A BRM obscurity for something different, not that Doug Nye didn’t cover it in BRM 2.
John Merrick, a Lithgow, NSW local, with his BRM Project 25-engined speedcar – ‘NSW 43’ – at Windsor Speedway, Sydney in 1965.
Ken Moore, ‘My stepfather John Merrick started competing on a Douglas at Bathurst on dirt, later racing Speedway under the name ‘Johnny Hughes’ until the late 1960s. Later still, he raced in Historics, his last event was at Eastern Creek in 1995, aged 77.’
NSW 43 was an early spaceframe speedcar chassis design Merrick fabricated in his Wentworthville servo.
In search of the Unfair Advantage, he bought the BRM P25, 2.5-litre four-cylinder, DOHC engine, #2595, that had been fitted to Arnold Glass’s BRM P48, circa 1964. Unsold, Glass had planned to fit it into a speedboat.
Glass raced two Project 25-powered ex-works BRM P48 – chassis #485 and 482 – throughout Australasia in 1962-63 before selling his cars, parts thereof, and spares after buying a Cooper. See here for a lengthy piece on these cars and Glass’s adventures with them: https://primotipo.com/2018/03/16/bourne-to-ballarat-brm-p48-part-2/
Gary DeWall recalls a conversation with Merrick, ‘If I could get all four carbies working at the same time, I’d be on a winner!’
Merrick was involved in a bad accident at Westmead Speedway in 1966 during which the car rolled and broke in half. Tracey Moore, ‘Ken spent three months in hospital, with bleeding on the brain, a burst eardrum and other injuries. The NSW Speedcar Association provided my mother with money to live on donated by members. John took six years to regain his balance.’
As interest in historic racing and BRM generally grew, the engine was acquired by UK racer/restorer ‘Robs Lampslough in the late 1960s as a spare for his ex-Stow Type 25 rebuild, and then became the basis for a Type 25 tribute,’ wrote Doug Nye in BRM 2.
Other snippets from Facebook posts about Merrick are as follows. He was a lathe operator at Arrow Hart Engineering (later Crouse Hinds) in Moxon Road, Punchbowl, in the early 1970s.
NSW 43 was slowly rebuilt by Merrick in the early 1970s when he was living in the Punchbowl area and remains extant. Later in life, he operated Merrick Engineering and lived in Lithgow.
Credits…
Ken Moore, Lary Simons. Gary DeWall, Guy and Penny, ‘BRM: The Saga of British Racing Motors Vol 2’ by Doug Nye, Cec Lynch-State Library of New South Wales, autopics.com
Tailpieces…
Arnold Glass in BRM P48 #482 at Symmons Plains in November 1961. From memory, Formula Libre was a/the feature class during this ‘opening weekend’ of competition at Symmons. Who won, folks? Top Guns present, in addition to Arnold, included Stan Jones, John Youl, the landlord, of course, and Austin Miller.
The shot of Glass below was taken several months later, during the February 4, 1962 Warwick Farm 100 won by Stirling Moss’s Walker Cooper T53 2.7-Climax FPF. ‘Trinkets’ must have had problems, he didn’t set a qualifying time and was out after only eight of the event’s 45 laps due to overheating.
For the sake of completeness, Glass’s first BRM P48 was chassis #485, which is shown below in Graham Hill’s hands during the February 12, 1961 Victorian Trophy at Ballarat won by his teammate, Dan Gurney.
After the 1961 Australasian internationals, the P48s of Hill and Gurney returned to the UK. Arnold did his lease deal with the Owen Racing Organisation, and #485 was comprehensively rebuilt and then sent to Sydney with a host of spares: engine, gearbox, etc. Glass tested it at Warwick Farm, then took off to Adelaide for the Gold Star round at Mallala and wrote it off in practice. Insured, #482 was prepped in Bourne and sent to the colonies as the replacement.
Finito…
primotipo... 