(SLNSW-R Donaldson)(Auto Action)
Colin Bond, Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 during the 1975 Phillip Island 500k enduro, a round of the Australian Manufacturers Championship.
1948 Australian Grand Prix winner, Frank Pratt, and passenger Alick Smith at Phillip Island, date unknown. Pratt, a Geelong motor cycle dealer and racer, had famously barely done any car racing when he won that Point Cook, RAAF Airbase, AGP (photo below). See here: https://primotipo.com/2021/09/27/werrangourt-archive-10-george-martins-bmw-328/
Alain Prost during the West End Jubilee South Australian Open Pro-am golf tournament held at Kooyonga during the 1986 Australian Grand Prix week in Adelaide.
He looks pretty relaxed, and the weekend worked out mighty fine too.
Poor old Nigel had his 180mph Williams FW11 Honda 1.5 V6 tyre blowout, so his teammate Piquet was brought in for a precautionary tyre change and Alain’s McLaren MP4/2C TAG-Porsche 1.5 V6 won the race…and the title(s) in a thriller-diller of a race: Drivers and Constructors.
Glen Dix flags an ecstatic Alain Prost home in the 1986 AGP. His McLaren wasn’t as fast as the FW11 Williams that year but he chipped away with a mix of speed and consistency: the Fab-Four in ‘86 were Mansell, Piquet, Senna…and Prost(SLV)
Sportscar grid at Warwick Farm circa 1967. Frank Matich, Matich SR3 Oldsmobile, Bob Jane, Elfin 400 Repco, Glyn Scott’s Lotus 23B Ford and Bill Brown – perhaps – in the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM. More on Matich’s Ferrari muncher here: https://primotipo.com/2023/04/02/matich-sr3/
Nigel Mansell blasts away from a pitstop on the Surfers Paradise road circuit during the March 21, 1993 Australian Indycar Grand Prix, Lola T93/00 Ford Cosworth XB V8.
In a portent of things to come that year, series debutant Mansell won the opening round of the ’93 CART Championship. He won five of the 16 rounds, and the championship with 191 points, fellow ex-F1 World Champ, Emerson Fittipaldi was second on 183, Penske PC22 Chev.
(C Denby)
Not so much thought of as a racing car in Australia, Leyland’s P76 4.4-litre V8 got a run in New Zealand’s annual B &H 1000 enduro, in this case the 1975 event at Pukekohe.
This one was raced by the very experienced and successful David Oxton and Garry Pederson who finished fourth, the winning car was another Australian car, a Valiant Charger – usually dominant in this race – driven by Wayne Wilkinson and Bryan Innes.
Chris Denby, in an amusing Facebook post relates the story of the exhaust problem which befell the similar car raced by Dauntsey Teagle and Jim Murdoch. “Over a few laps its impressive engine became ‘uncorked’, which injected some great V8 sound into its otherwise fairly subdued race noise.”
“Suddenly it sounded more lie a stock-car than a production saloon – very impressive in the stand. The stewards were quick to act, within minutes a message came over the Tannoy asking if any spectator had a P76 V8 in the carpark would he allow his car to be relieved of its exhaust system to help a race team on the track (they faced exclusion otherwise).”
“That approach didn’t work. A later Tannoy message said, ‘If a spectator with a Leyland P76 notices a much louder than normal exhaust note upon leaving the track, don’t worry, the race mechanics will fix it before you depart…”
(MotorSport)
Vern Schuppan contesting the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in March 1973, BRM P160D.
The Victorian Governor’s Australian GP party is a wonderful event on the Thursday before the race, here is Jenny and Vern Schuppan on March 21, 2024.
Vern has just turned 81 and is a sharp as a tack. The couple live in a penthouse apartment in the Adelaide Markets – on the AGP course – and split their time between there, visiting their son and family in Melbourne, their daughter in Cambridge, and another home in Portugal.
(M Bisset)(SLNSW)
Fred Withers at Penrith aboard the Marcus Clark & Company owned Cleveland Six racer, circa 1925.
It’s hard to believe that department stores once sold cars, but there-ya-go! This company was founded by Marcus Clark in Newtown, Sydney in 1883 and by the early 1900s was a colossus operating from buildings like this on the corner of Pitt and George Streets, Railway Square, Sydney.
(Hall & Co)(Nambour Chronicle January 22, 1926)
Withers raced the Cleveland Six at Penrith and Maroubra Speedways in New South Wales/Sydney and at Aspendale, outside Melbourne in the 1920s. He was also a record-breaker of some repute using Cleveland and Essex products.
He was famous at the time for some crazy jumps performed with his Essex to gain column-inches in the dailies, this shot was taken in 1927.
(J Sherwood Collection)(P Jones)
Frank Matich contesting the 1970 New Zealand Grand Prix in his much-modified McLaren M10A Chev at Pukekohe. FM had a pretty good Tasman Series, winning here at Pukekohe and at Wigram a week later. While he had the pace, he didn’t have Graeme Lawrence’s Ferrari Dino 246T reliability. Graeme prevailed by five points, 30 to 25.
(T Glenn)
A little later, from 1971-74, Frank Matich and his small team designed and built six F5000 cars: three A50s, two A51s – one A51 evolved into the short-lived A52 – and this A53, the very last of the breed.
Matich A53/007 in build in FM’s ‘shop in Military Road, Cremorne in late 1973 (D Kneller)
Credits…
Getty Images, State Library of Victoria, Charles Pratt-State Library of Victoria, Rennie Ellis, MotorSport Images, Chris Denby, Peter Jones, John Sherwood Collection in ‘Half a Century of Speed’ by Tony & Pedr Davis and Barry Lake, Bob Williamson Collection, Eisert Family Collection, Derek Kneller, State Library of NSW-Lynch, Tony Glenn, oldracingcars.com
Maybach 2 on display at the Melbourne International Motor Show, Exhibition Buildings, April 1-10 1954 (D Zeunert Collection)
A while back I published an article about Maybach 1, the first in a series of three chassis – four cars – built by Charlie Dean/Repco Research and Ernie Seeliger between 1947 and 1958. Click on this link to that piece: https://primotipo.com/2024/01/15/maybach-1-technical-specifications/
As with that article, this one is also a copy of the technical specifications and evolution of these machines published in the Australian Motor Sports Annual 1958-59. The author’s name isn’t cited, so I’ve credited it to John Goode, the book’s editor.
The photo choices are mine, so too the are the Notes sections. I’m taking as-read a general knowledge of Maybach, but if you need a refresher, click on the links at the end of this piece.
(L Sims)
Introduction…
Here are three photographs to illustrate the journey from Maybach 1 in 1947 to Maybach 1 Series 3 – the 1954 New Zealand Grand Prix winner in Stan Jones’ hands – to get us to the start of this article, Maybach 2, which commenced its life in April 1954.
The shot above shows Charlie Dean and the brave Jack Joyce aboard Maybach 1 at Rob Roy during the Melbourne Cup long-weekend in November 1947. What a wild road car the beast would have made, the car received its body immediately prior to the 1948 Australian Grand Prix held at Point Cook, in Melbourne’s inner-west.
(G Thomas)
The shot above shows Dean on-the-hop at Rob Roy in 1948 – Maybach 1 painted in its original white – and below coloured blue, on test at Willsmere, near Dean’s Kew home circa 1951. And then below that, the Repco advertisement shows Maybach 1 Series 3 winning the 1954 NZ GP at Ardmore.
(D Stubbs)Compare and contrast: Maybach 1 Series 3 above, with Maybach 2 below (B Caldersmith)
MAYBACH II (April 1954-November 29, 1954)…
ENGINE: 6 cyl. in-line single oh. camshaft. Bore and stroke: 91 × 110mm. Capacity: 4,250 c.c. Output: 257 b.h.p. at 5,000 .p.m. (bench tested). Carburettors: Three 2 3/16″ S.U. Compression Ratio: 11 to 1. Fuel used: 60% Methanol, 20% Benzol, 20% Aviation Petrol Octane rating: 110. Cast iron cylinder block with wet liners.
Single casting cast iron cylinder block and crankcase, with sump joint well below the crankshaft centre line. Crankshaft machined all over and fully counter balanced, running in eight white metal lined bearings, one between each crank throw and an extra one behind the camshaft drive pinion situated at rear end of crankshaft. Wet liners fitted to cylinder bores with lightweight balanced connecting rods and other reciprocating parts.
Single camshaft running in seven white metal bearings, opening valves by means of rocker arms fitted with eccentric bushes which could be rotated and locked to adjust valve clearances. Rockers had roller cam followers. Valves inclined at 65 degrees in hemispherical head and located on opposite sides. Helical timing gears with idler (originally compounded fabric, but replaced by steel).
Wet sump lubrication through filter with pressure fed oil supplied to centre main bearings, then to other caps, and through the crankshaft to big end bearings. Also fed to valve rocker shafts and camshaft bearings.
Complete body and chassis redesign converting it into a single seater. Mk. I Series 3 Maybach motor used.
NOTES:
The wording in relation to the chassis is misleading. Maybach 1’s chassis was set aside – tired and much modified as it was – and a new single-seater chassis was designed and fabricated for Maybach 2.
The engine came from a German half-track vehicle captured during the Middle East campaign and shipped to Australia for technical study by the military.
Maybach 2 in the Southport paddock during the November 1954 Australian Grand Prix meeting, racer, Owen Bailey at far left (VSCC Collection)Stan being pushed onto the grid. He led the race before a chassis weld broke on lap 14 of 27, pitching him down the road at high speed. Jones was miraculously ok but Maybach 2 was very dead (J Psaros)
TRANSMISSION: Gearbox: four speed using Fiat 525 case with Repco manufactured gears. Ratios: First- 7.08:1 Second-4.94:1 , Third-3.78:1, Top-3.14:1.
DRIVESHAFT: Dropped to pass beneath back axle and driving a short forward shaft into differential through two helical gears, easily accessible from rear, permitting alteration to overall ratios up or down by 3%. Differential: Resembled American Four Lock locking type constructed by Repco workshops from their own and American components. Rear Axle: Vibrac type high tensile steel.
CHASSIS: Frame: Based on two 4″ dia. 16 gauge steel tubes.
Suspension: Front – Independent with wishbones and Delco shock absorbers with low placed 3 leaf traverse spring. Rear Panhard type with reversed quarter elliptic springs and torque arms anchored to heavy cross member linking two main longitudinal tubes of the chassis. Tubular Monroe Wylie shock absorbers.
Steering: Peugeot rack and pinion.
Brakes: Paton’s Hydraulic using twin parallel master cylinders, one operating front and one the rear. Action on both integral but operation separate permitting one set in action if others fail. Front shoes, twin leading design with I6in. special helically finned drums, cooled by air scoops to forward sides. Rear shoes of leading and trailing type in 14 in. drums.
Wheels: Locally constructed wire type with Rudge Whitworth hubs. Front 18″ dia. Tyres: 5.25 × 18. Rear 16″ dia. Tyres: 7.00 x 16.
Body: Single light aluminium shell easily removable in three seclions. Fuel Capacity: 25 gallons in tail mounted aluminium tank.
Dimensions: Wheelbase 94″ • Track: Front 4 ft. 3 ins. Rear 4 ft. I ins. Weight: 16 cwt. Power/weight ratio: 7 Ibs. per b.h.p.
“Rare photograph showing the front crossmember of Maybach 2 where the chassis tube broke” (S Scholes Collection-Wheels May 1955)
NOTES:
In many ways Maybach 2 was the one that got away…
It went like a jet from the start, Jones won the Victorian Trophy at Fishermans Bend in March 1954 on its race debut, then won again at the Easter Bathurst meeting where he took the two preliminaries before gearbox failure scuttled his run in the feature. He was victorious again at Altona in May and was second to Jack Brabham’s Cooper T23 Bristol there in June. At Fishermans Bend in October he had gearbox failure again.
Then it was off to Southport for the AGP in November where Stan simply drove away from the field until the chassis weld failure caused the massive accident that destroyed the car, and from which Jones very fortunately walked away…
This 4.2-litre 257bhp @ 5000 rpm, 725kg monoposto was one helluva fast racing car.
In the woulda-coulda-shoulda stakes were the battles we never got to see with Stan aboard Maybach 2 and Reg Hunt’s Maserati A6GCM/250 in 1955. Hunt upped the local ante big-time when he imported a current GP car, and was immediately quick in it, his talent refined with some 500cc F3 racing aboard a Cooper MkVIII in Europe in 1954.
Reg’s Maserati gave about 240bhp @ 7200rpm and weighed between 500-580kg. Both the Maserati and Maybach 2 had four-speed ‘boxes, IFS and live-rear axles. Maybach’s weakness was its ginormous, all cast iron engine which weighed circa 320kg; let’s not forget it was designed for the German military not competition use. The 250F engine’s quoted weight is 197kg, much of the weight differences between the two cars is in engine weight.
While torque figures for Maybach 2 weren’t quoted, the long stroke 4.2-litre six would have produced more torque than its twin-cam Italian competitor but not, one suspects, enough to offset the considerable weight disadvantage.
Whatever the case, when Maybach 2 was destroyed at Southport, all of the momentum gained by building, racing, and refining the car was lost. Maybach 3 (below) didn’t appear until the April 1955 Bathurst 100 weekend when the team started the process again, by which time Reg was used to and exploiting his car successfully.
What is my point? The Repco-Maybach program effectively ended post-Southport, with only one remaining engine to instal in Maybach 3, a 3.8-litre unit at that. Stan confronting Reg in 1955 aboard Maybach 2 really would have been something to see…woulda-coulda-shoulda.
AMS Annual 1958-59Jones in Maybach 3 during the 1956 South Pacific Championship (R Donaldson)
MAYBACH III (1955 – Jan 1956)…
ENGINE: 6 cyl. in-line inclined 60 degrees to left. Shortened stroke crankshaft (approx. 10% ). Bore and stroke: 90 × 100 mm. Capacity: 3,800 c.c. Compression Ratio: 11 to 1. Power Output: 260 b.h.p. at 5,000 r.p.m. Direct fuel injection by Dean and Irving.
TRANSMISSION: Clutch: Repco single plate. Gearbox: Four speed with top overall ratio 3.2 to 1. Drive: Open propeller shaft passing on right of driver to offset differential. Differential: limited slip (as previous model).
Charlie Dean at Rob Roy, date unknown. The competition debut of Maybach 3, was at Templestowe Hillclimb on May 8, 1955. 68.56sec where Dean was third in the over 3-litre racing car class (SLV)(SLV)(Davey-Milne)Rob Roy again. Despite the fuzziness, note the the considerable reduction in engine height achieved by the 60-degree laydown of the Maybach six (Davey-Milne)
CHASSIS: Frame: Built up from two 4″ dia. steel tubes, linked by transverse tubing. Redesigned body of flatter appearance due to inclined engine.
Suspension: Front – Independent with transverse leaf spring set low. Rear Quarter elliptics with radius rods.
Dimensions: Wheelbase 95″. Track Front 4 ft. 3 ins. Rear 4 ft. 1 in. Steering: Marles box and divided track rod.
Maybach 3 in the Gnoo Blas paddock in 1956. Trumpets of Repco built fuel injection clear (B Caldersmith)(B Caldersmith)
NOTES:
The beginning of the end. Jones (above) is an absolute bolter at the start of the January 1956 South Pacific Championship at Gnoo Blas, New South Wales.
Reg Hunt’s new Maserati 250F is way back here but will reel Stan in. Being pushed hard to hang onto the very best European F1 car of the day, the Maybach engine let go in a big way.
Jones had a 250F several months later. Stan let his good friend, ace engineer/mechanic/racer Ern Seeliger loose on Maybach, its evolution to Chev Corvette 283 V8 power and other modifications – Maybach 4 – was soon underway.
(B Caldersmith)(AMS Annual 1959-60)Stan Jones, Maybach 4 Chev, Australian Grand Prix, Lowood, June 1960 DNF engine (B Thomas)
MAYBACH IV March- 1958…
ENGINE: Chevrolet Corvette 8 cyl. Vee motor. 4.6 litre. Compression ratio: 9.2:1. Bore and stroke: 98.501 × 76 mm stroke. 2 four-barrel Carter Carbs. 274 b..p. at 6,000 r.p.m. 300 Ibs. torque at 3,500 r.p.m. All oilways completely modified. Bearings altered in regard to oil ways. Engine dry sumped. Modified cooling system.
GEARBOX: As previous Maybach. Drive: As previous Maybach. Differential: As previous Maybach modified with shortened axles incorporating constant velocity joints. Clutch: Seeliger designed and built multi-plate clutch.
CHASSIS: As previous Maybach but chassis lengthened lo take Di Dion rear end. New 30 gallon fuel tank fitted.
Suspension: As previous Maybach with mods. to front end by fitting an anti-roll bar incorporating brake forque rods and transverse leaf in place of quarter eliptics at rear.
Dimensions: Same as previous Maybach, but rear track widened to 4 ft. 2 ins. All up weight reduced to 14} cwt. with 4 gals. of petrol. Full oil and water.
NOTES: Ern Seeliger first ran Maybach 4 at Fishermans Bend in March 1958.
In one of The Great Australian Grands Prix, Stan Jones, Maserati 250F, Lex Davison, Ferrari 500/625 and Ted Gray, Tornado 2 Chev battled up front for most of the ‘58 race on Mount Panorama until Lex was the last-man-standing. Ern Seeliger drove a great race into second, with Tom Hawkes third in his much modified ex-Brabham Cooper T23 Repco-Holden.
Jones proved further the pace of Seeliger’s final Maybach evolution by winning a Gold Star round in it at Port Wakefield in 1959. It would have been very interesting to see what times Stan could have done in Ern’s car in practice at Bathurst over that ’58 AGP weekend!
(AMS Annual 1958-59)
Etcetera…
(VHRR Archive)
Prettiest of the lot in my opinion…Stan the Man on the way to winning the Victorian Trophy at Fishermans Bend in 1954, Maybach 2.
(B Caldersmith)Maybach 2 in the Southport paddock over the 1954 AGP weekend (J Psaros)
Starting grid of the 1955 Australian GP (or is a heat, whatever) at Port Wakefield, South Australia. #5 Reg Hunt, Maserati A6GCM/250, Jones, Maybach 3, #8 Tom Hawkes, Cooper T23 Bristol, #6 Jack Brabham in the winning Cooper T40 Bristol and #10 Kevin Neal, Cooper T23 Bristol.
This is a good contextual shot showing Jones in Maybach 3 – Mercedes W196 styling influence clear – among current’ish European cars: Reg Hunt’s Maserati A6GCM 2.5 – the so-called interim 250F – two Cooper T23s of Tom Hawkes #8 and Kevin Neal. Plus the nose of the winner and newest car here, Jack Brabham in the mid-engined Cooper T40 Bristol he built in time for the British Grand Prix at Aintree that July.
(G McKaige)
The final evolution of the Dean/Repco Research Maybach engine development programme. ‘Short-stroke’ 3.8-litre and fuel injected delivering circa 260bhp @ 5000rpm. George McKaige took this shot of Maybach 3 at Fishermans Bend in October 1955. I wonder what that plate in the engine bay says?
(Q Miles)
Great colour photograph of Maybach 4 Chev in the Lowood paddock inJune 1959. Note how the twin-Carter-carbed Corvette 283 V8 is offset to the right allowing the driver to sit low to the left rather than high atop the driveshaft.
Credits…
Australian Motor Sports Review 1958-59, Brian Caldersmith, Brier Thomas, Jock Tsaros, Davey-Milne Family Collection, George McKaige and Chester McKaige via their superb two ‘Beyond The Lens’ books, Stan Griffiths, Dacre Stubbs, VSCC Vic Collection, J Montasell, Clem Smith, Quentin Miles, Ron Edgerton Collection
Tailpiece…
(K Drage)
Towards the end of a very long competitive Maybach road.
Stan Jones lines Maybach 4 Chev up alongside Alec Mildren’s tiny, mid-engined 2-litre Cooper T45 Climax before the start of the South Australian Trophy, Port Wakefield Gold Star round in March 1959.
Jones won the race from Len Lukey and Keith Rilstone – it was the last championship level win for Maybach in-period.
One of my true racing loves is the 1970 F1 Ferrari 312B and its successors.
I’ve done it to death of course, this article tells its story in detail: https://primotipo.com/2016/02/26/life-is-all-about-timing-chris-amon-and-the-ferrari-312b/ But this series of shots of an engine change during practice in Clay Regazzoni’s 312B/001 during the 1970 German GP weekend at the Hockenheim Motordrom are too good to ignore. We’ll make this the first of a similar series of a largely pictorial nature.
Doug Nye characterises this Mauro Forghieri – and team – designed machine as one the best integrated F1 Ferraris. The photographs here convey clearly why this is so.
Clay Regazzoni and Jacky Ickx, Ferrari 312Bs sandwich the winning Lotus 72C Ford of Jochen Rindt during the early laps at Hockenheim (LAT)(LAT)
The four main-bearing twelve cylinder engine – a Flat-12 or 180-degree V12 – depending upon your engineering religion of choice – was a paragon of reliable power after the early challenges experienced largely by Chris Amon circa-September 1969 were overcome.
These shots show how low, wide and compact it was. All that weight sat low in the chassis with the wild monocoque carrying the engine ‘underslung’. At that early stage of its development, Ferrari quote an output of 450bhp @ 12000rpm, a capacity of 2991.01cc and bore/stroke of 78.5×51.5mm.
(LAT)
Devoid of tyres, Regga’s #312B/001 sits on its tummy.
Note the inboard rocker front suspension – Ferrari had used this set up continually since the 1963 156 Aero – and clever way in which the aero-element rollbar stay ‘triangulates’ the monocoque boom. Oh to have been there to watch the engine replacement!
Ferrari still used their ‘Aero semi-monocoque’ at this stage, in that the tubular steel chassis had aluminium panels riveted to it with the engine used as a semi-stressed member.
Five of these chassis were built: 312B/001 – #312B/004 albeit #312B/002 was re-tubbed after Jacky Ickx’ collision with Jack Oliver’s BRM P153 during the 1970 Spanish GP. All four cars exist, what lucky owners they are! See oldracingcars.com for chassis by chassis details: https://www.oldracingcars.com/ferrari/312b/
#312B/001 was Ickx’ usual chassis throughout that season: the Austrian, Canadian and Mexican GP winner. As the chassis number suggests, this machine was the first built. It was entered for Chris Amon in the 1969 Italian Grand Prix but failed to take to the track after engine failure in three test sessions at Modena in the lead up to Monza.
(LAT)
Jochen Rindt won the Hockenheim race that weekend during the mid-season run of victories – the Dutch, French, British and German GPs – that gave the fearless Austrian enough points to win the World Drivers Championship posthumously. With a little more luck it could have been Jacky Ickx, but karma, thankfully prevailed.
In Germany the top-three qualifiers were Ickx, Rindt and Regazzoni. While the Ferrari challenge was strong, newcomer Regga – who won the Italian GP in September – led laps 22 and 23 of the race and was then slowed and retired with gearbox trouble in the 50 laps race.
Rindt’s win from Ickx was a good one, Denis Jenkinson noted in MotorSport that “As was very evident in Zandvoort it was the Lotus 72 showing superiority over the other competitors, rather than the driver…he (Rindt) won by only 0.7 sec from Ickx but the win was convincing as he was able to pass the Ferrari whenever he wished…”
(LAT)
More often than not the floor is a key contributor to the structural rigidity of both spaceframe and monocoque chassis – glued and riveted as they often are – but apparently not so much with this Ferrari, the floor of which was seemingly located by removable bolts. There are rubber fuel-bags within the monocoque on each side, mandated by the FIA from 1970.
(LAT)(MotorSport)
Front suspension long top rocker and wide based lower wishbone, steering rack and steering arm mounting ‘ear’ on the upright on one of the 312Bs at Kyalami during the 1970 South African GP weekend.
Credits…
LAT Images, oldracingcars.com, Ferrari.com
Tailpiece…
(LAT)
Is Borsari the mechanic? I know the face of the longtime Scuderia man, I’m just not so sure of the name. Look how Forghieri is shifting weight to the very rear of the car: the Varley battery and neatly faired oil radiators. Outboard rear suspension is period-typical: cast magnesium uprights, single top links, inverted lower wishbones and twin radius rods, plus coil-spring/Koni dampers.
This is the second in an occasional series of articles plucked from the early issues of Autocourse, via the collection of my friend, racer and historian, Tony Johns.
In the unlikely event one could find Formula 1 articles of a technical type amongst all of the ‘Drive to Survive’ inspired dull, shit-boring, insipid dross in most magazines these days, one on racing spark plugs would be the last to expect!
These days they are a purchase-instal-and-forget item but once upon a time one’s méchanicien needed to be able to anticipate, read, and change plugs to suit the changing weather and other circumstances throughout a race weekend. Remember the shots of a mechanic labouring in the pits and paddock under big wooden boxes of plugs?
This article was written by Herr G Werner, a Bosch employee.
Oh yes, the opening shot is before the off, Spa, the Grand Prix de Belgique, June 17, 1951. Juan Manuel Fangio #2 is on pole in his Alfa Corse Alfa Romeo 159 with Giuseppe Farina alongside in another Alfa; the 1951 and 1950 World Champions of course. Farina won from the pair of Scuderia Ferrari Ferrari 375 V12s driven by Alberto Ascari and Luigi Villoresi.
Car #12 on the second row is Piero Taruffi’s Ferrari 375 (DNF rear axle) and #8 Ascari. Farina took 2hr 45min 46.2sec to complete the 36-lap, 316-mile race through the daunting, high speed swoops and dives of the Ardennes road circuit.
Fangio finished ninth and last. He was gradually catching Farina in the lead, when he pitted for fuel and tyres after 14 laps but no amount of hammering by the mechanics of the left rear wheel would move it (below). In the end the poor technicians removed the brake drum and wheel assembly, losing nearly 15 minutes in total. Fangio rejoined last of the remaining ten runners and four laps adrift of Farina.
Autocourse notes the following in relation to the Fangio and Farina 159s, “Fitted with an oval-section petrol tank each side of the driver extending forwards to the bulkhead and an oval-section tank on the right-hand side of the engine under the exhaust manifold. Fangio’s car had a De Dion back axle.”
(MotorSport)(Autocourse)
The Racing Plug : Its selection and the factors which influence its efficiency
Much has been written about sparking plugs. A whole science has evolved around them and their correct choice, and they have been become an inexhaustible theme for discussion at large motor sport events. A glance at the problem of the correct choice of sparking plugs will prove ample justification for this.
The purpose of our article is the discussion of the “Racing Plug”. Although its construction and requirements are entirely different from those of a normal plug, they have nevertheless many things in common.
One thing is expected from every type of plug. At exactly the right moment it must produce a sufficiently powerful spark for the fuel mixture in the cylinder of the engine to be ignited and for the chemical energy of the fuel to be converted into heat and work, thus giving life to the engine.
For obvious reasons a racing engine makes more specialised demands on the construction and material of the plug than does an ordinary engine. The right choice of a racing plug for a particular race needs much experience and knowledge of the many factors which play their part in the functioning of the plug. These problems will shortly be considered.
For every race the type of track and its length are common knowledge. The tuning of the engine develops from these known facts and from the conditions laid down in the regulations.
The type of fuel to be used will be either prescribed or left to choice. On it depends the compression ratio, the carburettor adjustment, the degree to which the ignition is to be advanced and, of course, the sparking plug itself. The length of the race and the engine’s performance determine the fuel consumption and accordingly the number of stops required for refuelling during long races. Fuels with a high alcoholic content raise problems different from petrol, benzol or a mixture of these two.
A two-stroke engine using a fuel-oil mixture requires a different plug from a four-stroke engine.
The weather is also a factor to be taken into consideration, as changes may occur between practice days and the actual day of the race. Even the most ideal carburettor and ignition adjustments may have to be changed if, for example, it is raining on the day of the race whilst during practice it was bright and dry.
We need hardly tell the experts, whether firms or individuals, how to adjust their engines so as to be “fit” for a particular race, but there are the younger ones without the experience of the more seasoned enthusiasts to whom perhaps a few hints might be of value. If amongst these tips there is something new to the old hands, we shall be doubly rewarded.
We feel that perhaps fifty years’ experience of plugs has given us some authority and we make no apology for stating our views.
I. What sparking plugs are required when the length and conditions of the race are known ?
This question, in so far as heat value is concerned, will, in most cases, be resolved after practice, but to some extent the driver must know the sort of plug he requires, at least the plug thread-either 18 mm. or 14 mm. thread diameter and 12 1/2 mm. or 18 mm. reach.
2. The higher the compression ratio, r.p.m. and consequently the engine pertormance, the higher the heat value of the plug must be, if self-ignition is to be avoided
3. Tracks which have no gradients and where corners can be taken without loss of speed present no great difficulty in the choice of the right heat value of the plug. Then, a high heat value and consequently a cold or hard plug is preferable as there is less danger of the plug becoming dirty or oily.
4. On tracks with steep gradients and many corners when brakes and accelerators are much in use it is different.
When decelerating and consequently pouring less fuel mixture into the cylinder a momentary depression results in the combustion chamber. This causes oil to seep through the piston rings which brings with it a danger of the plugs getting oily and the formation of a carbon deposit. If carbon enters the plug, it may well stop the plug from firing, as carbon is an electrical conductor. This conductor may cause a short and instead of the plug sparking, the impulse will be diverted to the secondary circuit. It will be seen therefore that conditions demand special care in the choice of plug, as it is important to ensure that the plug does not become overheated during long races on fast circuits.
On the other hand the plug must not become oily when braking at corners or descending slopes; it must reach such a temperature to ensure that all the carbon is burnt up thus avoiding the formation of a secondary circuit. This temperature is approximately 500 degrees centigrade at the points.
5. If the driver removes his plug during practice after a fast run and discovers (generally by means of a magnifying glass) that a fine light grey metal deposit, the size of a microscopic pearl, has formed on the electrodes and insulator, then there has been an error, even if, according to the driver’s opinion, the engine has been running well. This metal deposit means that the ignition was too advanced and that there is a burning of the piston. Here, too, it may be advisable to use a colder plug with a correspondingly higher heat value. But the most important factor of all is a correct ignition adjustment.
6. The metal washer between the plug and the engine must not be forgotten. This washer must fit well but not too tightly. If too tightly fitted, then the piece between the thread and the plug body will become strained and looseness will result. The looseness brings about a deterioration of the thermal conductivity in the inner part of the plug which causes overheating.
Plug-box to the fore on the scuttle of one of the Alfa 159s during the July 1951 British GP weekend at Silverstone (MotorSport)Bosch 1950s adPlug box atop the engine bay of a Ferrari 375 V12 again at Silverstone during the 1951 GP weekend. Twin-plug heads = 24 plugs, I wonder what a good time to change them all was? (MotorSport)
7. If the compression ratio of the engine is raised with a consequent increase in output, the temperature of the exhaust gas from the engine itself becomes relatively cooler. The ultimately greater output is due to the fact that more heat is converted into energy; thus proportionately less heat passes unused from the exhaust pipe.
The implication is that the engine would now appear to run cooler, and the most suitable plug would be one with a lower heat value. This, however, is not the case. Although the greater amount of heat converted into energy in the engine’s combustion chamber-the most economical use of the fuel-leads to a relatively lower temperature, the combustion gas temperature in the chamber itself and also of the plugs, pistons and valves become higher as the amount of heat being converted is greater. It will be realised, therefore, that a high compression ratio demands a correspondingly high heat value of the plug and therefore a colder one.
8. The amount that the ignition is advanced measured in the degrees of the angular movement of the crankshaft or in the mm. of the stroke, greatly influences the output and particularly the temperature of the plugs, the piston and valves. The more advanced the ignition, the longer the period of contact between the flame and the plug, the piston and valves, which naturally become correspondingly hotter. If the ignition is advanced then a colder plug with a higher heat value is necessary. It is, of course, well known that the ignition must be advanced when the amount of engine revolutions is increased.
9. No alteration can be made to the plug seat or to the position of the plug unless the cylinder-head is altered. Nevertheless it may be said that the shape of the combustion chamber as well as the position of the plug and of the ignition spark are of great importance to starting and accelerating and to the output of the engine.
10. The selection of the plug for a two-stroke racing engine, running on a mixture of fuel and oil should not be more difficult than the selection of a plug for a four-stroke engine. It has to be remembered of course, that fuel, to which oil has been added in the ratio of 1 : 15 or 1 : 20 requires a rather warmer plug as the danger of it getting dirty and of carbon forming is greater than with a four-stroke engine. Therefore a plug with too high a heat value should not be chosen.
11. In general the heat value of a plug for an air-cooled engine should be somewhat higher than for a water-cooled engine. The plug should be cooler for the simple reason that with an air-cooled engine the rate of loss of temperature from the plug to the cylinder is smaller and therefore the cylinder and the plug seat become hotter.
12. It should be said that in principle the temperature of the water in a water-cooled engine has little influence on the temperature of the plug. Therefore the water temperature should have little bearing on the choice of the heat value of the plug.
13. The type of fuel used has the greatest influence, not only on the output of the engine, on the fuel consumption and on the number of refuelling stops during long races, but also on the carburettor adjustment. In view of the large output required, the adjustment of the carburettor must be generous. This adjustment may well cause the plug to get dirty and especially will have an influence on the temperature of the plug in use.
It is well known that a fuel with a high alcohol content allows for high compression and therefore an increased output. As alcohol possesses a high vaporization heat, the engine, and to a certain degree, the plug, remain cool.
Unfortunately, the self-ignition temperature of the alcohol fuels is considerably lower than that of petrol and benzol. Therefore, self-ignition may take place, in spite of the fact that the knocking resistance of alcohol is higher than of hydrocarbon fuels, i.e., petrol and benzol.
14. It is hardly necessary to mention that should the engine, pistons, piston-rings, cylinder sleeve, valves, etc., be in bad condition, this may be responsible for the plug getting oily or dirty.
15. The weather, in particular, has a great influence on the selection of plugs. Not only the team manager, the driver and the mechanics, but also those who are responsible for plug service, may consider themselves lucky if the weather during the actual race remains the same as during practice.
If during practice the weather is hot and dry and the plugs are selected accordingly, but on the day of the race it is cold and rainy, then in most cases a new plug which gets warmer, i.e., with a lower heat value, must be selected. Conversely, if the weather changes change from cold and rain during practice to dry during the race, a higher heat value, ie, a colder plug is indicated.
The weather indeed poses a problem for plugs, but generally it is fair to say that the height of the barometer is proportional to the height of the heat value of the plug.
It is beyond the scope of this article to go into the many factors which influence ignition and the many different stages of combustion. Theses subjects will be dealt with at some later date.
(Werkfoto Bosch)
From left to right a typical range of racing plugs shown in assembling order of hardness. It will be seen that the gas volume in the mouth of the plug decreases with the plug’s increasing ability to stand heat.
This photograph shows Bosch racing plugs with a thread of 3/4 and 1/2 inch. For alloy cylinder heads the longer thread is used to safeguard against stripping while the shorter thread is quite satisfactory for cast heads. The plug lying in the middle shows the centre and earth electrodes and the spark gap.
Credits…
Autocourse No 2 1951, Editor Stanley Sedgwick. Tony Johns Collection
Tailpiece…
(Rudy Mailander)
“Louveau’s car after running out of road and overturning’. Swiss Grand Prix, Bern, May 27, 1951.” It looks like quite an accident…
Bern’s 4.52-miles wasn’t for the faint heated either, especially in the wet. “Henri Louveau ran out of road on (lap 31) the fast corner after passing the pits, overturning his Talbot , and sustained a broken leg.” He qualified his Ecurie Rosier Talbot-Lago T26C 11th of 21 starters in his second and last championship GP start. The race was won by Fangio from Taruffi. More about Louveau here: https://www.f1forgottendrivers.com/drivers/henri-louveau/
Autocourse described the challenges of the place thus, “The Bremgarten Circuit at Berne is at the same time perhaps the most beautifully situated and the most exacting course in Europe. The bends, curves, corners and gradients make constant demands upon both drivers and cars and the thickly-wooded stretches leave no margin for error.”
(MotorSport)
This shot of the Henri Louveau and Louis Rosier Talbot-Lago T26Cs shows rather well some of the perils of Bremgarten.
Reg Hunt, Maserati 250F, on his way to winning the Victorian Trophy at Fishermans Bend on February 12, 1956
Context…
Australian motorsport’s governing body was the Sydney based Royal Automobile Club of Australia until 1953 when the Melbourne based Confederation of Australian Motor Sport took over. CAMS Ltd trading as Motorsport Australia (CAMS) still rules the roost today.
One of the CAMS’ rare acts of decision-making excellence was the creation of the Australian Drivers Championship – the Gold Star – from 1957.
Lex Davison, Ferrari 500/625 was the first recipient of the award for points gained in nine rounds spread across all states except Tasmania – remedied in 1958 – on an 8-5-3-2-1 points basis for first to fifth places in each round.
1956 Faux Gold Star Championship…
I’ve thought for a long while that it would be interesting to summarise our elite level Formule Libre racing results by seasons, if for no other reason than when I want to research one thing or another a summary of the competitor set exists. Why not, I thought, extend the idea to calculating notional Gold Star points?
Of course it’s a fucking stupid thing to do as it simply didn’t happen! In the words of that great Australian philosopher, ‘Sir’ Frank Gardner, “If yer’ Aunty had balls she’d be yer’ Uncle”. In other words, deal with what is/was, rather than what isn’t/wasn’t.
But of course CAMS run a who-gives-a-fuck-about-facts (WGAFAF, pronounced ‘woggafaff’) motor racing history model. They don’t recognise the January 1927 Australian Grand Prix at Goulburn as the first AGP, yet we have 1928 and 1937 Australian Grands Prix, apparently, neither of which actually took place then, as officialdom chooses to brand them now. So, in accordance with established Oz-racing fast-and-loose WGAFAF precedent, what follows is a summary of the 1956 Gold Star, Faux Division.
Officialdom awaits the ‘Champion of the Day’ of the 100 Miles Road Race at Phillip Island held on Saturday 31 March, 1928. Oopsie, sorry there were two 100 Mile Road Races that day. The morning one started at about 11am, oopsie again, sorry, B-Class started at about 11am, and D-Class at about 11.05am. The afternoon race, races really, started at about 2.25pm for A-Class and then C-Class at about 2.30pm. All ‘Akin to European GP practice’ is the favoured line of some
The readily apparent State-The-Obvious flaw in my Faux Gold Star award is that as there was no such championship, drivers didn’t enter meetings they may have otherwise if they aspired to win such a title. However, the rich/well-funded in every era raced far and wide beyond their local meetings, this was certainly the case for the 1956 motor trader front runners, so I’m not so sure the top-3 are impacted by this factor.
Some criteria points. I’ve basically followed the equivalent 1956 meetings that CAMS recognised in ’57, even though some of the races are too short, in my mind, to be of championship length. Where there were two Formula Libre races of ‘championship length’ – over 75 miles – at the one meeting, such as the Albert Park Moomba meeting, the longer, feature event prevails. Results are scratch based only. I’m only awarding points for first to fourth placings as those are the records I have. If someone has more comprehensive records, spreadsheet skills and OCD knock yer’ socks off and I’ll update this masterpiece.
Away we go.
Reg Hunt on Gnoo Blas’ Main Straight while the 4.05pm to Sydney gets ready to depart. Maserati 250F (GB.com)
Gnoo Blas, Orange, New South Wales (NSW) : South Pacific Championship : January 30, 1956
This season opening race meeting on the Gnoo Blas road circuit at Orange, 260 km west of Sydney had become Australia’s only international meeting in prior years. The Australian Sporting Car Club always managed to entice a few of the drivers doing a full southern summer season In New Zealand across-the-ditch to the Great Brown Land before they headed back to Europe. As an aside, the Kiwis were five years or so in front of us in the Big Race Stakes.
Our Jack was the only international in ’56 mind you. He raced the 2-litre Cooper T40 Bristol that he built for himself at Surbiton to make his championship GP debut at the British Grand Prix at Aintree in July 1955. Brabham brought the car home at the end of the year, winning the AGP with it at Port Wakefield after frontrunners, Stan Jones in Maybach 3 and Reg Hunt’s Maserati A6GCM/250 (a 2.5-litre 250F engined A6GCM 2-litre F2 car) had problems, then did the Kiwi season and would sell it to Reg Smith before heading back to the UK.
To rub in his advantage, Reg Hunt brought along both the Maserati he raced throughout 1955 and his new 250F on the long tow from Melbourne to Orange, then disappeared into the distance, winning the 27 lap, 100-mile race in the 250F from Brabham.
Stan Jones gave vigorous chase, but blew the 3.8-litre Maybach SOHC six fitted under the long bonnet of Maybach 3 sky-high on lap 22 when 39 seconds adrift of his fellow Melbourne motor trader.
That blow-up proved a defining moment in Australian Motor Racing History of that era as it marked the end of the Charlie Dean/Repco Research/Stan Jones/Maybach period. Repco’s stock of 3.8 and 4.2-litre Maybach cylinder blocks was at an end, so the car couldn’t easily be rebuilt. In any event, Stan realised he needed a Big Red Car to remain competitive, taking delivery of a 250F later in the season. Ern Seeliger created the very fast Maybach 4 Chev V8 of course, it proved to have a surprise or two in 1958-59, but the big-blue Maybach sixes were no more.
Kevin Neal was third in his Cooper T23 Bristol, then came Curley Brydon’s ex-Peter Whitehead – present at Gnoo Blas in the previous two years – Ferrari 166 and then Col James’s MG Special. Jack was a non-resident by then so he doesn’t get Gold Star points for his second place, so we have our top-four below.
1.Hunt Maserati 250F 8 points 2.Neal Cooper T23 Bristol 5 points 3.Brydon Ferrari 166 3 points 4.James MG Special 2 points
End of an era. Jones aboard Maybach 3 – very Mercedes W196’esque in appearance – before the engine let go, South Pacific Championship, Gnoo Blas in 1956 (GB.com)
Fishermans Bend (once Fishermen’s Bend) Melbourne : Victorian Trophy : February 11, 1956
Top guns entered for the 24 lap, 52.8 miles Formula Libre race included Hunt’s Maserati 250F, Lex Davison’s HWM Jaguar (“now with latest D-Type head and Weber carbs” according to AMS), Doug Whiteford’s Talbot-Lago T26C, Stan Jones’ Cooper T38 Jaguar sportscar, Brabham’s Cooper T40, Tom Hawkes Cooper T23 Bristol and Bill Craig’s Alta Holden.
While billed as on international meeting to attract some spillover visitors to New Zealand that summer, the only ‘internationals’ were Brabham from New South Wales and Craig from South Australia…
Hunt romped away, Whiteford’s old T-L, somewhat surprisingly, proved quicker than Davison’s ’54 AGP winning HWM Jag, then Davo spun, while broken throttle linkages accounted for Jones and Hawkes.
1. Hunt, Maserati 250F 8 points 2.Whiteford Talbot-Lago T26C 5 points 3. K Neal Cooper T23 Bristol 3 points 4.W Wilcox Ford Special 2 points
Albert Park, Melbourne : Moomba Meeting – Argus Trophy : March 18, 1956
Albert Park – promoted by the Light Car Club of Australia – hosted a pair of international two-weekend carnivals in ’56: the Moomba meeting in March and Olympic meeting in November/December.
The feature on March 11 was the Moomba Tourist Trophy for sportscars. Tony Gaze won that 150-miler in his HWM Jaguar VPA9, from Bib Stillwell’s brand-spankers Jaguar D-Type and Ron Phillips’ Austin Healey 100S.
F.A.O. Gaze DFC and Two Bars, OAM had decided to retire from racing and sold his HWM and ex-Ascari Ferrari 500/625 to his good mate, Lex Davison before the meeting. Tony had raced both cars in New Zealand that summer together with Peter Whitehead. Davison’s deal included racing the Ferrari in the Argus Trophy, the Formula Libre, 48-lap, 150-mile feature on the following weekend, March 18.
Davo had some serious opposition though, not least Hunt’s 250F and Melbourne haulier, Kevin Neal, who had bought Hunt’s immaculate A6GCM/250. Other expected front-runners included Hawkes’ Cooper Bristol, Stillwell’s D-Type, not to forget Arthur Griffiths, who had bought the ex-Moss HWM Jaguar just vacated by Davison, and Reg Smith in the Cooper Bristol similarly vacated by Jack Brabham.
Somewhat predictably, Reg Hunt won the race in his current model Maserati 250F – one of the great GP cars of any era – from Davison, with Neal, Hawkes and Stillwell third to fifth.
Lex’s old-bus dated back to 1952 – in 2-litre spec it was Alberto Ascari’s main weapon of choice in his triumphant 1952-53 World Championship years – but fitted with a 3-litre DOHC four-cylinder ‘Monza’ engine it proved for several years to have the measure of the fastest cars in the country thanks to a combination of Davo’s speed and almost peerless reliability. Tony Gaze had the Ferrari prepared by Alan Ashton and his AF Hollins crew in High Street, Armadale. He implored Lex to continue the relationship, Davo did so and it was key to his ongoing success with this car.
Reg Hunt from Lex Davison during the Argus Trophy at Albert Park, March 1956. Maserati 250F and Ferrari 500/625 (D Meale)
Port Wakefield, South Australia : Easter Saturday : March 31, 1956
Not all the serious boys spent Easter at the traditional Bathurst fixture, some contested the 50-lap, 65- miles Wakefield Trophy at Port Wakefield, South Australia: Tom Hawkes, Cooper T23 Bristol, Kevin Neale, ex-Hunt Maserati A6GCM/250, Ted Gray, Tornado 2 Ford, and Derek Jolly, Decca Mk1 Climax FWA Spl included.
The weekend feature was for the 20 fastest cars. Soon after the start, the race developed into a Cooper and Maserati duel a lap in front of the rest of the field. Hawkes, in a great performance in the slower of the two cars, won from Neal’s Maserati, Ron Phillips’ Austin Healey 100S and TE Stevens, MG TC Spl.
Interesting are the top speeds recorded on Century Straight (all mph): Gray Tornado Ford V8 110.5, Neal Maserati 2.5 108.5, Hawkes Cooper Bristol 2-litre 104.7, Eldred Norman in the legendary Norman Zephyr Spl s/c 102.5, Murray Trenberth, Vincent 1000, 100, and Eddie Perkins, VW Spl s/c 99.5
The 26-lap, 100-mile handicap, Bathurst 100 had a huge field, “more entries from interstate than Bathurst has seen for some time” wrote Australian Motor Sports. Stan Jones and Jack Brabham weren’t at the meeting, Maybach 3 was dead and Stan’s 250F hadn’t arrived, while Jack had returned to the UK.
The handicap was won by Davison from Hunt, Bib Stillwell, Jaguar D-Type, and Paul England’s Ausca Repco-Holden. To be consistent, Gold Star points are awarded for the scratch results: Hunt, Maserati 250F, Lex Davison Ferrari 500/625 3-litre, Stillwell D-Type, and Tom Sulman’s Aston Martin DB3S.
1.Hunt Maserati 250F 8 points 2.Davison Ferrari 50/625 5 points 3.Stillwell Jaguar D-Type 3 points 4.Sulman Aston Martin DB3S 2 points
Port Wakefield Road Races : South Australian Trophy : June 4, 1956
Stan Jones took delivery of his Maserati 250F in May, demonstrating it in an untimed run at the Geelong Sprints meeting on May 27, Port Wakefield was chassis #2520’s Australian baptism of fire.
Other fast cars which took the trip to the desolate, wind-swept permanent race track included Davison, Stillwell and brilliant, intuitive Adelaide engineer, Eldred Norman in his Norman Zephyr Spl s/c. Most significantly, Ted Gray was present in the Lou Abrahams owned, Gray/Mayberry Bros/Abrahams built Tornado 2 Ford. Tornado 1 Ford died a terrible death at the October ’55 Bathurst meeting, Tornado 2 was a new car using few of T1’s bits, amongst the exceptions were the Ford Ardun/Abrahams fuel injected OHV V8 and Ford truck ‘box. Ted was ok after a very long convalescence too.
At this point of 1956 the key machines of Australian Formula Libre racing from 1956-59 were in place: the two Maserati 250Fs, Davo’s Ferrari and Tornado 2…two-litre Coopers were still to come.
Held in a big rainstorm, the 30 lap South Australian Trophy race, early on was a close contest between Stillwell – pretty comfy in his Jag sportscar – with Stan all over him, but unable to pass and see…
Davo spun on lap 3, so too later in the race did Gray, although another column in AMS says Ted didn’t even start the race due to a broken CV joint… The race was won by Stillwell from Jones, Norman and ??
Somewhat prophetically, Bob Pritchett wrote in the July 1956 issue of Australian Motor Sports, “Who said Ted Gray’s Tornado Special doesn’t handle. Ted was, I think, the only high-powered operator who did not spin off in the meeting (the guy that wrote the race report sez otherwise!) and in winning the A-grade scratch race 6-lapper, held Stan’s Maserati for four laps until Stan spun off in the wet.”
In the same column, Pritchett reported that Tom Hawkes was considering a Maserati four to get more speed out of his Cooper T23 Bristol, that engine being at the end of its development potential; a Repco-Holden Grey shortly thereafter provided a potent and more cost-effective solution.
Similarly, he mused about the possibilities of Maybach 3, “by dropping in one of those 300-plus USA V8 monsters that are now available.” – the very path followed by Ern Seeliger, and Ted Gray with hot 283 Chev Corvette V8s being popped under the bonnets of Maybach and Tornado before too long.
Yes, the little-tacker in the lower shot is Alan Jones. He has recounted over the years his disappointment in finding Dad’s new, red Italian car was a Maserati and not a Ferrari! Bob Chamberlain at left Bob King thinksTed Gray from Stan Jones during their Port Wakefield scrap in June 1956. Tornado 2 Ford V8 and Maserati 250F; plenty of scraps to come from this pair from 1956-59. Gray’s experience went all the way back to giving Peter Whitehead and ERA R10B a run for their money at Aspendale and Rob Roy in 1938 aboard a speedway-midget
Lowood Airfield Queensland : Lowood Trophy : June 3, 1956
“Queensland Racing Drivers Club conducted this year’s ‘Lowood Trophy’ meeting in typical Queensland winter sunshine, before a crowd of about 6000. The 2.7-mile circuit was in good condition…34 entries was received, including eight from NSW…” recorded AMS.
Top guns included Arthur Griffiths’ ex-Davison HWM Jaguar, Ken Richardson’s ex-Whiteford Talbot-Lago T26C, Steve Ames aka Count Steve Ouvaroff ex-Davison Alfa Romeo P3, John Aldis’ ex-Whitehead/Jones Cooper T38 Jaguar and Arnold Glass’ Maserati 4CL; it wasn’t a great entry of modern cars.
The 12 lap, 32 miles Lowood Trophy results were as follows:
1.Griffiths HWM Jag 8 points 2. S Mossetter Austin Healey 100S 5 points 3.R Weintraub Healey Silverstone 3 points 4.J Johnson MG TC 2 points
Bathurst : NSW Road Racing Championships : September 30, 1956
A crowd of 8-10,000 people fronted up to cold, blustery conditions for the second traditional Bathurst meeting a year, October fixture.
While Stan Jones was present to sharpen his skills in advance of the Australian Grand Prix two months hence, Lex Davison and Reg Hunt were notable by their absence, ‘preserving the machinery’ or whatever.
Bill Pitt was there in the Geordie Anderson/Westco Motors Jaguar D-Type and Jack Myers in the WM Special, a much-modified (by Myers, a highly skilled Sydney mechanic-cum-engineer) Cooper T20 fitted with a Waggott-Holden twin-cam, two-valve circa 200bhp ‘Grey’ six-cylinder engine.
Handicaps were still prevalent, if not the norm in Australian racing, with the 26 lap NSW Road Racing Championship (Racing Cars) no exception. Jones set a new lap record of 2min 44sec without being hard pushed. While ‘J Archibald’ (who was he?) won the handicap classification in his MG Spl, the scratch results and Gold Star points allocations are as follows:
Fishermans Bend, Melbourne : Astor Trophy : October 14, 1956
You might think the Victorian Contingent would be out in force in advance of the rapidly approaching AGP, but not so. While Hunt, Whiteford, Neal and Gray were present, Davison and Jones were AWOL.
Then, having satisfied himself that his 250F was all tickety-boo in a 5-lapper, Reg Hunt didn’t take the start of the start of the 24-lap, 52.8-mile Astor Trophy feature.
While Kevin Neal’s Maserati A6GCM/250 was a far quicker car than Doug Whiteford’s – relatively new to him, but geriatric – Talbot-Lago T26C, there was no way Neal was going to beat the aggressive, cagey, vastly experienced triple AGP winner! Ted Gray and Owen Bailey were/are the other recipients of Gold Star points aboard Tornado 2 Ford and ex-Whiteford Talbot-Lago T26C respectively: third and fourth placings.
“Tell him, he’s dreamin…’ Count Stephen Ouvaroff aka Steve Ames offers his ex-Scuderia Ferrari/Davison Alfa Romeo P3 chassis #50003 for sale, £895 is the ask. In 2024 dollars that is $A32,700, the value of a P3 is, however, in the ‘your guess is as good as mine’ categoryMoss Mastery – high speed drift at Albert Park, Maserati 250F, AGP December 1956
1956 Australian Grand Prix : Albert Park : December 2, 1956
120,000 people watched 22 starters contest the ’56 AGP held in the afterglow of Melbourne’s staggeringly successful Olympic Games.
Furriners included a five-car squad from Officine Maserati: three 250Fs and a pair of 300S (sportscars for the Australian Tourist Trophy contested and won by Moss from Behra the week before) for works drivers Stirling Moss and Jean Behra, while Peter Whitehead and Reg Parnell raced their 3.4-litre Ferrari 555s.
Moss disappeared into the distance, winning the 80-lap 250-miles race in 2hr 36min 15.4sec, over two minutes ahead of Behra, then came Peter Whitehead.
The battle-within-the-battle was a local Melbourne Holden Dealer Derby – Davo’s farming and shoe making interests duly noted – between the 250Fs of Reg Hunt and Stan Jones, and Lex Davison’s Ferrari 500/625.
Graham Howard points out in his 1956 chapter of the ‘History of The Australian Grand Prix’ that “It was to be, surprisingly, the first encounter of the Hunt and Jones’ 250Fs, and Davison – at that stage the only driver to beat the Hunt 250F – was also there in his Ferrari.”
“Hunt and Jones had, to be strictly correct, lined up against each other the weekend before, in a short sprint race in the supporting program to the Tourist Trophy, but it had been inconclusive. With Hunt on pole position and Jones right beside him, the race had an explosive start as Jones – ‘jockeying for position’, as AMS discreetly termed it – hit the kerb and then a tree on Hunt’s side of the course within a hundred metres of the start. The car was fortunately not too badly damaged and was ready for the AGP the following weekend.”
At the start of the Grand Prix, Moss led from Behra, the Whitehead and Parnell Ferrari Super Squalo’s, then the Trident Trio: Hunt, Neal and Jones. Davison was slowed by engine maladies.
By lap 5 Jones was behind Hunt, and after two fast laps, passed him, where he stayed – with Hunt pacing himself behind – for 35 laps, “With both driving with a concentrated ferocity, which was almost tangible – no errors, no let- up, certainly no smiles.”
When Stan’s Maserati started to blow smoke from under the bonnet, he eased on lap 40, gifting his place to Hunt. Post-race the problem was disclosed as a broken breather.
The Gold Star points go to the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth placed local finishers:
Reg Smith competing at Templestowe hillclimb outside Melbourne in May 1956. His Cooper T40 Bristol was Jack’s ’55 British GP car and AGP winner. He can’t have been enamoured of the Cooper, replacing it with one of Officine Maserati 300S sold at the end of the ’56 AGP weekend
Gold Star Championship Points and Observations…
Drum roll…the winner of the 1956 Australian Gold Star Faux Championship is Reg Hunt, Maserati 250F, with 40 points, well clear of Kevin Neal’s 21 points gained with Cooper T23 Bristol and Maserati A6GCM/250, then Stan Jones, third on 18 points in his new 250F. Fourth was Whiteford, Talbot-Lago T26C 15 points, then the Davison Ferrari 500/625 on 13 points with Bib Stillwell sixth, on 11.
What does it all prove? Absolutely sweet-f-all, but I enjoyed it, which is all that really matters here.
I wish I could show you a neato little points chart or a spreadsheet of results for the year but I don’t know how to do those, so this hand-job will have to do, a remedy with which many of you will be familiar. Since publishing this, Stuart Murray – bless him – has done the vastly better spreadsheet which appears further below.
In my mind I’ve long thought Reg Hunt was the rock-star in 1955-56 aided and abetted by having The Best Equipment in the country in those two years by far. I’ve not done this exercise for 1955 yet to further prove the point, I’ll get around to it some time.
Having ‘came, saw, and conquered’, Reg retired from racing at the end of the season, aged only 33, to focus on his family and in building a staggeringly successful motor-dealership empire centred on his ‘Golden Mile of Cars’ in Brighton, Melbourne. He returned to historic racing in the 1980s with a Maserati 300S and Talbot-Lago T26C and died just shy of 100 on August 22, 2022.
Fellow Melbourne motor trader and later four-time Gold Star champ, Bib Stillwell bought the Hunt 250F (chassis #2616) but couldn’t resist the temptation of a factory freshen-up, so didn’t see it for the best part of 12 months. It’s a long boat ride between Port Melbourne and Genoa and back, and Maserati had bigger fish-to-fry, not least a World Championship to win with JM Fangio at the wheel of factory 250F’s.
At the end of ’56 the stage was set, the key players in 1957 seemed likely to be Jones, Davison and Gray with a tight contest likely given all three were well-funded ‘pro-outfits’ by Australian standards of the day. In the end Davo’s Ferrari 500/625 crushed the opposition with five Gold Star wins in nine rounds, a story for another time…
Credits…
Australian Motor Sports all 1956 issues, ‘Bathurst: The Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’ John Medley, ‘The History of The Australian Grand Prix’ edited by Graham Howard, ‘A History of Australian Grand Prix 1928-1939’ John Blanden, VSCC Victoria Collection, David Meale-Collections Victoria, gnooblas.com, Paul Cummins/Cummins Archive, Stuart Murray
Tailpiece…
(Cummins Archive)
Champions cockpit…the 1958 one’s actually – Stan Jones’ Maserati 250F chassis #2520, not Hunt’s #2516.
Paul Cummins wrote, “On the back of the photo it reads – this is the cockpit of Victorian racing driver Stan Jones’ new 2 1/2 litre ‘250F’ model Maserati which he has just imported from Italy. When that revolution counter shows 7800rpm his engine is developing 270hp giving a speed in excess of 165mph. It is expected to be the fastest car in Australia. It cost £7,200, but with freight cost and spare parts (including a 3-litre 300S engine), the actual landed cost is expected to be nearly £12,000.”
“The Maserati which will be using Mobilgas Racing Fuel and Mobiloil exclusively was built in October last year (1955) and taken to South America for the Argentine Grand Prix Season, but it was never raced. Stan Jones will race it for the first time at Port Wakefield South Australia on 4 June.”
Veglia instruments, right-hand shift for the 5-speed transaxle, note the far-left clutch location given Stan sits astride the driveline tunnel – Jones has clearly specified a ‘conventional’ right-hand throttle and central brake setup.
Finally, while Maserati’s bullshit story to Stan may have been that #2520 was a new car, in fact it was slightly shop-soiled. It had been raced as a works-car by Froilan Gonzalez at Buenos Aires on 22 January 1956 (DNF) and by Pablo Guile at Mendoza on February 5 (eighth).
The nose of the car as landed in Australia in the earlier arrival photographs rather suggests the car was shipped straight from South America rather than via the Modena paint-shop. What is in no doubt is that 250F #2520 has one of the simplest, most straight-forward histories of all Maserati 250F’s, so too does #2516 for that matter.
John Crouch plunges downhill on the Albury-Wirlinga road course – ‘on the border’ of Victoria and New South Wales – aboard his Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Le Mans during the June 12/13, 1939 Albury and Interstate Gold Cup meeting.
Australian racer/entrepreneur John Snow imported this car to Australia in 1938, John Crouch acquired it shortly after it was offloaded in the Port of Sydney.
John Crouch aboard the booming 8C 2300 LM during the 1939 Australian Grand Prix at very fast, undulating Lobethal, South Australia (B King Collection)#2311202 during scrutineering at Le Mans in 1933 (Alfa Romeo Archives via Simon Moore)
8C2300 Le Mans chassis #2311202 was one of nine cars built to this specification, five of these long-wheelbase machines with Touring bodies were built in 1933, ‘our car’ was the second of these and was registered by Alfa Romeo on June 6, 1933 MI43972.
Simon Moore wrote in ‘The Legendary 2.3’ that “We will never be 100% sure, but I think it is really almost certain that this (2311202) was the Chiron (1933) Le Mans car,” raced by Louis Chiron and Franco Cortese …” The car ran amongst the leaders until after dawn, leading on several occasions before Cortese lost control and crashed the car in the Esses after completing 177 laps/2388km; the winning Sommer/Nuvolari 8C 2300 MM covered 3144km.
These straight-eight, supercharged, 2336cc, circa 165bhp Alfas are Le Mans royalty, winning the 24-Hour classic four years on the trot: 1931 Lord Howe/Tim Birkin 8C 2300 LM, 1932 Raymond Sommer/ Luigi Chinetti 8C 2300 LM, 1933 Raymond Sommer/Tazio Nuvolari 8C 2300 MM and 1934 Luigi Chinetti/Philippe Etancelin 8C 2300.
2311202 was third in the 1933 Tourist Trophy at Ards in the hands of Tim Rose-Richards and was later owned by Peter Mitchell-Thompson – Lord Selsdon.
#2311202 at Le Mans in 1933 Louis Chiron/Franco Cortese DNF accident, also shot below (MotorSport)(MotorSport)
John Medley wrote in his ‘John Snow: Classic Motor Racer’ that Aussie racer/entrepreneur Snow brought a large number of cars acquired in Europe to Australia in the immediate pre-war years, single-handedly improving the quality of our grids in the process. This Alfa Romeo was one of them, its shipmates were a Hudson convertible phaeton, 5-litre Bugatti Type 46 sedan and a Delahaye 135CS sports-racer (#47190) for Snow’s own use.
He then shipped the car via coastal steamer to Port Adelaide and entered the 1939 Australian Grand Prix held at Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills on January 2. He was seventh in the race won in celebrated fashion by West Australian, Allan Tomlinson’s MG TA Spl s/c. Most of the big cars had tyre troubles in the extreme heat that day, Crouch had an off or two for this reason. He was a fast driver, but his pace with a still unfamiliar car wasn’t going to win him the race that weekend.
Other strong placings pre-war included fourth in the April 1939 New South Wales GP/150 Miles Road Race at Bathurst, and third fastest in a hillclimb and flying quarter-mile event at Mount Panorama in June. He was seventh in the NSW Road Race at Bathurst in October, a period in which he mixed his road racing with speedway events aboard a 4WD Skirrow.
Into 1940, with events getting a bit skinnier as the War impacted, he was fifth in the 150-miler at Easter Bathurst, and at Albury-Wirlinga in June he was second and again set the fastest time of the race.
While clearly a very potent racing car, John Crouch regularly used it around town (rego’ EO772), having the machine maintained by Jack Saywell and John Snow’s Monza Motors emporium-of-speed in East Sydney.
Tom Lancey checks his MG TA’s mirrors before being eaten by John Crouch and passenger and Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 during the 150 mile race at Bathurst during Easter 1939 (Terry McGrath via Simon Moore)Alfa Romeo 8C2300 cutaway (R Roux)Crouch, again at Lobethal in 1939 (B King Collection)
Victorian Colin Scott bought it in 1944 and had it fettled by Alf Barrett’s mechanic, Alan Ashton and his team at AF Hollins & Co in High Street, Armadale. Barrett and his 8C 2300 Monza were the fastest combination in Australia in the immediate pre and post-war periods. Scott was a frequent class winner at Rob Roy hill climb and a regular Vintage Sports Car Club competitor.
In 1949 #2311202 was bought by racer/pilot/dealer John Barraclough who onsold it to Tom Luxton. He raced and hillclimbed it, sometimes using the pseudonym James McEwan; McEwans was the family company, a 140 year old, national, retail hardware-store chain that was ultimately swallowed by Bunnings in the 1990s.
Howard Kiel owned the car next. Simon Moore wrote that Kiel was introduced to Louis Chiron at London’s Swallow Club by Tony Gaze. Chiron confirmed the car was French blue at Le Mans and “remembered it well and exalted its performance.”
Owner impressions are gold, Simon published Kiel’s impressions of the 8C 2300 outlined in an exchange of letters between the pair. “I well remember 2311202 as one of the most beautiful cars to drive. In fact I often drove it to work on the outskirts of Melbourne and raced Tony Gaze back to town many times. Through the streets the car was had to beat and exhilarating to drive. I sold the car when it became apparent it needed a comprehensive restoration.”
The next owner, Tom Roberts took great care of the car between 1958 and 1963 after which it joined the mouth-watering Doug and John Jarvis collection of 8C Alfas in Adelaide.
Australian Alfa Romeo owner/historian David Wright wrote in the February 2023 issue of Alfa Occidentale that “Doug Jarvis was particularly enamoured with this car and drove it at Mallala on several occasions. Following the death of Doug Jarvis, the 8C 2300 Le Mans was used regularly by his son, John, until, in 1975, it was acquired from the Jarvis Estate by Lance Dixon.”
(Reid Family)
Dixon, a successful Melbourne motor dealer and enthusiast reintroduced the car to VSCC events. Here Lance is taking then Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Fraser – a very tall bloke for a polly – for some quick laps in the car at a Sandown meeting in 1977.
In 1982 Lance’s restoration team, led by Ian Ruffley, were commissioned to comprehensively rebuild the car in Dixon’s Eltham workshop. The colour reverted to its original French blue, having been red for its entire life in Australia. #2311202 was sold via auction in 1986 to a Dutch enthusiast who continues to actively campaign it.
Nice close up profile shot of John Crouch in the 8C 2300 during the Easter 1939 Bathurst 150 meeting. The car lost its best years of racing in Australia thanks to the war, not that #2311202 was alone in that respect, far from it…(F Pearse)
A Driven Man and Driving Force Behind Motor Sports…
Is the title of the late Barry Lake’s obituary of John Crouch – 15/8/1918-30/5/2004 – published in the Sydney Morning Herald on June 17, 2004. Lake was a talented racer, journalist, historian and publisher; his beautifully written tribute is reproduced in full.
In the 1930s John Crouch was widely known as Australia’s youngest racing driver. In 1949 he won the Australian Grand Prix driving a French Delahaye. Even before his retirement from active racing in the mid-1950s, Crouch was heavily involved in the administration of motor sport in this country. By the time he died, at 85, he was recognised by many as the elder statesman of Australian motor sport.
Throughout all of these achievements, Crouch was the consummate gentleman, always immaculately dressed, always driving a late-model performance car (usually Mercedes-Benz in his later years) and always he was polite and softly spoken.
His father, Cecil, had his own new car sales company for 10 years before John was born in 1918, and the elder Crouch dabbled in motor sport when he raced a Metz car at Victoria Park racecourse in Sydney.
After leaving Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore), to which he walked every day from the family home in Wollstonecraft, Crouch went to work for his father. So it was hardly surprising he developed a keen interest in cars and motor racing – although his father strongly opposed the latter, having realised it consumed vast amounts of money.
Crouch began racing an MG TA sports car when barely 18. Two years later, he finished fifth in the 1938 Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst. In the late 1930s he drove a wide variety of cars including a supercharged Alvis, a Fronty-Ford, a Skirrow four-wheel drive speedway car, and an ex-Louis Chiron Le Mans Alfa Romeo 8C 2300.
With the Alfa, Crouch set fastest time in the Albury and Interstate Gold Cup races on the Wirlinga road circuit in 1939 and 1940, along with a third place and two fifth places on corrected times in the last three major events held at Bathurst before World War II.
After the war, Crouch left his father to start his own business. “I wanted to buy and sell performance cars but my father was never interested in them,” he once said.
He imported cars from England, including the high-class Bristol and the inexpensive but loads-of-fun Dellow sports car, as well as many new and used examples of exciting sports cars. In 1953 he gained the Australian distributorship for Austin-Healey sports cars, when the local Austin distributors rejected it as a folly. Crouch described it as a bonanza that sold beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.
The grid of the 1947 NSW Championship, Nowra airfield, June 16. #5 Jack Murray Mackellar-Bugatti Ford s/c, then #3 John Crouch Delahaye 135CS, #14 Alec Mildren Ford V8 Spl, #4 Frank Kleinig, Kleinig Hudson Spl and Alf Barrett, Alfa 8C2300 Monza. The handicap race was won by Tom Lancey’s MG TC, Crouch was eighth (J Hunter)
Immediately after World War II Crouch had bought a fast and reliable French Delahaye sports-racing car. It had a fastest race time at Bathurst to its credit, and Crouch scored second-fastest there with it in 1946.
But the one race to win then, as the Bathurst 1000 is today, for Australian drivers was the Australian Grand Prix. In 1948 the event was held at Point Cook in Victoria in blazing heat. The Delahaye scored third-fastest time but the handicap start resulted in his finishing only eighth.
The following year the race went to Queensland, on a wartime airstrip at Leyburn. Also for the first time, it was run from a scratch start, as is the case for today’s major events. Crouch was ready to pounce when the early pacesetter faltered. The blue Delahaye crossed the line a clear winner and John Crouch had achieved his life’s ambition.
In the early 1950s Crouch began to import and sell small, lightweight rear-engine Cooper racing cars. He sold the Delahaye and raced Coopers to promote them. He was ahead of his time. By the end of the decade Coopers were dominating Australian racing as they were the world championship. In Crouch’s time, however, they were fast but unreliable. In 1951, for example, Crouch’s Cooper set fastest race lap in the Australian GP, but retired with mechanical problems. In retrospect, he sold the Delahaye, had he kept it, would have been capable of winning the GP again in 1950 and 1951.
In 1953 Crouch sold a more modern, faster and more reliable Cooper-Bristol to Tom Brabham, for his son, Jack. The latter made his name in that car and went on to win world championships in 1959, 1960 and 1966.
Crouch’s final outings as a driver were in the Redex Round Australia Trials in 1953 and 1954, and the 24-Hour Race at Mount Druitt in 1954. He had planned to race in Europe before quitting the sport, but ran into financial difficulties when he expanded into importing tyres and tractors.
He retired from racing, closed his business and used his remaining resources to buy land and build apartment blocks in suburbs such as Dee Why. “Real estate was going so well at that time,” he said, many years later, “Any idiot could make money out of it.” He was comfortably well-off by the time the bust came in the 1970s – unlike many of his friends, who, he said, “had borrowed to the hilt and lost everything”.
Crouch had been the NSW state councillor for the then newly formed Confederation of Australian Motor Sports in 1953 and continued in various capacities with this organisation for many years, receiving awards for his contributions to motor sport. He also acted as clerk of course at a number of major events.
Crouch had two sons, John and David, with his first wife, Vivian. They eventually divorced, but remained good friends. Crouch’s second wife, Valerie, died in 1995. They had two daughters, Caressa and Penelope.
Crouch was reluctant to marry again, fearing a third would brand him a “womaniser”, but eventually he met June, whose lust for living a full life matched his own. They married and spent much of Crouch’s final few years travelling in South-East Asia and Europe, as well as attending various motor sport functions in Australia as honoured guests. That came to an end when Crouch suffered circulation problems that led to a series of strokes and heart attacks. He died in a hospital in Gosford.
Etcetera…
Sydney Morning Herald June 13, 1939(Motorsport)
Another shot of Louis Chiron or Franco Cortese at Le Mans in 1933 aboard #2311202.
(S Dalton Collection)
Credits…
Max Dupain-SLNSW, ‘John Snow: Classic Motor Racer’ and Bathurst: Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’ by John Medley, ‘The Legendary 2.3’ Simon Moore via the Bob king Collection, Robert Roux, MotorSport Images, Reid Family Collection, John Hunter Collection, Fred Pearse, Sydney Morning Herald – Barry Lake, Stephen Dalton Collection
Charlie Dean’s Maybach 1 at Rob Roy in January 1949. The equipe behind is Micha Ravdell’s van and #38 Wyliecar Ford-A Special, still driven by its builder, Arthur Wylie. Number 9 on Maybach is a rego-disc (L Sims)
Even the contrarians amongst knowledgable Australian racing historians generally answer “the Maybach” when questioned about which racer was our greatest Australian Special.
It isn’t the Maybach though, but rather Maybachs – four of them – with no shortage of variants across the three chassis built. Whenever a photograph of a Maybach is uploaded onto social media there is always plenty of uninformed yibba-yabba about the specifications of the car in shot.
(Brian Caldersmith)Charlie Dean and the brave Jack Joyce aboard Maybach 1 at Rob Roy in November 1947. The body is still to come. Wild road car! (L Sims)
One of our friends, John Ballantyne, prompted this article which I assembled to address the lack of accessible, accurate information about the specifications of Maybachs 1-4.
What follows is a copy of the technical specifications and evolution of the Charlie Dean and Repco Research built Maybach 1 published in an article of the Australian Motor Sports Annual 1958-59. The author’s name isn’t cited, but I’ve credited the editor of the book, Mr John Goode. The other two chassis – three cars – Maybachs 2, 3 and 4 will follow in my next post.
The article is focussed on technical information, not race results: this one that does that best, ponderous as it is: https://primotipo.com/2014/12/26/stan-jones-australian-and-new-zealand-grand-prix-and-gold-star-winner/ I hadn’t planned many photographs, but, as usual, my enthusiasm got the better of me…the period Repco ads are a visual device to assist in splitting one evolution of Maybach 1 from the next.
The photo choices are mine, so too are the ‘Notes’ sections, albeit almost all of that information is sourced from the same AMS article. I’m taking as-read a general knowledge of Maybach, if you need a refresher, click on the links at the end of this piece.
Six years later (from the 1947 shot) Stan Jones bolts away from the Europeans to win the October 1953 Victoria Trophy at Fishermans Bend in Maybach 1 S3. Behind is Doug Whiteford’s Lago Talbot T26C, George Pearse’s Cooper Vincent, and to the right, Ted Gray aboard Alta 21S Ford. Lex Davison’s Alfa Romeo P3 is partially obscured behind Maybach (L Sims)John Fleming’s copy of The Argus report of the 1953 Victoria Trophy – the preceding shot
One final contextual word from Australia’s greatest motor racing historian, John Medley, about the Maybachs and their place in the Australian pantheon before we set off, quoted from the ’50 Year History of The Australian Grand Prix’, specifically John’s 1948 AGP chapter.
“HC (Horace Charles) Dean’s car, powered by a captured German scout-car engine, was little more than a year old, and had only been given a proper body in 1947: even so, in its brief career of trials, hillclimbs and sprints it had already attracted a lot of attention for its very willing performance and for its relatively advanced specification. It was, for example, one of just four runners in the 1948 AGP with independent front suspension, and of those four the Maybach was the only Australian special – the other three were factory-built cars of pre-war design: John Crouch’s Delahaye, Frank Pratt’s BMW, and Cec Warren’s Morgan.”
“The Maybach and Delahaye (135CS) actually had a lot in common, not least that both had been laid down not as pure racers, but as big-engined road cars with competition potential although another point which should not be overlooked is that both were essentially very conservative designs.”
“The significance of the Maybach was that it was Australian built, by a man at the centre of a small but talented team, and that the car had development potential – just how much was not realised at the time. Between 1948 and 1960, Maybachs in various forms were to contest eight AGPs and to lead – if sometimes only briefly – five of those races.”
Maybach 1 during June 1949, Charlie Dean and Jack Joyce on the way to FTD (D Stubbs)Maybach 1 during Rob Roy #16 in May 1948 (D Stubbs)
MAYBACH 1 (1946-1949)…
ENGINE: 6 cyl. inline single oh. camshaft. Bore and stroke: 90 × 100 mm. Capacity: 3,800 c.c., Compression ratio: 6.43 to 1. Output (initially on pool petrol: 69 octane) 100 B.H.P. at 3,000 г.p.m.
Single casting cast iron cylinder block and crankcase, with sump joint well below the crankshaft centre line. Crankshaft machined all over and fully counter balanced, running in eight white metal lined bearings, one between each crank throw and an extra one behind the camshaft drive pinion situated at rear end of crankshaft. Wet liners fitted to cylinder bores with lightweight balanced connecting rods and other reciprocating parts.
Single camshaft running in seven white metal bearings, opening valves by means of rocker arms fitted with eccentric bushes which could be rotated and locked to adjust valve clearances. Rockers had roller cam followers. Valves inclined at 65 degrees in hemispherical head and located on opposite sides. Helical timing gears with idler (originally compounded fabric, but replaced by steel).
Wet sump lubrication through filter with pressure fed oil supplied to centre main bearings, then to other caps, and through the crankshaft to big end bearings. Also fed to valve rocker shafts and camshaft bearings. Carburettors: Two marine Amal.
Charlie Dean and Maybach 1 during the January 26, 1948 AGP weekend at Point Cook RAAF Base just west of Melbourne. It was the cars first appearance with a body fitted, and painted white. DNF magneto failure on lap 12, the passenger decamped before the off. Note the Studebaker steel wheels at the front (AMS Review 1958-59) Maybach 1 at Rob Roy in May 1948. A swag of these sensational, uber-rare Dacre Stubbs’ shots appear to have been taken immediately after Maybach was repainted, in the front garden of Dean’s Kew, Melbourne, home. Six Amals at this point, in November 1947 there were two…(D Stubbs)(D Stubbs)
TRANSMISSION: Clutch: Fichtel and Sachs. Gearbox: Four speed crash type from a Fiat Model 525. Rear Axle: Lancia Lambda Series VIl in standard form.
CHASSIS: Frame: Tubular steel consisting of two parallel 4″ dia. steel tubes with independent suspension at the front (Dean’s own design) and conventional twin half elliptic springs at rear.
Suspension: Front Independent with transverse semi-elliptic spring and wishbones. Mainly 1937 Studebaker Commander parts. Steering: Cam and roller box (Marles) with two piece track rod.
Wheels and Brakes: Front: Studebaker bolt on pressed steel wheels with standard Studebaker brakes. Rear: Lancia centre lock 19″ dia. wIre wheels and brakes.
(D Stubbs)(D Stubbs)
BODY: Two seat from welded sections of aircraft belly tanks.
LATER MODIFICATIONS: Included 6 carburettors, reduction of weight achieved by new front end. Minerva brake drums fitted with specially fabricated shoes, and new cast steel liners, mounted on light steel backing plates. Centrelock wire wheels with adapted hubs to replace Studebaker wheels. Body frame lightened.
(D Stubbs)While all the one-liners down the decades credit Frank Hallam with the body, there is no way that’s correct. FH was apprenticed as a mechanic. Who built the body, it was clearly executed by a talented specialist, surely? (D Stubbs)(D Stubbs)
NOTES: The car’s engine came from a German half-track vehicle that had been captured during the Middle East campaign and shipped to Australia for technical study by the military. Dean acquired it from a wrecker. Built as a sportscar, Dean was cajoled into turning it into a racing car by George Wade, a Repco mechanic/engineer, after recording 100mph in a Vintage Sports Car Club trial. The body was constructed in time for the 1947 AGP at Point Cook using aircraft belly tanks cut and shut by Frank Hallam, another Repco employee – so the story goes.
Cockpit shot shows the car was a ‘reasonably generous’ biposto in early spec. Twin-tube frame chassis, note diagonal bracing of the forward driver bulkhead. Revs, oil pressure and water temperature at a guess. Attractive – ahem – steering wheel, what is it off? (D Stubbs)Neat remote shift – and locating stays to ensure easy accurate changes – to modified four speed Fiat 525 gearbox (D Stubbs)(AMS Annual 1958-59)Dean in Maybach 1 S2 competing in the Mornington Motor Races at the Balcombe army training base on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula in June 1950 (D Stubbs)
MAYBACH 1 Series 2 (1949 -1950/1)…
Basically the same two seater sports/racing body and chassis with the following changes made from the original car.
ENGINE: 4.2-litre Maybach adapted to take developed parts from 3.8-litre original. Reground camshaft and special new main bearings. Original lead bronze bearings retained for big ends.
Supercharger: Ex G.M. diesel Roots type with three lobe rotors, mounted beside the motor driven by triple V-belts from the crankshaft nose; output 7 lb/sq. inch. Carburettor: Originally Claudel Hobson aircraft type replaced by Bendix-Stromberg aircraft type. Cooling System: Later sealed at blow off pressure of 4 p.s.i. Magneto: Adapted V-12 type but burnt out, subsequently Lucas.
TRANSMISSION: Differential: American Power Lock (1922 vintage truck) limited slip type fitted in modified Lancia housing.
CHASSIS: Rear Brakes: Special drums of original design using two leading shoes hydraulic system but replaced with leading trailing shoe hydraulics.
When Charlie Dean obliged Dacre Stubbs for the undated The Age (I think) article below he didn’t take Maybach 1 S2 too far, this shot is at the Willsmere Mental Institution in Kew. I grew up closeby, there were many occasions when Dad threatened to take us kids to The Nuthouse, as he sensitively referred to the place, when we misbehaved…(D Stubbs)(J Fleming Collection)Maybach 1 S2 at Rob Roy in June 1949 when Dean and Joyce bagged FTD. Wylie A-Ford Spl behind (L Sims)(AMS Annual 1958-59)Stan’s muscle-shirts were famous, here during the 1953 AGP at Albert Park. DNF with a variety of problems while leading in Maybach 1 S3 (S Griffiths)
MAYBACH I Series 3 (1951 – Early 1954)…
Fundamentally similar in appearance to the two previous models, still a two seater but with suspension changes, three feet of rear chassis rails removed.
Modifications listed in order of introduction:
June 1950 – April 1951
Front suspension rebuilt: Studebaker parts replaced by Oldsmobile upper wishbones with integral shock absorbers. Transverse leaf spring redesigned to three leaf to reduce weight. Rear Suspension: Axle mounted on trailing quarter-elliptics with radius rods. It was this which necessitated cutting the rear end of the chassis.
Stan Jones awaits the off at Templestowe in September 1952, Maybach 1 S3, see photographer/racer/engineer John Fleming’s comments about his shot below(J Fleming)Posed The Age shot published on November 18, in the week before the ’53 AGP at Albert Park. Taken at Jones’ home garage in Yongala Road, Balwyn. From left, Ern Seeliger, Jones, Reg Robbins at the back, Charlie Dean and Lloyd Holyoak ‘working’ on Maybach 1 S3. Note the Oldsmobile top wishbones and (unsighted) lever arm shocks and transverse bottom leaf spring. One of the three big SUs is obscured by Stan’s armYou can feel and smell Albert Park! Dacre Stubbs has tightly focussed his 1953 AGP start shot on Lex Davison, Jaguar powered ex-Moss HWM #3 and on Jones’ Maybach 1 S3; the ‘snappers framing of the shot heightens the drama. #7 is the legendary Frank Kleinig and Kleinig Hudson Spl with Cec Warren’s Maserati 4CLT alongside and #10, W Hayes’ Ford V8 Spl (D Stubbs)
Carburettors: Three marine Amals. Supercharger removed. Other Mods: Mild steel sheet head gasket fitted to engine raising compression ratio to 9 to 1.
Bodywork: Few obvious changes but considerable minor modifications. Framing modifled and lightened. Lighter radiator grille fitted, front cowl modified to give lower bonnet line.
June 1951 – September 1952
Carburettors: Three 1 3/4″ S.U. replacing Amals. Three special 2 3/16″ S.U. carburettors (originally designed for Lago Talbots) later fitted.
Tyres – Rear: 16 x 6.50 touring type (six ply). Subsequently four ply specially manufactured.
NOTES: Stan Jones bought the car off Charlie Dean in June 1951. Reports that the 1952 AGP would be held to F1 regs – 1.5-litres blown and 4.5 unblown, 1952-53 2-litre GP formula duly noted – meant the Maybach in 4.2-litre supercharged specs would have been ineligible so Repco Research developed a 3.8-litre unblown engine as noted above; three marine Amals fed the engine initially. Ultimately the ’52 AGP was held, as usual, to Formule Libre.
One of Jones’ pitstops at Albert Park in the 1953 AGP, Maybach 1 S3, Jag XK120 passes (D Stubbs)
The 1955 New Zealand Grand Prix programme recognised the achievements of Stan, the Repco Research team and Maybach 1 S3 in winning the 1954 event at Ardmore against international opposition the year before.
(AMS Annual 1959-60)
Etcetera…
(G McKaige)
Maybach 1 on Kew Boulevard at Studley Park, Melbourne before the start of the September 1947 VSCC One Day Trial. Alex Bryce’s Bentley 3-litre is behind. Note the twin-Amals, lump of wood to keep Charlie in-situ and slicks fitted up front!
(G McKaige)
By the time the VSCC Killara Park sprints were held at the Davison Lilydale farm in November 1947, Maybach 1 had grown four more Amals. The message to be taken is that Maybach(s), like all great racing cars, were in a perpetual state of development.
(J Montasell)
Charlie Dean at Rob Roy in January 1948, Maybach 1 obviously now bodied. Note the Studebaker pressed steel wheels and front drums compared with the shot of Maybach 1 in almost the same spot a year later below, with wire wheels and bespoke Minerva/PBR drums. Patons Brake Replacements – PBR – was another Repco Ltd subsidiary.
(J Montasell)(G McKaige)
Charlie Dean cornering hard on Hurstbridge Hillclimb in April 1949, Maybach 1. He was second in the over 3-litre racing car class, Hurstbridge, to Melbourne’s east was used several times post-war.
(G McKaige)
Dean, Maybach 1 S2 competing in the Mornington Motor Races at the Balcombe military camp in June 1950.
Stan Jones in Maybach 1 S3 chasing Jack Murray’s Allard J2 at Parramatta Park, Sydney – the first meeting at the venue – on the Australia Day weekend in January 1952.
(J Fleming Collection)
Maybach 1 S3 this is The Age shot shown earlier, with the article as published. If somebody has a photograph of the Victoria Trophy we would all know if the annual for many years event was the Victorian, or Victoria Trophy. Both names are bandied around…
(Repco ad in the Motor Manual Australian Motor Racing Year Book No 4 1953-54)
Just how strongly Repco used the Maybach programme to promote their engineering excellence to the broader populace is unclear to me.
This ad in the horsepower-press below promotes some of the Repco subsidiary produced components used in Maybach, but pointedly fails to note that the car and driver shown are winning the 1954 New Zealand Grand Prix at Ardmore. Time to sack the ad agency and/or the internal copy-boy/girl!
Repco ad from the back cover of the November 4, 1952 Australian Hillclimb Championship, Rob Roy programme
Clearly – to the extent you can see the cars – Motor Manual’s cars and drivers of the year were Stan Jones and Maybach 1 S3, and Jack Brabham and his RedeX Special, aka Cooper T23 Bristol.
Reference and photocredits…
Australian Motor Sports Review 1958-59, Brian Caldersmith, ‘The 50 Year History of The Australian Grand Prix’, John Fleming Collection via Tony Johns, George McKaige and Chester McKaige via their superb two ‘Beyond The Lens’ books, Stan Griffiths, David Zeunert Archive, sensational and rare Dacre Stubbs photographs via Martin Stubbs, VSCC Vic Collection, John Montasell, Clem Smith, Motor Manual, Ivan Pozega Collection, Peter Moore
Tailpieces…
(C Smith)
The Maybach reality: Australia against the Europeans – ignoring the country of origin of the engine! – with Stan as often as not leading as chasing. Here Jones is aboard Maybach 1 on the Adelaide Hills, Woodside road circuit in October 1951, chasing arch-Melbourne-rival come fellow rough-nut, Doug Whiteford’s Lago Talbot T26C. Whiteford won this encounter in what were Stan’s early days in Formule Libre.
(I Pozega Collection)
Maybach 1’s mortal remains were tracked down or found by Jack McDonald in a South Melbourne wrecking/junk-yard in the early 1960s. He rebuilt the car – all of the required donor bits were easier to obtain back then – and soon the old-gal was back on track, in this case a Calder Drags meeting in 1968. Jack is being blown off by Des Byrne’s E-Type Ford V8.
For the last 32 years Maybach 1 has been in the very safe, caring hands of Melbourne racer/historian Bob Harborow, shown below competing at Goodwood in 2006.
primotipo... 