Frank Matich tests his new, very late to the party, Matich SR4 Repco, Bruce McLaren Style, sans bodywork – and six-point harness – at Warwick Farm on a date I’d love you to assist me with.
Sitting very close behind FM’s shoulders is RBE E41, a 4.8-litre 760 four-cam V8 being dyno-tested by its builder, John Mepstead, in Repco Brabham Engines’ test cell at Maidstone in the photograph below.
‘Meppa’, much admired, respected and liked by his Repco peers, died this week on Monday, June 1. May I offer my condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. He was very kind to me when I met with him and was enormously helpful with this article about the SR4, as well as with another published by Auto Action. See here:https://primotipo.com/2016/07/15/matich-sr4-repco-by-nigel-tait-and-mark-bisset/ RIP John Mepstead.
Funeral details from Rod Wolfe, ‘John Mepstead funeral details, Friday 12th June at 2.30 at Bunurong Memorial Park in the Stratus Reflection Space, live streamed. Celebration of John’s life afterwards at the Sandown Park Hotel.’
See here for the footage from which the still above was filched;Frank Matich & The Matich SR4 Repco, Shannons Legends of Motorsport:https://youtu.be/YL-n7S_OexU?si=vG_avWRf2FJwL2hE
Matich, SR4, Catalina Park below, perhaps in early 1970, by which time the car/driver combo was the Australian Sports Car Champion.
Peter Houston’s shot of Kevin Bartlett and Niel Allen is a fantastic Warwick Farm battle between KB’s Alec Mildren Racing Mildren Waggott TC-4V and Niel’s Peter Molly prepped 5-litre McLaren M10B Chev.
I thought the shot was a David vs. Goliath contest during the February 15, 1970, Warwick Farm 100 Tasman Cup round, but Lynton Hemer has set me straight.
‘The photo with KB and Niel Allen was taken at the July 1970 AJC Trophy Warwick Farm meeting during the 15-lap Racing Car support race. Niel knocked the wingtab awry during his dice with Bartlett early on.’
‘This was the race when Niel’s harmonic balancer came adrift, cutting a brake line and sending him into the back of Frank Matich later in the race. Garry Rush and KB came together at Homestead as the Mildren attempted to lap the Formula Ford. It was Bartlett’s last ride in the Submarine.’
‘At the (1970) Tasman round, Max Stewart was never more than a few car lengths back from Bartlett as they took the race for Mildren with a one/two cleansweep.’
These two shots show the car, fitted with Merv Waggott’s 2-litre TC-4V engine, were taken during KB’s victorious February 1970 Tasman round.
The bathtub monocoque designed by Len Bailey and built by Alan Mann Racing is shown below. I’ve written about one of my favourite racing cars often, here is a starting point:https://primotipo.com/2017/11/14/missed-it-by-that-much/
Two shots of Bob Jane’s Elfin 400 Repco-Brabham 620 4.4-litre V8 with the man himself at the wheel at Sandown circa-1967 and with Bevan Gibson up on that fateful day during the Bathurst Easter meeting in 1969. More here:https://primotipo.com/2018/04/06/belle-of-the-ball/
Dressed like that, Frank Williams must have just arrived from Essendon Airport, his suitcase full of start and prize money amassed by Piers Courage during a very successful 1969 Tasman Cup campaign, during which he finished third overall and won the Teretonga round aboard Williams’ unique Brabham BT24 Ford DFW 2.5 V8.
There is no shortage of spectators in the Sandown Park Cup paddock on February 16. It was Amon, Rindt and Brabham in the race. Piers broke a driveshaft on lap three, so he was a DNF, but he had shown great speed and intent that Australasian summer, which was delivered in spades aboard Frank’s Brabham BT26 Ford Cosworth DFV in the ensuing Grand Prix season.
More on Piers here:https://primotipo.com/2015/10/20/longford-tasman-south-pacific-trophy-4-march-1968-and-piers-courage/
I do love an LJ XU-1.
Colin Bond during the Thursday, November 9-Saturday, November 18, 1972, Dulux Rally. Photographer, James Semple, is NSW-based, so I guess it’s somewhere – a hillclimb? – up there, thoughts folks?
The reigning Dulux Champions, Bondy and George Shepheard, won in the Holden Dealer Team Holden Torana GTR XU-1, from teammates Peter Brock/Frank Kilfoyle, and Stewart McLead/Adrian Mortimer in another XU-1. More about the Dulux here:https://primotipo.com/2015/04/09/australias-cologne-capris/
Peter Houston has captured a very rare car/driver combination in what must have been one of Gary Campbell’s last drives? A couple of LJ XU-1s or GTRs are clearly favoured by the flaggies too!
Here the popular, generous Sydney car dealer – a big supporter of Larry Perkins before and after he got to Europe – is drowning aboard his new Lola T330 Chev HU4 during practice for the 1973 Warwick Farm 100 Tasman round on February 11 and won by Steve Thompson’s Chevron B24 Chev.
GC didn’t start the race as he crashed it, so this is either practice or race day warm-up? HU4 was bought by Bob Muir, rebuilt and raced by him with great speed in the 1973 US L&M F5000 Championship. More on the T330/T332 here:https://primotipo.com/2025/01/12/lola-t332-factory-specification-information/
Bill Brown blasts across the top of Mount Panorama aboard David McKay’s Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 350 Can-Am during the 1968 Easter Meeting.
Bill won a race and set the fastest straight-line speed record at a heady180.722 mph. The quickest sports car that weekend was Niel Allen’s Elfin 400 Chev. See here:https://primotipo.com/2023/08/18/ferrari-350-can-am-take-4/
Ulf Norinder from Max Stewart and Leo Geoghegan during the early laps of the February 22, 1970 Sandown Park Cup Tasman round: Lola T190 Chev, Mildren Waggott TC-4V 2-litre and Lotus 39 Repco 830 V8 2.5.
The cars are on the blast from Dandenong Road towards the fast right-left combo of the Causeway and Dunlop Bridge. Niel Allen, McLaren M10B Chev won from Graeme Lawrence, Ferrari 246T and Norinder. Lawrence won the Tasman in the same chassis, 246T/69-0008, in which Chris Amon triumphed the year before.
And one of the Formula Vee support races below, I’ll take your advice as to competitors.
Jeremy Browne’s rally Cooper S opposite locking its way around Collingrove in 1972 and gets no shortage of admiring glances from the punters in the process!
John Harvey in Bob Jane’s Bowin P8 Repco-Holden at Warwick Farm during the September 3, 1972 weekend in which he contested the two-heat Motor Show Trophy.
He was fifth in the first heat from the back of the grid, and collided with Kevin Bartlett’s Lola T300 Chev at the start of the second so didn’t finish. Matich won overall with victories in both heats, with John McCormack second and Warwick Brown third: Matich A50 Repco-Holden, Elfin MR5 Repco-Holden and McLaren M10B Chev.
Shots of P8-118-72 in its original form are rare; this photo resurrection exercise was reasonably successful. Such a small, handsome and innovative car, John Joyce!.
Harves spoke favourably about the P8 Repco-Holden to Tony McGirr for his ‘Gentleman John Harvey’ book.
‘Then the Formula 5000 car arrived. It was a Bowin car. We actually took a bit of a gamble on that. If Bob (Jane) couldn’t get what he wanted overseas, he was always happy enough to try an Australian-made product. If – always ‘if’ – he thought they were good enough. Bob was one of Garrie Cooper’s staunchest supporters. He had in the past bought a few cars from Garrie. But, Bob always wanted to win. If he thought Australian-built cars were not up to scratch, he bought whatever it took to win.’
‘The Formula 5000 car – built in Sydney – had a revolutionary suspension system. Around the traps, in racing circles, people were saying it won’t work – it can’t work. At that time, the designers of race cars were getting into technical areas that had not been explored before. Even in the Formula One McLarens, they were still experimenting with this rising-rate suspension and the variable spring rates.’
‘They had this system-or a similar system-on the front of the McLaren (M19), and it was working fairly well. Bowin – I should say John Joyce – built this Formula 5000 with these variable suspensions on both front and rear. Everyone said it was all too revolutionary and couldn’t work. Actually, it was all quite simple, and it worked extremely well, particularly off the start line. You could get really good traction with it.’
‘The reason the whole deal did not work out was that Bob lost interest. We also had a crash with the car at Warwick Farm. I got a ‘ripper’ of a start. I forget the exact details of what happened to cause the accident. Somebody spun, and I got a front wheel knocked off the car. 1 slid off the track, and that was the end of my race. Essentially, that was also the end of that adventure.’
‘We did do a couple of more races with it, and we were still developing the car. The car was showing a lot of promise, but Bob lost interest. It was just as simple as that. “Forget the Formula 5000. Park it over there”. Castrol don’t want to know about it. So, we parked the Formula 5000 and got on with Touring cars.’
‘My whole open-wheeler career came to a halt, there and then. But, I must add, I wasn’t all that impressed with the Formula 5000 category. By comparison to the original Formula cars I had driven (Tasman 2.5 Brabhams), the Formula 5000s were just ‘trucks’. So, the decision was made to concentrate on Touring cars, and that is how the remainder of my career was spent.’
Start of the March 18, 1956, 48-lap, 150-mile Argus Trophy held at Albert Park during Melbourne’s annual Moomba Festival. Bryan Colechin’s images captured from Kenneth Rankine’s film show all the fun of the fair to great effect!
The three red cars are the victor, Reg Hunt’s Maserati 250F at left, second-placed Lex Davison, Ferrari 500/625 3-litre at right, and third-placed Kevin Neal, Maserati A6GCM 2.5-litre, partially obscured in between the two.
The white central seat sports-bodied car is the ex-Brabham, Cooper T40 Bristol, raced by Reg Smith, while the red car in front of Smith is the ex-Brabham Cooper T23 – then Repco-Holden powered – raced to fourth place by Tom Hawkes.
Reg Hunt, the star of Australian racing in 1956, on one of Albert Park’s high-speed swoops in his 250F during that Moomba weekend. All too soon, he retired from racing, see here:https://primotipo.com/2024/02/10/australian-gold-star-championship-1956/
1969 JAF Japanese Grand Prix action with Aussie Glyn Scott, Bowin P3 Ford FVA having a look at Sohei Kato’s Mitsubishi Colt F2C 1.6 during the May 3 race.
It’s a battle for third place resolved in favour of the Japanese twin-cam, four-valve, fuel-injected powered Brabham/Brabham copy chassis. The race was won by Leo Geoghegan’s Lotus 39 Repco 830 2.5 V8 from Roly Levis’ Brabham BT23C Ford FVA.
Scotty’s Bowin was powered by the dominant 1.6-litre F2 engine of the era, the Ford Cosworth FVA as below in this circa-1969 trailer shot. Equally ubiquitous is the Hewland FT200 five-speed transaxle.
More on the Bowin P3 here:https://primotipo.com/2021/05/06/ian-peters-ex-glyn-scott-bowin-p3-101-68/ , Geoghgan and the Lotus 39 here:https://primotipo.com/2016/02/12/jim-clark-and-leo-geoghegans-lotus-39/ , and Mitsubishi here:https://primotipo.com/2023/05/28/mitsubishi-competition-formative-days/
Allan Moffat’s two big victories in the US were in the March 21, 1975, Sebring 12 Hour classic aboard a factory BMW CSL 3.5 Batmobile shared with Brian Redman, and then later in the race, Hans Stuck and Sam Posey jumped into the car after their own failed.
Moff’s other big triumph was in the Bryar 250 Trans-Am round held at Bryar Motorsport Park on July 10, 1966. He raced that 250-mile race event solo aboard a Ford Lotus Cortina prepared by his team; that must have been icing on a big cake?
See here:https://primotipo.com/2025/12/04/allan-moffat-rip/ and here:https://primotipo.com/2020/03/06/moffats-shelby-brabham-elfin-and-trans-am/
Frank Gardner on the way to winning the December 3 Hordern Trophy, the final round of the 1967 Gold Star, on debut of the Alec Mildren Racing Brabham BT23D Alfa Romeo 2.5 V8, and below, Kevin Bartlett racing it to victory in the first round of the 1968 Gold Star at Bathurst on April 15, 1968; luvverly symmetry in that lot. KB won the Gold Star too. More here:https://primotipo.com/2021/07/25/hordern-trophy/
Credits…
Peter Houston, Neil Johannsen, Orange Photography, Autoweek, James Semple, John Mepstead, Bryar Motorsport Park, Kenneth Rankine’s film with individual frames made by Bryan Colechin, Tony Glenn, ‘Gentleman John Harvey’ Tony McGirr, Rodway Wolfe, Jay Bondini
Finito…
primotipo... 