Posts Tagged ‘Alta 21S Ford’

Me ‘an Copilot…

Posted: April 25, 2026 in Features, Fotos
Tags: , , , ,
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(Penrith Library-CoPilot)

Ted Gray’s Alta 21S Ford V8 at rest in the Penrith Speedway paddock during 1940.

Take a look at the original shot below. Two of the blokes on poles have avoided the guillotine, they’ve got their heads back! How good is that!? Hmm, let’s think about that.

(Penrith Library)

I’ve been playing with Copilot as a research tool for about 18 months now. This AI device is only occasionally useful for me given the world of obscurities in which I tend to reside. In essence, if the answers to the questions asked aren’t in the digital world it can’t help you.

Encouraged by a couple of historian buddies who have been having a play ‘enhancing photos’, I thought I’d dick around a bit too.

And yes, the rego number on the left has been changed from whatever it is ending in 323 to 319. I didn’t notice that till later, and once you’ve finished it, it’s hard to go back in with the poverty version, the free version, of Copilot.

My ethos in all of this is to make a shot a bit clearer but retain ALL of its original content. Obviously, giving a couple of blokes their heads back is altering the original content, which is ok as long as I declare it to you, I think? People have been playing with photographs since photography was invented, of course. Photoshop has been with us since at least 1988, when I bought into a design business. That was the province of black-clad Graphic Designers playing around with very expensive early series Macs, but AI means every Tom, Dick and Irving can have a play. Fake Nooz is available to all of us, not just Donny!

(S Wills-Co Pilot)

A much more vexed area is the colourising of images, because the thieving arseholes who do it almost never credit the photographer or the fact that they’ve altered the artwork.

The shot above of Bill Pitt’s rolled Jaguar D-Type was taken during the 1956 Argus Trophy at Albert Park.

The place that often provides the inspiration for my articles, Bob Williamson’s ‘Old Motor Racing Photographs – Australia’ Facebook page, with strong leadership from my friend, Lynton Hemer, has banned colourised shots from that locale. The right move!

I am a hypocrite, though, I do often find them addictive. So I may slip in the odd one, but I’ll always tell you when I do, credit the original snapper and the AI tool that did the magic.

(S Wills via the B King Collection)

Here’s Bob King’s rough as guts original iPhone shot, and the tidied up Copilot one below. The correct rego number of the Jag was NCN-040, by the way, but you try instructing Copilot, and that the car is upside down…He was ok from memory. More about the car here:https://primotipo.com/2016/03/18/lowood-courier-mail-tt-1957-jaguar-d-type-xkd526-and-bill-pitt/

(S Wills-Copilot)
(Murray Family Arc)

The purest use of the technology is with shots like this. Roughly ‘scanned’, chucked up on Facebook and having all the ravages of time.

(Murray Family Arc)

My preferred version is the warts and all one above. I’ve just cropped it with my iPhone. The one below is Copilot-lite; tidying up and sharpening a bit, but not too much. Not fucking-over the original work. You know, Milton the Monster’s tincture of tenderness but not too much…

I reckon it’s Mount Druitt circa-1954, anybody got the meeting date? Bill Murray’s Alfa Romeo P3 Alvis leading Jack Brabham’s Cooper, Holt Binnie’s MG T-Type Special and Jack Robinson’s Jaguar Special.

(Murray Family Arc-Copilot)

Here’s another in similar vein. Frank Kleinig aboard the Kirby Deering Special, the Miller straight-eight s/c powered original variant of the Kleinig Hudson Special after the same chassis was re-engined with a Hudson motor.

(C Wade Arc-Copilot)

The first evolution was pretty good, colour, not that I asked for it! I’ve no idea what the original hue was.

Then you ask for the rego to be corrected to 98-241 and things go a bit kooky…The lesson is that Copi’s first shot is its best, so the briefing needs to be very good and comprehensive.

(C Wade Arc-Copilot)
(C Wade Arc)

The engine tidy up looks ok, but! Slightly too good, I think.

Centrifugally supercharged 91cid Miller DOHC, two-valve, straight eight. Not so good in an Australian road racing environment, but rather good on the dirt and boards stateside. More about the car here:https://primotipo.com/2019/12/06/frank-kleinig-kleinig-hudson-special/

(C Wade Arc-Copilot)
(Blanden Collection)

Sometimes things are best left well alone!

There is nothing wrong with this shot, it’s the Bugatti T57T at Pingelly, perhaps, with Durry Turner at the wheel…more here:https://primotipo.com/2023/05/04/bugatti-type-57t-57264/

(Blanden Collection-Copilot)

Hmmm, let’s just go back to the drawing board. This was my first play around. Copilot has a mind of its own to an extent; you have to have your foot on its throat. All kinds of atrocities can be performed, as here.

(B Gunther)

Back to where we started with one of my favourite cars, Alta 21S, with Tiger Ted Gray at the wheel, talking to fellow Victorian Ken Wylie, Penrith, Easter 1941. Last time I put this up, I don’t think I got to the bottom of the Pinocchio thing on the side of the scuttle.

I’ve got rid of all the IP Credits (sic) and just sharpened things by a bees-dick, you’d get away with another 10% or so actually, without making the shot look unreal? More about the Alta here:https://primotipo.com/2023/07/15/alta-1100-special/

(B King Archive)

Jack H McGrath’s Bugatti T37 from Ken McKinney’s Austin 7 during the January 1, 1934, Phillip Island 100 won by JW Willamson’s Riley.

Again, this shows the positives of AI enhancement/repair/sharpening: that rear guard refashioning of the Austin may not be to Tony Johns’ satisfaction, but if it’s not, I’m sure I couldn’t instruct Copilot on the necessary remedy…however, for the lay observer, it’s pretty tickety-boo.

(B King Arc-Copilot)

Finally, from my favourite viewpoint, high atop Mount Morality.

I’m sorta a low ego kinda guy, I’m generally not a cock-spanker, albeit I do occasionally have moments when I give it a bit of a slap. This photo manipulation stuff is shit-easy even with the intellectual firepower of a Trump Voter. I don’t take or appropriate intellectual property that I don’t own, or imply that I have ownership by putting my name on shots. But there are plenty of strokers out there who slap their names on everything despite having no legal or moral right to do so. Why don’t you pricks fuck off? I’ll tell you, my patient readers, when I’ve had a play with somebody else’s IP and continue to credit the photographer, or source in the absence thereof, and the AI tool involved in the sorcery…

Credits…

Copilot, Penrith Library, Spencer Wills, Bob King Archive, Blanden Collection, Murray Family Archive, Byron Gunther, Graham Woods Archive

Tailpieces…

(G Woods Archive)

Jack Brabham in the other REDeX Special, his 1955 Australian Grand Prix winning Cooper T40 Bristol in the Ardmore paddock during the 1956 New Zealand Grand Prix weekend. More on this car here:https://primotipo.com/2015/07/16/60th-anniversary-of-jacks-first-f1-gp-today-british-gp-16-july-1955-cooper-t40-bristol-by-stephen-dalton/

(G Woods Arc-Copilot)

The tidy up looks pretty shit-hot for a moment or three! The tool can be quite subtle; it has retained the different hues of green made in various touch-ups, but the signage is problematic! #24 is Peter Whitehead’s Cooper T38 Jaguar, soon to be Stan Jones’, the other sports car glimpse at far right is Tony Gaze’s HWM Jaguar VPA9, soon to be Lex Davison’s. Back to the drawing board, methinks…

Finito…

Male Special…

Posted: August 8, 2023 in Obscurities, Who,What,Where & When...?
Tags: , , , , , ,
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Not so much special, but three specials sponsored by Melbourne car dealer, Alan D Male and raced by Ted Gray in the immediate pre-WW2 years.

One was the JAP engined speedway midget above, the next a buggered-if-I-know powered midget and the third, Alta 21S, ex-Alan Sinclair/Bill Reynolds, and by then Ford V8 powered.

Male operated yards at 233 and 239 Latrobe Street, Melbourne named Males Car Sales and AD Male Car Sales respectively. This seemingly successful business man was important in the rise and rise of Tiger Ted pre-War, his final push into the top rank was provided post-War by Lou Abrahams.

While the contribution of Abrahams to Gray’s rise to the very front of Australian Formula Libre racing aboard the Alta – by then owned by Gray – and the two subsequent Tornado V8s has been well covered by us before, here; https://primotipo.com/2015/11/27/the-longford-trophy-1958-the-tornados-ted-gray/ and here; https://primotipo.com/2020/05/04/ted-gray-alfa-romeo-ford-v8-wangaratta-to-melbourne-record/ and there’s yet more here; https://primotipo.com/2023/07/15/alta-1100-special/ – the contribution of Alan Male has not.

Gray gave the visiting Peter Whitehead’s ERA B-Type a serious run for his money in the midget above during meetings at Aspendale Speedway and Rob Roy hillclimb in 1938. Leon Sims tells us that in the meeting above, Rob Roy 5 on November 20, 1938, that Gray set the FTD 0.5 seconds outside the hill record set by Whitehead only five months before. In the process “he set the committee of the Light Car Club of Australia scratching their heads in concern over the suitability of a car designed for midget racing, taking the award on their hill. It was not seen as a ‘proper car’ in their eyes.”

When Jack Brabham raced his midget at Rob Roy post-war he had the same problems but went to Sydney, fitted some brakes to his car, and returned to take the Australian Hillclimb Championship at Rob Roy in 1951. Up yours Blue Blazer Officialdom, or something like that!

This is the ‘other midget’, a rare shot with car owner Alan Male at the wheel at Rob Roy 5, he did a time of 31.5 seconds. I’d love to know the builder and specifications of this car. If Mickey Mouse seems an odd radiator-shroud fear not for the little-fella, he seems to have been adopted by the team as a mascot, he is present on the team’s Alta 21S Ford shown further below.

Ted Gray on the outside of A ‘Stud’ Beasley (as in head stud or babe-magnet?) at Aspendale in August 1938, with Mickey still hanging on for grim life. I’m rather hoping some of you may be able to tell me a little more about Alan Male in order that we can put it on the public record.

Nathan Tasca’s research shows he was still trading in cars post-War, as Weir & Male Motors at 243 Latrobe Street, familiar territory for him! He still maintained his interest in motor racing, note the AMS advertisement below. The wording of the ad, and coverage of the car in the Motor Manual 1950-51 Australian Motor Racing Year Book confirms the car was built by Ken Wylie for Weir & Male Motors, Austin dealers, and was driven by Wylie.

(Photographer-Byron Gunther)

The final Male Special/Ford V8 Special – it was entered in various names – is most correctly, using the modern – make-model-engine manufacturer – ‘racing car description protocol’ Alta 21S Ford V8. Here Ted is considering proceedings with his crew and officialdom at Penrith Speedway, NSW in 1940.

While built as a road racing racing sportscar, and modified by Sinclair’s team in the UK before coming to Australia as a road racing 1100cc supercharged single-seater, the car performed well both on the roads and on dirt speedways, as here. The car was raced well into the war years, Gray in the Male Special V8 beating S Bail’s Midget V8 in a 3 lap match race at Aspendale on Sunday January 19, 1941, his final entry March-April ’41. Picking up the Austin connection, Tony Johns tells me S Bail was a partner in the Bail Brothers Austin sub-agency (Stan and Wally) in Hampton Street, Brighton in the 1960s.

By the way, the little dude on the scuttle of the Alta is Pinocchio not Mickey Mouse…there is a story there, but what is it? I know, Walt Disney was so impressed with Ted’s performances he was slipping a few greenbacks Male’s way…

Motor Manual 1950-51 Yearbook via David Zeunert Collection

Credits…

Bob King Collection, photos perhaps taken by Ted Hider-Smith, The Argus January 20, 1941, David Zeunert Collection

Tailpiece…

Tiger Ted aboard the very new Tornado 1 Ford V8 at Fishermans Bend in early 1955, date please (car #5).

When the shortcomings of Alta 21S finally became apparent after Lou Abrahams’ big-brawny Ardun-Abrahams head Ford V8 was dropped between its chassis rails the Abrahams, Gray and Mayberry team built Tornado 1. This car’s short life ended when Gray had a huge accident at Bathurst in October 1955 after brake dramas, see the articles linked above for the details.

Finito…