Tyler Alexander at left with Phil Hill’s Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Cooper T70 Climax FPF 2.5 at Pukekohe, Auckland during the January 9, 1965 New Zealand Grand Prix meeting. Car #17 is John Riley’s Lotus 18/21 Climax.
This car was an updated version of a chassis Bruce and the late Tim Mayer raced the year before – T70 FL-1-64 – while The Chief raced a new design designated the T79: T79 FL-1-65. It’s pretty familar turf to us, see here: https://primotipo.com/2016/11/18/tim-mayer-what-might-have-been/
That’s the chassis of the T70 above at Pukekohe – with a Brabham BT4 in the foreground – while Bruce is settling himself into the T79 at Levin, the second Tasman round below.
Bruce and Jim Clark collided in one of the Pukehohe heats. While Jim started the GP in his works Lotus 32B Climax, Bruce’s Cooper’s T79 was hors d’combat for the weekend, so he commandeered Phil’s T70 but succumbed to gearbox failure after 13 of the race’s 50 laps. Clark lasted only 2 laps before suspension problems, leaving Graham Hill to win the race aboard his Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT11A Climax.
McLaren was fifth at Levin, with Jim Clark’s Lotus 32B Climax the race winner. Jim was the Tasman Cup victor too, with four wins from the seven championship rounds or five wins from eight races, including the Lakeside 99 non-championship round. Not to forget, however many heats Clark won.
Bruce’s Tasman plans were thrown somewhat up in the air. The two Coopers were designed around 13-inch Dunlops but Bruce had signed a contract with Firestone for supply of tyres. Defining though the deal was commercially, in the short term the hard, American 15-inch covers were shite for road racing.
The bigger wheels resulted in handling problems which would normally have been sorted before the long trip south. As it was, the necessary makeshift modifications were made between races.
The Levin International start on January 16, with Phil and Bruce alongside Clark despite problems adapting Bruce’s new Firestone tyres to a chassis designed with Dunlops in mind.
Despite these difficulties McLaren did Wigram and Teretonga races in faster times than those which gave him his 1964 victories.
In Australia, once 13-inch wheels were available, McLaren was fourth at Sandown and won the Australian Grand Prix final round at Longford from pole to finish the Tasman series runner-up to Clark, while Phil Hill was a well-merited third. There is no doubt that if pre-trip testing time had been on their side, the Cooper-Climax drivers would have made a much better showing in New Zealand.
Pop McLaren, Wally Willmott, Bruce Harre, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark, Tyler Alexander and Colin Beanland David Oxton informs us, in the Wigram paddock, over the January 23, 1965 weekend.
Showing real progress, McLaren, below, was second to Clark’s Lotus with the well-driven Brabham BT7A Climax of Jim Palmer in third.
Teretonga, above, was better still with a team two-three – McLaren from Hill – but Jim Clark was still the man in the front of the field with three wins on the trot, only Graham Hills Scuderia Veloce Brabham BT11A Climax win in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe at the start of the month ‘rained on Jimmy’s Lotus parade.’
Bruce McLaren leads Graham Hill and Jack Brabham early in his victorious run in the AGP into Longford village: Cooper T70, and Brabham BT11A’s by two, all Coventry Climax FPF 2.2-litre powered. McLaren and Brabham below.
Every Dog Has its Day – perhaps every car too!
At the end of the Tasman, Bruce McLaren sold the T79 to South African ace, John Love. The shot above shows him on the way to a brilliant second place in the 1967 South African Grand Prix.
The machine was a star-car in Africa, winning the 1965, 1966 and 1967 South African National F1 Championships, co-credits to Love’s Cooper T55 Climax and Brabham BT20 Repco in 1965 and 1967 duly noted.
See here on Allen Brown’s oldracingcars.com for the T70s: https://www.oldracingcars.com/cooper/t70/and here for the T79: https://www.oldracingcars.com/cooper/t79/
Etcetera…
The Cooper T79 returned to the UK in 1968 and has pinged around the historic racing world since as per the oldracingcars.com reference.
Credits…
Doug Shaw, Andrew Horrox, Euan Sarginson via Greg Bramwell, CAN- Classic Auto News, Kay Wright, GP Library, MotorSport
Finito…
primotipo... 