A promotion for Indian motorcycles, Adelaide 1923, the only items missing are a bow and arrows…
I spat my chockie biscuit out when I came upon this snap! Too funny and sooo politically incorrect and unacceptable in todays societal morays. I think I would have slotted into 1923 quite nicely.
Details are few other than the three bikies were at a sporting event, I’m guessing the Indian bloke hailed from the Adelaide suburbs rather than the American prairies.
As to locale, its probably not the go at the Adelaide Oval during the cricket, and the ‘Speedway Royal’ Wayville, just outside Adelaide’s ‘Square Mile’ hadn’t quite opened yet, so who knows where it is.
Anyway. Look and laugh, just luvvit! I mean no disrespect to any North American Indian readers, my mirth is at the ‘creativity’ of the Indian ‘Sales and Marketing Team’ here in Australia. Still no doubt it achieved the ‘cut through’ marketers seek.
As to the model of bike, the Indian lineup about then was the ‘Scout’, ‘Chief’ and ‘Big Chief’. I’m guessing it’s the 1200cc Big Chief, coz that’s what the dude on the bike looks like!
Credit…
Searcy Collection- State Library of South Australia
To keep a sponsor happy that is! Here it’s Perth racer Gordon Stephenson presenting the prizes to the winners of a department store lawnmower racing competition…
WTF you may well say?
Boans was an iconic West Australian department store for almost a century. Remember when every state or city had such emporiums of shopping pleasure for those so inclined? Myer in Victoria, Grace Brothers in New South Wales, Malcolm Reid in South Australia and so on. Now the buildings may still exist but the companies have been absorbed into a small number of conglomerates over the last forty years; Boans were chomped up by the Myer Group in 1986.
A sign of the times, competition and change is the rise in online retailing in the last decade or so. At the time of writing, mid November 2017, Amazon have just launched in Australia. The potential impact has executives of our major local retailers soiling their undergarments with fear. And rightfully so, Change is the Continuum.
(SLWA)
Stephenson showing the kids his Tasman Cooper T70 Climax. I wonder if he fired the 2.5-litre Coventry Climax FPF and did a lap or two of the Boans, Morley carpark!? The car taken to Perth by Don O’Sullivan who bought it from Bill Patterson in Melbourne, Stephenson only raced it for 12 months
It seems that Boans organised a cross-promotion to raise their profile and flog a few lawnmowers, rolling BP into the fun. Poor BP sponsored Gordon drew the short straw that day to display his car and hand out the prizes. The local media did the rest to maximise exposure.
FTD was awarded to the kid who pushed his mower ‘for Chrissakes pick a Victa two-stroke son it will be lighter than the four-stroke Scott-Bonnar’ – across Boans carpark the fastest; Morley is 10km from central Perth.
Cooper T70 Climax…
Cooper T70 Climax #FL-1-64 is an interesting, significant car as the 2.5-litre Coventry Climax FPF engined car raced by Bruce McLaren and Tim Mayerin the 1964 Tasman Series, and then by 1961 World Champ, Phil Hill, in mildly updated form in the 1965 Tasman.
It was later purchased by Richard Berryman in the mid-1970s and was restored and is owned by his son Adam Berryman, a Melbourne mate of mine.
The history of the two T70s car is covered in the two articles below rather than restate the history of one of the ‘first real McLarens’ built.
Stephenson was a stalwart of WA racing for decades, mainly in Touring Cars. He had a busy season in 1968 racing both his ex-Alec Mildren Racing Alfa Romeo GTA and the Cooper in local circuit races at Caversham, having several wins in the T70, and hillclimbs at Mount Brown, York.
The story of the Mildren GTA’s is told here, inclusive of their extensive West Australian history;
Any Brabham is an over Australian $175-200K proposition these days, except one!…
There was a time, a long time, that the Australian Motor Industry was in expansionary mode behind the high tariff walls that allowed us to live in fools paradise along with most other western countries. Said tariffs in Australia started to reduce circa 1972/3. That was a pivotal moment for our automotive sector, it was never the case that our industry would cease to manufacture cars as a result of that policy change, there are a host of factors company by company that led to that outcome, but the quite correct reduction in tariffs was the first factor in a death by a thousand cuts.
The big three of the Australian industry in the sixties were General Motors Holden, Ford and Chrysler Australia. Chrysler/Mitsubishi’s Adelaide, Tonsley Park manufacturing facility is long gone, it is essentially a technology park these days whilst Holden and Ford have ceased manufacture much more recently, Holden in the last month. It was quite eery to drive past the Ford Geelong factory a week ago and see it in silence, the carparks empty of the workers who built engines there for decades.
GMH, Ford and Toyota, the other local manufacturer in more recent times are mere importers these days, a whole sector of manufacturing is gone due to the failure or desire of the local subsidiaries of global transnationals to make cars the punters want. Our cost structures are high, the global transnationals can and do decide where to make cars in a manner which maximises their profits and high cost locations hardly enhance that. Not to mention Government Policy Fuck-Wittery. It’s more complex than that, I’m getting off-point!
Back to 1963, much simpler times.
GMH, dominant in big cars, but with Ford chasing them down, looked enviously at the growth in the small car market and particularly the market share of BMC, (British Motor Corporation) Ford, VW and others.
GMH’s answer was the Vauxhall Viva, provided by GM’s UK subsidiary and first introduced in Oz in April 1964. The two door, small cars performance was ordinary, its virtues cheapness of running costs and a slick gearbox.
From small acorns do big things grow though- the late sixties to early seventies six-cylinder Torana GTR, GTR-XU1 and later the mid-seventies V8 L34 and A9X owe their parentage to the little, wheezy, Pommie Vauxhall Viva.
Its initial Australian performance credentials were bolstered by Class A (cars costing under 900 pounds) victory in the 1964 Bathurst 500, where the Spencer Martin/Bill Brown (car #46 in the ad above) driven Viva triumphed over 5 other Vauxhalls, Hillman Imps, Morris Mini 850, NSU Prinz and VW Beetles.
An updated car- the ‘HB’ Holden Torana was released in May 1967. With its conventional front engine/rear drive format, it found favour amongst traditional Oz buyers compared with some of the opposition- the new-fangled BMC cars and rear engined ‘Gunter-Wagen’ – VW Beetle. Small Fords- Anglia, Cortina always did well here. Perceived positives of the ‘HB’ were just enough power, the ‘box, rack and pinion steering and coil sprung, as against leaf sprung rear end.
By 1968 the 1159cc pushrod OHV engine gave 69bhp. It was to this base that the ‘breathed on’ Brabham Torana was released. It is not my intention to go through the timeline iterations of the Brabham Torana but in essence the package included a free flow exhaust system, twin Stromberg carbs which gave circa 79bhp, not a lot but 20% more than a base Torana ‘poverty pack’. The spec also included disc brakes up front, low profile 6 X 12 inch wheels/tyres on super wide 4 inch rims!, rally GT stripe and Brabham decals. The top speed of the base model Tommy Torana was 80mph, Jack’s did 89…with a huge tailwind I suspect.
It was pretty unimpressive though, ‘me mums Morrie 1100 with yours truly at the helm had no trouble regularly shutting one down on the trip from North Balwyn to Monash University- the fellow parked in a different corner of the Clayton car park to hide its shame.
Progress is an amazing thing though. By 1969 the little Viva had evolved into six-cylinder (as well as the four cylinder) cars, by 1970 the only car I was interested in at the Royal Melbourne Show car display was the ‘LC’ Torana GTR-XU1.
And the rest as they say, is history- a swag of Australian Touring Car Championship and Rally wins. Depending upon the model, these cars were amazingly adaptable motor sport tools.
And Jack started it all!
Not really at all.
For him it was a commercial deal, he had nothing whatsoever to do with the spec of the Brabham Torana’s- but they are the cheapest Brabhams on the planet albeit not ones built by Motor Racing Developments!
Jack aboard a Brabham Viva at Longford in 1967- Ford jacketed Denny Hulme looks on from the right
Geoff Smedley fettles his twin-plug 2.5 Coventry Climax FPF engine fitted to John Youls’ Cooper T55 …
In the late Formula Libre period in Australasia – just before the Tasman Cup commenced on 1 January 1964 – the engine of choice was very much the Coventry Climax FPF. In fact the Tasman Formula was specifically designed around the ready availability and price of the 1959/60 World Championship winning 2.5 litre engine to allow the locals to compete against the internationals on more or less equal terms.
Before then (1 January 1964) the-go was the 2.7 litre Indy FPF, most of the locals and visiting internationals each summer raced this engine.
But down in Australia’s south, in beautiful Tasmania, a very clever engineer, Geoff Smedley was working on another solution to make the FPF produce more reliable power and torque. His driver was the very quick John Youl, the car an ex-works/Bruce McLaren 1961 F1 Cooper T55. Here is the story in Geoff’s words.
John Youl cruises thru the Warwick Farm paddock in 1963, Cooper T55 Climax (Smedley)
‘Firstly, in 1963 the fad was to re-sleeve the 2.5 Climax to 2.7 litres chasing more hosepower but ‘bigger holes’ was the American way, I was sure a better alternative could be found.
Frank Hallam at Repco Research had been playing around with a twin plug head for one of Brabham’s engines, using two distributors driven from the rear of each cam bank and couldn’t make it work through an inaccurate spark which was put down to windup in the camshafts in the high rev range.
I preferred to stick with a man’s toy, the magneto. Two of these more robust spark producers set up properly must be the answer. A total new drive was made up for a second maggy from the crankshaft protruding from the front of the sump which allowed comfortable room within the confines of the T55 chassis, and the head modified to accommodate a second plug.’
‘1963 saw the end of alcohol fuel for our cars, reverting back to 100 octane caused a few problems leading to the idea of a cleaner more efficient fuel burn. Obviously there are easier methods today, but 50 years ago we were still looking in any way we could, without the aid of computers, only perhaps with a slide rule and something to write on, and a lot of time was lost to mistakes, but on the occasion when you were successful it was nice being 10ft tall….’
‘The initial effort seemed rewarding with a test day at Symmons Plains, the result was pleasing and being able to alter each magneto individually, the differences were very noticeable.’
‘Living in Tasmania and being able to carry out this work undercover of our opposition, based on the Australian mainland, was an advantage, I and my young family were living at Symmons Plains in those days and my workshop was a converted coachouse close to the main homestead where all the chassis work was carried out. The big advantage I had was having full use of the family workshop (Bedford Machine Tools) where I was able to produce any part required.’
‘The final test of the engine was to take it all to Melbourne and place it on Repco’s dyno at Dandenong to test the result. We were met by Frank Hallam who was very dubious about the whole thing, but some four hours later he confessed that our 2.5 Climax had shown better figures than any previous Climax including the fashionable 2.7 litre. The horsepower was up, but more importantly the torque figures were so much improved. Those days of satisfaction have melted into oblivion and all that is left is a lot of frustrated old farts that look back and remember when….!!!!’
The Smedley twin plug, twin magneto engine being being tested on the Repco Research dyno in November 1963. The engine reverts to ‘standard’ by replacement of the standard CC sump. (Smedley)
Racing the Cooper T55 twin-plug FPF…
‘Gosh! It’s hard to believe more than 54 years have passed since those heady days, but it doesn’t seem that long, but as mentioned I have been pressured into writing my autobiography which has meant scratching back over the coals to bring those great times back to life again, starting with taking the land speed record way back in 1961’.
We will trouble Geoff for that story, achieved by Geoff’s Chev engined Cooper T51 owned and driven by Austin Miller, another time.
‘I went to work for John Youl in 1962 and stayed with him until his retirement in 1965, we had a lot of fun as a team being able to work here in Tassie so privately and then going to the mainland where the car would be pounced on and inspected for the sign of any tinkerings that may help our opposition! So in that respect it was always a lot of fun, and yes, the duel ignition trick really did work wonders on the old FPF engine’.
John Youl and Geoff Smedley aboard the Cooper T55 ‘twin-plug’ for a debut win- on the victory lap after winning the Advertiser Trophy Gold Star round at Mallala, South Australia in October 1963. John won from the 2.7-litre Brabham BT4 Climax of Bib Stillwell and Wally Mitchell’s Brabham BT1 Ford 1100 (Smedley)
‘Now the very first race for this new configuration was the Gold Star Race at Mallala, South Australia on the October 14, 1963 which we won from Bib Stillwell and Wally Mitchell. Then came the Hordern Trophy Race at the ‘Farm on December 1, 1963, we won that one as well from David McKay and Bill Patterson’.
‘Then it was off to New Zealand for the 1964 Tasman Series.’
‘In that series of races we came back with (in heats and championship races) one first, two seconds including Lakeside, two thirds including Sandown and fourth’s at Levin, Wigram and in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe behind Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Tim Mayer. We were fifth at Longford in the final round’.
Levin form up area for the very first Tasman Championship race on 4 January 1964. Youl’s #5 Cooper T55 Climax, the two Cooper T70’s of McLaren #1 and Tim Mayer and then the victor, Denny Hulme’s works Brabham BT4 Climax. Mayer was 2nd, McLaren 3rd and Youl 4th (Smedley)
‘Prior to all this, we, like others using the Jack Knight gearbox on their Coopers, found the crown wheel and pinion was the big weakness and only two-three races seemed to be their life span. So I set about making two sets myself as I fortunately had access to the family business’s machine shop. The first set of these was fitted to the gearbox just prior to fitting the duel ignition system’.
‘This new CWP was straight cut but considerably stronger using a much higher grade steel than the original. Although a little noisy at first, it soon settled down by fitting a separate oiling system. The same CWP was in the car when John sold it to Arnold Glass in 1965.’
John Youl, Cooper T55 Climax at Mount Maunganui, NZ, December 1963 (Fistonic)
‘The car, then around 1967, I think – Cooper T55 Chassis No. F1/11/61 – was sold to a collector in the USA and years later in the nineties the car was sent to England to be auctioned. I have found it there in photos sitting in the pits in places such as Goodwood and the like’.
‘The car is back today in its original form being Bruce McLaren’s 1961 works car it looks great and I have no idea but it could still have the twin plug motor in it, who knows!’
Smedley with his charge, note the comments about the gearbox in the text, twin plug 2.5 FPF fitted, Longford Tasman 1964 (Smedley)
Etcetera…
‘The card was drawn up by John Youl himself as a record of the T55 during his period of ownership’- Geoff Smedley
The shot below is of Youl jumping from second grid slot, away from McLaren #10 on pole, Tony Maggs #3 and John Surtees #2, as well as Bib Stillwell in the light blue Brabham BT4 and Chris Amon’s red Cooper T53; its the start of the Lakeside International on February 17, 1963.
McLaren, in a Cooper T62, the two Lola Mk4A pilots Maggs and Surtees, and Bib were all driving the latest cars with 2.7 FPFs, Youl was in a 1961 car, his Cooper T55 fitted with a 2.5 FPF, not Smedley’s twin-plug engine either. Surtees won from Graham Hill’s Ferguson P99 and Stillwell. Youl retired on lap seven that day.
Its such a shame duty-called for John Youl, he was needed to manage the families large grazing properties in Tasmania, so his racing career was ended way before it should have. For sure he was a driver of world class, as indeed was Smedley as an engineer/mechanic.
(Smedley)
Special Thanks…
Geoff Smedley, many thanks for this very special account of an interesting engineering obscurity which should be more widely known
Credits…
Geoff Smedley Collection, Milan Fistonic, oldracingcars.com
Tailpiece: John Youl, Cooper T55 Climax in the Levin form up area, January 1964…
Car #4 is Chris Amon in a Reg Parnell Lola Mk4A Climax, perhaps Denny Hulme’s Brabham alongside him (Smedley)
Luvverly shot of a Bristol 403, the typically helpful Getty Images caption dates the shot as between 1940 and 1950 and notes the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe in Paris…
‘From Marble Arch to the French landmark by air ferry’ is a caption clue, so perhaps it’s a promotional shoot for a new service of moving cars around?
I think so, after a ferret around, note the shot below, i am not suggesting the car in the transport is a Bristol, wotizzit I wonder?
The aircraft is a Bristol Type 70 Mk32, a former military transport plane before its inaugural flight as a car ferry with Silver City Airways in 1949. These flights were between Lympne Airport in Kent and Le Touquet, France.
Credits…
Bettman, Monty Fresco, J Wilds, Robert Sands
Tailpiece…
(J Wilds)
Captain Bill Pegg with Bristol Brabazon aircraft and the prototype Bristol 402 Cabriolet (20 more were built) in Bristol on 3 September, 1949.
I joined a couple of much younger enthusiasts at Prahran’s ‘The Alps’ for a couple of ‘shandies’ on a warm Spring Sunday last week and was amazed to see them on their ‘duelling’ iPads cackling away to some of Brockbank’s magic…
I shouldn’t have been surprised though as the work is timeless.
Russell Brockbank died in 1979 so has not been with us for a while. I think the first time I saw his work was in a batch of Pommie magazines my dad had been given by a mate in my early teens. A while ago.
He wasn’t born a Brit though, he was Canadian by birth, born in Niagra Falls in 1913, he was educated there and then went to Chelsea School of Art in London. He left art for industry in 1932 and then industry for art in 1936.
The 1960’s English editor of Automobile Year recalls he was a fairly well known motoring artist when Brockbank asked for his advice on how to break into the automotive business over a post Donington meeting drink. Confronted by such brilliant competition, Gordon Wilkins thought he showed sound sense in deserting art for writing.
Brockbank’s career started in the thirties as a contributor to ‘Speed’ magazine producing scraper images of the racing cars of the time.
Throughout his war service in the Royal Navy he contributed to Punch, Lilliput and The Aeroplane, his art reflecting the state of society then.
By 1949 he was the Art Editor of Punch. His passion and knowledge of cars and motor racing shines through in the technical accuracy of his work as do his characters-Major Upsett with his outmoded ‘tache and clapped out Austin 8. Not to forget the ‘Old Biddy’ haranguing her long-suffering husband, the Rolls driver and Latin racing drivers. Nothing missed his eagle eye.
In England he lived in the country and frequently gave lifts to grannies who had missed the hourly bus. He even thought of starting a ‘100 mph Club’ – ‘Bless their hearts, they chat away at a Porsche ton and don’t know it. The observant few watch the tacho, read 40 and are happy’ he quipped.
Graham Boulter’s race equipe completing a Bacchus Marsh pitstop enroute to Calder Raceway, Victoria, Australia circa 1968 or 1969…
Competitors can relate to this wherever you live on the planet- loading up your racer and hung-over, scaly mates and girlfriend and heading off to the track hoping the last minute fixes to your steed will last the rigours of the weekend away from home base.
Enthusiast racer Lee Nicholle identified the photograph on ‘The Nostalgia Forum’ which was taken at a ‘Golden Fleece’ servo at Bacchus Marsh, 60 kilometres from Melbourne on its western outskirts.
Oz enthusiasts of a certain age will well remember Golden Fleece as a brand of petroleum products and servo’s such as this one operated by Australian Company HC Sleigh since 1893. Caltex acquired the business in 1981.
The racer is a Holden FJ or ‘Humpy’, sports sedan. The tow car is the ‘Ducks Guts’ of General Motors Holdens range at the time- no less than an ‘HK’ Monaro GTS powered by the range-topping Chevrolet 327cid V8. One of these cars won the 1968 Bathurst 500 enduro driven by Bruce McPhee. The race was then run to ‘Series Production’ or unmodified road car rules. That the car is new is proved by the standard fitment ‘Dunlop Sovereign’ radial tyres. The other road cars in shot are a Vanguard and in the distant carpark an ‘FB’ Holden.
Finally, Lee notes that Boulter still races in ‘Historics’, has built a replica of this car as a ‘roadie’ and that the bare chested youth, now over 70 of course!, is John Reynolds who stayed close to racing as a supplier of Champion plugs into the 1990’s.
Cracker of a shot, it reminds me of my abysmal car preparation capabilities, unreliable mates, patient girlfriends and the racers breakfast of a Chico Roll and Coke on the fly, running late and being behind the eight-ball well before the meeting commenced!…
Credits…
Graham Boulter
Tailpiece: Bruce McPhee on the way to Bathurst 500 glory during the 1968 running of the Australian classic…
(unattributed)
Bruce McPhee started from pole in his HK Monaro GTS327 and won the race from the ‘works’ Holden Dealer Team similar car of Jim Palmer/Phil West and the Tony Roberts/Bob Watson HK GTS a lap adrift in 3rd
Who would have thought our ‘Black Jack’ would be a street art star…
But he is! Even if he looks a bit like his good mate Graham Hill, replete with moustache!
Brabham is depicted aboard his 1966 F1 World Championship winning chassis- the Repco ‘RB620 Series’ V8 powered Brabham BT19, click on the links for articles on this bolide at the end of the article.
The artist didn’t realise just how perfect the placement of this sizable work is. Its on a wall in Richmond only 1.5 Km or so from the Doonside Street, Richmond Repco factory where the first of the RB620 V8’s were built and burst into life prior to the shift of Repco Brabham Engines Pty Ltd to Maidstone, in Melbourne’s inner west, in early 1966.
I came upon the art by accident whilst on a walk, its funny the way sometimes these things happen in a serendipitous kinda way.
‘Dimmey’s was an iconic department store in Swan Street Richmond. Its been redeveloped in the last few years- thank the good lord above that the developer was forced to retain the buildings base structure and façade, with the usual, small dog-box apartments contained therein. The big mural is painted on the side of the Dimmeys building. Initially I thought the work was some sort of history of Richmond but its a timeline depiction of ‘Great Australians’ and Oz icons, of whom our Jack is definitely one.
Melburnians can check out the art and have some nice nosh closeby whilst you do so- see the work on the Green Street sidestreet wall, corner of Swan Street. It won’t last forever mind you, it ain’t guarded like the Mona Lisa, if you want a look do so soon before the ‘taggers’ attack it.
It gives me the pip that in popular listings of ‘Great Australian Sportsmen’ Brabham never pops up in the top 10 or 20.
He is a member of the Sport Australia ‘Hall Of Fame’. To me, hopelessly biased as I am, Brabham’s triumphs in 1966/67, lets put to one side his Drivers Championship wins for Cooper in 1959 and 1960, make him the greatest of any Australian sportsman/athlete.
Don Bradman the cricketer is usually rated at #1, big deal, most of you globally will have never seen a game of cricket. You are lucky, it’s a dull, shit-boring invention of the Brits. Often a ‘Test Match’, the elite form of the game, goes for 5 days without a result. Cricket even makes modern Petite Prix racing look exciting!
Brabham, Ron Tauranac and Repco made the ‘bat and ball’ and then they went and belted the best in the world with it. No-one else comes close to Brabham as our #1- not Ken Rosewall, (tennis) Mark Ella, (rugby) Betty Cuthbert, (sprinter) Rod Laver, (tennis) Herb Elliott, (distance runner) Dawn Fraser (swimmer) or Bradman, none of ‘em match his achievements in my book…
Footnote…
In 1966/1967 Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme won the World Drivers Championship aboard Brabham BT19 and BT19/20/24 respectively. Brabham/Motor Racing Developments were the Champion Constructor in both years powered by Repco RB620 and RB740 Series 3 litre V8 engines.
I’ve deliberately not captioned the mural shots- I don’t know all the names of the dudes depicted myself, so I’ve left it to Aussies to have some fun picking those people and events you can and wonder who/what the ones are you can’t identify! It’s great, do take the time to go and have a look.
The fast way to get around Repco’s Maidstone factory…
Repco Engine Development Co chief Malcolm Preston bought this Veggie Cart from Melbourne’s Victoria Market to shift shite around the plant. These enterprising lads have neatly set it up for this fun shot. Luvvit!
The dapper bearded ‘70’s dude wearing the tie is Don Halpin, I spoke to him not so long ago, he hasn’t changed too much at all. Rodway Wolfe says the guy left of Don is John McVeigh and moustachioed fella is Ken Symes, on the far right is Brian Slader.
When is it though?
I’m guessing the up and over exhausts are to fit Frank Matich’s McLaren M10B/C, Frank was the works Repco driver who did the development work long before the first customer engines were sold. That makes it 1970 or 1971, but there are a load of Australian F5000 nutbags who can probably provide the date and time of day. The Bowin P8 also had this style of exhausts to clear the rising rate suspension linkages which precluded a low exhaust, that would make it late 1971 or 1972.
Mind you, thinking about it some more, the exhausts fitted may be just for the dyno. Its out that side door so the big V8 may be heading in the direction of the test-house. The long inlets look like those of one of the you-beaut, super trick, schmick, flat-plane crank engines too. These gave 525bhp, Repco’s horses were always stallions too, not geldings! So…that makes it 1973/4, the Repco boys ‘fashionable’ looks also define that era.
All opinions welcome and as you Repco F5000 experts can see I’ve covered the years 1970 to 1974, the whole period in which these superbly designed and made engines were built!…
1974 Sandown Tasman round, John Walker Lola T330 Repco 3rd, Peter Gethin won is a VDS Chevron B24 Chev (unattributed)
Credit…
The Repco cart photo is sourced from Mark Beasy, he and Will Beasy have a great Repco connection having inherited the only Repco Holden F5000 powered Lola on the planet, the ex-John Walker T330 ‘HU23’.
It’s getting closer to completion, the project was started by Mark and Will’s dad, Brian many years ago. I remember seeing Brian on quite a few occasions at his Lilydale home, client work always got in the way of that particular restoration and the thankless CAMS Historic Commission eligibility work he did. A top bloke- talented motor-cycle racer, car racer and engineer.
JW 1st in the 1973 Gold Star round at Phillip Island in November from McCormack and Cooper in Elfin MR5’s (Chris Parker)
While two of my favourite drivers are Lorenzo Bandini and Australian Gold Star champion, Spencer Martin, it was quite a surprise to see them in the same shot. Lorenzo in a Cooper and Spencer a Holden…
Joel Wakely’s Boomerang Service Station at Concord, inner-western Sydney was well known amongst Australian motor-racing aficionados by February 1962 as builders of one of the fastest Appendix J Holden 48-215 sedans in the land peddled very hard by up-and-comer Spencer Martin.
The young Sydneysider was soon to race Tasman cars like Bandini’s Cooper for Australian racer/journalist/patron David McKay’s Scuderia Veloce, but that period was still a year or so away. Click here for Spencer’s own account of his racing career;
Bandini was also on the rise. His racing in the southern summer sun of ’62 was part of Mimmo Dei’s grand plan to give the young Italian some racing miles aboard his Scuderia Centro Sud T53 Cooper in the European off-season’ to get him razor sharp for the rigours of the coming season back home.
The 2.9 litre Maserati engined Cooper was very much a big-car, F1 by then was a 1.5-litre formula, so the experience was valuable for him. It was a successful strategy back then and still is, the New Zealand Toyota Racing Series every summer is a place young racers look to keep themselves race fit and help thrust their careers forward. Click here for my article about Bandini;
The car in the middle of the shot is the gorgeous Clive Adams designed Prad Holden sportscar styled along the lines of a Maserati 300S. Jack Pryor built the chassis and Stan Brown it’s shapely body. Spencer Martin bought, developed and raced the car successfully after Adams sold it.
And so it came to pass that Bandini’s Cooper was operated from the Boomerang Servo at the behest of BP, who supported Centro Sud. It made good sense as the garage was only 25km from Warwick Farm, near Liverpool on Sydney’s then western outskirts. Wakely recalls that ‘So many people heard about the car at the garage and came down to have a look we had to have crowd control!’
Centro Sud were not exactly renowned for the detail presentation of their cars, but even so I thought Lorenzo’s car looked a bit tatty. Perhaps the reason is that it isn’t the car he raced!
Have a look yourself at the photo below, it isn’t the same car. The inlet and exhaust sides of the Maserati engine are on the opposite sides to the Cooper in shot, apart from the body differences. I think the car above is a spare T51 Cooper, one of two acquired by Dei from Coopers in 1959 and raced in both F1 in 1959/60 and the Intercontinental Formula in 1961. Still, that’s my theory it may not be right! So, the question for my Australian friends is which Cooper chassis is Bandini sitting aboard? A Centro Sud spare or another car based that weekend at the Concord Temple of Speed?
I love these mysteries, but I like the answers even more…
(John Ellacott)
Lorenzo Bandini in the Centro Sud Cooper T53 Maserati – chassis F1-13-61 – during the Warwick Farm 100, 4 February 1962. Compare and contrast with the car in the opening shot.
Credits…
oldracingcars.com, sergent.com, Joel Wakely, John Ellacott
Other Reading…
Article about Spencer Martin and the iconic Ferrari 250LM he raced for David McKay
primotipo... 