Bib Stillwell leans his Cooper into Homestead Corner, you can see and feel the energy being expended in extracting all the performance the car has to offer in this John Ellacott shot…
Stillwell was four times Australian National ‘Gold Star’ Champion from 1962 to 1965, his early sixties battles with rival Frank Matich in both single-seaters and in sports cars, Matich in his Lotus 19 or 19B, were legendary.
Both were Australian champions in both types of car and fierce rivals- Stillwell the Melbourne motor dealer/semi-professional racer and Matich, the Sydney based, and perhaps first truly professional Australian driver.
Stillwell in the Monaco just ahead of Frank Matich, Lotus 19b Climax, Lakeside, Queensland, perhaps the 1963 Tasman Meeting. (Peter Mellor)
In Sportscars Stillwell won the ‘Australian Tourist Trophy’ aboard the Cooper Monaco in 1961 and 1962. Matich won it in 1964 in a Lotus 19B Climax and in 1966 racing his almost brand new Elfin 400 Olds (aka the ‘Traco Olds’), then in 1967 in his first self-built Matich SR3 Olds and again in 1968 in a Matich SR3 Repco.
The ATT was not contested in 1969 but Frank’s Matich SR4, powered by a 5 litre quad-cam Repco ‘760 Series’ V8 was the fastest car in Australia of any sort that year. It was built to contest the Can-Am Series in 1968 but was too late in completion to compete so Frank used it to destroy the opposition at home a year later instead.
Bib acquired this ex-Moss car in the UK. The chassis number is uncertain but Doug Nye believes it to be the car ordered by Moss in April 1959 as a kit of parts ex-factory which was then built up by Keele Engineering.
The Monaco was lightly raced by the great Brit, commencing with the British GP meeting at Aintree in 1959, DNF after qualifying on the front row. He took the car to Scandinavia in August winning races at both Karlskoga, Sweden and the Roskilde Ring, Copenhagen, Denmark and it was then put to one side as he focussed on a Lotus 19 to which the engine and ‘box from the Monaco were fitted.
Bib bought the car off Moss during a trip to the UK in 1961.
At Stillwell’s Kew, Melbourne Holden dealership workshops it was fitted by Gerry Brown with a 2.5 Litre Coventry Climax FPF four cylinder engine and gearbox out of one of Bib’s Cooper single-seaters upon arrival in Australia and was soon ready in time for the 19 September 1961 Warwick Farm meeting.
Starting a familiar pattern, the Stillwell transporter left its Cotham Road, Kew, Melbourne base to go to Adelaide with two cars- Bib raced both his Cooper T53 in the Australian Grand Prix at Mallala in October 1961 finishing second to Lex Davison- Lex in Bib’s older Cooper T51, and the Cooper Monaco that weekend.
The Monaco arrived in Australia with the standard leaf spring rear suspension configuration but Alf Francis had modified the rear chassis bracketry to also allow the use of a coil spring/damper set-up- both were used in Oz.
Stillwell Cooper at Sandown 1963. Coil spring rear suspension in this shot (Kevin Drage)
Cooper Monaco during the Warwick Farm International meeting in 1961. Transverse leaf spring rear suspension configuration in this shot. Look at all those curvy bits of tube, offensive to engineering purists but effective all the same! Coventry Climax 2.5 or 2.7 FPF engine. Citroen Ersa gearbox (Ray Bell)
In Australia the car also raced with a 2.7 ‘Indy’ Climax FPF with which it was timed at 160mph on Longford’s ‘Flying Mile’ in 1963. In a quest for still more speed, in October 1964 the car was fitted with an ex-Scarab RE/Arnold Glass BRM P48 Buick V8.
Lance Reventlow sold one of his engines to Arnold Glass after the one off appearance of his mid-engined Scarab RE Buick Intercontinental Formula car raced by Chuck Daigh at Sandown’s opening meeting in March 1962. Glass replaced the somewhat temperamental BRM 4 cylinder engine with the lightweight, 3.9 litre aluminium, pushrod V8.
In Stillwell’s hands the car won the 1961 and 1962 Australian TT, the Victorian Sports Car Championship in 1962 and 1963 and the South Pacific Sports Car Championship at Longford in 1962.
Stillwell at Warwick Farm in the Cooper in 1965, at this stage fitted wth the ex-Scarab/Glass Buick V8 (R Austin)
The Cooper Monaco with the ex-Scarab/Glass Buick V8 behind the car and ‘George, a mechanic at East Malvern Motors where we both worked for Ray Gibbs’ quipped Mike Kyval. This is during the period Tony Osbourne owned the car. Gibbs was one of the cars drivers in that period of ownership- and prepared the car (M Kyval)
Sold to ‘Pitstop Motors’ Dick Thurston, he first raced it at Calder in January 1966- shortly thereafter he was fifth in the 1966 Australian Tourist Trophy at Longford- a race won, as mentioned above by the Matich Elfin 400 Oldsmobile.
The car was was soon sold on, still in Melbourne, to South Yarra’s Tony Osbourne of ‘Argo Racing’- as in Argo Street South Yarra, who raced it at Calder in May 1966 and then contested the first Surfers Paradise 12 Hour race together with Murray Carter and Ray Gibbs- the beast completed 96 laps of the race won by the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM crewed by Jackie Stewart and Andy Buchanan.
The car subsequently passed through many owners hands including Fred Wheelhouse, Peter Nielson, Charles Dominelli before acquisition by Pat McLernon of Dandenong, Victoria who fitted a new body built by Ted Proctor in Sydney, by this stage a Ford 302 V8 was fitted. Stan Rumble owned it for a while before the wonderful machine fell into the loving hands of Paul Moxham who restored it to original Coventry Climax engined form.
In 2000 Frank Sytner and John Coombs acquired it, the car has raced in Europe since then.
Mallala is a wonderful, challenging shorter circuit built on a former RAAF airfield 60 Km North of Adelaide. (Kevin Drage)
‘Scuderia Stillwell’ arriving and unloading the Monaco and Cooper T53 at Mallala- South Australia Gold Star meeting in October 1962 after the long haul from their Kew.
Mallala is a fabulous little 1.6mile/2.6Km circuit 55Km north of Adelaide. It was built on the site of former ‘RAAF Base Mallala’, which was acquired by a group of enthusiasts in 1961..the opening meeting in August 1961 was won by Bib Stillwell in a Cooper…
Stillwell had a good start in life…
He attended Trinity Grammar and Scotch College in Hawthorn and at 22 had parental support for his original small MG dealership in 1949, but over the decades grew his business.
He was awarded a Holden franchise in 1953 operating from Cotham Road Kew, and later as a Ford, BMW and other prestige marques dealer building a large group with his own talent and entrepreneurial flair which prospers in his families hands today long after his death.
His management skills were world class, his interests included aviation. After success in that field from the mid-sixties in Australia- distributing Beechcraft and later Lerjets he was appointed President of the Lear Corporation in the US in 1982, a position he held for 3 years before returning to Australia to a ‘second motor dealing career’ in luxury franchises and historic racing, he died on June 12 1999.
Stillwell happy in victory, Cooper Monaco, Mallala October 1962. He took wins that day in this car and the Gold Star event in his Cooper T53 Kevin Drage)
I rather like this observation Michael Lynch made in his obituary of Bib published in the Melbourne ‘Age’ newspaper.
‘The links between business and sport, and the characteristics required to succeed in both, have often been drawn. Drive, determination, persistence, talent, luck, the ability to think outside the obvious and seize opportunities that others don’t see – and then make them work – are all characteristics shared variously by top sportsmen and the leading lights of the business world.’
’Stillwell, who died suddenly last weekend from a heart attack, had all of them in good measure, showcasing them in both his sporting career, which ran until the mid-1960s, and then his business career, which was still being developed at the time of his death’.
Cooper T49 ‘Monaco’ Specifications…
The Cooper Type number is 49- the car was given the ‘Monaco’ name in recognition of Jack Brabham’s victory in the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix, his first GP win on the way to his, and Coopers first World Championships as driver and constructor.
Of typical curved Cooper space frame construction, the car owes most of its hardware to its single-seater siblings. Front suspension is by upper and lower wishbones and coil spring/damper units with an adjustable roll bar. At the rear top location is provided by a transverse leaf spring, with a lower rear wishbone. Brakes are disc all around, steering rack and pinion and typical Cooper alloy wheels of the period were used.
Most of the cars were fitted with Coventry Climax FPF engines of varying capacities, Stillwell’s mainly with a 2.5 but it was raced with other engines as recorded above. Gearbox was the Citroen ERSA or Colotti units- the Moss/Stilwell car was first fitted with a Cooper CS5, 5 speed transaxle.
Stillwell again at Lakeside. Cooper Monaco 1963. (Peter Mellor)
Etcetera…
(Sparks Family)
Another successful Mallala weekend for Stillwell, this time after winning the 19 August 1961 ‘Mallala Trophy’ Gold Star round.
Looking very natty in his BRDC badged blue blazer, it’s perhaps a posed BP publicity shot, whatever the case, a top shot.
(P Skelton)
Stephen Dalton reckons this shot of the Monaco is at Calder in January or February 1962.
Credits…
John Ellacott, Kevin Drage, Ray Bell, James Allington cutaway, Ken Devine Collection, Reg Sparks Collection via Craig Sparks, Phillip Skelton via Tony Johns Collection
The Nostalgia Forum, Richard Austin, John Blanden ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’, Mike Kyval
Tailpiece: Equipe Stillwell during the November 1962 Caversham AGP weekend…
(K Devine)
The open-wheeler is a Cooper T53 Climax- Bib was third in the AGP behind Bruce McLaren’s Cooper T62 and John Youl’s T55 at Caversham off the back of winning the Gold Star from Youl and Patterson- he took victories at Bathurst and Mallala on the way to the title.
Revvie manhandling the big brute to victory in the 1971 CanAm Championship with the required levels of finesse, touch and strength these big, heavy oh-so-spectacular cars required…
Revson won the title by 10 Points from Denny Hulme having won 5 of the 10 rounds.
The M8F was the last of a line of cars which commenced with the 1968 M8A, the new for ’67 M6 and new for ’72 M20 being sufficiently different to be treated outside the M8A/B/D and F 1968-1971 ‘works cars’.
The cars were of course the fastest road racing cars of all at the time.
This shot was taken by noted American journalist/photographer Pete Lyons at the Laguna Seca hairpin in October 1971. Days later Lyons was ‘given the ride of his life’ in this car at Riverside! Lucky boy. Revson won at Laguna from Jackie Stewarts’ Lola T260 Chev and McLaren teammate Denny Hulme. (Pete Lyons)
Tex Hopkins greets Revson, victorious at Watkins Glen July 1971. He won fron Denny Hulme and Jo Siffert Porsche 917PA (Todd Treat)
Revsons 1970 and 1971 seasons in CanAm, in 1970 with the Carl Haas factory Lola T220 Chev, and his Indy performances vaulted him back into F1 with McLaren, his ‘second bite at the F1 cherry’ having done a few races in Parnell entered Lotus BRM’s in 1964. He quickly showed it was right where he belonged.
Such a charismatic driver and tragically talent unfulfilled, his performances in the M23 McLaren in 1973, not just his two GP wins at Silverstone and Mosport showed he was a regular winner if not a champion in the right car. A versatile driver as well, quick in TransAm, CanAm, F1 and Indycars, different disciplines all.
Check out this link for an article on Revsons’ 1973 McLaren M23…
Gerhard Berger starts the long walk back to the Interlagos pits, Brazilian Grand Prix 1996…
Teammate Jean Alesi passes in his Benetton B196 Renault en-route to second place in the race won by Damon Hills’ Williams FW18 Renault,the Brit won the title that year. It was a great weekend for Hill, he started from pole, won the race, set fastest lap and lapped his mate Mikey in his new Ferrari F310 10 laps from home.
Gerhard qualified 8th and pulled off the circuit with hydraulics failure.
Schumacher joined Ferrari after his two Benetton World Championships on the trot at the start of 1996, the F310 commenced the season poorly but by the end of the year with hard work all round the car was competitive. Benetton were never a force after Schumachers departure morphing into Renault in 2002…Schumi left with Rory Byrne, Ross Brawn and other key players at the time.
Team Morphings…
At the same time i tripped over the shot above i looked at the prospective F1 team list for 2015, depending upon who actually lobs in Melbourne in March!
Of the 11 potential entrants this year only 3 have ‘unbroken lineage’ as marques; Ferrari, McLaren and Williams. Sure there have been changes in equity ownership along the way of these 3 but in essence the marques are ongoing.
All the other teams started as something else, often many years ago.
Benetton are a good example of a team which ‘morphed’ into a few different teams along the way.
Toleman Motorsport…
Brian Henton in his 1980 European F2 championship winning Toleman TG280 Hart. The team which designed, built and raced this car were the core of the team well into the Schumacher era of the team in its various iterations. (DR)
Ted Toleman, a transport entrepreneur became involved in motorsport initially as a power boat competitor and as a sponsor, initially of South African Rad Dougall in FF2000.
They progressed to F2 with Rad racing customer March and Ralt cars and became a manufactuer with the fantastic Toleman TG280 Hart, this 2 litre ground effects F2 machine designed by Rory Byrne, late of Royale for whom he had designed some great cars, the 75′ Royale RP21 one of the alltime best FF cars.
Brian Henton won the 1980 European F2 Championship from teammate Derek Warwick, the whole team including its drivers progressing to F1 in 1983, and famously launching the F1 career of Ayrton Senna in 1984.
Toleman attracted Benetton as a sponsor in 1985, the clothing manufacturer acquiring the team and renaming it in their own image with effect the 1986 season.
Senna drove the underpowered but fairly explosive in its power delivery, Toleman TG184 Hart to 2nd place with great, deft precision. Only an eagerly waved red flag stopping the Brazilian from passing an a slowing Prost…with Stefan Bellof also coming home strongly from the rear of the grid in his Tyrrell. Bellof was making similar progress to Senna as Senna was to Prost…what a finish it could have been. To be fair there were a lot of accidents, the red flag was justified..if only it went out a few laps later! (Unattributed)
Benetton Formula Ltd…
Over the years the team used BMW, Ford and Renault engines with Flavio Briatore, Tom Walkinshaw and David Richards having key management roles along the way.
Drivers included Gerhard Berger, Jean Alesi, Sandro Nannini, Thierry Boutsen, Nelson Piquet, Roberto Moreno, Michael Schumacher and Ricardo Patrese.
The teams most successful period was in 1994/5, with Schumacher taking the drivers title in 1994 with the Ford V8 Zetec powered B194 and both drivers and constructors titles with the Renault RS7 V10 powered B195 in 1995.
Renault acquired the team in March 2000, leaving its name as Benetton in 2000/1 before changing the name to Renault F1 Team…Equipe Renault Elf the earlier incarnation of the Renault F1 team as a constructor from 1977-1985 before withdrawing as a constructor but continuing as an engine supplier to the likes of Williams and Lotus.
Renaults’ Grand Prix heritage stretches right back to the Edwardian period with Ferenc Szisz winning the 1906 French Grand Prix in a Renault AK90CV, they have been in and out of the sport as corporate marketing and engineering needs changed over 100 years.
Gerhard Berger, Monaco 1986 in the Benetton B186 BMW. Gerhard qualifed 5th, wheel drive peg failure causing his retirement. Alain Prost won the race in a McLaren MP4 TAG. (Unattributed)
Renault F1 Team…
The teams sweet spot was with Fernando Alonso in the mid-2000’s, the Spaniard winning the drivers and constructors championships in 2005 and 2006 with the R25 and R26 powered by Renaults RS25 3 litre V10 and RS26 2.4 litre V8 respectively.
Alonso Monaco 2008 in his Renault R28. He qualified 7th and finished 10th in the race won by Hamiltons’ McLaren MP4/23 Mercedes. Tight lines as far as the eye can see.(Unattributed)
The teams competitiveness waned with the departure of Schumacher and other key players to Ferrari at the end of 2005.
Robert Kubica added some firepower to the team in 2010, here in Monaco he qualified his Renault R30 second to Mark Webbers’ winning Red Bull RB6 Renault, the pair finishing the race in that order. Kubica replaced Alonso after he left for Ferrari at the end of 2009, his promise unfulfilled after the rallying accident which seriously broke his arm, preventing his return to an F1 cockpit.(Unattributed)
Lotus Renault GP…
In 2010 Renault sold a 75% stake in the company to Genii capital , a Luxembourg based investment company given road car commercial pressures. Renault announced its plans to scale back its F1 involvement, Toyota, Honda and BMW withdrawing from the sport for similar reasons.
Lotus Cars entered into a sponsorship agreement till 2017 with the team renamed Lotus Renault GP for 2011 but the cars themselves still called Renaults…and competed with Team Lotus (modern) who had acquired the rights to this historic name from former World Champ James Hunts’ brother David Hunt.
So, essentially there were two Lotus’ competing in 2011, the ‘Lotus Renault GP’ Teams Renault R31 and the ‘Team Lotus’ Lotus T128 Renault…will the real Lotus Renault please stand up!
It could only happen in modern F1, Lotus fans wept and Chapman turned in his grave…at least the Lotus sponsored Renault R31’s were competitive but the Lotus T128’s were shit-boxes at best.
Crazy!
Vitaly Petrovs’ Renault R31, entered by Lotus Renault GP. 10th on the grid and DNF after a collision on lap 67. Monaco 2011. Compare and contrast with the other ‘Lotus’ of Trullis’ below…(LAT)
Team Lotus (modern) raced in F1 as ‘Lotus Racing’ in 2010, that entity a group set up and funded by a group of Malaysian businessmen lead by Tony Fernandez who had secured a licence to use the name from Lotus Cars owner, Proton cars, a national Malaysian road car manufacturer.
This ‘dual Lotus’ naming situation was resolved when Fernandez acquired Caterham Cars, see the paragraph below, renaming the team Caterham F1 Team, the cars, wait for it, also Renault powered!
Jarno Trulli, poor sod, in the Lotus T128 Renault, entered by Team Lotus, Monaco 2011, 13th in the race, 2 laps down on Vettels’ victorious Red Bull RB7 Renault. (Unattributed)
A bit of history here…Team Lotus (old) was the entity under which Colin Chapman competed in Grand Prix Racing…in simple terms, and its not quite this simple; in the Chapman Lotus World ‘Group Lotus Ltd’ built the road cars, ‘Lotus Components’ built the racing cars and ‘7’ until sold to Graham Nearn in 1971, Nearn rebranding the cars ‘Caterham’ as he wasn’t allowed to call them Lotuses’ under the deal he struck with Chapman, and ‘Team Lotus’ raced the cars…simple isn’t it!?
Renault, as stated above continued to supply the chassis (for the Lotus Renault GP team) from the Enstone, UK base which dated back to Benetton days, with Renault branding featuring in black and gold livery which echoed the ‘glory days’ of the Lotus ‘John Player Specials’ of the 70’s. Whilst the visual links were clear the innovative designs and race winning ability were not!
From 2012 the team has been known as Lotus F1 Team…
Kimi Raikkonen in his Lotus E20 Renault, Q8 and 9th in the race won by Mark Webbers’ Red Bull RB8 Renault (LAT)
Kimi Raikkonen, having returned to F1 from a two year stint in rallying and Romain Grosjean really made the E20 Renault RS27 engined cars sing in 2012 .
Romain Grosjean at Monaco in the 2014 Lotus E22 Renault, like most of the 2014 cars ‘as ugly as a hatful of arseholes’ as we colloquially put it in this country… he finished 8th in the race won by Nico Rosbergs’ Mercedes W05. (Unattributed)
And so to the present. The Lotus F1 team have entered the 2015 season with their Lotus E23 Mercedes to be driven by Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado, the long relationship with Renault as engine provider over for now at least.
The Administrator of Caterham, an administrator to the company being appointed in October 2014 due to funding deficiencies, have provisionally entered the season with dispensation being provided to run the 2014 chassis to improve the potential of the companies sale. ‘Crowdfunding’ being used to raise some working capital. The ‘CF1 Caterham team’ would therefore use the 2014 Caterham CT05 Renault with drivers TBA…
The next morphing of Toleman/Benetton/Renault/Lotus Renault/Lotus F1 will be interesting but far from the last! It begs the question as to which team has ‘morphed’ the most in F1 history…Minardi or Jordan maybe?
The beautifully finished and trimmed cockpit of Clarks’ Lotus 25 at Monaco 1963. Leather bound Mota-Lita steering wheel, a dash full of Smiths instruments including its famed chronometric tach and right hand change for the 5 speed ZF ‘box. Naked aluminium of the monocoque chassis below the shift lever. (Yves Debraine)
The tell-tale on Jim Clarks Lotus 25 after his retirement from the 1965 Monaco Grand Prix is at 9500rpm…
He was comfortably in the lead of the race by 14 seconds when the car engaged 2 gears at once on the entry to the Gasometer hairpin. Graham Hill inherited a lead he maintained to the race’ conclusion.
Clark in classical pose. Lotus 25 Climax. (Eric Della Faille)
The Lotus 25, the first ‘modern monocoque’ appeared at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1962 and was much copied for the 1963 season. For ’63 the car remained much unchanged other than small details and power increases from the Coventry Climax FWMV 1.5 litre quad cam, 2 valve V8.
Lucas fuel injection was adopted and a changed bore/stroke ratio allowed higher rpm and power.
Lotus retained the ZF gearbox but also tried a 6 speed Colotti-Francis ‘box and later in the season a Hewland 5 speed transmission which would soon become ubiquitous.
Surtees gesticulating at the fast approaching Ginther. (Marti)
John Surtees and Richie Ginther in Ferrari T56 and BRM P57 respectively scrapped for much of the race, this shot is on the entry to the Gasometer hairpin. Ginther tries to pass with Surtees gesticulating in protest.
Ginther finished second to teammate Hill, with Surtees, sitting in a pool of oil and with falling oil pressure finished fourth and set fastest lap on the last lap and the lap record. McLaren was third in his Cooper T66 Climax.
John Surtees eyes focused on a Monaco apex, Ferrari T56/156. (Yves Debraine)
Ferrari competed with interim cars for much of the season using the V6 engines which won the World Championships in 1961. The 1964 car appeared at Monza powered by a V8, the development of the car in ’63 setting up Surtees’ tight title victory in 1964.
Surtees again, here chasing winner Graham Hill’s BRM P57. (unattributed)
Clark enroute to what seemed a certain victory, before the intervention of gearbox dramas in his lithe, lissom utterly luvverly Lotus 25. (Unattributed)
To the victor, the spoils. Graham Hill ‘The King of Monaco’ after the first of his 5 wins in the Principality. (Getty Images)
Lotus 25 Climax cutaway drawing by James Allington…
This short article makes no attempt to put into perspective one of the most successful and influential racing cars of all time, the first ‘modern monocoque’ includes amongst its relatives all monocoque racing cars built since its debut at Zandvoort in May 1962.
‘Monocoque’ construction by riveted ‘D section’ light alloy longerons attached to fabricated steel bulkheads front and rear.
Front suspension by upper top rocker operating inboard mounted coil spring /damper unit, lower wishbone and adjustable sway bar. Rear suspension by upper top link, inverted lower wishbone and coil spring/damper unit and adjustable sway bars. Cast alloy uprights front and rear.
Girling disc brakes, rack and pinion steering.
Wheelbase 91 inches, track front 51.5 inches, rear 51.75 inches, overall length 146 inches, dry weight 990 pounds. Wheel sizes 5X15 front and 6 or 6.5X15 inches at rear.
ZF gearbox mainly used in 1963 but Colotti and Hewland also tried.
Clark and Chapman with a ’63 spec 25, its essential elements as described above. (Unattributed)
Clarks 1963 Championships…
Jim Clark, Dutch Grand Prix June 1963. Jim zooms his Lotus 25 between the North Sea sand dunes at Zandvoort on his way to victory. (Yves Debraine)
That Jim Clark and the Lotus 25 were the fastest combination in 1962 was not in doubt but Coventry Climax reliability was not as great as BRM’s that year. In 1963 the promise of ’62 was realised with Clark winning five Grands’ Prix and both the Drivers Championship for himself and the first Manufacturers Championship for Lotus.
Clark finished second in a Lotus 29 Ford in his first foray to Indianapolis and further demonstrated his versatility with wins in cars as diverse as the Lotus 23 sports car and Ford Galaxie touring car/saloon that year.
Clark became the standard by which other drivers were judged in 1963, if not earlier.
The cover shot of Clark is at the Dutch Grand Prix, Clark won on the 25’s debut there in 1962 and in 1963 and 1964, all in 25’s and in 1965 in the updated Lotus 33 also Climax FWMV V8 powered.
Oulton Park Gold Cup 1963…
Not only did Jim Clark win the Oulton Park Gold Cup during 1963 but he also recorded some stunning in car footage at the Cheshire circuit in his Lotus 25, such footage very rare at the time.
There were four Non-Championship F1 races in the UK alone in 1963, lucky Brits! The footage is amazing on so many levels not the least of which is a drivers eye period view of the circuit; typical track edges, the lack of run off areas and the topography of trees, ditches and the like for the unwary…and this is a circuit devoid of the ‘special obstacles’ of the ultra dangerous road circuits of the day on which Clark raced. The Nurburgring, Spa, Reims, Pescara and Longford here in Australia spring to mind.
Ok, he is not racing but the precision and accuracy for which he was renowned is also on display…
An ace in every sense of the word.
Etcetera…
Clark tootling thru the Oulton paddock in his ‘camera car’, its a bit hard to pick out the beefy mount against the dark background. And to think in the day of the ‘GoPro’ this was how it was done only a short time ago. Even when the specialists at Channel 7 in Australia popularised in car footage in the ‘Bathurst 1000’ in the late 70’s the heavy rig occupied a good percentage of the rear seat area…progress! (Unattributed)
Photo Credits…
Yves Debraine, Eric Della Faille, Marti, James Allington cutaway drawing, Automobile Year 13, Peter Windsor
Leo Geoghegan victorious in the 1969 JAF (Japan Automobile Federation) Grand Prix. Lotus 39 Repco.
One of Australia’s racing greats of the 1960’s and early 70’s, Leo Geoghegan died of cancer aged 78 on 1 March…
Leo won the Australian GT Championship in 1960, (Lotus Elite) the Australian Formula Junior Championship in 1963 (Lotus 22 ) the Australian Drivers Championship, the coveted Gold Star in 1970 in Lotus 59 Waggott and the AF2 Championship in Birranas’ 273 and 274 in 1973 and 1974.
Internationally he won the JAF Japanese Grand Prix in his Lotus 39 Repco in 1969. It was in this car, raced by Jim Clark in the 1966 Tasman Series in which Leo stepped into the premier 2.5 litre ‘Tasman’ class, initially Coventry Climax powered and later with Repco V8’s that Leo more than held his own against the visiting Internationals in what was progressively an older car.
The Geoghegans’ held the Lotus franchise in Australia for many years, it was in a new Lotus 59 powered by one of Merv Waggotts’ 2 litre DOHC engines in which Leo finally won the Gold Star in 1970 after years of plugging away in the evergreen ’39.
Hamming it up for photographer Bruce Wells at Warwick Farm, before the ‘WF 100’ Tasman round February 1966. (Bruce Wells)
Leo and his brother Ian or ‘Pete’ were crowd favourites throughout the 60’s in particular, Leo mainly in open wheelers and Pete in Touring Cars in which he was 5 times Australian Champion.
Most of you outside Australia (85% of you by the way) won’t be aware of the Geoghegans’, this lovely period movie by Castrol ‘The Racing Geoghegans’ positions them nicely into the pantheon of Australian Racing in their day.
Leo was concentrating more on Touring Cars as the lead tester/driver for Chrysler into the early ’70’s in their Valiant Pacer/Charger ‘Series Production’ program but returned to open wheelers when offered the ‘works drive’ by Birrana’s Malcolm Ramsay, these jewel like cars a story in themselves, in AF2 in 1973 and in 1974.
The 1974 AF2 series was one of the most competitive domestic Australian open wheeler championships ever (series sponsorship attracted both the top up and comers and F5000 stars) Leo winning the title against the very best…to watch him in these cars, I didn’t get to see him in his Tasman days, was to see a bloke at the top of his game, a very smooth, precise line driver and aggressive with it. His battles with Bob Muir in another Birrana in ’74 spring to mind especially a very soggy Calder. A magic driver for sure.
Leo in the ‘Warwick Farm 100′ Tasman round February 1966. He finished 7th in the 1.5 litre Ford/Lotus engined Lotus 32. Race won by Jim Clarks’ Lotus 39 Climax, the car Leo acquired at the end of the series. (Bruce Wells)
Ray Bell ‘in period’ journalist with ‘Racing Car News’ had this to say about Leos’ commitment and precision, writing in ‘The Nostalgia Forum’ in 2002.
‘It’s time to look at Leo a little more closely. Maybe at Warwick Farm, his real home circuit and in the Lotus 59, equipped with a nice toey Waggott TC4V engine and good enough to win him the Gold Star… let’s wander over to Homestead Corner… the cars are whistling through, taking that line that clips the two apexes and is so important for their speed down Hume Straight.
Lap after lap, Leo is precise and fast. But look there, on the outside edge of the circuit, where he drifts to between the apexes… see the white line, and then the drop of two inches or so where the bitumen’s been laid over an old entry road? Watch Leo’s rear tyre as he drifts out there…
The wheel had only a couple of inches on the white line… the rest of the tyre was hanging out there with two inches between the tread and the bitumen… two inches from disaster at that speed… every lap!’
One of the greats. RIP.
Leo G in the racesuit, Fuji paddock JAF GP 1969. Lotus 39 Repco. Engine here is Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 Tasman V8, the ‘ultimate version’ of the Tasman Repcos’ , circa 295bhp@9000rpm. Packaging of this later Repco engine not as ‘neat and cohesive’ as the exhaust between the Vee ‘740 Series’ pictured below. (Unattributed)
Leo in the Lotus 59 Waggott at WF approaching the ‘Northern Crossing’. AGP November 1970. 3rd in the 2 litre Lotus behind the winning Frank Matich McLaren M10B Repco F5000 and Graeme Lawrence’2.4 litre Ferrari Dino 246T. (Rod Mackenzie Collection)
Quintessential combination for many years, Leo G and Lotus 39 Repco…1969. (John Stanley)
Wonderful portrait of Leo G by Rod MacKenzie in 1970. (Rod MacKenzie Collection)
Tailpiece…
Wonderful ‘Alec Mildren Racing’ film about the 1969 JAF GP won by Leo Geoghegan and contested by several Australians including the Mildren Racing pair, Kevin Bartlett and Max Stewart.
Etcetera…
Black helmet and black T-Shirt…Leo G Lotus 32 Ford 1.5, Hordern Trophy, Warwick Farm December 1964. This was a huge win, the little 1.5 beating the big 2.5 Climax engined Tasman cars in this ‘Gold Star’ round. (Richard Austin)
Leo G (left) & Jackie Stewart Warwick Farm Tasman round February 1967. JYS won the race in his BRM P261, Leo 5th and holding the trophy for first local resident home in his Lotus 32 Ford 1.5. (Dale Harvey)
Leo, Lotus 39 Climax heading for 5th place during the 1967 ‘Warwick Farm 100’ Tasman round, Kevin Bartlett? perhaps behind, Brabham BT11A Climax 6th. (Unattributed)
Leo and Pete Geoghegan won the Surfers Paradise 6 Hour in 1968 in the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM
Leo G in his Lotus 39 Repco & Chris Amon Ferrari Dino 246T on the cover of MRA 1968. In this form the car was about as good as a 60’s open-wheeler looked. The conversion from Coventry Climax 2.5 FPF to Repco ‘740 Series’ 2.5 Tasman V8 was done by Geoghegans’ crew lead by John Sheppard, the marriage between chassis and engine superbly executed.
Leo Geoghegan leading his compatriot Max Stewart during the 1969 JAF GP. Lotus 39 Repco 2.5 & Mildren Waggott 1.6. Race was F Libre. (Unattributed)
Leo campaigned this Lotus 59 Waggott in 1970 and 1971, winning the Gold Star in the 265bhp 4 cylinder, DOHC injected four valve engined car in 1970. Here at Warwick Farm (lyntonh)
Geoghegan manhandling his Chrysler Valiant RT Charger around Warwick Farm in October 1971. These cars were powered by 265cid in line 6 cylinder OHV, triple Weber 45DCOE engines…together with the Ford Falcon GTHO and Holden Torana GTR XU1 comprised a much loved period of Touring Car racing in Australia. Shortcomings of the Charger were its 3 speed ‘box, 4 speeder from 72’ and under-developed relative to the opposition. Leo G chief test driver/developer and lead driver for Chrysler, cars built at a long since closed factory in Tonsley Park, Adelaide. (Jeff Nield)
Leo Geoghegan and Enno Buesselmann, Sandown 1973. Both Birrana 273 Hart Ford T/cam. (autopics)
Photo and Other Credits…
Bruce Wells, theroaringseason.com, lyntonh, Dale Harvey, autopics.com.au, John Stanley, Rod MacKenzie Collection
Alberto Ascari looking dapper in shirt and tie but a little uncomfortable at the wheel of the new-fangled mid-engined Cooper…
Its rare to see the 1952/3 World Champion in anything other than an Italian car. The Cooper must have seemed tiny in comparison with his Grand Prix Lancia D50 but the opportunity to have a steer of Gilomens’ car during a Racing Driver School in Switzerland in 1954 was too good to miss…his critique of the car unrecorded.
See the article i wrote about these fabulous 500cc/F3 cars a while back.
Jack Brabham winning the 1969 Australian Gold Star Series event at Easter Bathurst in his Brabham BT31 Repco…he is heading across Mount Panorama between ‘Skyline’ and ‘The Dipper’…
Introduction…
Those who have read the first three Repco articles may recall that we have been chronologically going through the history of Repco’s F1 and Race Engine program of the mid 60’s partially through the eyes of Rodway Wolfe who worked for the company as both technician and storeman during the glory years from 1966.
This article is out of sequence, its’ about Jacks’ 1969 Tasman mount, the Brabham BT31 powered by the Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre V8, logically the 1967 and 1968 F1/Tasman/Sportscar engines and race records come first. Rodways’ manuscript is running ahead of my own research so we will run with this article now, one he is intensely passionate about for reasons which become obvious, i will re-number once we have covered 1967 and 1968 down the track.
‘In the historic vehicle world there are some fascinating stories of various cars and some seem to just keep accumulating historic events and happenings throughout their existence. The BT31 Repco Brabham is one such car. The following story is mine, I was lucky enough to purchase the BT31 early in its history making saga…
Brabham, BT31, Bathurst Easter 1969. It is such a shame the car did not arrive early enough to compete in the 1969 Tasman and/or the 1970 Tasman, it was potentially a winning car in 1970. ’70 Tasman won by Graeme Lawrences’ ’68 updated Ferrari Dino 246T despite F5000 cars also being eligible that year…(Unattributed)
BT31/1 was constructed by Brabham Cars for Brabham Racing Organisation…(Sir Jack Brabhams works racing team, a separate entity from Jack and Ron Tauranacs’ race car production entity) It was built especially for the 1969 Tasman series, not just a modified Formula 3 car as some have suggested. It was bright red, unique itself as the FI BRO cars were all green and gold.
The engine was a ‘Tasman’ 2.5 litre ‘830 Series’ the car fitted with low profile wheels and tyres and various other features. It was consigned by sea freight to Australia, there seemed to be ample time for its arrival for the start of the Tasman series of races in New Zealand in January 1969.
I managed Repco Brabham Engine Company’s spare parts operation, we awaited the cars arrival with great anticipation. By a twist of fate the Melbourne ‘wharfies’ went on strike due to some industrial problem. They were cooperative and sympathetic to us and offered to unload the car if possible. A search revealed the car crate to be under many hundreds of tons of freight so it was not to be.
Eventually the strike ended and the crate arrived at RB on the Wednesday prior to the last race of the ’69 Tasman Series at Sandown Park, Melbourne. It was very disappointing but Jack being Jack he still wanted to be on the Sandown grid, Repcos’ home town race.
If anyone has been lucky enough to purchase a new Brabham they will know what I am talking about. The cars arrive in a very long crate just wide enough for the chassis and suspension, tanks and body parts are packed along the crate in front of the chassis. In this case a tubular space frame.
As despatch and receiving was part of my job I had the great pleasure of assisting Jack to unpack the car. I have been lucky in my life to have many days I enjoyed to the fullest but that Wednesday with Sir Jack has to rank as the best. I spent the day helping the World Champion assemble his car, imagine a star of today doing that!
Every part went together like a dream, Jack sat in the cockpit while we fitted instruments, adjusted pedals, steering wheel reach etc. We discussed many subjects including his flying in Europe. He asked if I had seen any ‘Brabham Holden Toranas’ in my travels. At the time he had done a deal with General Motors Holden, it was possible to buy a Torana with Brabham badges and gear knob, steering wheel. It was truly a memorable day for a boy from the bush!
Meanwhile my RB colleagues were power testing the ‘830 engine’. It was one of the best and most reliable of our engines. Finally it was fitted and the car was ready for testing mid Friday afternoon prior to the Sandown meeting on Saturday/Sunday.
We loaded the car on an old open trailer of Jacks and set out for Calder Raceway, near Keilor, an hour from Melbourne. Kevin Davies went in his car, I went in mine and I think Michael Gasking took his too. (1959 Australian Gold Star Champion) Len Lukey and his wife took Jack and Betty Brabham and one of the toddler Brabham boys.
Brabham testing at Calder the day before Sandown and the day the cars assembly was completed by Brabham and Wolfe…the DIY World Champion! Brabham is belted in but driving in a ‘parka’, no racesuit.(Rodway Wolfe)
Len Lukey towed the trailer. We stopped at Keilor and Jack disappeared into a house for a few minutes. He borrowed the key to the circuit from Calder owner, Jean Pascoe. We proceeded to the circuit, unloaded the car and with just a handful of us there Jack started testing.
The fuel cam was causing a hesitation coming out of corners but Michael Gasking had a selection of test cams and soon had the fuel mix OK.
Len Lukey parked his car on the infield and they all stayed in the car watching. At one stage Jack walked over and carried his small son to BT31 and took him for a few laps as he sat on Jacks lap, no wonder all those boys raced! Another memorable moment for me. It was such a lovely casual setting with Jack just wearing his Parka jacket, no fireproofs.
We had been there about an 1.5 hours, Jack seemed happy with everything and suddenly into the gate roared a car which skidded to a stop and out jumped a very irate man. He started shouting at us all, especially Jack who was still sitting in the cockpit. He yelled something about no engines were to be started at the circuit after 6pm at night and it was a council by-law etc. He would report us etc. When he finally managed to get a word in Jack calmly said ‘we will pack up now fellas’ the irate man left as fast as he had arrived.
I have often wondered how funny it was that he never knew he was abusing our World Champ!’
Needless to say the car was at Sandown next day for practice…
Jack Brabham, Brabham BT31 Repco, Sandown Tasman 1969, ‘Dandy Road’ corner. Winged in the race, he tested also sans wing. Note the ‘old style’ Buco helmet…Jack was wearing Bell Magnums in Europe, i suspect this is an old helmet left in Oz, ditto the goggles! (Rod MacKenzie)
sergent.com reported the race as follows…
‘It was a battle for pole again between Amon and Rindt, although the dark horse of the meeting was Jack Brabham hurriedly arranging a marriage between a Brabham BT31B F3 chassis and the 2.5 twin-cam Repco V8 engine. It was certainly the smallest and lightest of the V8 powered cars at the meeting, and although he fitted a wing to the rear, Brabham was down on horsepower compared to the other Internationals.
John Harvey was having his first competitive drive in the Bob Jane Repco Brabham BT23 Repco V8 since his Easter accident at Bathurst in 1968, and was using the outing as an extended test session for the coming Gold Star rather than trying to drive a hard race first time out. This was born out by Harvey’s practice time which put him 14th on the grid among the 1.6 F2 cars.
Brabham BT31 #9 beside Derek Bells’ Ferrari Dino 246T, Sandown Tasman grid 1969. Grey haired gent just in shot is Scuderia Veloces’ supremo, David McKay who entered the successful Amon/Bell Ferraris’ in both 1968 and 1969 Tasman. (Mildren Films)
Rindt (Lotus 49 DFW) got the start and lead the field through Shell Corner and held it through the very slow Peter’s Corner, but Amon (Ferrari Dino 246T) used his better gearing for the straight and took the Austrian as they headed over the hill and down toward the Esses. Hill (Lotus 49 DFW) had started in third position but dropped back sharply on the first lap when his throttle linkage came adrift and Courage (Brabham BT24 DFW) broke a previously twisted half shaft down the back of the circuit.
Amon and Rindt started to open a gap to Brabham, who was holding off Bell for third place. Kevin Bartlett (Brabham BT23D Alfa) pulled sharply into the pits on lap 5 with a broken exhaust which threatened to set fire to exposed oil and fuel lines while Hill re-joined the race and set about climbing back through the field. John Harvey spun when his Repco engine overheated and poured out scalding water at Dandenong Corner and he retired with a very sore neck from the results.
Meanwhile Hill was forcing his way back up and he took Levis on lap 33 for sixth place but couldn’t get any higher after his four lap deficit after the start. Garrie Cooper drove steadily throughout the race to finish eighth and first resident Australian home in his own Elfin 600B. Leo Geoghegan hadn’t started as mechanics found a leaking fuel cell in the Lotus 39 Repco V8 and they couldn’t repair it in time.’
Amon won the race and the Tasman Series that year from Rindt and Courage. Rindt and Brabham were second and third in the race.
Check out this fabulous film made by Alec Mildren Racing of the Australian Leg of the 1969 Tasman Series…
After that Sandown event, Jack returned to Europe to commence his F1 campaign for the year. Brabham’s BT26’s fitted with the Ford Cosworth DFV V8 for 1969 rather than the RB 860 Series 3 litre V8’s which had been so unreliable for he and Jochen Rindt in 1968, and caused his decision to bring the F1 partnership with Repco to an end.
The BT31 returned to the Maidstone factory, the engine was removed and the car stored for a while. We had two 830 2.5 litre engines for the car, one of course the spare.
Brabham, Bathurst Easter 1969. (Dale Harvey)
In April 1969 the car was brought out of mothballs and taken to Bathurst for the Easter ‘Bathurst 100’ race…
‘This race has also been widely reported over the years needless to say the BT31 started from the rear of the grid and hosed off all the Australian cars and set a new lap record for open-wheel cars of 2 min 13.2 seconds.’
‘Of course that was the old track layout with the full Conrod Straight and notorious hump. Typical of Jacks foxiness, he fitted both front and rear high wings for Saturday practice which resulted in some teams working frantically all night to install front wings as well to their cars. Of course Jack rolled out the BT31 on race morning minus the high front wing’.
Bi-winged during Easter Bathurst practice. One-off car based on BT28 F3 chassis. Multi-tubular space frame, front suspension by upper and lower wishbones and coil spring/damper units. Rear suspendsion by single top link, inverted lower wishbone, twin radius rods, adjustable sway bars front and rear. Cast magnesium front and rear uprights. Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre SOHC 295bhp V8, Hewland FT200 5 speed box. (Rodway Wolfe)
The car was suffering some fuel starvation problems in practice. Very hastily the electric fuel pump was borrowed from Charlie Deans’ Lancia road car, some of you may remember Deans contribution to Australian motor racing in the Stan Jones article published a while back;
It assisted fuel flow into a reserve pot arrangement in the fuel system and a switch fitted to the instrument panel. Jack turned the pump on each lap for either the climb up the mountain or the run down Conrod I cannot recall which.
I do remember how great the car sounded down Conrod. It was the days of the apple orchards at Bathurst and BT31 looked magical going down through the apple orchards. When I purchased the car later it retained the Bathurst gearing, Peter Holinger and i calculated 5th gear at 186 mph at 9500 rpm so it was flying!
After the Bathurst meeting the car went to Sydney for display at Jack Brabham Fords’ Bankstown showroom.’
Brabham during Bathurst practice pondering fuel starvation problems…(Rodway Wolfe)
‘Finally the BT31 was returned to our Repco factory at Maidstone…Jack Brabham had since returned to the UK, the cars engine was removed and it sat in a corner gathering dust.
Meanwhile Repco had been negotiating with Jack to purchase the car for the Repco Export Company to place on display in Japan at the upcoming ‘Expo 70’. Repco exported engine components around the world, most people would not know that Rolls Royce in the UK were supplied with Repco piston rings. So the display in Japan was a crucial part of the company’s export drive.
We will never know the details of Repco’s purchase of BT31, all I know it was involved with import duty with the amount paid dependent on the car being used as a race car or for advertising purposes.In other words, if the car was raced a higher level of duty applied than if the car was not.
One morning the works superintendant, Kevin Davies came out of his office and went down to John Brookfield in the welding shop, (John was our magic welder of all things aluminium) and was an excellent engineer. We all heard a bit of a discussion and Kevin disappeared back into his office. John was a big guy, his nickname, ‘Lurch’. We all knew something was wrong as Lurch came out of his welding bay with a red face, set to explode.’
‘Chop up BT31…
He told us with an incredible look on his face; ‘Kevin came and asked me to cut the BT31 chassis in half!!!??? I told him to F….k off and if he wanted it cut in two pieces he would have to find someone else to f…….g cut it for him…’
‘We all rebelled, the entire factory agreed on no destruction of BT31. It was something to do with Repco buying the car from Jack for advertising only, a space frame cut in half of course destroys the car and prevents it being raced. Anyway it was all to do with the usage of the car and the marketing idea at ‘Expo 70′ in Japan was to setup a display using a tunnel with the rear of the car disappearing in one end and the nose coming out of the other.
After a lot of discussion and refusal to damage the car the nose was removed and the bracket holding the radiator cut off the front. I didn’t visit Expo 70 but I understand the display did feature the car entering a tunnel. The car’s front high wing, the nose cone and the front wheels were in my care in our RB store until the car was returned in 1971’.
Editors Note: Without being an expert on Australian race car import laws of the past, the legislators allowed racing cars to be imported free of duty into Australia on the basis that the car left the country annually…perfect for Tasman series competitors as the cars left Oz for NZ to compete each year before returning. Eventually, when the car stays in Oz, duty is payable, therein commenced, often, a lot of ‘jiggery-pokery’ with chassis numbers as impecunious racers, seeking to avoid the taxmans net, applied very old chassis numbers to very new cars! Repco, as an audited public company could not afford to play ‘ducks and drakes’ in this manner. I suspect the scenario Rodway outlines is around the points outlined here. That is, how to minimise the punitive duties whilst remaining ‘kosher’ in the process as large public company.Mark.
BT31/1 cockpit shot taken in 1983 at Sandown. Quintessential 60’s English racing car cockpit; Smiths chronometric tach, oil/water temps/oil pressure, leather bound Mota-Lita wheel and right hand change for the 5 speed Hewland FT200 gearbox. Chassis tubes clear as is aluminium fuel tank to left and right. (Mark Bisset)
‘When the car was returned by sea freight from Japan Repco had undergone huge changes in their motor racing policy…
The whole Repco Brabham project had been dismantled and the factory in Maidstone was being converted to a new company, Repco Dynamics, which was to construct a new concept in automotive wheel balancers. Most of the RB employees, about 70 at the time, were given their marching orders but a few were selected for the new entity or other Repco companies.’
In essence what occurred was the commercial flow on of Jack Brabhams decision to change from Repco to Ford Cosworth power in F1 with effect the 1969 F1 season.
RB Engines raison d’etre was the supply of engines to Brabham; Brabham received race winning engines and Repco reaped the advertising and promotional spinoffs.
The sale of Tasman 2.5 and 4.4/5 litre sports car and other engines in Australia and elsewhere did not generate a commercial return, the parent companies subsidy to keep its RB Engines subsidiary afloat was increasing each year. The PR rub off ended when Jack turned to Cosworth and had lost its gloss in ’68 due to the engines unreliability in F1. Whilst the 2.5 Repcos’ won Gold Star races they never won a Tasman or Gold Star series. Frank Matich’s 1969 Australian Sports Car Championship Matich SR4 Repco win was laudable but again did not, in Repco’s view, justify the significant investment made.
Repco therefore ‘flipped’ the stock of unsold engines and other assets of RB Engines into Redco, a new company, which it continued to support. The deal was probably done that way to maximise the tax effectiveness of the transaction, with Redco then looking after the needs of RB Engine customers needing spares etc, and taking on development of the new Holden ‘308 V8’ as a race F5000 engine, CAMS having finally made the vexed decison of the new ANF1 category between 2 litre race engine and 5 litre F5000 stock block alternatives.
These are topics we will explore in later articles, in essence this is a summary of the circumstances around the issues Rodway addresses above.
Bi-winged BT31 during Bathurst practice. At ‘The Dipper’. (Unattributed)
‘In a corner of the RBE factory a wall was constructed with big doors and ‘No Entry’ signs, the new domain of ‘Repco Engine Development Company’ (REDCO) was set up with Mal Preston as Chief…
The former General Manager of Repco Brabham Engine Co, Frank Hallam was transferred to Repco Research at Dandenong. Don Halpin, John McVeigh, John Mepstead and Brian Heard were placed in the new company with Malcolm Preston.
Being the spoilt brat from the bush, i refused to accept the closing of Repco Brabham which was my life really. I wrote a nice letter to the board and thanked them for employing me through the RB project and told them I was returning to Gippsland. I asked them to re-employ me when they started building F1 engines again. I had been offered a job as Service Manager assistant to Michael Gasking who was the new Chief Engineer of Repco Dynamics.
It did have a huge future and I could not have found a better guy to work with than Michael Gasking but I was young and stubborn.
One day Charlie Dean arrived and said ‘What’s all this about you going home to the farm Rod’ I explained to him how I was not keen on the heavy cast iron 308 Holden engine. I had loved and appreciated my time on the Repco Brabham Engines. Anyway he said ‘right, I want you to work with Malcolm, he will need you to keep up the RB spares around the world as we have to maintain supply’.
‘The Repco Brabham engine spares represented $340,000 in value at that time!, were retained by REDCO, to sell the parts to RB engine owners. I ended up behind the wall with Don Halpin and the other boys. Looking back it was great to have Charlie Dean tell me I couldn’t leave! The time I spent at REDCO with Malcolm is another story altogether.’
Bi-winged BT31 during Easter Bathurst practice, car won sans front wing…and high wings shortly to be banned globally by the FIA during the 1969 Monaco GP weekend. (Dale Harvey)
Buying the Brabham BT31…
‘BT31 arrived back from ‘Expo 70’ in its crate and no one cared. Repco Brabham Engine Co did not exist, all the staff had gone. Mal Preston had not seen the car and was not interested as Charlie was continually on his back about Holden F5000 developments.
I did not envy Mal in those early months of the F5000 project he was under lots of pressure. Charlie Dean was like a small tornado wherever he went.
One day Mal asked me to unpack the BT31 as it was needed for a car show in Mornington. I spent a couple of days reassembling it around a mock ‘830 2.5’. It was rare for us to display a going engine. I recall once doing so with our one magnesium 3 litre, (which disappeared off the planet anyway) so at all times we used mock ups. They were mostly complete but had no internals.
There was no interest in the car, so i decided to write to the Repco Board asking to acquire it. I was a lot younger then but I did have some nous. I decided not to discuss it with anybody as I knew I was a ‘very small gear in a massive gearbox’. I pulled out a figure I would pay and got secretary Coral Allen to type the letter for me but I left a gap where the price offered was to be added later by me! Coral typed it and I duly posted it to the Repco Board. I trusted Coral completely but not all the bosses she typed for!
I really didn’t think I had any chance and I had not even given a thought to how i would pay for it. Malcolm asked if I would take the car to Mornington for a car show that Jim and Bill Leech had a lot to do with. I loaded the car on Jacks old farm trailer and took the car to the show, kept it polished and handed out Repco brochures and answered questions.
It was about mid afternoon when up bowled ‘Tornado’ Charlie Dean. Charlie told me he had read my letter and asked why I wanted to buy the car. I very politely (in Repco you rarely got to speak to a director anyway) told him I loved the cars history and it was important to both Repco’s and Australia’s history. He quickly replied yes we will discuss the matter next week.
He then commented on how good it looked and went to leave but just at that moment up walked one of the Leech brothers, these guys owned some serious cars including a Maserati 300S and Bugatti T37A, Jim was enquiring about the value of BT31, the conversation fortunately stopped when the entourage of Lancias’ arrived which Dean and the Leech boys joined…a close call!
A couple of weeks later I was cleaning the car. All of a sudden the double doors flew open with a crash and out came Mal Preston in ‘full flight’ RODWAY he shouted, ‘Did you write to the Repco Board offering to buy this car without even consulting me? I am your boss and the least you could do is tell me’ He was furious. He asked ‘Why didn’t you consult me first’. I replied in a rather shocked state, because you possibly would have talked me out of it Mal. He shouted at me for a minute then disappeared back to his office again. I was very low. I realised I had done my dash and might not even have a job!
A few minutes later Mal appeared very quiet and subdued. ‘I am very sorry for that outburst Rodway, I have thought about your reply and you are probably right, I would have bloody well talked you out of it’. It is of great credit to Malcolm that he was that sort of boss. He treated us all as equals and he got the most out of his employees that way. As he went to depart I called to him. Are you with me or against me Mal, he turned and said I will help you all I can. The matter was never discussed between us again.
During the following weeks I heard all kinds of stories about BT31. Several people wanted to buy it internally. BT31 was built in 1968, by then it was 1971, it had only raced twice by Sir Jack himself and was still setup as he raced it including all decals, accessories, gear ratios etc. It certainly was not an old car as some have suggested. There must have been many discussions and arguments about what was going to happen to the car within Repco until one night about 6 pm I was consigning some parcels, when Mal Preston came storming out of his office over to my desk.
RODWAY he shouted again, ‘I want you to get that F…..g car out of this f…..g workshop tonight, load it on a f……g trailer and I never ever want to see the f…….g car again ! As he stormed back to his office I called what about the money, as I had to get it. He shouted out he didn’t care at all about that just get it out of here now’.’
‘And so, BT31/1 was Mine…
BT31 spent the night on Jack Brabham’s old trailer in suburban Burke Road, Kew where I was living at the time with not much car parking. Anyway it was still there next morning! I rang up my good friend Peter Holinger who was now, after the Repco Brabham closure working in his own workshop in Warrandyte. He was happy to store the car in return for making a duplicate chassis for himself. He had decided to build another hillclimb car to replace the Vincent powered one that had brought him so much success.
Now that I had it I had to pay for it!, fortunately a wealthy uncle, who had a large, successful bakery business came to the party. It took a while for Repco to process my cheque, i firmly believe had i not paid for the car no-one would have asked for the money.
I left the car in Holingers’ care, it was in the safest of hands. He photographed the suspension and measured all the lengths of the components and duplicated the space frame so well that years later at Morwell Hillclimb he borrowed the shock absorbers and a few bits from BT31 and won the event with some of my suspension parts. He even used the fibreglass seat insert to make a pattern for another one.’
‘830 Series Engines, Paperwork and BT31’s Rarity…
Repco ‘830 Series’ 2.5 litre ‘Tasman’ V8. SOHC gear driven per bank, Lucas fuel injection, 295bhp @ 9000rpm. Note the heavily ribbed block, and below the ribbing socket head cap screws to ‘cross bolt’ the main bearing caps. This engine is ex Garrie Cooper Elfin 600D and has the later ‘Indy’ sump assy and combined oil pressure/scavenge pump. (TNF)
BT31 was fitted with Repcos’ latest ‘830 Series’ Tasman V8. The engine was first used by Brabham in his BT23E in practice for the 1968 Sandown Tasman round, he raced with an ‘840 Series’, which failed, Jim Clark winning the race in his Lotus 49DFW.
The ‘830’ incorporated the shorter, more rigid ‘800 Series’ block developed for the 1968 F1 engines by Norm Wilson with the ’30 Series’ cross-flow SOHC heads. With a bore and stroke of 3.34X2.16 inches, the engine developed 295bhp @ 9000rpm and weighed 150Kg.
‘The 830 was such a good reliable engine Jack stated that had Repco developed a 3 litre version (despite what people may tell you, we never EVER built a 3 litre 830 but I think Don Halpin has since) we would have quite possibly have retained the World Champioship in 1968.
Jack said that the 830 was such a great engine in 2.5 form and was so much lighter than the oposition despite being down on horsepower by comparison. I remember Jack saying to us fellows in the engine assy area one day. ‘If Ferrari had the horsepower they claim to have they would be leaving me behind by a much bigger margin than they are leaving me behind’ !!! We will never know what the 830 would have produced at 3 litres capacity?’
At the time, two 2.5 Litre 830’s were built for the car. Other 830’s were subsequently built for other Tasman competitors.
‘Now as our commercial manager Bob Sippo had been moved on to the Repco Replex Company we had no-one really able to make any commercial decisions. One night the Bob Jane Racing fellas turned up and I was informed that we were lending them one of the 2.5 litre 830 engines. (for the Bob Britton built ‘Jane Repco’, a car constructed on Brittons BT23 Brabham jig at his Sydney, Rennmax facility)
What the various companies and individual teams were charged was up to the manager and the accountants, this applied to all customers including Jack Brabham, he was of course sponsored by Repco.
So I did as I was told. Later the Bob Jane Racing boys arrived again, their car was going to Tasmania for the next meeting and they needed a spare! Well that of course meant the spare BT31 engine went too. Now as this was while the car was in Japan on display with a mock up engine and I never of course dreamed of ever owning the car I just did as instructed. The person instructing me never really had the authority to lend either engine but the factory was in disarray and the Jane organisation had been great ambassadors of our engines, the decision made sense at the time.
Neither engine ever came back of course as many others did not either. I knew about stock control and the hazards of stuff being squirreled away, the amount of stock of RB parts and even engines that were removed from my store illegally is staggering. No names, no packdrill!
I was not the least concerned about obtaining an engine, i had a good mock-up engine anyway and their were still enough bits around to build an engine.
I was not ambitious enough to buy the car to drive it as at the time I believed it was ultra valuable as an historic car, totally original as described above.
To me it is as collectible as BT19, Jacks 1966 World Championship car now in the Victorian Historic Racing Register, Melbourne, museum in Box Hill. One of the BT31 engines lay under a work bench at Bob Jane Racing for quite a time so was available to any collector.
In contrast I went to Sydney and called at Jack Brabham Ford to see BT19 when it arrived from the UK. A salesman showed me what was left of an F1 car. There was not too much of the car there, no engine and lots of parts missing. I am not sure if the wheels were there. Later BT19 was totally restored by Jim Shepherd to as new condition, Don Halpin built an original ‘620 Series’ Oldsmobile engine for it.
What I am saying is that BT 19 did not have an original engine or body and was mostly built up to original, BT31 in contrast even had the Bathurst tyres still on it and was totally original with an original engine available.’
Rod Wolfe, Brabham BT31/1 and faithful Leyland P76 towcar, mid ’80’s Sandown. Car fitted with mock-up ‘740 Series’ exhaust between the Vee, V8 in this shot. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Working on the Repco F5000 Engine and home to Gippsland…
With the BT31 safely stored with Peter Holinger I continued at REDCO assisting with the new Repco Holden F5000 engine. We were all busy with only 5 of us to do everything, Mal Preston had a big job to do. Don Halpin was in charge of the workshop, he was exactly the right choice to work with Malcolm. Malcolm was always thinking, I mean always! so he would expect problems before they had a chance to happen in an uncanny sort of way and Don was seemingly unruffled at any problem so the combination worked very well with some very amusing conversations between them at times.
I had a variety of duties as I did stuff including porting cylinder heads and all the consignment of RBE parts and acquisition of F5000 bits. I enjoyed working with all my mates from the RB project and despite our regular ‘innings’ on various subjects I admired Mal Preston very much and learnt a lot from his rather unusual management style. He did tell me once after one of our sparring matches that out of all the boys I was the one most likely to end up working for myself eventually! I never worked out if it was a compliment or not.
Mal Preston was the right man for that F5000 project, his passing recently was very sad.
As I was not that happy with the situation, it was not a personal reason but a Repco political situation, eventually I resigned to go home to Gippsland. I ended up at Peter Holinger’s working with Pete and his wife Bev, after a period with them I departed Melbourne and towed BT31 behind to Gippsland. The car was a bit out of place on a farm in the country and various articles were appearing in motor magazines about it.
In my spare time I used to fully dismantle it and got to know every nut and bolt. My small son was toddler size and I used to make up a bed for him in the cockpit where he slept until the early hours of the morning and loved it. I am sorry to inform subsequent owners that my son holds the record for most hours in the cockpit!
I had the chassis gently sand cleaned and repainted by a good friend. You have to be very gentle with a space frame as you can upset the tension of the various tubes if it is sandblasted too severely. It was a satisfying pastime getting to know exactly what went into a Repco Brabham design.
I was a Kawasaki motorcycle dealer for a time and used BT31 as a display feature in the country showroom, it enabled me to meet lots of interesting people.
I would have loved to convert the BT31 to a hill climb car for myself as I had hill climbed a Cooper Mini and usually won my class at Morwell Hill Climb and loved it but I really believed to break that magic of Jack Brabham being the only driver and all original condition I would be a fool. One of my aims was to get recognition of Repco Brabham in Australia, even Phil Irving told me how Repco had totally missed the boat when it came to claiming the fame that they should have been recognised for.
I wrote to Ampol (Australian oil company) first giving them all the details and informing them of their association with the car. The car still had the Ampol decals on the nose cone too. A little secret here, we never did use Ampol oil, it was Shell ‘Super M’ in Ampol drums but that’s normal in advertising, only because Ampol did not make a racing oil. But even at director level they were not really interested. I have a file of old letters from various Australian Companies and museums. There was just no real interest.
I eventually moved to Metung on the Gippsland Lakes in the late ’70s and began a new sort of engineering with boats and became a Volvo Penta service agent.
BT31 gave me a huge insight into motor racing and motor sport generally. Many people were attracted to the car and i got to know them as a consequence. The legendary race car engineer John Sheppard spent holidays at Metung, we had many hours talking about his times including managing the Holden Dealer Team after Harry Firth.
The great Peter Brock and his engineer at the time, Bruce Nowacki spent hours leaning on the cars rear wing, Pete was a fantastic source of driving and handling technique so I was in another world. He and Bev even came and stayed at our holiday accommodation in Metung.
One day a guy showed up wanting to see BT31. He introduced himself as Austin Miller, or Aussie Miller. He was a fantastic character, he owned a crop dusting and spraying company in Northern Victoria. On looking up his past I realised just who he was. The fastest man on wheels in Australia prior to the Bluebird of Donald Campbell. A legend of Australia’s Motor Sports’ past and in the Guinness Book of Records.
I also featured the car on display at various race meetings. One Sandown meeting was very special. I met and talked for an hour or more with the great John Surtees. He was so down to earth and discussed the Italian Grand Prix between he and Jack Brabham at Monza in 1967. I also met and talked to Tom Wheatcroft, he told me all about Donington Park, his race circuit in the UK.
All these people could see my dedication to the Repco Brabham engines and they responded by letting go on their own particular Motor Sport interests.’
BT31/1 and ‘Penthouse Pet of The Year’ Tracey Wallace..shot of poor resolution sadly. AGP Calder auction 1980. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Time To Sell…
Finally as the salt air beside the lake at Metung was getting to the car, I was disappointed with the lack of interest in preservation of BT31.
So I sent the car to auction prior to the 1980 Grand Prix at Calder. I set a reserve price, there was lots of hype and Alan Jones and Tracy Wallace (Miss Penthouse of the year) and other Australian motoring greats.I passed it in after a very good bid but slightly under my reserve. So I returned to Metung and kept the car for another term.
One day I received an offer from a museum owner who wanted the car for his collection. At last I thought I was on to something to keep me happy with the RB history. I believed this guy had the resources to purchase a going engine from Bob Jane. The guy purchased the car and forwarded a deposit and made several payments but never the full amount so the sale fell through.
I decided if Australia didn’t want the car I would advertise it in ‘Road and Track’. There were problems in placing the ad as they decided the car was a replica and didn’t want to run the advertisement! In the meantime a guy showed up in a Rolls Royce asking about it. He was a Sydney specialist Doctor. He specialised in repairing people after bombs had exploded, especially facial damage. He made up new jawbones from other body parts etc. It was a gruesome job, he had worked for many years in Ireland for experience. He never smiled and actually reminded me a bit of the film star Jack Palance. The Rolls Royce was filthy, covered in mud and he explained it had been in a motorkhana the weekend before!
He wanted BT31 and as I was browned off generally as all my attempts to preserve it for Australia had flown out the window. I had the advantage of already obtaining most of the required funds due to the museums closure and failure of the previous sale. So I agreed to sell the car, it was 1984. We did a deal and Don Halpin arranged to construct an engine for him.
Finally the ‘R&T’ ad bore fruit as Bib Stillwell contacted me. He was President of the LearJet Corporation in America at the time and wanted to buy BT31. Of course being a mate of Jack Brabham’s he knew all about the car. I explained that I had received a deposit and had sold it to the Sydney doctor subject to his final cheque arriving. Much to Bibs’ frustration, he tried hard to convince me to sell the car to him but i had committed to Dr William Marshall. Bib got his wish and did buy the car later, he won a lot of races ‘in period’ with Brabhams and was keen to own it.
Marshall put a team together and did race the car for a time and had a fairly serious crash during his term of ownership.’
Dr William Marshall in the cockpit, older gent former RBE Commercial Manager Bob Sippo and a mechanic, Sandown, not long after the cars ‘re-debut’. (Rodway Wolfe)
‘Bib Stillwell and BT31…
Some time later I was invited to an historic Sandown meeting and sure enough there was Bib Stillwell with BT31 looking great in the Stillwell green colours, he bought the car from Marshall in 1987. I was looking at the car in the pits and had not made myself known and said in my typical fashion. ‘Hey what’s with this green’ a big guy stood up and said and why shouldn’t it be green. I piped up that it was built red, raced red and Bib hearing all this came over and said hello.
We ended up very good friends. At one stage he said ‘You should have sold it to me first Roddy’. I was impressed with his driving that day. He really put in. I also suspect a little extra effort because I was there in his pit, when he came back he was covered in perspiration and all red in the face. He walked over and put his arm around my shoulder and said ‘How was that Roddy did I do a good enough job?’. I was pleased that he cared what that I had kept the car in original shape for so long. He was a born racer as Bob Jane was as well. They were not just collectors they were users and drivers.
We Repco boys were invited to Geelong on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay for a special sprint meeting on the waterfront. The Geelong sprints are a wonderful spectacle on a good day. During the afternoon Don Halpin came in to the RB tent and said to me ‘Bibs gone in’ of course meaning an accident. We did not all rush down there of course and later I became aware that somehow it had been a very bad accident and Bib had multiple fractures of his legs. He had an extensive stay in Geelong hospital and sadly I think that he never recovered fully from that accident.
It was a long and tough call on Bib and he was no spring chicken. He also had lots of problems as the bottom had dropped out of new car sales in Australia. Sometime later he tragically collapsed and died of a heart attack in his Kew showroom. I don’t think that the BT31 had added much to his fine racing career.
The car was rebuilt and sold overseas and has since changed hands numerous times, but is back in Australia.
Nowadays I have the great pleasure of occasionally seeing BT31 in flight under various owners and I was impressed to see the car looking so good at Phillip Island in 2014. It gives me a lot of satisfaction in my older age and the reception I get from the younger owners is pleasing to say the least.
Long live BT31, the only one built and built specially as a works car for Sir Jack Brabham to race in Australia. You cannot get a car much more historic than that’.’
BT31 Phil Irving and Bib Stillwell, Sandown, late 1990’s. Stillwell won 3 of his 4 1960’s Australian Gold Star Championships in Brabhams, a World Class steerer in his day. (Rodway Wolfe)
Kevin Bartlett track testing BT31, whilst owned by William Marshall in 1987 at Oran Park, Sydney for ‘Wheels’ magazine. Bartlett typically sideways! (Wheels)
Etcetera…Track Test of BT31/1 by Kevin Bartlett in 1987…
Australian Gold Star Champion in 1968 and 1969, Bathurst Winner and ex-Brabham racer Kevin Bartlett track tested the car for ‘Wheels’ magazine, the article written by Graham Howard was published in August 1987. These are excerpts from that article;
‘…The car fires up and Bartlett hops right into it, giving it three hard bootfuls of throttle on the way to the first corner. Just so the car knows whos’ boss right? To the onlookers there is no doubt. All the gearchanges go in, the throttle work is smooth and confident. Progressively he is getting faster everywhere, braking later-tho still a bit early, it seeems, and now after a few laps starting to find the outside of the kerbs on the way out of corners’. Then he comes in.
KB, ‘It doesn’t like getting its power to the ground, does it. And the brakes are a worry. The front to rear balance is not right. The throttle needs heavier return springs’. He removes the seat and goes again. ‘Its a good torquey little engine from 3100-3200’. He suggests shock and tyre pressure changes. Present day Australian Historic Regs don’t allow a wing which Bartlett concludes it needs.
‘You can see the understeer into the corner but his exits are clean, decisive much steadier as he steers the car with its own noise, vanishing away with successive upward shrieks of acceeleration, gearchange, more acceleration. He is fast and accurate and the impressive thing is how, with a very peaky engine and a car with a willingness to break into wheelspin, Bartlett is stringing together lap after lap without a slip. No extravagant wheelspin, no attitude on the car, this mate, this is car control.’
Says KB, ‘Its understeering, just, which is the way they used to be. A bit, thats all on turn in, but you fix that with the throttle. It is better with the lower tyre pressures and stiffer rear shocks, not perfect but better. The engine starts to work at 5000 and at 6000 the cams come in, so you’ve got to drive it between 6000-7500. Any engine like this you have to work it right thru its range. No point having your gears too close. Its a good engine though, a good car.’
Graham Howard asked KB how his 1968 Gold Star winning Brabham BT23D Alfa (2.5 litre T33 V8 engine) would go up against BT31…’It would be very even, it would depend on the driver. I feel the chassis we had, with the Alfa V8, might have got the power to the ground better. But with the right tyres and a wing this car could be fantastic. The actual driving position is full of memories. I did my championship years in cars like this. It feels like home again.’
Bartlett BT31 in profile, Oran Park 1987. KB raced Brabhams BT2 Ford, BT11A Climax, BT23D Alfa, BT43 Chev and others in his successful single-seater years…(Wheels)
PhotoCredits…
Rodway Wolfe, Dale Harvey, Rod MacKenzie, Dick Simpson, Mildren Films,The Nostalgia Forum, Bob Frankel
Bibliography…
sergent.com, ‘Maybach to Holden’ Malcolm Preston, ‘Historic RacingCars in Australia’ John Blanden, Wheels magazine, Rodway Wolfe Collection, Racing Car News
Lotus council of war…Peter Warr, Ayrton Senna and Gerard Ducarouge with Niki Lauda. The three men responsible for the recovery of Lotus competitveness in the Mid-80’s…
I read with sadness of the death of French design great Gerard Ducarouge on 24 February at 73 years old.
At the weekend I drafted this introduction to an unpublished piece on Adrian Newey…It’s been interesting to learn about and admire the careers of the sports outstanding engineer/designers before my time and since i became interested in motor racing enjoy the efforts of the design stars of the day and wait in eager anticipation of their next creations.
It’s the ones who have enjoyed enduring success I have always been most drawn to. Janos’ and Chapmans’ contributions over 30 years truly amazing.
Dr Porsche, Vittorio Jano and Jim Hall predate my period of interest but Colin Chapman, Mauro Forghieri, Gerard Ducarouge, Gordon Murray, John Barnard and Adrian Newey i have followed since 1972.
Ducarouge obtained a Degree in Aeronautics and commenced his career with Nord Aviation and soon moved to Matra where he worked his way up through the ranks and was responsible for the fabulous 1969 F1 Championship winning Matra MS80 Ford, Jackie Stewart winning the drivers championship and Matra the manufacturers.
Ducarouges’ 1969 championship winning Matra MS80 Ford. Aluminium monocoque, front suspension upper and lower wishbones with coil spring/damper units. Rear single top link, parallel lower links, twin radius rods and coil spring/damper units. Ford Cosworth DFV V8, circa 435 bhp, Hewland FG400 gearbox. (Unattributed)
He was also responsible for the equally fabulous Matra MS670 championship winning sportscars before moving to Ligier, also Matra powered, when they entered F1 in 1976.
He was dropped by Ligier in 1981 after the success of the ground effects JS11 in 1979 and 1980, moved to Alfa and then Lotus where, together with Peter Warr (team manager) and Ayrton Senna turned around the fortunes of one of the great marques which had floundered since Colin Chapmans death in 1982. The Lotus 95T Renault was very competitive in Mansell and DeAngelis’ hands in 1984 and provided a base for the 97T which followed, a winner in Sennas’ hands in 1985.
He later worked with Larrousse and returned to Ligier in 1991, leaving in 1994 to return to his roots at Matra as International Development Director.
This is not a detailed account of a great career, rather a short piece to recognise the passing of a great man and an innovative and intuitive designer
Lotus 95T Renault. Ducarouge ’84 design, carbon fibre chassis, wishbones and pull rod suspension front and rear with coil springs. Renault EF4 V6 DOHC twin turbo 1.5 litre, circa 800bhp. Lotus/Hewland ‘box. 1190Lb. (Tony Matthews)
Ferrari have developed this concept as part of their contribution to the debate about how the Grand Prix car of the future could look. I’m not so sure about it, but, like a wart, it may grow on me over time…
Pininfarina Sigma Ferrari Safety Concept Car 1969…
Funnily enough, when I first saw Ferrari’s concept it reminded me of the Sigma Safety Car which was equivalently way-out at the time. Mind you it was a running car not a computer image, and was very effective in showcasing technology which saved drivers lives, it wasn’t an effort to spice up the show which the car above is fundamentally all about.
The Pininfarina Sigma used hardware from the contemporary 1967/8 Grand Prix Ferrari 312; 3-litre 48-valve 430bhp V12 and five speed gearbox, front and rear suspension, uprights, brakes wheels and tyres, 590kg (Pininfarina)
The idea for the car was inspired by Dr Michael Henderson’s 1967 book, Motor Racing in Safety. Henderson is a Brit who moved to Australia in 1968 and is still an active figure in the CAMS (Confederation of Australian Motor Sport). He Chairs CAMS’ Australian Institute of Motor Sport Safety and was recently appointed a Fellow of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety. He still races, campaigning an ex-Niki Lauda March 722 Ford F2 machine not so long ago.
He raced in the UK before moving to Oz to establish the Traffic Accident Research Unit in New South Wales. He continued to race but it was his professional involvement in accident analysis and the promotion of safety features in cars on the road and track which led to his book and the development of the original six-point GQ/Willans safety harness which was soon adopted globally.
Joan Williamson wrote in Retro Speed, “His contribution to motor racing safety continued with his involvement in the Pininfarina/Ferrari Sigma Grand Prix – a race safety concept vehicle that demonstrated features now carried by all current Formula One cars.”
Sigma from above. The far forward rear wing doubles as roll over protection, pontoons – the enveloped front wheels – is a practice adopted by Tyrrell in 1971. Mind you that was for performance enhancement rather than safety reasons. Ferrari front suspension is inboard by top rocker operating a coil spring/damper unit, and lower wishbone (unattributed)
The Sigma – the name was chosen to reference a 1963 Pininfarina sedan safety project – was built in 1969 by Pininfarina in cooperation with Swiss magazine Revue Automobile. The editor, Robert Braunschweig took the lead role in the projects gestation and completion with Ferrari supplying its contemporary V12 FI engine, gearbox and other suspension and brake componentry, as noted above.
Sigma was designed by Paolo Martin, with Henderson flown to Europe to consult on the project. Designed as a safety prototype, it was never intended to compete but rather to showcase driver protection features.
Mercedes and Fiat engineers were also involved, with ex-F1 driver/journalist Paul Frere recruited to test it. The Sigma was a great looking racer with the benefit of hindsight, but visually challenging in its day, as is Ferrari’s latest offering…
(Pininfarina)
Technical Specifications…
The Sigma’s unique monocoque chassis, deformable structure regulations would come in F1, and fully enclosed wheels probably will too.
The chassis has two compartments, one for the driver and one for the engine. Each had collapsible impact zones to protect the driver. Sigma’s bodywork largely enclosed the cars suspension and wheels, having pontoons each side for protection and to prevent intersecting-wheel collisions.
The rear wing was moved forward (compared with contemporary practice) and reinforced to double as a roll bar/hoop. The car had foam filled, flexible fuel tanks, an automatic built-in fire extinguisher, six-point safety harness, and even a head and neck support system thirty years before F1 adopted the HANS device.
It was a car well ahead of its time which showed the way for many modern safety features which have become standard.
Two wooden 1:5 scale models were built to refine the concept, these are owned by Automobile Revue and Ferrari. The car, which made its debut at the 1969 Geneva Motor Show, is part of Pininfarina’s collection and occasionally travels the world as a motor show starlet.
Today’s F1 is relatively safe despite the ferocity of some of the accidents of the last 25 years. In 1968 Jim Clark (F2), Mike Spence (Indy), Ludovico Scarfiotti (hillclimb), and Jo Schlesser (F1) all died in racing cars.
Sigma played its part in the long process of changes to circuit design and licensing, competition car design, materials adoption and driver apparel improvements to get to where we are today. Ferrari’s design of the future addresses style rather than substance…
Butt shot shows the side and rear pontoons for driver protection and to prevent intersecting wheels. Ferrari conventional rear end for the period; outboard suspension, single top link, inverted lower wishbone, twin parallel radius rods and coil spring/shocker (auta5p.eu)
Etcetera…
Conceptual drawings on the journey to Sigma’s creation
Credits…
‘Retro Speed’ Joan Williamson, Scuderia Ferrari, auta5p.eu, Theo Page
The Mini photographed in the year of its launch, 1959, at Paddington Station by Henry Manney of ‘Road & Track’ fame…
The Mini was launched to the press in April 1959, this photo taken by Henry Manney at Paddington Station. Maybe one of our British readers can tell us if this is the site of the cars launch?
Leonard Lord, the head of British Motor Corporation, laid down the design parameters for a small fuel efficient car during the Suez Crisis, which spiked the price of oil and caused its rationing in the UK. Alec Issigonis and his small team at Morris created a design icon which was voted the second most influential car of the last century after Henry Fords Model T.
The Cheltenham Spa Express or ‘Cheltenham Flyer’ is a train service from Paddington to Cheltenham Spa in Gloucestershire. Rivalry between railway companies in the 1920’s increased speeds, the ‘Cheltenham Flyer’ so named as trains on this route were the fastest in the world at various times…Train Driver Harry Rudduck, the Tazio Nuvolari of steam ! pushed his ‘Castle Class 5006 Treganna’ train to a record of an 81.6 mph average for the 77 mile trip in 1932.
Steam hasn’t survived nor has the ‘A Series’ powered Mini but it’s comforting that both forms of transport are as contemporary now as they were in 1959…
primotipo... 