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.
The 76 mile race was won by Jack Phillips’ Ford V8 Special – the reigning champion – from the Hudson Specials of Bob Lea-Wright and Les Burrows. Crouch was fourth and proved his pace in this handicap race, handicaps prevailed in Australia at the time, with fastest race-time. See here for more information on the event and venue here: https://primotipo.com/2024/01/05/albury-and-interstate-gold-cup-1939/ and here: https://primotipo.com/2019/01/12/interstate-grand-prix-wirlinga-albury-1938/
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.
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.
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.
John Crouch became one of Australia’s most talented post-war drivers, winning the 1949 Australian Grand Prix aboard that very same Delahaye 135. Soon after the Alfa arrived in late 1938, Crouch entered chassis #2311202 in the ill-fated Parramatta Centenary Trophy Race on November 5, see here for that story: https://primotipo.com/2018/02/27/parramatta-park-circuit/ while Crouch’s AGP triumph is recorded here: https://primotipo.com/2022/10/05/1949-australian-grand-prix-leyburn/
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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…
Another shot of Louis Chiron or Franco Cortese at Le Mans in 1933 aboard #2311202.
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
Tailpiece…
Finito…
primotipo... 