Rothman’s promo handout of the type used at race meetings back in the day.
Frank Matich did well with this unique Repco-Holden F5000 V8 engined McLaren M10B, chassis 400-10, winning the Australian Grand Prix with it in November 1970. In early ‘71, after finishing second to Graham McRae’s M10B Chev in the Tasman Cup, he took he entered the first two rounds of the US F5000 Championship held in California in April/May. He won the Riverside Grand Prix and finished second in the following Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, proving the car was one of the quickest F5000s around.
Sponsorship commitments forced his return to Australia to contest the Gold Star, a pity! Given the solid US campaign you would think Repco – he was their contracted test and race driver – and Rothmans would have seen the good sense in staying a bit longer and surfing the wave of success. US wins would have created good column inches back home and promoted Repco-Holden engine sales stateside, the irony of successful Australian V8s on the ‘home turf’ of that pushrod-V8-donk genre will not be lost on most of you. When Repco and Matich returned to the US with a full-on two car works L&M F5000 Championship assault in 1973 it was a clusterfuck, a tangent covered in this article and another linked below; https://primotipo.com/2015/09/11/frank-matich-matich-f5000-cars-etcetera/
Back home things turned to custard as he collided with another car – in a zig-zag moment as two cars converged – in practice at Oran Park before the first Gold Star round on June 27.
By then FM had decided to build his own car, so rather than order a replacement M10B chassis from Trojan Cars – manufacturers of McLaren customer cars – he decided his Brookvale team should rebuild the buggered monocoque as practice for what became the Matich A50 Repco-Holden that November. FM’s cars to that point – the SR3-4 sportscars – had spaceframe chassis.
When the thrice tubbed – the original, a Trojan replacement after a July 1970 prang, plus the Matich built chassis – M10B was rebuilt it was designated M10C.
In the lead up to the 1971 Tasman, FM developed 13-inch Goodyears as part of his test-driver role with Goodyear, he was one of about 10 in the world at the time, he was the distributor of the Akron giant’s race-tyres in Australia too. F1 cars raced on 13-inch covers and Goodyear were keen to evolve suitable boots of the same diameter for the heavier F5000s. The M10A and M10B were supplied ex-factory with 15-inch wheels front and rear. Simultaneously, the Matich crew increased the wheelbase of the car by 150mm by using redesigned front wishbones and longer radius rods, these and other subtle changes heralded the very quick C-specification.
Back to the ’71 Gold Star. Matich won at Surfers Paradise when he rejoined the Gold Star circus on August 29, 1971 but retirements at Warwick Farm and Sandown cruelled his championship aspirations. By then the main game was readying the new Matich A50 Repco-Holden for the November 21 AGP at Warwick Farm where the several days old car finished a splendid first!
Etcetera…
Matich in the middle of the leading gaggle of cars not long after the start of the Riverside Grand Prix, that’s Sam Posey’s Surtees TS8 Chev turning in. The red car out of focus on the left looks suspiciously like Skip Barber’s F1 March 701 Ford DFV. Ron Grable’s Lola T190 Chev won the first 38 lap heat and Posey won the second, but FM’s two second placings won the day and the bubbles overall.
I like this unfinished painting, Kiwi artist Michael Kidd never got beyond his initial sketch of the McLaren M10C Repco-Holden in ‘71 Tasman specs as shown below. Matich leads Niel Allen’s M10B Chev and Frank Gardner’s works-Lola T192 Chev in the distance. Circuit folks? How ’bout completing the painting Michael?
What’s interesting to we anoraks – perhaps – is that between the end of the Tasman and the trip to the US a couple of months later, Matich fitted a more substantial roll-over hoop with two rear stays mounted further back on the car at the rear. Look at the shots above and below. I wonder why? Different US regs perhaps, dunno, that’s one for Derek Kneller…
The more you look, the more you see of course, here’s one for the Repco-Holden perves. Don’t the inlet trumpets on the engine above indicate that that injection slides are in use rather than butterflies? I thought by this stage slides had been given the arse by REDCO given their propensity to jam from the collection of roadside detritus on our shitty tracks?
Credits…
Rod Wolfe Collection, Derek Kneller Collection, Terry Russell, Michael Kidd, Eli Solomon
Tailpiece…
Frank Matich’s F5000 commitment began with the purchase of this McLaren M10A Chev in late 1969, before CAMS had ‘finally landed’ on their decision for the new Australian National F1 to succeed the much loved, but running out of puff, 2.5-litre formula. That balsy-call by FM and staggering tale of ‘decision making fuck-wittery’ by the Conspiracy Against Motor Sport is contained within this exhausting epic; https://primotipo.com/2018/05/03/repco-holden-f5000-v8/
By the way, the small minded and petty (me) can still take the piss out of CAMS’ name quite legitimately. They registered the new business name Motorsport Australia with effect from January 1, 2020 but the full legal name of the organisation we all love is the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport Ltd (ABN 55 069 045 665) trading as Motorsport Australia, so CAMS it is.
Frank’s M10A, chassis 300-10, was delivered to him in August 1969, and Derek Kneller, ex-McLaren came with it. Derek and Peter Mabey immediately set to and updated the car to the just coming M10B spec – DG300, radiator, body, suspension wheels etc – and created a jet that Matich put on pole in four 1970 Tasman rounds for two wins, the NZ GP at Pukekohe and Wigram.
The last time Frank raced it – F5000 was not Gold Star legal in 1970, see fuck-wittery above – was during the March 29, 1970 Formula Libre 1970 Singapore Grand Prix on the big-balls Upper Thomson Road circuit.
Eli Solomon picks up the story, “Frank complained that his car weighed 1500lbs and carried 28.5 gallons of petrol designed for a 100 mile course. Talk that Niel Allen would also race an M10A never materialised (albeit he had a race winning M10B ready for the 1970 Tasman).”
“In Thursday practice Matich took out a bus stop doing 160mph on the Murder Mile, his best time had been 2:05.5, fifth fastest compared with the winner Graeme Lawrence, Ferrari 246T on pole at 1:57.8. Kevin Bartlett, Mildren Alfa Romeo T33 2.5 V8, did 1:58.6 and Max Stewart, Mildren Waggott TC-4V 2-litre, 1:59.6.” Lawrence won from John MacDonald’s Brabham BT10/23C Ford FVA and Albert Poon’s similarly powered Brabham BT30.
M10A-300-10 was rebuilt around a Repco-Holden V8 and sold to Don O’Sullivan. McLaren F5000 fetishests should suss Allen Brown’s archive here, budget two days to do the journey thoroughly; https://www.oldracingcars.com/mclaren/m10a/ and here; https://www.oldracingcars.com/mclaren/m10b/
Obiter…
One last final fleeting glance for me before uploading this masterpiece. The Rothmans’ shot of 400-10 isn’t a photograph of the car in M10C spec but rather M10B spec before modification, the specification sheet listing is M10B before mods too, the poor old marketers are always the last to know. So, sleep easy now with that knowledge, I’m not OCD-ADHDxyz believe it or not but I do have my uber-anal moments…
Finito…
primotipo... 