Goerge Barton and John Sherwood with their MG NE Magnette, in 1934, place unknown…
John Sherwood was a rather talented Australian- an elite road racer, competitor in the 1938 Australian Grand Prix and winner of the 1939 New South Wales Grand Prix/Motor Road Race, both events at Bathurst. He was also an excellent Midget speedway racer, motor sport administrator and promoter.
Sherwood was the driving force of the NSW Light Car Club and the key individual who created the Mount Panorama track at Bathurst. From a pioneering motoring family, he was a formidable competitor and later, as a Director of Empire Speedways, was a big contributor to the growth of Speedway Racing in Australia
I was researching an article on Sydney’s Parramatta Park road circuit when I tripped over this article written by Sherwood in 1953. I’ve reproduced it for its rarity- a man of the sport, in the sport and involved in the business of racing writing about its history in period having participated in many of the events he describes.
The selection of photographs to help bring the article to life are my own, otherwise Sherwood’s work is reproduced verbatim.
John Sherwood exiting Murray’s Corner, MG NE Magnette, Bathurst, Easter Monday 10 April 1939 on the way to winning the handicap NSW GP/Motor Road Race. He won from Paul Swedberg in John Snow’s Delahaye 135S and John Barraclough’s MG NE Magnette. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that ‘Sherwood drove a splendid race throughout going into the lead after the first few laps and holding it to the end, though making two stops for faulty spark plugs’ (M Stahl)
‘Generally speaking, history tends to be on the dry side, but fortunately the historical side of motor racing is anything but dry. It is rather fascinating to look back along the years to see how the sport in Australia has developed.
Motor racing in our country has grown over the years despite several retarding factors: the continued objection of officialdom to all aspects of organised fast driving, for many years the impossibility of obtaining suitable circuits and tracks on which to race and the lack of factory support for ambitious and worthy drivers. Nevertheless, motor racing enthusiasts throughout Australia have overcome all these drawbacks, and today (1953 remember) we see more of the sport than ever before.
Motor racing in Australia developed in Australia through the early reliability trials of 45 years ago, followed gradually by the inclusion in such trials of speed events such as hillclimbs, acceleration tests and short timed events over quarter and half mile distances. Then commenced the various city to city record attempts, for a long time unhindered by officialdom, in which usually big engined chassis with bucket seats, and a host of spare tyres sped from capital to capital over atrocious roads with the success of the run always influenced by the number of blowouts of the cord beaded edge tyres, and the number of tyres it was possible to carry on the vehicle.
Drivers of these cars were considered super-drivers, and such men as the late AV Turner (later killed in a hillclimb), the late Boyd Edkins and ‘Wizard’ Smith were hero-worshipped everywhere by motor enthusiasts.
The first actual racing in Australia probably occurred on the enclosed tracks at Victoria Park Racecourse (Sydney) and the Aspendale one mile dirt track (Melbourne). Mostly big-engine low revving juggernauts took part, entirely unsuitable for the job as we look back now, but in those days the last thing in racing automobiles.’
‘World Championship’ for Under 1500cc cars- Penrith Speedway, Sydney, 6 October 1930. From the outside is John Sherwood’s Lea Francis O-Type, then the Sam Aggett and Charlie East driven Bugatti T37’s and on the inside Tom Lord’s, Geoff Lowe owned Austin 7 Brooklands. On the very inside verge is Jack Field’s supercharged Lea Francis S-Type Hyper tourer slowing having paced the competitors for a lap before the championships 3 lap journey, East was the winner in his Bugatti (SLNSW)
‘The early drivers were keen, and more tracks were opened at Penrith (one mile) Maroubra (5/6 mile highly banked concrete track) and beaches at Gerringong and in Victoria came into use for racing purposes. At Gerringong, Don Harkness, driving an enormous Minerva engined chassis, was clocked at 107 mph to be the first in Australia to exceed the coveted ‘century’.
(The) First actual road racing circuit was opened at Phillip Island in Westernport Bay, 40 miles from Melbourne in 1928 and this became the mecca for motor racing enthusiasts for the next nine or ten years. At this point the dry bed of Lake Perkollili in Western Australia was the centre of motor racing in the west.
Australia’s best road circuit (more or less built specially for the purpose) at Mount Panorama, Bathurst came into being in 1938, and except for most of the war years, has been in use ever since. Other road circuits in other states have also sprung up, and since the war various ex-airforce strips have been adapted for racing with much success.
The newest circuit to come into use is in Parramatta Park, 15 miles from Sydney, a rather narrow 2 mile circuit, suitable mainly for the smaller cars, but by reason of its close proximity to a big population, is certain of success.
Down through the years cars have altered very considerably, the small high revving high compression engines now putting out power which one could not have conceived in the early days. Suspensions, brakes, steering, weight, tyres, fuel, streamlining and a hundred and one other things have combined to make the modern racing car a real thoroughbred, capable of sustaining terrific speeds over long distances.
As the years have rolled on, the scene changes, but motor racing itself does not change. Its spirit, rich in tradition and sportsmanship, linking past and present, reaches out to the future.’
Photo Credits…
Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, Max Stahl Collection
Bibliography…
South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus 21 September 1953, reprint of an article first published in the ‘Bentwood Review’, Sydney Morning Herald 11 April 1939, John Medley
Tailpiece: Sherwood and flock…
(Fairfax)
John Sherwood standing beside John Snow’s #4 Delahaye 135S, with the #6 Edison Waters Jaguar 100SS, Alf Barrett’s Alfa Monza and John Barraclough driven Alvis Terraplane straight-8 on the Bathurst grid in October 1939. Sherwood instrumental in the construction of this Australian racing institution- in the words of John Medley ‘Bathurst: Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’.
It’s the end of the swinging-sixties- the Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others ‘Pop Art’ phase is in full bloom…
It’s interesting to look at the graphic design and advertising imagery of the period which is wonderfully full of it, the style even extended to some stickers in Australia’s ‘Racing Car News’ magazine.
For the princely sum of 20 cents the six decals would be in your letterbox within the week, don’t you love the immediacy of snail-mail? The cheap giveaway was a time honoured technique in the pre-internet days of building a database of potential customers, oh for simpler times when identity fraud was rare rather than something to be mindful of in our daily online interactions.
The cars and drivers are all well known to Australian enthusiasts and include some of the stars of the day many of whom I have written about in whole or in passing.
The first image is Kevin Bartlett’s Alec Mildren Racing Mildren Waggott ‘Yellow Submarine’, a car first raced by Frank Gardner in the 1969 Tasman Series and then used by KB to win the Gold Star later that season. Click here for more; https://primotipo.com/2017/11/14/missed-it-by-that-much/
Frank Matich’s Matich SR4 Repco was built to contest the 1968 Can-Am series but ran hopelessly late so crucified local opposition in the 1969 Australian Sportscar Championship instead. Click here for a long feature on it;
The final three cars featured are Pete Geoghegan’s Australian built Mustang above (as in built for racing), Norm Beechey’s Holden HK Monaro GTS 327 with Bob Jane’s Shelby constructed Mustang as the ‘Tailpiece’. All of these machines are covered in an article I wrote about the 1969 Australian Touring Car Championship won by Geoghegan. Here ’tis; https://primotipo.com/2018/02/01/1969-australian-touring-car-championship/
These two blokes are aboard a Bugatti Brescia Type 23 out front of The George Hotel in Lydiard Street, Ballarat, Victoria between 1945 and 1950…
The shot is from the State Library of Victoria archive, it was taken by George Thomas, a prolific ‘snapper at motorsport events throughout Victoria at the time. Ballarat, 120 kilometres west of Melbourne is a Gold Rush town. Over 600,000 people came to Australia from all over the globe in the 1850s to chase their fortune. Ballarat was one of the main destinations of the optimistic, it’s a beautiful place with many of the stately buildings of the period still standing, including the George Hotel.
The interesting thing is of course, which particular chassis it is and who the fellows are. My recently acquired copy of Bugattis In Australasia (details in the credits below) personally delivered by the very knowledgeable, youthful, spritely 81 year old author, Bob King suggests it’s either Bill Fleming or Neil Barter, assuming the photo date range is accurate.
The car is a long-chassis Modifie. Without going into all of King’s detail, the chassis number of the car can’t be confirmed, but it came from New South Wales to Victoria in 1938 when owned by Fred Betts. He never registered it, but raced it at Phillip Island pre-war.
After the conflict it was raced by John ‘Bill’ Fleming at the Hurstbridge and Rob Roy Hillclimbs in Victoria in 1948, before being sold to Barter that October. At this stage, as shown in the opening photograph, the car was registered in Victoria JT441 and was fitted with engine number 2566.
Fleming on the startline at Hurstbridge Hillclimb in Melbourne’s outer north-east (King)The Fleming Brescia at Rob Roy Hillclimb in Melbourne’s Christmas Hills, ‘eighteen litres of Semmering Mercedes in the background’ (King)
Barter recounts in King’s book ‘By January we were driving it around as much as petrol rationing would allow. After correcting a dismally retarded camshaft timing, we found the performance astonishing – 40 mph first gear, 60 in second, 4,300 rpm etc – we were never short of superlatives. Alas youthful exuberance led to disaster and injury when… in April 1939…the car overturned at the corner of Dendy Street and The Esplanade, Brighton’, a bayside Melbourne suburb not too far from Albert Park Lake, a place all you global GP fans will be familiar with.
‘A regular trick was to drive it as quickly as you could along Beach Road at Brighton Beach and, instead of taking the right hand corner…we would hurl it into the gravel car park opposite the monument, put it into a 180-degree slide and then drive straight out again, heading back towards Hampton. The prize for the night went to the driver who travelled the quickest and made the cleanest slide!’ What a great thing to do after a few bevvies on a Friday or Saturday night?!
‘This all came to a halt when, one night, with four up, I rolled it when turning from the beach road into Dendy Street…a very sobering experience for all and particularly me’, Neil Barter wrote. Looking at the young blokes in the car at Ballarat my guess is that it’s Barter and one of his Brighton Grand Prix accomplices!
Bob King records a bewildering nineteen owners of this car. The last was Wolf Zeuner in the United Kingdom albeit this was way back 1992. The name Brescia was applied to these cars (T13 2.0 metre chassis, T22 2.4 metre, T23 2.55 metre) after the cars placed first to fourth in the 1921 Italian Voiturette Grand Prix.
Piero Marco, Brescia T22, Brescia before the off Gran Premio delle Vetturette, 1921 (Bugatti)
de Vizcaya, Brescia T13, GP Penya Rhin 1921- is the descriptor for this Barcelona event but my race results don’t accord with this car/driver combo that year (unattributed)
This event, the ‘1 Gran Premio delle Vetturette’, held on 8 September 1921 on the Circuito di Brescia comprise 20 laps of a 17 km course, a total of 346 km. Thirteen cars contested the race, the winning Bugatti T22 of Ernest Friderich completed the race in two hours 59 minutes 18.6 seconds. He was followed home by teammates Pierre de Vizcaya, Michele Baccoli and Piero Marco all aboard Bugatti 22s, they were chased home by a group of four OM465’s.
2,000 Brescias were built from 1919-1926 more than any other type of Bugatti. ‘Being the first Bugatti made in any numbers, it was the Brescia that established Bugatti’s reputation as a builder of sports and racing cars. They were imported into Australia and New Zealand in considerable numbers…’ King wrote.
Original period sales brochure with Brescia at centre stage, the rest of the document is below
Bob continues ‘The Brescia, of 1496cc capacity, has a cylinder block with non-detachable head and four valves per cylinder operated from a single overhead camshaft via ‘banana’ tappets. In Europe the standard touring model had a four sparking plug cylinder block with ignition from a magneto mounted transversely at the front the engine. These cars had a cast aluminium firewall and were known at the factory as the ‘Modifie’. Racing versions had eight plug cylinder blocks with two magnetos mounted in the dashboard driven (noisily) by spur gears. These latter were known as ‘Full Brescias’. Surprisingly, regardless of chassis length and whether fitted with racing, sports, or touring bodywork, the majority of new imports to Australia were ‘Full Brescias’. Perhaps it was thought to have the security of two magnetos in our relatively primitive motoring environment.’
Superb Brescia 16-valve engine cutaway, technical details as below (Griggs)
In the early twenties, Bugatti didn’t build the bodies of their cars, with the exception of minimalist T13 racing coachwork, so all of the new cars imported to Australia via the London agent, Sorel, were shipped in most cases in bare chassis form. A tax or tariff was imposed on imported coachwork to help stimulate the local industry with ‘Many of the local bodies fitted to Brescias appear to have been of poor quality. This, coupled with the harsh ride of the Brescia, and the poor roads on which they were driven, ensured that the coachwork had a short life. With the need for light bodies for competition work, the discarded original bodywork was usually followed by a succession of amateur built bodies.’ King wrote.
Bugatti played a very important part in the formative years of Australian motor racing as the weapon of choice for many sportsmen on road circuits, hillclimbs, the concrete saucer at Maroubra, gravel speedways and the beaches at places like Gerringong.
A straight-eight Bugatti T30 driven by Geoff Meredith won the first Australian Grand Prix at Goulburn, New South Wales in 1927. Goulburn, 200 km south of Sydney, was also a Gold Rush town. In fact Bugatti won five of the first six AGPs creating huge brand awareness by the standards of the time.
Four cylinder Bugatti T37As – the supercharged variant of the T37 – were victorious in the Phillip Island AGPs of 1929 with Arthur Terdich at the wheel, and in 1930 and 1932 when driven by the period’s ace, Bill Thompson. Carl Junker won in 1931 aboard a straight-eight 1.5-litre T39.
Drake-Richmond’s T37 goes thru Heaven Corner ahead of the Mert Wreford Riley Brooklands during the 1 January 1935 Centenary 300 at Phillip Island. This is the cover photo of Bob King’s book (King)
The Phillip Island AGPs were handicap events, so there is no reason a Brescia couldn’t have won a race with the right mix of speed, reliability and luck, but such never the case. The best Brescia results in our premier event were Merton Wreford’s fourth in 1932 and John Bernadou’s fifth in 1929.
Mert raced chassis 2133, ex-Arthur Terdich, and ‘In practice Wreford’s straight line speed was bettered by very few cars and he was actually faster than Drake-Richmond’s Type 37. In the race Mert was given a 15 minute start by the blown Type 37A’s of Terdich and Thompson and he finished a creditable fourth place on handicap, averaging almost 65 mph for the 200 miles with his old two-wheel-brake Brescia in spite of losing four valuable minutes with clutch trouble’ Bob King wrote.
John Bernadou raced his father Albert’s 2536 in the 1929 AGP – both father and son competed extensively in Victoria in the mid-twenties – despite being delayed by a hole in the fuel tank John was third in the Under 1500 cc class and fifth overall.
Bill McLachlan at Quarry Bend, Bathurst 1952. Bug T37A Ford V8 37358 aka the MacKellar Spl (B Gunther)
Some (not a huge number mind you) quite exotic racing cars came to Australia pre-War including several Vittorio Jano designed Alfa’s, but the faster Bugatti racing straight-eight T35 and T51’s didn’t make the trip until post-War, when they were of course beyond the first flush of youth.
In our racing, which comprised many events run to handicaps, the cars were competitive but none won a post-War AGP. All played an important role in bolstering grid sizes throughout the long Australian Special Era which in the main were MG based or Ford side-valve V8 powered. In many cases once the original Bugatti (or Alfa or Ferrari or Bristol) motor blew Ford V8s, or a bit later a small block Chev or Holden Grey-six-cylinder engine was inserted under said car’s shapely aluminium bonnets.
To reframe my shallow comment a moment ago about Australian Specials, the wonderful breed included tool-room-quality machines such as the Charlie Dean/Repco Research built Maybachs, the Lou Abrahams/Ted Gray Tornados and Chamberlain brothers Chamberlain 8. Also in the mix are outrageous in brilliant original conception cars like two of Eldred Norman’s masterpieces, the Double 8 and Eclipse/Zephyr Spl, while the rest includes anything and everything from mild-to-wild MGs and Ford V8 engined specials. Not to forget the Hudson straight-eight engined machines pre-War, the high point of those is the extant (Frank) Kleinig Spl: MG chassis, monoposto, Hudson-8 and much, much more. There was no lack of creativity among this country’s mechanics and engineers however basic the underpinnings of the machines they started with!
A game-changer was the move in AGP regulations from handicap to outright events from the 1949, Leyburn Queensland AGP won by John Crouch’s Delahaye 135S. Mind you that didn’t stop the organisers of the 1950 Lobethal, South Australia, and 1951 Narrogin, West Australia AGPs having an each way bet by placing as much emphasis on the handicap winner as the outright victor, which comes through strongly in the contemporary newspaper accounts.
1951 was the last handicap-AGP (in part) and the last won by an Australian built car (the Warwick Pratley driven, George Reed built, Ford V8 engined George Reed Special) until Frank Matich won the 1971 AGP at Warwick Farm a couple of decades later in brand new F5000 Matich A50 Repco Holden.
From 1951 those who wanted to win the AGP needed the readies to acquire a car with the speed, endurance on our rough road circuits and reliability. The balance of the fifties was the Factory Car Era. A Talbot Lago T26C won in 1952/3 (Doug Whiteford), HWM Jaguar in 1954 (Lex Davison), Ferrari 500/625 won in 1957/8 (Davison), a mid-engined Cooper T40 Bristol in 1955 (Brabham) and Maserati 250Fs in 1956/9 (Moss/Stan Jones).
John Cummins raced his T37A Holden ‘37332’ complete with Bellamy IFS until very late in the piece- here the eternal racer/raconteur is at Bathurst in 1961 (unattributed)
Among all this the pre-War Bugatti’s, whether Bugatti or black-iron-powered still played an important role. The last AGP grid of substantial Bugatti numbers was the 1952 Mount Panorama contest in which three entered. Bill McLachlan’s T37A Ford V8 finished 13th, while the T35B/51 shared by Phil Catlin and Peter Menere was 15th, but the P Lowe T37 Holden failed to finish. In fact the placings by McLachlan and Catlin/Menere were the last in an AGP for Bugattis, one was Ford V8 powered, the other still had its Molsheim motor.
For the record, the very last Bugatti AGP start was the David Van Dal/John Cummins T57 which failed to finish the very hot 1957 Caversham race outside Perth. There ended a rich contribution by the marque to Australian motor racing which commenced with substantial numbers of Brescias, and Geoff Meredith’s first AGP win aboard a T30 at Goulburn in 1927. Thirty years from start to finish, not a bad record at all!
Duncan Ord in the ex-Howe/Levegh T57 ‘57264’ 3.3 s-8 in the Patriotic GP at Applecross, Perth, WA on 11 November 1940. He is turning out of Tweedale Road (Terry McGrath))
Bibliography…
‘Bugattis in Australasia’ Bob King- Bob still has a couple of copies of this book and plenty of ‘The Brescia Bugatti’- contact rking4450@gmail.com
‘A History of Australian Grand Prix 1928-1939’ John Blanden, MotorSport July 1942, The Bugatti Trust
Photo Credits…
George Thomas, Bob King Collection, Byron Gunther, Bob Shepherd, Terry McGrath, Griggs, automobiles.narod.ru
Chassis: period typical girder, H-section front axle, weight circa 610 kg
Engine: Four-cylinder, SOHC by front bevel drive, four valve with bore/stroke of 66, 68, 69 x 100 mm for capacities of 1368/1453/1496 cc. Carburettor(s) one or two Zenith. Ignition one or two magnetos, usually SEV. Plugs one or two per cylimder. 30 plus bhp with an RPM limit of (‘prudent’) 4000 ‘or even 4500 on a good Brescia’
Gearbox: located centrally, four-speed and reverse with right-hand location, clutch wet multi plate
Brakes: Location and type – foot, transmission and right-hand for the rear. Four wheel brakes fitted from 1926
Wire wheels with original size 710 x 90
Dimensions: T13, wheelbase 2.0 metres or 1967 mm, T22 2.4 metres or 2417 mm and T23 2.55 metres all with a track of 1.15 metres
Drawing of Brescia ‘2566’ engine showing the oil drain tubes from cam-box to crankcase (B Shepherd)
Notes on The Brescia Bugatti: MotorSport July 1942…
Doug Cavill or perhaps Bill Reynolds races his Austin Healey 100-6 based Prad Healey at Lowood, Queensland circa 1959…
The car was a new one on me, quite a wild, fantastic looking machine, the modifications to the body were made by Jack Pryer and Clive Adams- the Prad boys in Sydney whilst the engine was breathed upon by racer/mechanic Bill Reynolds. Cavill- the Surfers Paradise ‘main drag’ Cavill Avenue was named after his father Jim Cavill- was a successful estate agent and had the readies to fund this interesting car.
Quentin Miles has been progressively uploading some photographs taken by his late father on Bob Williamson’s ‘Old Motor Racing Photographs – Australia Facebook page- check it out, this is a beauty despite the ravages of time to the negative.
Patrick Quinn wrote an article about this interesting car published in the Victorian Austin Healey Owners Club magazine ‘Hundreds and Thousands’ in 2013 which is reproduced below. The ‘restoration’ of the car is a shame, tragic really.
Etcetera…
This shot by the Salter brothers is at Lakeside circa 1961-62.
Credits…
Quentin Miles, Patrick Quinn, ‘Hundreds and Thousands’, B & N Salter
Graham Hill with his new Doppelganger, London, 10 October 1968…
With him is Austrian actress Loni Von Friedl who appeared in ‘Doppelganger’, a movie which is the subject of this promotion, an activity which seems quite agreeable to the great Brit. The car, also a movie-star was ‘designed and built by Alan Mann Racing, has a Ford engine and chassis, is 44 inches high and is capable of 144 mph’.
The film, also called ‘Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun’ in some countries has a screenplay written by Gerry and Sylivia Anderson of ‘Thunderbirds’ and other 1960’s ‘Supermarionation’ puppet TV series fame- well known to those of us of a particular generation.
Set one-hundred years into the future, the film is about a joint European-NASA mission to investigate a planet in a parallel position to Earth and ends in disaster with the death of one of the astronauts- his colleague discovers that the planet is a mirror image of earth. Click here for some more detailed information about the movie which first screened in 1969; https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064519/
Who gives a rats about the movie for most of us! As to the car, I can find out a little bit, Alan Mann Racing has a great website but the car does not rate a mention there so I am intrigued to know more about the detailed design.
It seems the styling of the futuristic car (three were built for the film) was the work of Derek Meddings, the machines were ‘redressed slightly’ for a subsequent movie named ‘UFO’. The donor chassis was a Ford Zodiac Mk4 with the shapely aluminium body draped thereon. The gull-wing doors did not actually work, someone such as Hill G, or off camera during the movie was required to support a door.
‘The actors reported that the cars were very unpleasant to drive in, as there was not enough headroom, engine exhaust fumes spilled into the interior…and the cars were not fast, so many scenes were sped up to simulate a fast-moving vehicle’. The bones of the car still exist and will no doubt make an interesting curio at race/concours meetings when completed.
Photo and Other Credits…
PA Images/Joe Bangay Getty, projectswordtoys.BlogSpot.com
Tailpiece: Another of Doppelganger’s cars, Loni and a bloke…
Panther GT clay model, at the October-November 1968 Turin Motor Show…
Scuderia Brescia Corse was founded by a group of racers disaffected by their local governments refusal to reignite the Mille Miglia. The outfit, named after the town where the Mille started, prepared cars of any type for privateers wealthy enough to use their services. The roll-call of their top drivers down the years is impressive and includes Carlo Facetti, Teodoro Zeccoli, Giampiero Moretti, Umberto Maglioli and Nino Vaccarella. The variety of cars raced is also mouth-watering- Porsche 906, Ford GT40, Ferrari 206S, 512M and Alfa T33’s included. By the late sixties the team had become quite successful in regional, national and international events.
At the Bertone stand in Turin Scuderia Brescia Corse showed a model of a car the team intended to build to contest the World Sportscar Championship- shortly thereafter at the Geneva Show the stunning prototype was unveiled.
The car had some quite original thinking including an alloy and titanium monocoque (also described as a spaceframe in some sources) chassis, hydraulically controlled rear spoiler and 24 volt electrics to allow the use of smaller, lighter conductors.
BRM were the intended engine provider- their 3 litre V12 was initially to be the cars motor but in the end the team courted Maserati instead. In time honoured fashion sufficient funding could not be secured so the car withered on the vine- a shame, it would have been a welcome addition to grids awash with variety in the immediate pre-1970 period.
Love this post by Australian racer/enthusiast Ed Holly on Facebook the other day. He happily reported he still has the record but not the turntable upon which to play it…
The Spotify (you can’t beat it mind you) generation really struggle with records and turntables, mind you vinyl is staging a comeback of sorts.
Didn’t we all have Scalextric sets or a mate who had one? The image gave me all kinds of happy flashbacks. School holidays in the sixties were a blur of train sets, slot cars, a Yogi Bear or Flipper movie with mum at Balwyn Cinema (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) with WH Lowe’s Ferrari showroom opposite in Whitehorse Road to drool over, choc-top ice cream in hand afterwards- and billy-cart manufacture of course.
Ken Holt, the Caltex Servo owner at Greythorn never did crack the shits no matter how many ball-bearings me ‘an me mates cadged in our quest for ultimate, super steep Fintonia Street speed.
Pram wheels at the front and ball bearings at ze rear was the gun setup which provided speed, plenty of front end bite and bulk oversteer of which Kevin Bartlett would have been proud.
After a couple of hours of that it was time to go inside, sort the brushes on the Chaparral and go Scalextric racing- I never did have that record mind you…
Credits…
Ed Holly, Getty Images
Tailpiece: Christmas shopping 1968- that could be mine…
The Coventry Climax ET199 was said to be the first British produced forklift truck, 8 October 1946…
‘Seen here being demonstrated by a girl worker at the Coventry factory that produces the truck. The demonstration included lifting a racing car weighing nearly one and a half tons’ the Getty Images caption advises. I wonder what the ‘racing car’ is?
So, there you go, a Coventry Climax trivia question the answer to which you have always been waiting for!
Post war ‘Climax changed its focus away from car engines into other markets including marine diesels, fire pumps and forklift trucks. The ET199 was designed to carry a 4,000 lb (1,800 kg) load with a 24-inch (610 mm) load centre and a 9 ft (2.7 m) lift height for those with a particular interest in these devices.
The fire pump market and race adaptations of that engine proved rather successful for the company!
(Mirrorpix)
In another bit of trivia Prince Phillip paid the lads in Coventry a visit on 21 June 1966 and is doing his best to show some interest in a 2 valve Climax FWMV V8. Those with a keen knowledge of the company’s history will recall the only works Climax engines deployed in F1 that year was the special 2 litre, 4 valve FWMV Leonard Lee built for Colin Chapman to tide Jim Clark over until the BRM H16 engine was ready to pop into Col’s Lotus 43 chassis. Click here for a short article on the Lotus 33 which used this engine.
Tailpiece: Clark in the 2 litre Lotus 33 Climax FWMV V8 at Levin, New Zealand in 1967, he won the race and the series in ‘R14’…
(Digby Paape)
Clarks Lotus 33 ‘R14’ was a chassis which had been kind to him. He first raced it at Brands Hatch in July 1966, and, fitted with the super, trick, only 2 litre version of the Coventry Climax FWMV V8 it had served him well, he drove the car when the heavy ‘H16’ engined Lotus 43 was unsuited to the circuit or circumstances. His best result against the new 3 Litre F1’s was a strong third in Holland.
He won the Tasman series in ‘R14’, assisted greatly by the unreliability of the Brabhams and the BRM P261’s which had been so dominant the year before. He raced a Lotus 43 in South Africa, the first GP of 1967, then ‘R14’ for the last time at Monaco, finally getting his hands on the Lotus 49 at Zandvoort. By that time he was a British Tax exile so the first time the Scot saw the car was when he drove it in Holland, he hadn’t even tested the thing!
The Vauxhall 30/98 was an iconic high performance, light touring car despite the relatively small number, circa 596, built.
Such was the build quality and the fact that ’old car people’ saw the intrinsic merit of the Laurence Pomeroy design a large proportion of those constructed between 1923 to 1927 still exist. They were popular in Australia, we have a lot of 30/98’s in Oz in relative terms, the cars are a very welcome and admired part of the historic car scene. This short article is about two Velox bodied fast tourers shipped to Australia in 1924, chassis numbers OE86 and OE100.
In some of my history of Australian motor racing articles i’ve mentioned the grip on the publics imagination transcontinental or city to city record breaking had in the formative motoring years of this great sun-bleached land. Vauxhalls featured heavily in these achievements in the hands of Boyd Edkins and others.
30/98 at the Queensland/Northern Territory border fence (unattributed)
John Balmer was the scion of a well to do Victorian family, his mother acquired 30/98 chassis number OE100 as a gift for him. He competed in various motorsport events with it, and together with co-driver Eddie Scott set the transcontinental Darwin to Adelaide, Fremantle (Perth) to Adelaide, and Adelaide to Melbourne records during 1936 in the car.
OE100 was somewhat bruised by this experience so its core components- 4224cc 112 bhp four cylinder engine, gearbox and front end wheel to wheel were fitted into OE86, another 30/98 owned by RS Robinson, a friend of Balmer’s from their Melbourne University and Citizen Air Force training days.
With sponsorship provided by Shell, Dunlop and Repco, Balmer and Richard Kent established a new 9326 mile circumnavigation of Australia record of 24 days, 11 hours and 58 minutes in 1938. The Repco advertisement at this articles outset recognises that remarkable achievement of grit and endurance.
Crossing the Katherine River in the Northern Territory (unattributed)
John Balmer was killed on a bombing mission over Berlin in 1944 but left his share of the car to Robinson’s wife Janet. The car was retained by the Robinson family in Victoria’s Warrnambool area, little used other than in occasional VSCC events until sold in 2016- and restored by Paul Chaleyer in Blackburn, Victoria.
Bibliography…
ausauto.com, MossGreen auctions
Tailpiece: The transcontinental adventurers, John Balmer and Richard Kent, ‘Boys Own’ stuff isn’t it? Blackall is in central Queensland…
Here he is gently hoisting Miss Heathrow, Carol Marshall, into the cockpit of Peter Wardle’s Lotus 59 Formula Ford outside the Savoy Hotel on 16 April 1970.
Its the press launch of the Johnson Wax Euro Formula Ford Trophy with Stirling present in his capacity as ‘Director of Racing for Johnson Wax’- Claude Bourgoigne won the 1970 championship in a Lotus 69F.
I was researching the winner of the series and found this gem by Marcus Mussa on tentenths.com. Its British Formula Ford and Formula Atlantic champion, Grovewood Award winner and ‘Vanwall’ Tony Vandervell heir Colin Vandervell providing his recollections of the 1970 ‘EFDA European Formula Ford Championship’ series- he was second in the ‘Magic Merlyn’, the Mk11A chassis also raced by Emerson Fittipaldi and Jody Scheckter.
Colin Vandervell pensive, atypical it seems (ESPN)
‘The series was run initially by Nick Brittan and I seem to remember Tony Dron was involved (maybe he was Nick Brittan’s assistant at the time). I spoke to Colin Vandervell, who is blessed with an incredible memory- who told me a bit about the 1970 season. The series was sponsored by Johnson Wax. First prize was a F3 Lotus, with Holbay engine and a full budget for 1971!
First round – Zandvoort. Nick Brittan would not let Colin enter as he considered him not experienced enough! Race was won by Tony Trimmer.
Second round – Zolder. Colin got in and finished 2nd, miles behind Claude Bourgoignie, thanks to a lot of cars dropping out/crashing etc.
Third round – Anderstorp. Colin won
Fourth round – Salzburgring. Colin won
Fifth round – Hockenheim. Colin finished 4th. The first 20 cars were inside and all over each other- no chicanes at the time! Colin describes the race as “highly dangerous”. He was in the lead for most of it with Trimmer then the main pack caught them two laps from the end and they were swamped.
After Hockenheim there was a hill-climb in Switzerland, which Bourgoignie won.
Then at Imola Colin was 1.5 secs quicker than anyone in practice but (Colin) Chapman arranged for a bunch of Lotus drivers to enter with instructions to take Colin out! At the first corner two Lotuses (Loti?) hit him, Mo Harness barrel rolled 15 times and ended up in a ditch, bits of his rear suspension ripping off one of Colin’s brake lines.
Imola and Hockenheim were very, very fast tracks at the time. Colin says he used a 25/25 (24/24?) top gear at these tracks, higher even than Silverstone.
The final was at Brands Hatch and Colin won again.
In the end Bourgoignie was champion by only 3 points by virtue of winning or being well placed every time. Colin is sure he would have won if Brittan had let him into the first race.
Colin was of course driving his Merlyn (ex Emerson Fittipaldi, future Jody Scheckter and Frank Sytner!). In those days FF ran on road tyres – Avon crossplies in the dry and Firestone radials in the wet (for the wealthier drivers!).’
1970 EFDA/Johnson Wax Series Results
I’ve included the full list to enable you to cast your eyes over the array of talent, many of whom came through into the professional ranks in the coming years if not F1.
1. Claude Bourgoigne (B) Lotus-Holday 69F
2. Colin Vandervell Merlyn-Rowland Mk11A
3. Tony Trimmer Lola-Steele T200
4. Tom Belso (DK) Hawke-Lloyd DL2A
5. Jac Nelleman (DK) McNamara-Steele
6. Ian Taylor March-Spence 708
7. Hans Meier (A) Hawke-BRM L2A
8.Peter Lamplough Palliser-BR MWDF2
9. Brian Nelson (IRL) Crossle Nelson 16F
10. Huub Vermeulen (NL) Lotus-Holbay 61M
11. Tom Strous (DK) Lotus-Holbay 61M
Charles Carling Crossle Lucas 16F
Bob Evans Palliser-BRM WDF2
Derek Lawrence Titan-Lucas Mk6
Hakan Dahlqvist (S) Lotus-Holbay 61M
Peter Wardle Lotus-Holbay 69F
Vern Schuppan Palliser BRM WFD2
Mike Fraser Royale-RP RP3
Giancarlo Naddeo (I) De Sanctis
Mo Harness Lotus-Holbay 69F
Theo Koks (NL) Lotus Holbay 61M
Crystal Palace F3 Final, 10 September 1971…
Before and after!
The plunge for the lead coming into the kink before North Tower. Jody Scheckter, Merlyn Mk21 Ford, Dave Walker, Lotus 69 Ford and on the right Colin Vandervell, Brabham BT35 Ford. Jody has plunged down the inside just as Walker popped out of Vandervell’s slipstream with the Lotus and Merlyn about to lock wheels- all three cars made contact.
Roger Williamson won that day in Tom Wheatcroft’s March 713M Ford.
(unattributed)
Walker, Scheckter, Vandervell- the long walk home! (unattributed)
Check out this summary of Colin Vandervell’s career written by Andrew Marriott…
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