Surely the most exotic rally machine to ever come to Australia was Ric ‘Skid’ Marks’ Lancia Stratos which contested the 1976 Castrol International and other local events before seemingly disappearing…
I really know SFA about this car, but shall make good in the next few weeks and assemble some details. In the meantime, the photos will have to suffice. Not still here, I guess?
David McKay’s Aston Martin DB3S with trick Rice trailer behind, Fisherman’s Bend 1958.
This was as good a racer and rig as it got in Australia at the time. The machine is the second of these cars the Sydney racer/writer/entrepreneur owned, click here for a a piece on the cars; https://primotipo.com/2017/09/28/david-mckays-aston-martin-db3ss/
Jack Godbehear, Ringwood orchardist, racer and great engine builder in his JGS-JAP 298cc (Jack Godbehear Spl) at Rob Roy on November 3, 1959.
Jack came up most recently in conversation with Alan Hamilton (gee, I drafted this a while back!). Jack rebuilt the engine of Norman Hamilton’s Porsche 550 Spyder after Harry Firth got into a bit of strife! Jack’s motorcycle experience with bevel-gears meant he was familiar with the complexities of the German engine.
I know of Jack as a Formula Ford and Lotus-Ford twin-cam engine builder. Someone who taught Larry Perkins plenty of engine tricks. If anybody has a document about Jack, or can spend a few minutes on the phone and give me the gen, I’d love to hear from you. He was behind many a race win, not least his son-in-law, Tony Stewart’s.
Jack Brabham, Peter Revson and Ron Tauranac at Indianapolis in 1969.
Revvie finished fifth in a good run in the Brabham BT25 760 Repco 4.2 V8 whilst Jack retired.
A couple of months later, Peter won the Indianapolis Racing Park 200, an event comprsing two 100 mile heats on a road course. He won one heat and was second in the other taking a great win for the much-maligned four-valve Repco motor.
To be clear, these results and Matich’s win aboard the 4.8-litre V8 760-powered Matich SR4 in the 1969 Australian Sportscar Championship proved there was nothing wrong with the design, development could not have fixed.
Racer Reg in the Elsternwick, Melbourne, back streets.
Not going for a suburban blast but Reg Hunt posing for a ‘paper shoot in his just arrived 2.5-litre, Maserati 250F engined Maserati A6GCM, what a car! Click here for a feature on it:https://primotipo.com/2017/12/12/hunts-gp-maser-a6gcm-2038/
And below, with Bira before the start of the 1956 AGP at Albert Park. Graham Hunt outta focus at the right rear, I suspect.
Garrie Cooper, Elfin MR9 Chev from Bob Minogue in the ex-Brown/Costanzo Lola T430 Chev at Calder on February 28, 1982, in the dying ‘Arco Graphite Days’ days of F5000, and not too long before Garrie’s sad, untimely passing. A bit about the Elfin MR9 here:https://primotipo.com/2016/06/10/elfin-light-aircraft/
John Wright won the 25-lap race in his Lola T400 from Bruce Allison in Reg Orr’s Elfin MR8B-C and Cooper, all cars Chev-engined. Minogue was fifth.
Arnold Glass in the cookie-cutter or bacon-slicer braked ex-works BRM P48 at Lakeside in 1961 or 1962.
The car was still at this stage powered by the original 2.5-litre BRM four-cylinder GP engine rather than the aluminium Traco-Buick V8 which followed. See here for the gen; ‘Bourne to Ballarat’- BRM P48 Part 2… | primotipo…
I was very much looking forward to S5000 making a splash this year and regaining the Gold Star awards credibility, hopefully they will be on circuit soon!
I must have drafted that line during Covid. It’s one of Garry Rogers Ligier JSF3-S5000 Fords, I don’t recall the locale.
Chris Lambden is a close mate, I must invite him to do an article on how the CAMS/Supercar Junta and related Vested Interests fucked S5000 to a standstill and destroyed what could and should have been easily Australia’s most spectacular racing category. Watch this space.
Bob Morris was a goer wasn’t he!
Here he is doing the Light Car Club of Australia a favour by cutting the grass on the inside of Dandy Road. He is running, or trying to, up the inside of the A9X Torana driven by Pete Geoghegan, Geoghegan won his last ATCC race that April 1978 day. Pete won from Morris and Allan Grice, also Torana A9X mounted.
I loved the way the Ron Hodgson boys stuck it up the ‘factory team’ for so long.
Budgie Smugglers, Stirl? Close, but not quite.
Stirling Moss catches up with Roger Bailey during preparation of the Ferrari Dino 246T, which Chris Amon drove to within a bees-dick of beating Jim Clark’s Lotus 49 Ford in the following day’s 1968 Australian GP at Sandown Park. See here for more Dino: Amon’s Tasman Dino… | primotipo…
Marvin the Marvel’s Mustang leads the field at the start of the 1968 Sebring 12 Hour. Not quite. Jo Siffert’s Porsche 907 is to the left and off-screen, the winning car Jo shared with the very recently departed Hans Hermann.
Allan Moffat is aboard a Shelby Ford Mustang he shared with fellow ‘Australian’ Horst Kwech, click here for a lengthy epic on Moffat’s American career; Moffat’s Lotus Cortina, Shelby, K-K and Trans-Am phases… | primotipo…
#50 is the Ludovico Scarfiotti Porsche 907, #29 Paul Hawkins, Ford GT40 – note his JW Automotive teammate #28 Jacky Ickx is still belting-up and has not yet dropped the clutch – #9 is Scooter Patrick’s Lola T70 Mk3 GT Chev, with Jo Bonnier’s yellow similar car standing out further back. #42 is the Lucien Bianchi blue with taped up lights Alpine A211 Renault , the white #56 Porsche 910 was started by Foitec. A Chev Corvette is well forward but I’m not sure which one, so too is one of Roger Penske’s Chev Camaros, probably the car started by Mark Donohue. And the rest…
Lorraine Hill’s Swallow Doretti at Warwick Farm in the early 1960s, a mighty fine racer at a time women behind the wheel were a rare thing. Later married to racer Brique Reed, of course, a speedy couple indeed. Who are the MGA racers folks?
Reigning J.A.F. Japanese Grand Prix winner Leo Geoghegan during practice of the May 1970 event at uber-fast, daunting Fuji International Speedway.
Leo is chasing more straight-line speed in his Lotus 59B Waggott 2-litre by running wingless. Jackie Stewart won the race in a Brabham BT30 Ford FVC, from his namesake, Max Stewart’s Mildren Waggott, with Leo sixth. See here for Leo’s ’69 victory; Leo Geoghegan: Australian Driving Champion RIP… | primotipo…
Lex Davison’s high born Alfa Romeo Tipo B being chased through Forrest’s Elbow by Doug Whiteford’s more utilitarian but very fast Ford V8 Spl ‘Black Bess’ at Mount Panorama during the Over 1500cc Handicap race, October 1950.
This dice up front lasted for most of the race until Lex locked a brake with two laps to go; Whiteford won on scratch, but ’51 AGP winner, Warwick Pratley took the handicap win, the money and cup with Dicer Doug behind him. See here for more on Bess; Doug Whiteford: ‘Black Bess’: Woodside, South Australia 1949… | primotipo…
Mark Webber cruising the streets of London in his Porsche 919 Hybrid in 2016, the PR perks of the job! See here; Le Mans Arty Farty… | primotipo…
From the state of the sportscar art in 2016 to the equivalent in the late 1950s, the Lotus 15 Climax raced by owner Derek Jolly and John Roxburgh to victory in the Caversham 6 Hour in 1962 from the Dave Sullivan and George Wakelin Holdens.
See here for a piece about Derek and his two Lotus 15s; Derek’s Deccas and Lotus 15’s… | primotipo…
One of my favourite categories in one of my favourite years.
Leo Geoghegan’s works-Birrana 273 Lotus-Hart-Ford 416-B leads the field in the September 1973 Symmons Plains, Tasmania, round of the Australian F2 Championship, which he won.
In line astern is the similarly powered Bob Skelton’s Bowin P6, Enno Buesselmann’s Birrana 273, Chris Farrell’s Dolphin 732 and Bruce Allison’s Bowin P6. See here for more ’73 ANF2; Testing Times… | primotipo…
Don O’Sullivan in his Matich SR3 Repco 4.4 V8 at Surfers Paradise in May 1969.
This is one of the two SR3s FM raced in the 1967 Can-Am Cup, and then ‘belted’ Chris Amon’s Ferrari Can-Am 350 with in the 1968 Tasman Cup support races, here in hi-winged form.
This epic about the SR4 also has a bit about the SR3: Matich SR4 Repco…by Nigel Tait and Mark Bisset | primotipo…
What a superb looking racing car the Lola T400 Chev is, especially this one.
John Leffler braking hard into Shell Corner at Sandown, possibly during the February 1976 Rothmans round, he crashed out after five laps.
I’ve never done a piece on Leffo, time I did, he was our Gold Star champion in this car, T400-HU15, after all. A bit here:https://primotipo.com/2025/11/17/1975-australian-grand-prix-surfers-paradise/
And below blasting down the Surfers Paradise main straight, what meeting given his regular use of #7, who knows, but 1976-77.
George Jamieson, Lotus 11 Climax FWA, chassis 358 on the grid above (and with fag below) during the 1960 Lowood, Australian Grand Prix weekend. See here for Mildren and the 1960 AGP:https://primotipo.com/2018/06/08/mildrens-unfair-advantage/
Car #135, an AC Ace, is not listed in the race program. I’m intrigued to know who it is. Jamieson DNF the race won by Alec Mildren’s Cooper T51 Maserati.
Racetracks in Australia ‘under snow’ is rather a rare event, ‘Skyline’ at Mount Panorama on August 22, 2020. Tangentially, see here:https://primotipo.com/2018/11/26/bathurst-lap-record/
Dave Walker, Lotus 72D Ford during the 1972 Austrian Grand Prix weekend at the Osterreichring. DNF after engine failure in the race won by his teammate Emerson Fittipaldi. See more on Dave here:https://primotipo.com/2024/06/01/dave-walker-obituary/
Multiple Australian Hillclimb Champion Bruce Walton gives the Norman Hamilton crew a lift through the Fisherman’s Bend paddock in 1958, Porsche 550 Spyder. See here for a feature on this car; Hamilton’s Porsche 550 Spyder… | primotipo…
Credits…
John Lloyd, Leon Sims Collection, David Friedman, David Zeunert Collection, oldracingcars.com, Trevor Garbett, Darren Foster, S5000, An1images.com, Warren Reid, Cummins Archive, Ken Devine Collection, Graham Ruckert, Ian Smith, George Jamieson via Janice Jamieson, Barry Anstee
Tailpiece…
Battle of the Queenslander Lotus 23 racers at Longford in 1968. Glyn Scott’s Lotus 23B Ford from Lionel Ayers MRC Lotus 23B Ford diving into The Viaduct. See here for Glyn; Glyn Scott… | primotipo… and here for Lionel; Sportscar Stalwarts… | primotipo…
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