Archive for the ‘Fotos’ Category

1971 Monaco Panorama: Ronnie Peterson…

Posted: June 13, 2017 in F1, Fotos
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Monaco Panorama; Ronnie Peterson eases his March 711 Ford around the hairpin at Monaco in 1971 on the way to second place, Jackie Stewart won in a Tyrrell 003 Ford…

Monaco was a happy hunting ground for the Swede, his brand of ‘balls to the wall’ driving was not necessarily the style that was rewarded in the principality but he took wins in the F3 Grand Prix in 1969 in his Tecno 69 Ford and in the F1 event in a Lotus 72E Ford in 1974.

He had a great year in the 711, an excellent Robin Herd design, he finished second to Jackie Stewart in the 1971 drivers championship, not bad for a driver in his second GP season!

The more radical 1972 March 721X made conceptual sense but was not so successful…Ronnie was then snaffled up by Lotus for ’73…

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Close up of Ronnie in the 711, Dutch GP 1971, he was 4th in the race won by Ickx’ Ferrari 312B2. Front suspension; top rocker, lower wishbone, inboard coil spring/Koni damper and adjustable roll bar all clear and beautifully fabricated by the Boys From Bicester (unattributed)

A couple of other posts on ‘Mad Ronald’ to look at…

His first GP season in 1970;  https://primotipo.com/2014/05/15/blue-cars-rock/

With Colin Chapman;  https://primotipo.com/2014/08/03/the-gentle-art-of-driver-seduction-colin-chapman-and-ronnie-petersen-clermont-ferrand-1972/

Photos…unattributed

 

 

Tony Brooks, BRM, Silverstone 1961…

Posted: June 6, 2017 in F1, Fotos
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Tony Brooks, pensive before the off in his BRM P48 Mk2 ‘487’ during the ‘BRDC International Trophy’ meeting, Silverstone, 6 May 1961…

Brooks returned to the Bourne team for ’61, his last in motor racing, it was generally not a happy one racing 1.5 litre Coventry Climax FPF engined BRM P57’s. The Bourne teams own wonderful P56 V8 was still a season away.

The International Trophy in 1961 was contested to the shortlived Intercontinental Formula, rather than the new 1.5 litre F1. Brook’s joy in driving a ‘proper’ 2.5 litre racing car somewhat dampened, literally, by the horrid conditions in which the drivers raced.

Brooks was 6th in the event won by Stirling Moss in Rob Walker’s Cooper T53 Climax. Tony was passed by an inspired Chuck Daigh’s front-engined Scarab at one point, finally re-taking the American’s position during the last lap.

Perhaps the great drivers waning interest in racing was becoming clear early in the season? He was out-qualified by his team-mate Graham Hill, well established in the team by then, in 7 of the 8 championship events in 1961…

Credits: Popperfoto, Doug Nye ‘BRM Vol 2’

Lotus 20 Contemporary Art…

Posted: June 1, 2017 in Fotos, Obscurities
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‘Still life of a Lotus 20 Formula Junior and Houghton Harness Racing Sulky, 21 February 1962’…

The image was featured in a ‘Design for Sport Exhibition’ at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The photographers creative rationale would have been interesting but the progress he symbolises is clear…

Credit…

Mark Kauffman

 

Brabham BT53 BMW…

Posted: May 30, 2017 in F1, Fotos
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The boost gauge is a sign of the 1.5 litre, turbo GP formula, what a goody it was…

The Brabham BT52 BMW took the world title in Nelson Piquet’s hands in 1983, the cockpit shot is a BT53 during the ’84 British Grand Prix weekend.

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The photo above is Piquet’s BT53 being attended to by the cars designer, Gordon Murray, whilst white shirted Paul Rosche, the 4 cylinder BMW engines designer looks on. It’s practice at Hockenheim during the ’84 German GP weekend.

Not a good meeting though, both Teo Fabi and Nelson retired with turbo and gearbox maladies respectively, the McLaren MP4/2 TAG’s of Prost and Lauda were first and second.

Credits…

Rainer Schlegelmilch

Tailpiece…

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Team Total…

Posted: May 22, 2017 in Fotos, Who,What,Where & When...?
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This fantastic advertorial shot is of Frank Matich’s Brabham BT7A Climax and Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 27 Ford at Sandown in April 1964…

The magazine is the much loved and lamented ‘Australian Motor Sports’, the cover its June 1964 issue. The caption reads ‘…picture taken on the main straight up from the Dunlop Bridge, that’s the Dunlop R6 tread pattern photographer David Parker has caught so clearly on Frank’s car, at the April Sandown meeting’.

The 19 April meeting featured the Victorian Sportscar Championship which Matich won in the Total Team Lotus 19B Climax, the weekend for the team made almost complete by Geoghegan’s Lotus 27 victory in the ‘Victorian Trophy’, that year limited to 1.5 litre cars. Matich retired the Brabham with gearbox problems in the 15 lap racing car feature for ‘Tasman’ cars whilst in the lead, the race was won by Lex Davison’s Brabham BT4 Climax.

At the time the French oil company had aggressively entered the Australian retail market. Formation and promotion of this team, launched in July 1962, was an important part of their marketing and positioning strategy.

Total supported the Matich and Geoghegan team cars of Frank, Leo and brother Ian Geoghegan. Both Frank and Leo I have written about in detail, clink on the links below to read about them.

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Ian or ‘Pete’ Geoghegan’s Lotus 23 Ford, Leo G’s Lotus 32 Ford and Frank Matich’s Lotus 19B Climax at Oran Park, NSW in 1965 (Rod MacKenzie)

Credits…

AMS, David Parker, Rod MacKenzie Collection

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The Book of Australian Motor Racing…

Posted: May 16, 2017 in Fotos, Obscurities
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Seeing this book by Bill Tuckey amongst the display collection Michael Gasking brought to the Repco Brabham Engines ex-employees get together brought a smile to my face…

I didn’t ever own it but it was one of a very small number of racing books in Camberwell Grammar School’s library when I started there, aged 12.  Having only recently become interested in racing I was like a sponge for information. What was significant about this tome is that it was written by a talented journalist, Bill Tuckey, who edited both ‘Wheels’ and ‘Sports Car World’ magazines, the latter became one of my monthly bibles along with ‘Racing Car News’. The book covered a very broad canvas comprising all the Australian Grands Prix, portraits of the champion drivers at the time (the early sixties) as well as our circuits and the round Australia epic trials of the fifties.

It was a great read and provided important historical context for my contemporary obsessions at the time which were F5000 in Oz and F1 ‘over there’. I must suss it on Ebay.

Anyway, I thought I would share the cover art, the circuit depicted is Sandown, the Cooper T70 like car is just hooking into Shell Corner or Turn One, its vanilla name these days.

Bill Tuckey died not so long ago, this obituary in ‘Wheels’ is a great tribute to a talented man;

https://www.wheelsmag.com.au/news/1605/obituary-bill-tuckey/

Credits…

Michael Gasking Collection/Bill Tuckey, cover art by Phil Belbin

Bare Bones…

Posted: May 9, 2017 in F1, Fotos
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Mike Barney prepares Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T53 Climax’, French GP Reims, 3 July 1960…

That racing drivers shouldn’t have too much imagination is shown by this shot!

#16 is Brabham’s winning chassis, #18 McLaren’s third placed car. Olivier Gendebien was second and Henry Taylor fourth in T51’s making it a Cooper 1-4!

Yer ‘fancy-schmancy’ high tech relatively, I say it again, relatively safe 2017 carbon fibre GP machine is another world away, 55 years or so to be precise. Mind you, one would hope we would progress.

Owen Maddock’s curvy spaceframe chassis is typical of the day, the spaceframe anyway if not the imperfect in an engineering sense bent tubes! At the front the water radiator and oil tank are the ‘deformable structures’ ahead of the drivers ankles and lower legs. The fuel tanks are neatly and very practically ‘bungee’ strapped to the chassis and prone to leakage as the ‘ally tanks chafe on the steel chassis tubes. The ‘deformable side structures’ are the tanks, no bag bladders in those days so the risk of fire was great, prevalent and occasionally fatal.

The 2.5 litre Coventry Climax FPF powered T53 ‘Lowline’ was the 1960 successor to the race-winning and built in vast numbers 1958/9 T51. That car in both F2 and F1 spec has to be one of the greatest customer racing cars ever? T53 was the design work of Jack, John Cooper and Maddock.  The Lotus 18, Chapmans first mid-engined car was the quickest bolide of 1960. Moss took wins in Rob Walker’s car at Monaco and in the season ending US GP at Riverside but it was not the most reliable, something Jack was happy to capitalise upon.

McLaren won the Argentinian GP at the seasons outset, then Jack had an amazing mid-season run winning the Dutch GP on 6 June and the Portuguese GP on 14 August. In between Zandvoort and Oporto he won the Belgian, French and British GP’s thereby setting up his and Cooper’s second world titles on the trot.

Its good to look at these cars in the ‘nuddy’ every now and again to remind oneself of just how close to the elements and how brave the drivers of yore were. Yep, the piloti are no more exposed than they had been in the past but the cornering speeds of a 1960 2.5 litre Cooper or Lotus were a good deal quicker than a 1954 2.5 litre Maser 250F, the road circuits in particular just as hazardous…

Cooper T53 Climax cutaway by Brian Hatton

Credits…

GP Library, Brian Hatton

 

 

 

 

 

Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantique…

Posted: May 3, 2017 in Fotos, Obscurities
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The wonderful, outrageous, avant-garde, art deco Atlantic is both a monument to Jean Bugatti’s design talent and also to pre-war Europe. It is one of the last visual wonders of its age before the focus of engineers was forced upon munitions, the resultant devastation the antithesis of the Bugatti’s beauty.

When Molsheim’s Aérolithe concept debuted at the 1935 Paris Salon, the public just didn’t get it. It was radical to behold, the body was made out of light, flammable ‘Elektron’ magnesium which was riveted externally giving the car its distinctive central seam. Under the haute couture clothes was a new ultra low, modified T57 chassis, also fitted to the ‘normal’ T57S and SC. The rear axle passed through the rear chassis frame rather than riding under it. Those elements and the T59 GP car derived DOHC 3257cc straight-8 engine, dry-sumped in this application to fit under the low bonnet, made the Aérolithe the most advanced car of its time.

T57 Atlantic cutaway (unattributed)

But Ettore Bugatti was disappointed in the work of art, the solo Aérolithe soon disappeared. To this day its fate is a mystery, explanations include it being a casualty of war or perhaps broken down for its parts. Not so long ago Aérolithe was recreated using original parts and materials with only 15 photographs as a resource and reference base. Quite a job!

After the Aérolithe show car, Bugatti produced four supercharged Atlantic coupes in 1936/7 using aluminum instead of magnesium for the bodies whilst keeping the rivets. Powered by supercharged straight-8’s, these circa 200bhp coupes exceeded 120mph- in 1936! In fact two unsupercharged Type 57S and two supercharged Type 57SC Coupes were built but both T57S’ were later supercharged by the factory, therefore becoming SC-‘surbaisse’- lowered and C-‘compresseur’-compressor in specification. All four cars still exist.

I thought this painting by Dietz the quintessential Parisian Atlantique scene…

Credit…

Dietz

1914 French Grand Prix…

Posted: May 1, 2017 in F1, Fotos, Who,What,Where & When...?
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Engine 4 cylinder monobloc, 1 inlet and 2 exhaust valves, SOHC, 4493cc-100X143mm bore/stroke, 4 speed box, 4 disc clutch, brakes on transmission, front and rear wheels, 1025Kg

Antonio Fagnano blasts his Fiat through a village during the 14 July 1914 event, Lyon…

Fagnano was a Fiat all-rounder and institution, he was a mechanic, foreman, member of the test department and graduated from riding mechanic to race driver of the works team!

For 1914 the GP ‘Formula’ provided for an 1100Kg maxiumum weight and engines of no more than 4.5 litres in capacity. The race was a contest between Peugeot and Mercedes in the context of imminent war; Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated less than a week before the GP at Lyon which drew a crowd of over 300,000 filling hotels within a 50Km radius of the course.

Christian Lautenschlager and riding mechanic on the way to winning the 1914 French GP, Mercedes GP 35HP. Engine 4 separate cylinders, 4 valves per cylinder, SOHC, 3 plugs per cylinder, 4456cc-93X164mm bore/stroke, claimed power 115bhp@2800rpm. 4 speed box, leather cone clutch, brakes on transmission and rear wheels, 1080Kg, top speed circa 110mph (unattributed)

Christian Lautenschlager won from teammates Louis Wagner and Otto Salzer in 7 hours 8 minutes 18.4 seconds at an average speed of 65.665mph.

Sailer led by 18 seconds at the end of the first lap, by lap five he had built a lead of almost 3 minutes and then retired with a blown engine on lap 6.  Boillot’s Peugeot took over the lead for 12 laps, at one point he led by over 4 minutes.

The Mercedes drivers made one stop during the race for new Continentals. This contrasted with the poor wear of the Dunlops of Peugeot, Boillot made eight stops for tyres, the Frenchman’s many tyre changes allowed Lautenschlager to pass on lap 18. By the end of that lap, Christian had opened up a lead of over 30 seconds.

Fagnano’s Fiat was the best placed of the Italian cars, the talented driver died of an illness, aged 35, on 8 July 1918.

France, 1914 and the Art Historians…

If you have a hankering for this era of racing here is a very interesting article with a completely different angle.

http://www.king-of-the-boards.com/articles/france1914.pdf

Credit…

Roger Viollet, Alinari Archive, T Mathieson ‘Grand Prix Racing 1906-1914’, Patrick Ryan Collection

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Tailpiece: Dealership ‘in period’, the first Fiat dealership in Geneva with two 501’s out front, circa 1921…

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(Alinari Archive)

 

 

 

 

 

Ecurie Richmond…

Posted: April 25, 2017 in Fotos, Who,What,Where & When...?
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Eric Brandon and Alan Brown, ‘Ecurie Richmond’ drivers with capped patron Jimmy Richmond, a haulage contractor from Nottinghamshire and mechanic Ginger Devlin at Silverstone 14 July 1951…

It’s the British Grand Prix meeting, the cars the latest Norton engined Cooper MkV 500cc F3. The motors were tuned by the highly rated Steve Lancefield and Francis Beart. The very competitive drivers were first (Brandon) and second in that years Autosport F3 Championship from the JBS’ of Peter Collins and Don Parker. They didn’t win at Silverstone though, Stirling Moss won in the new Kieft CK51 from Ken Wharton and Jack Moor.

The Ecurie Richmond pair netted 16 major victories and 41 heat wins in a marvellous 1951 season. The Brands Hatch Junior Championship in ’51 was taken by Cooper mounted BC Ecclestone.

Ecurie Richmond progressed to F2 in 1952 with Brown’s Cooper T20 Bristol achieving the great marques first championship GP points with his 5th place at Bremgarten in the Swiss Grand Prix, F2 adopted as F1 in 1952-3 of course. Heady days indeed…

Credit…

GP Library, 500 Owners Association

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