Stan Jones and Len Lukey during their epic dice for the lead of the 1959 Australian Prix at Longford on March 2, Maserati 250F and Cooper T45 Climax FPF 2-litre.
In a fitting dose of karma, Stan finally bagged the AGP win he deserved, while Len won the Gold Star.
As you will see in this link to my ’59 AGP piece, the image above was filched from the cover of the 1960 Longford program: https://primotipo.com/2024/05/08/omg-stan-jones-and-len-lukey-longford-1959/ The WordPress AI device hasn’t managed to fuse these two pages below successfully, but here ’tis anyway.
I do have a BRM fetish, always have. The Brits’ Ferrari and all that. That nice Mr Nye has nearly finished BRM Vol 4, can’t wait.
Allan Dick posted on his Classic Auto News FB page these fabulous colour shots of Arnold Glass’s BRM P48 during the 1962 New Zealand Grand Prix weekend at Ardmore.
Australian Arnold Glass was an NZ Grand Prix regular, first bringing the ex-works/Parnell Ferrari 555 Super Squalo – #555/2 and FL9002 – to Ardmore in 1958, where he was 12th, a performance he repeated in the same car the following year. He got on very well with the ex-works/Hunt/Stillwell Maserati 250F #2516, sixth at Ardmore in 1960, reflected the bond between man and driver-friendly machine.
He got with the Cooper strength in 1961, finishing eighth in his Maserati-engined T45 before returning in 1962 in a BRM P48 #482. The model had impressed him in the hands of Graham Hill and Dan Gurney during their 1961 Australasian tour. He qualified #9 midfield but retired in the race. He was seventh at Wigram a fortnight later.
He was back in ’63 with the BRM, which was by then fitted with the 3.9-litre Traco modified Buick alloy V8 that had powered the Scarab RE raced by Chuck Daigh at Sandown in 1962. Glass didn’t compete as a consequence of a water skiing injury. Allan Dick wrote that ‘The car was still here at the next national meeting at Pukekohe and it was given a run — and a victory — by Ross Jensen, showing he’d lost none of his old touch, winning after an early battle with Forrest Cardon in the Lycoming.’
‘Trinkets’ returned in 1964, this time with a Lotus 27 powered by a Cosworth-built Lotus-Ford twin-cam engine, but he crashed the 1.5-litre car in practice, and that was that. More on Arnold’s BRM here:https://primotipo.com/2018/03/16/bourne-to-ballarat-brm-p48-part-2/
Andrew Miedecke, climbing the mountain in his Peter Brock, Perkins Engineering-built Holden Commodore VN during the 1991 Bathurst 1000.
He shared Brock’s car to seventh place, see this interesting sidebar on their journey:https://www.v8sleuth.com.au/how-racecam-rescued-brocks-car-at-bathurst/ The race was won by the Jim Richards/Mark Skaife works Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R.
Edwin Adamson’s shot of John Barber’s Lancia Lambda, on the way to winning the ten-day 1520-mile RACV Great Alpine Trial held in the high country of Victoria and New South Wales starting on March 10, 1926.
39 cars started the event, which took in Melbourne, Wangaratta, Mount Hotham, Omeo, Tallangatta, Tumut, Mount Kosziusko, Canberra, Eden, Lakes Entrance, and Mornington. Barber won from RJ ‘Herb’ Beith’s Chrysler, WA Terdich’s DFP, AW Bernadou’s Austin and JCB Hutton’s Alvis Sports. More here:https://primotipo.com/2026/06/12/1926-alpine-trial/comment-page-1/
The March 4, 1963, South Pacific Championship at Longford is about to start.
Winner of the 25-lap, 100-mile race, #10 Bruce McLaren, Cooper T62 Climax is on pole with Bib Stillwell, Brabham BT4 Climax and Lex Davison, Cooper T53 Climax on the outside. That’s the yellow helmet of Tony Maggs’ Bowmaker Lola Mk4 Climax and David McKay, Brabham BT4 Climax on row two, then the rest. McLaren won from Stillwell and John Youl in Cooper #5, a T55 Climax. Frontal view, WordPress has given the Olympic logo on the starter’s seat a lick of Mandarin, hopefully it doesn’t say anything rude.
Australian Tourist Trophy action at Lakeside on the November 14, 1965 weekend.
From the left it’s Frank Gardner, Mildren Maserati from pole, then Pete Geoghegan, Lotus 23B Lotus-Ford and Ken Miles’ works Shelby Cobra 427 on the outside. Then Greg Cusack’s Lotus 23, back a bit to Spencer Martin in the SV Ferrari 250LM, then the red Lola Mk1 Climax of Frank Demuth and Glyn Scott in Ann Thompson’s Lotus 15.
Let’s not get too carried away, though. Frank Gardner’s presence tells us this is a heat. The Maserati engine in the Bob Britton-built Mildren let go in the biggest possible way, about where it is now in this heat, so FG didn’t make the final.
The star of the show was Miles in the works-Shelby American Cobra #CSX3002. Despite his presence, the 83-lap 125-mile race was won by the nimble Lotus of Geoghegan from Cusack and Martin, with Bob Jane’s Jaguar E-Type fourth (below in front of Gardner in the heat).
Miles, from grid 3, gave the crowd a helluva show until lap 34 of 85 laps when the rear suspension failed. Interestingly, as Steve Holmes observed, the only other races Miles did outside the US that year were the Le Mans classic and Monza 1000kms; DNF gearbox on lap 45 in a Ford Mk2 shared with Bruce McLaren, and third in a Mark 2 again shared with Bruce.
What has always intrigued me is why Shelby/FoMoCo bothered freighting this car/driver to an event in Australia of no real consequence at all. Paul Newby answered those questions in an Australian Muscle Car feature some years back and summarised the salient points on The Nostalgia Forum in 2019.
‘There was no direct sponsorship from Shell or Ford. Shell may well have underwritten the meeting programme and the Thursday night social event, but that was it. There was no appearance fee, just freight costs to get the Cobra there and back and expenses for Ken Miles and mechanic Ron Butler. I asked QMSC Secretary David Harding whether any documentation was retained, like copies of letters or Committee Minutes, but alas, there isn’t.’
‘Harding told me that Miles and Butler were put up at the Travelodge at Kangaroo Point, like the Tasman drivers were. However Richard Croston’s Lakeside, the early years, says that the duo were accommodated at the Coronation Motel near the Brisbane River. So I didn’t mention that detail in the story.’
‘Why did Shelby agree to send Miles and the Cobra 427 Competition to Australia? I can’t answer that, but I’ll make the following observations:
1. The 427 Cobra was an obsolete race car, so there was no risk to an existing race program. Miles had graduated to the Ford GT program by then and Bob Grossman was Shelby American’s works driver in the 289 Cobra. (He raced at Nassau in December 65.)
2. With a full order book for the Cobra 427 and Mustang GT350 plus being bankrolled by Ford for the GT program, Shelby didn’t need an appearance fee nor the $$$ to offload the Cobra 427 Competition to an Aussie hotshot.’
‘John Harvey having his first open-wheeler drive on bitumen’, is a quote among quotes from Ray Bell!
Harves is at the wheel of Ron Phillip’s ex-Stillwell Brabham BT14 Lotus-Ford #FL-1-65 during the Lakeside ATT meeting on November 14, 1965. A date to pop into the diaries of John Harvey fans. Harves proved rather adept in cars of all types: https://primotipo.com/2021/01/25/harves/
Norm Beechey, Chev Nova from Bryan Thompson, Ford Mustang, Norm’s old car, at Calder in 1967. A little bit more here:https://primotipo.com/2019/09/26/norm-jim-and-pete/
In amongst dominating the 1973 Australian F2 Championship in his works Birrana 273 Hart-Ford 416B Leo Geoghegan squeezed in a pair of visits to South East Asia.
These shots are in Macau; the one below was way out-of-focus made acceptable by AI, take in the car if not the decals…
Leo was fourth in the race won by John McDonald’s Brabham BT40, from Sonny Rajah, March 712M/732, and Graeme Lawrence, Surtees TS15.
Geoghegan opened his tour at the Malaysian Grand Prix held at Batu Tiga on April 13, DNF, then went to Singapore on April 22 for Q3 and a problem-filled ninth, before taking the car back to Macau in November.
Hong Konger John MacDonald and Kiwi Graeme Lawrence were the Toppish Guns in South East Asia in this period.
Kevin Bartlett, Vern Schuppan and David Brabham are the Australians who’ve won the Macau GP. Here’s KB with Glen Abbey, longtime Alec Mildren Racing mechanic, after his 1969 victory in the sub; Mildren Alfa Romeo 2.5 V8.
I don’t have a race report for this event, but the missing bit of bodywork suggests a late-race splash-and-dash for KB to get The Yellow Submarine home. Those with a better RCN Collection than mine will have the answer.
It’s an all-Brabham front two rows in some ways…KB’s Mildren on pole is chockers with Brabham bits bolted onto Len Bailey’s chassis, alongside is John MacDonald’s BT10 Ford Cosworth FVA; #66 is Albert Poon’s Brabham BT30, not to forget the two Mitsubishi Colt F2-Cs of Osamu Masuko and Soohei Kato, which are Brabham BT18/21 chassis or BT 18/21 copies built by Mitsubishi.
The ex-Peter Whitehead Cooper T38 is a favourite car of mine. I’d love to have that sucker in my garage and use it as Ian McDonald did, as an occasional fast roadie and a regularity competitor, rather than racing it, given its value.
Ron Phillips racing it above during the 1958 Australian Tourist Trophy at Bathurst, and Stan Jones in his first meeting with it in the Albert Park March, Moomba meeting in 1956. Stanley didn’t like it much and moved it on pretty smartly. Ron liked it and won the ’59 Australian TT at Lowood in it, amongst other successes.
The radiator is to keep VB bottles and Chiko roll packaging away from the radiator. Tom Sulman in the following Aston Martin from memory?
I did a feature about the car in MotorSport a few years ago:https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/april-2022/137/home-away-a-cooper-jaguars-racing-adventures/?srsltid=AfmBOopoJW16bmVp1TzpdbUOZX9dS9rj_md0E778DXtve5AqUURxFBzh There are quite a few bits and pieces on the car within primotipo, so just key in Cooper T38 Jaguar into the search bar on the home page.
Bruce Allison leads Ken Smith at Bay Park during the January 3, 1977 New Zealand Formula Pacific Championship, Ralt RT1 Ford BDA and March Ford BDA.
Allison was Q3 and second in the race behind Steve Millen’s Chevron B35. He was third in the five round series behind rising star Keke Rosberg’s Fred Opert Racing Chevron B34 and Tom Gloy’s Tui BH2.
At rest below, I’ll take your advice as to circuit. Results here:https://www.oldracingcars.com/newzealand/1977/ and Rosberg here:https://primotipo.com/2015/10/18/keke-rosberg-attacks-the-pukekohe-chicane-new-zealand-grand-prix-january-1978/
John Leffler on a fairly rare visit to Mexico (Victoria) with his works-supported Cooper S sports sedan, Calder, August 1971.
Paul Knott’s name on the door proves just how far back that successful partnership extended. Does this car still exist? More here:https://primotipo.com/2019/03/01/cooper-s/
Credits…
Longford Motor Racing Association, Allan Dick-Classic Auto News, Bill Forsyth, Edwin Adamson-State Library of Victoria, Historic Racing Car Club of Tasmania, Ray Bell, The Roaring Season, Darren Overend, Ron Edgerton Collection, Australian Motor Sports, South China Morning Post, Steve Elliott, Warwick Clayton, Rod Steffanoni
Finito…
primotipo... 