Andrew McCarthy beavers away on the rebuild of his 1982 ex-Beppe Gabbiani works-Maurer MM82 2-litre F2 machine, chassis 04.
For a stock broker, he’s a pretty handy mechanic. He gets a prize for commitment too, this shot was taken at beer-o’clock, lunchtime on December 24, an occasion when most of us normal folks are getting Santa’s snack ready for his night-time arrival.
The target first race appearance is the Phillip Island Classic in March. Even though the bulk of the hard work in a five year journey so far has been done, there is no shortage of fettling to come to meet that deadline.
The essential elements of Willy Maurer’s, Gustav Brunner penned, period-typical, ground-effect F2 car are an aluminium monocoque chassis, BMW M12/7 four cylinder, DOHC, four-valve, fuel injected 2-litre engine giving about 300bhp and a five-speed Hewland FG400 based transaxle in a bespoke Maurer case.
Let’s save the Maurer major story for when Mad Andy has MM82-04 running. In essence young entrepreneur Willy Maurer had access to substantial sponsorship cash via the German, Mampe drinks manufacturer.
After an initial sponsorship foray in German Group 5 with Ford Zakspeed and Kremer Porsche, Maurer decided to take one of his drivers, Armin Hahne, into F2. Rather than follow the herd and buy a March or Ralt he decided to build his own cars.
The first 1979 car (MM79) was a slug, then, via former Chevron racer, Eje Elgh, Maurer was introduced to the ex-Chevron team who were out of a job after the demise of the Bolton marque in its original form; said ending was a delayed reaction to company founder, Derek Bennett’s death in a hang-glider crash in March 1978.
The 1981-83 Maurers, designed by Brunner, interpreted and engineered by Paul Brown, and built and maintained by a team run by Bennett right-hand-man Paul Owens, Ian Harrison, Paul Brown, Graham Hall and others from premises in West Haughton, Manchester were fast cars which won four Euro F2 Championship races.
German wunderkind Stefan Bellof was victorious in two rounds – winning his first ever F2 race at Silverstone – and set five fastest laps (in 1982), while Roberto Guerrero and Elgh won a race apiece in 1981.
Italian F1 driver, Beppe Gabbiani raced a works MM82 alongside Bellof in 1982. The cars were jets, in part as a result of an ingenious suspension locking mechanism which allowed a very low ride height which enhanced the ground effect created by the car’s underbodies/tunnels, and powerful, but very fragile, short-stroke Heidegger prepared BMW engines.
Corrado Fabi won the championship aboard a works-March 822 BMW (five wins) with Bellof fourth and Gabbiani fifth. Beppe’s best in MM82-04 was second place at Enna. In an appalling run of reliability, he had five DNFs and Bellof six. By contrast, Fabi scored points in eight of the 13 championship rounds.
By the time Maurer relocated the team back to Germany in 1983, after local press criticism, Brunner had already left for ATS and Willy was brawling with Heidegger in the courts.
Gabbiani moved to Onyx March for the 1983 F2 Championship, finishing an excellent third and best-of- the-rest behind the Ralt RH6 Honda duo of Jonathan Palmer and Mike Thackwell.
The MM83’s were still quick in the hands of Stefan, Alain Ferte and Kenny Acheson, but the four points-scoring finishes of the three works cars was an appalling record of reliability as things unravelled. Owens began cutting off the supply of spares…his bills were going unpaid, he decamped at the end of the year. Willy walked away from his F1 design and parked Bellof at Porsche in ’83 and Tyrrell for 1984, where his pace in both teams was of course mega!
It was all over, but not without merit. McCarthy’s car has ingenuity and quality throughout, MM82-04 is one of four Maurers in Australia, oh to have them all on the same grid one day.
“Hop to it Andrew, and hand me another Coopers Red sunshine”…
Original Personal wheel to be recovered in leather, and nice look at the magic of ally-honeycomb panels.
Bodywork, BBS wheels and new Willans fuel cell await their turn for attention.
It’s as well McCarthy is a slim (ish) short-arse. The Maurers were works cars built for underfed pubescents, they aren’t like a customer car such as an early Ralt RT4, for example, which do accommodate Ford F150 driving Fat Bobs. Note the steering rack of course, and the way the beefy-bulkheads provide torsional stiffness.
Andrew wishes to record the work of and thank Sam Henderson of Rotorweld, Auckland NZ for the perfect honeycomb work on the tub floor, Paul Deady at Melbourne’s Dana Engineering for wheel hubs and gearbox machining. Mo Meghji (ex Arrows F1 fabby) in Melbourne did the perfect A-frames and exhaust tig work and Garry Simkin in Sydney, the gearbox internals and setup.
The thing should stop ok…
Credits…
‘Young, Gifted and Black’ MotorSport article by Gary Watkins, F2 Index-Fastlane, MotorSport Images, Ferdi Kraling Motorsport, Mark Bisset, Andrew McCarthy, Stephen Dalton
Tailpiece…
Maurer MM82-04 framed above by a Ford 9-inch diff (attached to a Ford Falcon Sprint) and a Ralt RT4 below.
Postscript…
I thought that there was snowflakes chance of McCarthy having the car running at the Phillip Island Classic on March 8-10 but “Ye of little faith!” as my friend said.
Fellow Maurer racer Simon Gardner said, “You should have seen what still had to be done here on Thursday morning”, but he made it even if he ran the car with braking problems and without a clutch at all. The latter is manageable as the races for these cars use rolling starts and it wasn’t hard for us to push the car to allow Andrew to pull it into first.
A lower front wishbone retaining bolt came loose going into Southern Loop at about 9000rpm, there was a bit of luck there, and the throttle linkage came loose in the last race but bloody well done getting it all done while holding down a full-time gig.
Now all ya gotta do is rectify the dramas and make it safe, the inherent pace of the thing is already clear.
Andrew’s crew, Finn Kelly and Craig Armstrong both deserve valour awards as our intrepid pilot was in ‘hyper-drive mode’ throughout the weekend…
Finito…
primotipo... 