Jack Brabham playing with the kids in the Phillip Island paddock, Cooper T51 Climax, 14 March 1960…
Jack won the Repco Trophy over 16 laps in a T51 rout from Bill Patterson, Bib Stillwell and Austin Miller in similar cars. None shared the latest 2.5-litre Coventry Climax FPF fitted to Jack’s F2-4-59 said to be ‘Brabham’s main car during the early part of 1959’. Austin’s motor was 2.2-litres, Bib and Bill’s 2-litre units.
Brabham had a successful fortnight during his short 1960 Australian summer racing tour, three races from three, winning the Longford Trophy, Light Car Club of Tasmania Trophy on 5 and 7 March at Longford the week before.
Ian McCleave took the opening photo of ‘A youthful Jack Brabham showering my younger brother in dust…I seem to recall Dad charged with adrenalin winding the Austin A95 up to 90 mph on the way back to Melbourne!’ Lukey Heights is well familiar to ‘Island regulars in the background, its a top shot and another enthusiast that day, Robert Jones caught the start of the race, below.
(T Johns Collection)
Australian Motor Sports Review 1959-60 wrote that “During these hectic two days , Brabham more than simulated his performance at the opening meeting of Phillip Island in December 1956.”
“On that occasion driving a Cooper sportscar he won the three races he entered including the Formula Libre event ahead of Ted Gray’s Tornado Ford V8 and Lex Davison’s 3-litre Ferrari 500/625. Three years later, Brabham as you would expect from a World Champion, won every scratch race he entered; but unlike the first meeting, he competed in five events, but won only four, having been beaten into second place in the Racing Car Handicap on the first day.”
(Ron Jackson)
Credits…
Ian McLeave, Robert Jones, Tony Johns Collection, Ron Jackson, Australian Motor Sports Review 1959-60
Tailpieces…
(R Jones)
The off, Brabham, Stillwell and Miller, with Bill Patterson in white, on row two.
It does all get a bit serious these days doesn’t it!?
Here Jim McGuire and Alan Tatham are enjoying their Cooper Mk4 Norton at Gnoo Blas, circa 1957…
Aren’t these an amazing group of colour photographs of a race meeting at the popular, relatively shortlived Orange, NSW circuit. Such vivid images of race meetings in Oz at the time are not exactly plentiful.
These shots were posted on Bob Williamson’s Old Motor Racing Photographs – Australia Facebook page by Paul Ansell and immediately provoked a response from a swag of enthusiasts contributing information about the car and that day.
McGuire works, Tatham poses for the babes, as drivers do (P Ansell)
Australian Ace Kevin Bartlett recognised his ‘blue Morris Minor Series 2 fitted with a fibreglass top…’, that’s KB in blue standing beside the door of the car in the background. In fact Jim McGuire and his wife Carmen aided and abetted the careers of several drivers including KB, who raced the Elfin Imp for them in the mid-sixties and Peter Wherrett- the latter raced this very Cooper Mk4 with a Hillman Minx four-cylinder engine installed in the early sixties.
Here the Cooper is fitted with a Norton Manx engine. The red car over the back in the first photo is the Profilio MG Spl which still exists in historic racing as indeed does the Cooper Minx- restored by David Kerr a couple of decades ago.
By the time McGuire acquired the car, chassis # ’10/54/50′ was already a veteran of the 1954 Australian Grand Prix, Charlie Swinburne raced it, Manx Norton powered, to tenth place. Its thought when first imported to Australia the car was originally supplied to Les Taylor in Queensland fitted with a JAP 1100 motor.
Later raced by Queensland’s Ray Lewis as the ‘LPS Cooper Norton’ (Lewis/Bill Pitt/Charlie Swinburne) during 1953, Jim McGuire bought it from Tony Crick of Wellington, NSW, initially racing the machine with Tatham at the wheel.
Barry Collerson in the Cooper Minx leads an Elfin Catalina at Oran Park circa 1961 (Alan Stewart)
Later, in 1959 or early 1960, Jim mated a Hillman Minx 1500 engine and VW gearbox to the frame, the car in this form contested the 1960 Australian Grand Prix at Lowood.
The photo below shows Tatham aboard the Cooper Mk4 Hillman together with the #37 D Russell MG TD, #49 N Barnes MG TC s/c. I’m mystified by a couple of the cars but it appears to be the great Tornado 2 Chev down the back, by that stage driven and owned by Mel McEwin.
(F Pearse)
Up front a thriller of an AGP was won by Alec Mildren’s Cooper T51 Maserati by a whisker from Lex Davison’s Aston Martin DBR4/250, the little Cooper retired with an undisclosed ailment. Not so long after Lowood Tatham ceased to drive the car but it raced on, still owned by Jim at Strathpine, Tarrawingee, Hume Weir, Oran Park and Warwick Farm driven by Peter Wherrett and Barry Collerson.
Peter Wherrett, Cooper Minx, Warwick Farm May 1961 (P Wherrett)
Both Sydneysiders were talented coming-men of the day with Collerson racing an ex-Doug Whiteford GP Talbot-Lago in Australia before chasing the FJ circuit in Europe for a couple of years. He has written a book too- i must buy ‘Mount Druitt to Monza’, been meaning to for ages.
Wherrett is incredibly prominent in the memories of several generations of us for his racing, his ‘Racing Car News’, for many years THE Australian motor racing monthly bible- race reports, ‘Peter Wherrett Advanced Driving’ school and ‘Torque’ the seminal, defining, brilliant ABC television motoring program of the mid-seventies. The genre popularised by Jeremy Clarkson much later started with Wherrett and a team at the ABC. Remember PW’s track test of Warwick Brown’s Lola T332 Chev?, it just blew my tiny, teenaged mind!
The Cooper Minx later fell into the tender, loving hands of David Kerr who restored and raced it extensively in historic racing with John Herman the last reported owner.
Lets Get Physical! Little Barry Collerson trying to stay aboard the Cooper Minx at Warwick Farm in August 1962. Note the different, later fibreglass nosecone in this shot (P Wherrett)
Credits…
Paul Ansell- photos. Dick Willis, Kevin Bartlett, Greg Smith, ‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’ John Blanden, Fred Pearse Collection, Alan Stewart Collection and Peter Wherrett Collection on aussieroadracing.homestead.com
Etcetera: Cooper Minx, circa 1961, perhaps at the McGuire’s home in Sydney- Peter Wherrett Collection photos…
Water radiator neatly integrated given air-cooled engines originally fitted
Front transverse leaf suspension as standard Cooper Mk4
Rear suspension and wheels appear as standard Cooper Mk4
Hillman Minx 1500 four fed by a couple of downdraft Strombergs, transaxle is modified 4 speed VW
Tailpiece: Gnoo Blas officialdom, Cooper Mk4 unwell…
Never seen so many crisply laundered white overalls! Tatham in Cooper Mk4 Norton. Bucolic Gnoo Blas (P Ansell)
John Cobb at Brooklands during the 17 May 1937 Gold Trophy Coronation Race, Napier Railton…
What an awesome 23.944 litre, 580 bhp machine this is- there is little point waxing lyrical about a superb racing car which is a well known national icon in the UK, so I will keep it short and hopefully sweet.
Cobb was a big man and clearly liked his racing cars on some scale, a passion his fur-broking business Anning Chadwick & Kiver allowed him to indulge. Reid Railton designed the car which was built by Thomson & Taylor with the specific brief of taking the Brooklands lap record, a feat it achieved for all time, at 143.33 mph on 7 October 1935. It was an exercise he likened to ‘trying to see how far you can lean out of a window without actually falling!’.
Brooklands, Cobb, Napier Railton, date unknown (B Museum)
John Cobb and the Napier at Brooklands on 31 March 1934 (Pinterest)
Railton specified a slow running Napier W-formation aviation engine in a suitably butch chassis with massive side members, twin cantilevered back springs and a finely muscular front axle. Typical of its time, the cockpit was capacious and it needed to be for record-breaking runs of up to 3000 miles or so.
Successful from the start, the car won its first race at the Brooklands Bank Holiday Meeting in 1933, the big beast recorded a standing lap of 120.59 mph and a flying lap of 123.28 mph. ‘When running for long spells, very large Dunlop special racing tyres were required, imposing a heavy task for the mechanics changing wheels at pitstops’. In addition to three times breaking the lap-record at ‘The Track’ the car broke world records at Montlhery and at Utah. The BRDC 500 Mile Race was won at 121.28 mph and the 500 Km version at 127.05 mph with the Napier Railton timed over the kilometre at 151.97 mph.
‘Pandora and The Flying Dutchman’ starred the Napier Railton in a fantasy romance with Ava Gardner and James Mason. Here ‘Dunlop Boys’ Freddie Hicks and Sidney West push the Napier towards a run on the Pendine Sands. Love the fags in mouths- photo used by Dunlop as a PR shot (unattributed)
Napier Railton on duty for GQ parachute testing circa 1951 (B Museum)
In 1949 Cobb hired the Napier Railton to the Romulus Film Company to make ‘Pandora and The Flying Dutchman’, a film about a racing driver. In 1951 John sold the car to the GQ Parachute Company who used it to test aircraft brake parachutes at Dunsfold Airfield- GQ modified the car and fitted it with test equipment to deploy parachutes at high speed and then retract them at about 30 knots.
Cobb, who served as an RAF pilot during the war, was killed trying to achieve the Water Speed Record in the jet-boat ‘Crusader’ at Loch Ness on 29 September 1952- the boat hit an unexplained wake.
The Napier Railton was in the best of hands when Patrick Lindsay acquired it-after a rebuild by Crosthwaite & Gardner he raced it in vintage events. It was then bought by Bob Roberts for his Midland Motor Museum, it was kept in running order after ‘being completely overhauled, except the engine’ by Hodec Engineering, Surrey in 1975. Aston Martin’s Victor Gauntlett was the next owner in 1989, and then at auction it passed to a German industrialist and finally, thankfully, became the Brooklands Museum’s car when offered to them in 1997 via a Swiss classic car dealer who ‘discovered it’ in the German’s collection. It is regularly demonstrated, many of you will have been fortunate enough to see it on circuit.
An awesome machine in the true sense of the word, goodness only knows how it felt on the limit for 500 miles on Brooklands famous concrete bumps…
Etcetera: Technical Details of the Napier Railton as MotorSport reported them in 1933…
Credits…
Getty Images- Popperfoto, MotorSport August 1933 and July 1997, brooklandsmuseum.com
Tailpiece: Reid Railton designed Crusader being towed out into Loch Ness in 1952…
Kevin Loy’s Matich A51 ‘005’ Repco F5000 departing Oran Park in Vice-Regal style, 2 February 1975…
No standing on ceremony here, although its a you-beaut ANF1 car- the Formula 5000 machine is travelling in no more comfort than my Formula Vee and considerably less so than my old Lola T342 Formula Ford. And its off to Surfers Paradise, 850 kilometres away in the hands of Ian Douglass to whom it has just been sold.
I’ll bet Frank Matich, Derek Kneller and the boys looked after the thing much more nicely in the US- this chassis was new for the US L&M Series tour Team Matich undertook during 1973. It was FM’s primary weapon, A51 ‘006’ went along for the ride as the spare. Here is a story about Matich and his F5000 cars;
Matich A51 ‘005’ in the Mid Ohio paddock 1973 (T Capps)
Lella Lombardi in A51 ‘005’ during the 1974 AGP- car was overseen by Matich himself. Lella pushed Max Stewart, the winner very hard before oil pump failure ended a great run (HAGP)
In many ways this little baby would be ‘the’ F5000 Matich to own. It toured the US, was raced by Lella Lombardi at Sandown and Oran Park in 1974, and, sold to John Goss to keep A53 ‘007’ company, won the 1976 Sandown Park Australian Grand Prix modified to A53 spec.
Another shot of Lombardi, this time at Sandown Park’s Dandenong Road corner in 1974 (B Keys)
Later still French sportscar ace Henri Pescarolo raced it at Calder in 1977, so too did Jim Richards in its ‘period dotage’ in 1979.
A very nice jigger indeed, here looking a bit forlorn on an open trailer behind an XA Ford Falcon Wagon rent-a-rocket.
Still, the serious money should be spent on the car not the trailer…
Goss wins the 1976 AGP aboard his Matich A51/53 ‘005’ from Vern Schuppan’s Elfin MR8C Chev, Sandown Park (HAGP)
Credits…
Neil Stratton, oldracingcars.com, Terry Capps, Derek Kneller, ‘History of The AGP’ G Howard and ors, Bruce Keys
Tailpiece: A51 ‘005’ fitted with Repco V8 flat-plane ‘Shaker’ crank in the Watkins Glen pitlane 1973…
Goerge Barton and John Sherwood with their MG NE Magnette, in 1934, place unknown…
John Sherwood was a rather talented Australian- an elite road racer, competitor in the 1938 Australian Grand Prix and winner of the 1939 New South Wales Grand Prix/Motor Road Race, both events at Bathurst. He was also an excellent Midget speedway racer, motor sport administrator and promoter.
Sherwood was the driving force of the NSW Light Car Club and the key individual who created the Mount Panorama track at Bathurst. From a pioneering motoring family, he was a formidable competitor and later, as a Director of Empire Speedways, was a big contributor to the growth of Speedway Racing in Australia
I was researching an article on Sydney’s Parramatta Park road circuit when I tripped over this article written by Sherwood in 1953. I’ve reproduced it for its rarity- a man of the sport, in the sport and involved in the business of racing writing about its history in period having participated in many of the events he describes.
The selection of photographs to help bring the article to life are my own, otherwise Sherwood’s work is reproduced verbatim.
John Sherwood exiting Murray’s Corner, MG NE Magnette, Bathurst, Easter Monday 10 April 1939 on the way to winning the handicap NSW GP/Motor Road Race. He won from Paul Swedberg in John Snow’s Delahaye 135S and John Barraclough’s MG NE Magnette. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that ‘Sherwood drove a splendid race throughout going into the lead after the first few laps and holding it to the end, though making two stops for faulty spark plugs’ (M Stahl)
‘Generally speaking, history tends to be on the dry side, but fortunately the historical side of motor racing is anything but dry. It is rather fascinating to look back along the years to see how the sport in Australia has developed.
Motor racing in our country has grown over the years despite several retarding factors: the continued objection of officialdom to all aspects of organised fast driving, for many years the impossibility of obtaining suitable circuits and tracks on which to race and the lack of factory support for ambitious and worthy drivers. Nevertheless, motor racing enthusiasts throughout Australia have overcome all these drawbacks, and today (1953 remember) we see more of the sport than ever before.
Motor racing in Australia developed in Australia through the early reliability trials of 45 years ago, followed gradually by the inclusion in such trials of speed events such as hillclimbs, acceleration tests and short timed events over quarter and half mile distances. Then commenced the various city to city record attempts, for a long time unhindered by officialdom, in which usually big engined chassis with bucket seats, and a host of spare tyres sped from capital to capital over atrocious roads with the success of the run always influenced by the number of blowouts of the cord beaded edge tyres, and the number of tyres it was possible to carry on the vehicle.
Drivers of these cars were considered super-drivers, and such men as the late AV Turner (later killed in a hillclimb), the late Boyd Edkins and ‘Wizard’ Smith were hero-worshipped everywhere by motor enthusiasts.
The first actual racing in Australia probably occurred on the enclosed tracks at Victoria Park Racecourse (Sydney) and the Aspendale one mile dirt track (Melbourne). Mostly big-engine low revving juggernauts took part, entirely unsuitable for the job as we look back now, but in those days the last thing in racing automobiles.’
‘World Championship’ for Under 1500cc cars- Penrith Speedway, Sydney, 6 October 1930. From the outside is John Sherwood’s Lea Francis O-Type, then the Sam Aggett and Charlie East driven Bugatti T37’s and on the inside Tom Lord’s, Geoff Lowe owned Austin 7 Brooklands. On the very inside verge is Jack Field’s supercharged Lea Francis S-Type Hyper tourer slowing having paced the competitors for a lap before the championships 3 lap journey, East was the winner in his Bugatti (SLNSW)
‘The early drivers were keen, and more tracks were opened at Penrith (one mile) Maroubra (5/6 mile highly banked concrete track) and beaches at Gerringong and in Victoria came into use for racing purposes. At Gerringong, Don Harkness, driving an enormous Minerva engined chassis, was clocked at 107 mph to be the first in Australia to exceed the coveted ‘century’.
(The) First actual road racing circuit was opened at Phillip Island in Westernport Bay, 40 miles from Melbourne in 1928 and this became the mecca for motor racing enthusiasts for the next nine or ten years. At this point the dry bed of Lake Perkollili in Western Australia was the centre of motor racing in the west.
Australia’s best road circuit (more or less built specially for the purpose) at Mount Panorama, Bathurst came into being in 1938, and except for most of the war years, has been in use ever since. Other road circuits in other states have also sprung up, and since the war various ex-airforce strips have been adapted for racing with much success.
The newest circuit to come into use is in Parramatta Park, 15 miles from Sydney, a rather narrow 2 mile circuit, suitable mainly for the smaller cars, but by reason of its close proximity to a big population, is certain of success.
Down through the years cars have altered very considerably, the small high revving high compression engines now putting out power which one could not have conceived in the early days. Suspensions, brakes, steering, weight, tyres, fuel, streamlining and a hundred and one other things have combined to make the modern racing car a real thoroughbred, capable of sustaining terrific speeds over long distances.
As the years have rolled on, the scene changes, but motor racing itself does not change. Its spirit, rich in tradition and sportsmanship, linking past and present, reaches out to the future.’
Photo Credits…
Sam Hood, State Library of New South Wales, Max Stahl Collection
Bibliography…
South Coast Times and Wollongong Argus 21 September 1953, reprint of an article first published in the ‘Bentwood Review’, Sydney Morning Herald 11 April 1939, John Medley
Tailpiece: Sherwood and flock…
(Fairfax)
John Sherwood standing beside John Snow’s #4 Delahaye 135S, with the #6 Edison Waters Jaguar 100SS, Alf Barrett’s Alfa Monza and John Barraclough driven Alvis Terraplane straight-8 on the Bathurst grid in October 1939. Sherwood instrumental in the construction of this Australian racing institution- in the words of John Medley ‘Bathurst: Cradle of Australian Motor Racing’.
Graham Hill, works Gold Leaf Team Lotus 49 Ford 2.5 DFW in the Warwick Farm pitlane during the ‘Farm’s February 1968 Tasman Round weekend…
I’ve done the 1968 Tasman Series to death with a series of articles uploaded before including one on this particular weekend but this batch of ‘up close and personal’ photos by enthusiast Bryan Henderson are too good to ignore.
One of the reasons enthusiasts get misty eyed about that series is that both Clark and Hill had been regular, enormously popular visitors to Australasia from the dawn of the sixties pre-Tasman era, 1968 was the last we had the pair of them down south together.
Clark won the Tasman with the still very new Lotus 49 in dominant fashion and then returned to Europe after winning the series and the F1 season opening South African GP to his untimely death aboard a Lotus 48 Ford FVA during a Euro F2 round at Hockenheim. In the words of The Seekers popular song of the day ‘The Carnival Is Over’.
Hill, WF- this shot 1969
Clark and Hill, Lotus 49’s, Amon Ferrari Dino 246T, then Courage behind Clark, McLaren M4A FVA and Hulme, Brabham BT23 FVA with Gardner, Brabham BT23D Alfa behind Denny
We all have our favourite seasons of course but arguably that summer of ’68 was the Tasman peak.
The variety of cars was truly stunning- BRM P261 V8 and P126 V12, Ferrari Dino V6, Brabham Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 V8, the Lotus 49 Ford V8’s, various Brabham Repco V8’s including Jack’s latest works BT23E Repco ‘740’ V8 and a swag of Coventry Climax FPF engined machines in the hands of locals. The driving pool included just annointed World Champ Denny Hulme, Jack Brabham, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Chris Amon, Bruce McLaren, Richard Attwood, Chris Irwin, Frank Gardner, Piers Courage and local hotshoes Kevin Bartlett, Leo Geoghegan, John Harvey, Graeme Lawrence and others. An amazing variety of cars and depth of talent on the grid…
Etcetera…
(B Jackson)
Things go better with…
Graham and the boys bleed the Lotus’ brakes, note the use of a solid rotor rather than the vented discs used initially in 1967. Nice shot of the front bulkhead and inboard front suspension packaging.
Credits…
All photographs- Bryan Henderson, exceptions attributed on the shot
Tailpiece: To the victor the spoils…
Stilrling Moss, long retired but looking disgustingly fit addresses the crowd in advance of presenting Jim Clark his trophy- he won from Graham and Piers Courage in an F2 McLaren M4A Ford FVA. The gent in the shirt and dark tie is the much respected Geoff Sykes, the AARC/Warwick Farm General Manager/Promoter.
Albert Park, March 1955- ‘Albert Park Trophy’ with #10 Patterson, #9 Davison and #81 Jones on pole…
Rather a sign of the times, Cooper were on the march to world domination, their mid-engine, air-cooled designs perfected over the early forties into the fifties.
Between these three fellows were six AGP victories, or perhaps five given Davo and Patto shared one of them- and three Gold Stars, one apiece. They were front-running Victorians for well over a decade and shared a passion for cars and business- all three Holden dealers at one point in time.
Bill Patterson’s green machine is a Mk5 JAP, Lex Davison’s a Mk4 Vincent and Stan Jones a Mk4 JAP. Patto took the Albert Park win in a race of attrition from Gib Barrett’s BWA and Otto Stone’s MG K3- Jones pitted with a misfire and Lex also retired.
Stan behind, and Reg Robbins leaning on the Cooper Mk4 at Rob Roy (L Sims)
Jones aboard the Cooper Mk4 at Rob Roy, date folks? (L Sims)
Jones chassis ’10/53/50′ was imported by Melbourne Cooper distributor Keith Martin in early 1951 and was claimed to be an intermediate version having a Mk5 chassis and Mk4 bodywork. Fitted with a 1098cc JAP race motor, the 95bhp machine sat in Martin’s showroom for a year before acquisition by Stanley who first raced it at Rob Roy in March 1952.
‘The car became one of the top under 1500cc cars for both circuits and hillclimbs- the battle for hillclimb records between Jones, Davison and Patterson was a highlight of motorsport in the early fifties’ John Blanden wrote.
Holder of many outright records the car was offered for sale in AMS in December 1953 and finally acquired by Earl Davey-Milne in December 1955, he raced it first at Albert Park in 1956 and still retains the car which is said to be the lowest mileage air-cooled Cooper of them all.
Davey-Milne resplendent in collar and tie racing the Cooper at Albert Park during the Australian Tourist Trophy meeting in November 1956- DNF in his ‘rapid little Cooper-JAP’ in the Argus Cup (Davey-Milne)
Credits…
‘Historic Racing Cars in Australia’ John Blanden, Davey-Milne Family Collection, Leon Sims, Graham Noonan, ‘Glory Days’ Barry Green
Tailpiece: Jones aboard the Cooper Mk4, circa 1954…
It’s the end of the swinging-sixties- the Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and others ‘Pop Art’ phase is in full bloom…
It’s interesting to look at the graphic design and advertising imagery of the period which is wonderfully full of it, the style even extended to some stickers in Australia’s ‘Racing Car News’ magazine.
For the princely sum of 20 cents the six decals would be in your letterbox within the week, don’t you love the immediacy of snail-mail? The cheap giveaway was a time honoured technique in the pre-internet days of building a database of potential customers, oh for simpler times when identity fraud was rare rather than something to be mindful of in our daily online interactions.
The cars and drivers are all well known to Australian enthusiasts and include some of the stars of the day many of whom I have written about in whole or in passing.
The first image is Kevin Bartlett’s Alec Mildren Racing Mildren Waggott ‘Yellow Submarine’, a car first raced by Frank Gardner in the 1969 Tasman Series and then used by KB to win the Gold Star later that season. Click here for more; https://primotipo.com/2017/11/14/missed-it-by-that-much/
Frank Matich’s Matich SR4 Repco was built to contest the 1968 Can-Am series but ran hopelessly late so crucified local opposition in the 1969 Australian Sportscar Championship instead. Click here for a long feature on it;
The final three cars featured are Pete Geoghegan’s Australian built Mustang above (as in built for racing), Norm Beechey’s Holden HK Monaro GTS 327 with Bob Jane’s Shelby constructed Mustang as the ‘Tailpiece’. All of these machines are covered in an article I wrote about the 1969 Australian Touring Car Championship won by Geoghegan. Here ’tis; https://primotipo.com/2018/02/01/1969-australian-touring-car-championship/
These two blokes are aboard a Bugatti Brescia Type 23 out front of The George Hotel in Lydiard Street, Ballarat, Victoria between 1945 and 1950…
The shot is from the State Library of Victoria archive, it was taken by George Thomas, a prolific ‘snapper at motorsport events throughout Victoria at the time. Ballarat, 120 kilometres west of Melbourne is a Gold Rush town. Over 600,000 people came to Australia from all over the globe in the 1850s to chase their fortune. Ballarat was one of the main destinations of the optimistic, it’s a beautiful place with many of the stately buildings of the period still standing, including the George Hotel.
The interesting thing is of course, which particular chassis it is and who the fellows are. My recently acquired copy of Bugattis In Australasia (details in the credits below) personally delivered by the very knowledgeable, youthful, spritely 81 year old author, Bob King suggests it’s either Bill Fleming or Neil Barter, assuming the photo date range is accurate.
The car is a long-chassis Modifie. Without going into all of King’s detail, the chassis number of the car can’t be confirmed, but it came from New South Wales to Victoria in 1938 when owned by Fred Betts. He never registered it, but raced it at Phillip Island pre-war.
After the conflict it was raced by John ‘Bill’ Fleming at the Hurstbridge and Rob Roy Hillclimbs in Victoria in 1948, before being sold to Barter that October. At this stage, as shown in the opening photograph, the car was registered in Victoria JT441 and was fitted with engine number 2566.
Fleming on the startline at Hurstbridge Hillclimb in Melbourne’s outer north-east (King)The Fleming Brescia at Rob Roy Hillclimb in Melbourne’s Christmas Hills, ‘eighteen litres of Semmering Mercedes in the background’ (King)
Barter recounts in King’s book ‘By January we were driving it around as much as petrol rationing would allow. After correcting a dismally retarded camshaft timing, we found the performance astonishing – 40 mph first gear, 60 in second, 4,300 rpm etc – we were never short of superlatives. Alas youthful exuberance led to disaster and injury when… in April 1939…the car overturned at the corner of Dendy Street and The Esplanade, Brighton’, a bayside Melbourne suburb not too far from Albert Park Lake, a place all you global GP fans will be familiar with.
‘A regular trick was to drive it as quickly as you could along Beach Road at Brighton Beach and, instead of taking the right hand corner…we would hurl it into the gravel car park opposite the monument, put it into a 180-degree slide and then drive straight out again, heading back towards Hampton. The prize for the night went to the driver who travelled the quickest and made the cleanest slide!’ What a great thing to do after a few bevvies on a Friday or Saturday night?!
‘This all came to a halt when, one night, with four up, I rolled it when turning from the beach road into Dendy Street…a very sobering experience for all and particularly me’, Neil Barter wrote. Looking at the young blokes in the car at Ballarat my guess is that it’s Barter and one of his Brighton Grand Prix accomplices!
Bob King records a bewildering nineteen owners of this car. The last was Wolf Zeuner in the United Kingdom albeit this was way back 1992. The name Brescia was applied to these cars (T13 2.0 metre chassis, T22 2.4 metre, T23 2.55 metre) after the cars placed first to fourth in the 1921 Italian Voiturette Grand Prix.
Piero Marco, Brescia T22, Brescia before the off Gran Premio delle Vetturette, 1921 (Bugatti)
de Vizcaya, Brescia T13, GP Penya Rhin 1921- is the descriptor for this Barcelona event but my race results don’t accord with this car/driver combo that year (unattributed)
This event, the ‘1 Gran Premio delle Vetturette’, held on 8 September 1921 on the Circuito di Brescia comprise 20 laps of a 17 km course, a total of 346 km. Thirteen cars contested the race, the winning Bugatti T22 of Ernest Friderich completed the race in two hours 59 minutes 18.6 seconds. He was followed home by teammates Pierre de Vizcaya, Michele Baccoli and Piero Marco all aboard Bugatti 22s, they were chased home by a group of four OM465’s.
2,000 Brescias were built from 1919-1926 more than any other type of Bugatti. ‘Being the first Bugatti made in any numbers, it was the Brescia that established Bugatti’s reputation as a builder of sports and racing cars. They were imported into Australia and New Zealand in considerable numbers…’ King wrote.
Original period sales brochure with Brescia at centre stage, the rest of the document is below
Bob continues ‘The Brescia, of 1496cc capacity, has a cylinder block with non-detachable head and four valves per cylinder operated from a single overhead camshaft via ‘banana’ tappets. In Europe the standard touring model had a four sparking plug cylinder block with ignition from a magneto mounted transversely at the front the engine. These cars had a cast aluminium firewall and were known at the factory as the ‘Modifie’. Racing versions had eight plug cylinder blocks with two magnetos mounted in the dashboard driven (noisily) by spur gears. These latter were known as ‘Full Brescias’. Surprisingly, regardless of chassis length and whether fitted with racing, sports, or touring bodywork, the majority of new imports to Australia were ‘Full Brescias’. Perhaps it was thought to have the security of two magnetos in our relatively primitive motoring environment.’
Superb Brescia 16-valve engine cutaway, technical details as below (Griggs)
In the early twenties, Bugatti didn’t build the bodies of their cars, with the exception of minimalist T13 racing coachwork, so all of the new cars imported to Australia via the London agent, Sorel, were shipped in most cases in bare chassis form. A tax or tariff was imposed on imported coachwork to help stimulate the local industry with ‘Many of the local bodies fitted to Brescias appear to have been of poor quality. This, coupled with the harsh ride of the Brescia, and the poor roads on which they were driven, ensured that the coachwork had a short life. With the need for light bodies for competition work, the discarded original bodywork was usually followed by a succession of amateur built bodies.’ King wrote.
Bugatti played a very important part in the formative years of Australian motor racing as the weapon of choice for many sportsmen on road circuits, hillclimbs, the concrete saucer at Maroubra, gravel speedways and the beaches at places like Gerringong.
A straight-eight Bugatti T30 driven by Geoff Meredith won the first Australian Grand Prix at Goulburn, New South Wales in 1927. Goulburn, 200 km south of Sydney, was also a Gold Rush town. In fact Bugatti won five of the first six AGPs creating huge brand awareness by the standards of the time.
Four cylinder Bugatti T37As – the supercharged variant of the T37 – were victorious in the Phillip Island AGPs of 1929 with Arthur Terdich at the wheel, and in 1930 and 1932 when driven by the period’s ace, Bill Thompson. Carl Junker won in 1931 aboard a straight-eight 1.5-litre T39.
Drake-Richmond’s T37 goes thru Heaven Corner ahead of the Mert Wreford Riley Brooklands during the 1 January 1935 Centenary 300 at Phillip Island. This is the cover photo of Bob King’s book (King)
The Phillip Island AGPs were handicap events, so there is no reason a Brescia couldn’t have won a race with the right mix of speed, reliability and luck, but such never the case. The best Brescia results in our premier event were Merton Wreford’s fourth in 1932 and John Bernadou’s fifth in 1929.
Mert raced chassis 2133, ex-Arthur Terdich, and ‘In practice Wreford’s straight line speed was bettered by very few cars and he was actually faster than Drake-Richmond’s Type 37. In the race Mert was given a 15 minute start by the blown Type 37A’s of Terdich and Thompson and he finished a creditable fourth place on handicap, averaging almost 65 mph for the 200 miles with his old two-wheel-brake Brescia in spite of losing four valuable minutes with clutch trouble’ Bob King wrote.
John Bernadou raced his father Albert’s 2536 in the 1929 AGP – both father and son competed extensively in Victoria in the mid-twenties – despite being delayed by a hole in the fuel tank John was third in the Under 1500 cc class and fifth overall.
Bill McLachlan at Quarry Bend, Bathurst 1952. Bug T37A Ford V8 37358 aka the MacKellar Spl (B Gunther)
Some (not a huge number mind you) quite exotic racing cars came to Australia pre-War including several Vittorio Jano designed Alfa’s, but the faster Bugatti racing straight-eight T35 and T51’s didn’t make the trip until post-War, when they were of course beyond the first flush of youth.
In our racing, which comprised many events run to handicaps, the cars were competitive but none won a post-War AGP. All played an important role in bolstering grid sizes throughout the long Australian Special Era which in the main were MG based or Ford side-valve V8 powered. In many cases once the original Bugatti (or Alfa or Ferrari or Bristol) motor blew Ford V8s, or a bit later a small block Chev or Holden Grey-six-cylinder engine was inserted under said car’s shapely aluminium bonnets.
To reframe my shallow comment a moment ago about Australian Specials, the wonderful breed included tool-room-quality machines such as the Charlie Dean/Repco Research built Maybachs, the Lou Abrahams/Ted Gray Tornados and Chamberlain brothers Chamberlain 8. Also in the mix are outrageous in brilliant original conception cars like two of Eldred Norman’s masterpieces, the Double 8 and Eclipse/Zephyr Spl, while the rest includes anything and everything from mild-to-wild MGs and Ford V8 engined specials. Not to forget the Hudson straight-eight engined machines pre-War, the high point of those is the extant (Frank) Kleinig Spl: MG chassis, monoposto, Hudson-8 and much, much more. There was no lack of creativity among this country’s mechanics and engineers however basic the underpinnings of the machines they started with!
A game-changer was the move in AGP regulations from handicap to outright events from the 1949, Leyburn Queensland AGP won by John Crouch’s Delahaye 135S. Mind you that didn’t stop the organisers of the 1950 Lobethal, South Australia, and 1951 Narrogin, West Australia AGPs having an each way bet by placing as much emphasis on the handicap winner as the outright victor, which comes through strongly in the contemporary newspaper accounts.
1951 was the last handicap-AGP (in part) and the last won by an Australian built car (the Warwick Pratley driven, George Reed built, Ford V8 engined George Reed Special) until Frank Matich won the 1971 AGP at Warwick Farm a couple of decades later in brand new F5000 Matich A50 Repco Holden.
From 1951 those who wanted to win the AGP needed the readies to acquire a car with the speed, endurance on our rough road circuits and reliability. The balance of the fifties was the Factory Car Era. A Talbot Lago T26C won in 1952/3 (Doug Whiteford), HWM Jaguar in 1954 (Lex Davison), Ferrari 500/625 won in 1957/8 (Davison), a mid-engined Cooper T40 Bristol in 1955 (Brabham) and Maserati 250Fs in 1956/9 (Moss/Stan Jones).
John Cummins raced his T37A Holden ‘37332’ complete with Bellamy IFS until very late in the piece- here the eternal racer/raconteur is at Bathurst in 1961 (unattributed)
Among all this the pre-War Bugatti’s, whether Bugatti or black-iron-powered still played an important role. The last AGP grid of substantial Bugatti numbers was the 1952 Mount Panorama contest in which three entered. Bill McLachlan’s T37A Ford V8 finished 13th, while the T35B/51 shared by Phil Catlin and Peter Menere was 15th, but the P Lowe T37 Holden failed to finish. In fact the placings by McLachlan and Catlin/Menere were the last in an AGP for Bugattis, one was Ford V8 powered, the other still had its Molsheim motor.
For the record, the very last Bugatti AGP start was the David Van Dal/John Cummins T57 which failed to finish the very hot 1957 Caversham race outside Perth. There ended a rich contribution by the marque to Australian motor racing which commenced with substantial numbers of Brescias, and Geoff Meredith’s first AGP win aboard a T30 at Goulburn in 1927. Thirty years from start to finish, not a bad record at all!
Duncan Ord in the ex-Howe/Levegh T57 ‘57264’ 3.3 s-8 in the Patriotic GP at Applecross, Perth, WA on 11 November 1940. He is turning out of Tweedale Road (Terry McGrath))
Bibliography…
‘Bugattis in Australasia’ Bob King- Bob still has a couple of copies of this book and plenty of ‘The Brescia Bugatti’- contact rking4450@gmail.com
‘A History of Australian Grand Prix 1928-1939’ John Blanden, MotorSport July 1942, The Bugatti Trust
Photo Credits…
George Thomas, Bob King Collection, Byron Gunther, Bob Shepherd, Terry McGrath, Griggs, automobiles.narod.ru
Chassis: period typical girder, H-section front axle, weight circa 610 kg
Engine: Four-cylinder, SOHC by front bevel drive, four valve with bore/stroke of 66, 68, 69 x 100 mm for capacities of 1368/1453/1496 cc. Carburettor(s) one or two Zenith. Ignition one or two magnetos, usually SEV. Plugs one or two per cylimder. 30 plus bhp with an RPM limit of (‘prudent’) 4000 ‘or even 4500 on a good Brescia’
Gearbox: located centrally, four-speed and reverse with right-hand location, clutch wet multi plate
Brakes: Location and type – foot, transmission and right-hand for the rear. Four wheel brakes fitted from 1926
Wire wheels with original size 710 x 90
Dimensions: T13, wheelbase 2.0 metres or 1967 mm, T22 2.4 metres or 2417 mm and T23 2.55 metres all with a track of 1.15 metres
Drawing of Brescia ‘2566’ engine showing the oil drain tubes from cam-box to crankcase (B Shepherd)
Notes on The Brescia Bugatti: MotorSport July 1942…
George Fury on Conrod Straight in his works Nissan Bluebird turbo during the September 1984 Bathurst 1000 weekend…
Touring Car Racing in Australia has always been tribal. From the sixties it was Holden vs Ford, later Holden vs Ford vs Chrysler/Valiant. Then there was the locally manufactured stuff vs foreign cars including ‘Rice Burners’, then a disparaging descriptor for anything from Japan. Its amusing now given Japanese dominance of our market but this kind of stuff aroused the passions as much as an afternoon at the footy, whatever your code (Aussie Rules, Rugby, Soccer).
Fury/Scott Bluebird thru The Dipper, chassis the third and last Bluebird built by Nissan Motorsport Oz. Z18T 1.8 litre SOHC, 2 valve, twin-plug 4 cylinder turbo engine giving circa 350 bhp. Car still exists (supercars)
Fury exits Murray’s on ‘that lap’. It was an extremely cold day- it snowed in Bathurst that morning, getting heat into the tyres during the Hardies Heroes 2 lap top 10 qualifying format was tough for all- cold conditions suited the turbo-Nissan whatever tricks were also pulled (autopics)
Whilst the first Japanese outright win didn’t occur until the Jim Richards/Mark Skaife 1991 victory aboard a Nissan R32 GT-R ‘Godzilla’ (what a car!?) Nissan certainly signalled their intent with Australian Rally Champion turned racer George Fury’s splendid pole in the 1.8 litre, turbo-charged four cylinder Bluebird sedan on the mountain in 1984. His 2:13.850 ‘Hardies Heroes’ qualifying lap in the last season of the Group C era (Australian adopted Group A from 1985 noting their was a Group A category in the 1984 1000) was not beaten until 1991 when Skaife’s 2:12.630 R32 GT-R time bested it.
The Bluebird’s first Australian Touring Car Championship round win was at Lakeside in June that 1984 season. Pole on the mountain was a magnificent achievement, albeit the car, co-driven by Queenslander Gary Scott lasted 146 of the 163 laps in the race won by the Brock/Perkins Holden VK Commodore, the third win on the trot for that combo.
Lap 1 into Hell Corner: Fury Nissan from Brock VK Holden Commodore, Johnson XE Ford Falcon, Allan Grice white/yellow VK Commodore with Richards BMW 635 CSI and Masterton’s XE Falcon putting the squeeze on Moffat’s Mazda RX7. First start, race restarted and Brock got the jump (supercars)
Early laps Skyline: Fury, Moffat, Brock, Richards, Masterton (supercars)
Still, in some folks minds they stole pole given Fred Gibson’s admission some twenty years after the event (FG drove for the team and was Nissan Team manager by 1986) ‘that the Bluebirds had an illegal turbo-boost adjuster on the dashboard, as well as having the engine bay’s fire extinguisher spraying super-cooled Halon at the cars intercooler increasing horsepower’. It was the first time since qualifying first counted for grid positions in 1967 that a V8 had not been on pole, and a V8 would not sit on pole again at Bathurst until 1993.
Bloody rice-burners. Mind you, other than the Japanese body-shell the car was built entirely in Australia…
Credits…
Supercars Australia, autopics.com.au, Australian Musclecar
Tailpiece: Front row before the off, Bathurst 1984…
primotipo... 