A Q Car – 1955 Ford Popular

To say I have found it irksome to discontinue my daily psychoontyres blogs for the last couple of years would be an inderstatement. It has not been for want of encouragement or indeed enthusiasm, I nearly got it going again during lockdown but there were a million other things to sort out while everything went quiet and before I knew it I was off furlough and back at work. I am afraid future posts will be sporadic, if I can get one done every month I’ll count that as a success for now.

So excuses over I have author Mike Allen to thank for an e-mail he sent 18 months ago which has been needling my conscience to extract the proverbial digit and find my log in details to get the show back on the road. Mikes Dad James Neil Allen, known as Neil, bought a Ford Popular in 1955 and here in his own words is a description of the modifications he made to it.

Allen Ford Pop

The Ford Pop was produced from 1953. It was based on the pre-war Anglia but was stripped of every refinement originally on the Anglia, the most important from my point of view was the opening windscreen (In those days it could get VERY foggy). However the original capacity was increased from 933cc to the Prefects 1172cc giving 30bhp, Max speed 60mph. It only weighed 16cwt so didn’t feel underpowered. I bought mine on Sep 2nd 1955 for £395 from Frank Guest of West Bromwich.I drove away with a Ford 8 cylinder head (£2) in the boot. This had a ground surface but the cylinder heads were “as cast” and I spent many evenings recovering the sandy surface.

The Pop had transverse leaf springs front and back and was dangerous to drive especially on cabered profile roads as it had a tendancy to dive into the kerb. I saw an advert in the classifieds section of “Autocar” for a Panhard rod (16/10d). This came as a short rod silent block ends and replacement (longer) shackle pins. It fitted on one side of the leaf spring anchored to a point on the chassis. It therefore allowed the wheel (front steering) to move in an arc up and down but stopped any lateral movement of the steering. To fit it you jacked up the end of the spring to take the weight of the car off the spring so that when the Ford shackle pin was knocked out, the spring didn’t fall on the ground. The supplied longer pin was then inserted and the rod attached. A nut was then tightened to secure the joint. The same procedure at the outer fixed end.

I still remember the effect this simple mod had. You could drive on a cambered road “hands off” without any ill effects. I then bought a set of “Ridemaster” springs for the rear transverse suspension. This was mainly to stabilise the car if you were towing and consisted of two stout coil springs in line with a tensioning thread in the middle.

Unfortunately I was unable to fit it myself as the clip end was a force fit around the end of the leaf spring. Fortunately one of my minor customers ran a bit of a garage on the side. He put my car on a ramp and using a lump hammer drove the clip over the end of the spring. I then tightened the tension until it was just taut with the car at rest. On cornering it added massively to the strength of the leaf spring. I used to chuckle at the rear view mirror at hapless motorists following me through fast bends.

Back to the Ford 8 cylinder head. I didn’t fit this until we moved to Manchester. As purchased the compression ratio was a laughable 6.16 to one. With the 8 head the CR was a super modern (for 1956) 8:1!!

Obviously it was going to ‘pink’ so I bought a spare choke control which the cabling enabled the control to stay put. The engine end of the cable was attached to the side of the distributor which was mounted on a lug on the side of the cylinder head. I fitted a washer here which allowed free rotation of the distributor.

Any sign of pinking and I pulled the knob on the dashboard out slightly until the pinking stopped. This was during petrol rationing and if I stopped out in the sticks for petrol and bought super shell 100 octane I was often offered more than I had coupons for.

Windscreen washing was achieved by fitting a bracket on the dashboard to hold a narrow polythene bottle which you squeezed and hey presto a small jet hit the windscreen!
The wipers worked by the vacuum in the inlet manifold. At a steady 30mph on a flat road they worked perfectly, they slowed and stopped if you accelerated, going up a long hill you had to keep lifting your foot to get a few wipes. Solution a vacuum reservoir which gave you a few more vital seconds.

You have to remember that in the 50s there were specialised shops for car bits and pieces for maintenance or modification. Cars were simpler then. My piece de resistance however was my own invention. Castrol oil was sold in round tins with a conical top and screw top about 1 ½ ins in diameter. I sawed off the top (all the conical bit and a bit of side) I then found some electrical protection tubing of push fit diameter to the screw and which stayed in the shape you curled it.

Next I discovered that brazing wire could be tapped, 16BA. Top 4” of radiator blanked off
except for about 4” at one side with tin plate. Same at engine side of the radiator but at the other side so I was forcing hot air in at the left and out at the right. A radiator has horizontal plates so the ram air (only when car in motion) passed across the full width of the rad and not up or down. The can top was soldered at the opening of the back piece. The length of electric bendy pipe was pushed on and fed through a hole I cut in the lower bulkhead to come into the cab just above the passengers feet. The plates were held in place by VERY carefully feeding the tapped brazing wire through holes in the plates and through the radiator being secured by tiny nuts ! There was no temperature control, the passenger just pushed the tube to one side if things got too hot!

On a trip to Wragby, the racket from the engine suddenly stopped. At 40mph I tentatively switched off the ignition which caused immediate deceleration, so I switched on again and stopped to look. I had shed a fan belt. I fitted another and pressed on. It then dawned on me that the fan was the source of the noise, so I took it off and never replaced it till I sold the car. As long as the water pump was going the water temp never got too hot even when commuting via Oxford St in Manchester.

The tiny headlights (6 volt!!) were useless so I fitted twin “Notek” spotlights, in the process finding out that the painted bumpers were made from spring steel and were undrillable. Fitted a Mangoletsi inlet manifold swirler. A Servais straight through silencer and a short circuit plug which put the circuit breaker to earth as an immobiliser.

Nobody ever kept up with me 0-30 but tyre wear was a problem till I fitted Michelin X to the 450-17” wheels.

My thanks to everyone including the Mike and Neil Allen for your continuing support, looking forward to the next edition of Gettin’ A l’il Psychoontyres, don’t forget to come back now !

Half A Car – Lotus Ford T 87 #87/R2 & #87/R4

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For the 1981 World Championship Lotus had developed the twin chassis Lotus 86 which I looked at last week, no sooner had testing of that car been finished than the ruling body of the sport outlawed the skirts on which the car depended to seal the airflow beneath the body of the car and mandated a minimum ride height.

This led to the development of the Lotus 88 which had twin chassis as did the 86 but no skirts and a 6cm minimum ride height as mandated by the new rules. Unfortunately while the governing the body of the sport accepted the Lotus 88 as legal most of the other teams did not declaring that the second outer aerodynamic chassis was a banned movable aerodynamic aid and not a fully suspended chassis.

Set against a back ground to these semantic arguments between the grandee teams of Ferrari, Renault and Alfa Romeo going up against the garagistes of Brabham, Lotus, McLaren, Williams et al made of high drama and in this instance almost every body building cars turned against Lotus in denouncing the Lotus 88 which meant that it only ever took part in a couple of practice sessions.

For the first half of the 1981 season Lotus were therefore forced into running the Lotus 81 from the 1980 season. By the time the Formula one circus arrived in Great Britain Lotus made one final attempt to run the Lotus 88 in practice but were again refused by their fellow competitors and so Lotus ran the 88 sans second aeroydynamic chassis and with more conventional aerodynamic side pods and wings as #87/R2 is seen being driven by Nigel Mansell during practice for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1981 and #87/R4 is seen with the later front wings at Hall & Hall and in the Paddock at Silverstone during the classic meeting earlier this year.

The single chassis version of the Lotus 88 is known as the Lotus Type 87. The highlight of the Lotus 87’s half a seasons competition career was a couple of 4th place finishes, for Elio de Angeles in Italy and Nigel Mansell at Ceasers Palace.

Chassis R2 was used by Elio de Angeles in Monaco, Spain and France scoring a best 5th place finish in Spain, Mansell took the car over for the British Grand Prix and failed to qualify. There after this car was used as a spare for the remainder of the 1981 season and the first race of the 1982 season in South Africa.

So far as I have been able to determine chassis #87/R4 seen in the more recent photo’s was driven by Nigel Mansell in at least four Grand Prix during the second half of the 1981 season. Note that the use of space age Carbon Fiber and Kevlar was becoming widespread by 1981 the following season the majority of Formula One monocoques were made from the material with the exception of Ferrari.

The absence of any bodywork around the rear suspension and exhaust shows what a rush job it was to get the Lotus 87’s to the grid most of the contemporary cars of the period had the rear axle covered in body panels by 1981 including the 1981 British Grand Prix winning McLaren MP4/1 of John Watson.

My thanks to Rick Hall if Hall & Hall for generously allowing me to take the photos of #87/R4, which is for sale, on his premises.

Thanks for joining me on this “Half A Car” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be relating a Scandinavian Tale about an unusual fire engine. Don’t forget to come back now !

Fury’s Experiment – Ferrari 312 B3 #009 Spazzaneve

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In the autumn of 1972 I was sitting in my dorm at school thumbing through a copy of Autocar when I came across a 4″ x 2″ photograph of today’s featured car the, there was only ever one, Ferrari 312 B3 nick named the Spazzaneve or snow plough. I reached for a pair of scissors and cut the photo out and stuck it to my bedside table where I could see it from my bed and would day dream of driving this compact vehicle to to dozens of Grand Prix victories.

Being only 13 at the time and some months away from becoming fully mentally engaged with Formula One, I had no idea that it would be 40 years before I got to see this car in the flesh, partly because it was an experimental model and never raced in anger, partly because it’s designer Mauro ‘Fury’ Forghieri was to be moved to another job soon after #009 was built and tested and partly because Enzo Ferrari was ill which allowed FIAT management at helm of the good ship Ferrari and they wanted Franco Rocchi and Giacomo Caliri under the direction of FIAT’s Stefano Colombo to design Ferrari’s 1973 Grand Prix challenger.

The 312 B3 Spazzaneve was a significant departure from Foghieri’s previous model the not entirely unsuccessful Ferrari 312 B2.

Like many designers of the time, including Tyrrells designer Derek Gardner, Mauro was concerned with improving the handling of his cars by packaging all the heavy items, radiators, fuel, oil and water tanks and so forth as close to the centre of the cars gravity as possible.

Interestingly this experimental vehicle did not feature inboard front brakes, as did both contemporary Lotus and Tyrrell designs which would have reduced the unsprung weight of the car to the benefit of the handling and brought these items closer to the cars centre of gravity further reducing the chassis ‘polar moment of inertia’ which has the benefit of reducing chassis stresses and improving handling.

To improve front end grip radiators were mounted behind the front wheels and are fed fresh air by the large NACA ducts in the nose.

The hot radiator air was then expelled through the ducts behind the mirror.

Thanks to Regazzoni at The Nostalgia Forum I have been told that Mauro Fogheri’s dedication on the side of the car translates as “With this one [the car] I could understand many more things. With sympathy and a bit of envy Mauro Forghieri”

Thanks to GD66 and domenico also at The Nostalgia Forum these signatures have been identified as those of Jacky Ickx, top, and Chief Mechanic Giulio Borsari bottom.

I have not seen any photos of Ickx’s team mate Art Mezario driving the car in period, but there is no reason to suppose he didn’t, Art has demonstrated #009 since.

The cockpit for anyone taller than an average horse jockey is incredibly cramped.

Note the front support has three different anchor points, linked here is a photo of Jacky Ickx driving #009 with the wing mounted all the way forward on square shouldered Firestone tyres, and another of #009 with the rear wing mounted further back on round shouldered Goodyear tyres linked here. Jacky and Art can be seen chatting in the back ground in the latter.

Like Derek Gardner’s Tyrrell 006 design the Spazzanave was found to be very nervous to drive, unlike Tyrrell Ferrari ditched the low polar momentum concept and built 3 freshly designed cars which resulted in Ferrari’s worst season to date, while Jackie Stewart drove the Tyrrell OO6 to his third World Drivers Championship in 1973.

Soon after returning to work in 1973 Enzo Ferrari withdrew his team from the 1973 World Championship for a short sabbatical and recalled Mauro Fogierhi to his former position to rework the 1973 cars with his low polar momentum idea’s. The following season the 1974 version of the Ferrari 312 B3 was developed into a championship contender.

Thanks to a touch of galvanic corrosion twixt wheel nut and wheel my school boy day dreams were partly realised while visiting Hall & Hall in Bourne when I was asked to apply the brake pedal in an effort to help free the wheel nuts of the car. Christmas certainly came a couple of weeks early this year.

I understand #009 is for sale, unfortunately I do not have the readies to relieve Hall & Hall of the responsibility of looking after Spazzaneve, if you do contact details can be found on this link.

My thanks to Ted Walker of Ferret Fotographics for taking me to visit Hall & Hall and to Rick Hall for permission to take these photographs.

Thanks for joining me on this “Fury’s Experiment” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Christmas Window Shopping – Hall & Hall

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Last week I got a phone call from Ted “Ferret Fotographics” Walker asking if I’d like to accompany him on a 300 mile round trip to Bourne, Lincs and back to visit Hall & Hall where he had some cars to inspect. I accepted on the basis that this might be an interesting window shopping trip, and as you shall see below it was close to the ultimate Christmas window shopping trip for petrol heads and race fans.

Among the cars I was kindly allowed to photograph was the Donington Collection’s 1952 Gullwing Mercedes 300 SL complete with experimental roof mounted wing that was around 15 years ahead of it’s time, this car was tried in practice, but not raced, for the 1952 Le Mans 24 Hours.

Moving chronologically on this 1953 Delahaye 235 Coupé with a standardised Chapron body at a price when new of FF3,800,000 cost twice as much as the much faster contemporary Jaguar XK120.

Pierre Dumay and Jo Schlesser drove this Ferrari 250 GT SWB, chassis #2127, to a second place finish overall in the 1960 Tour de France, it’s last known in period race was in the 1964 6h Dakar race in which “Cicoira” drove it to a 3rd place finish.

Unknown to all but a select few at Ford, Cosworth and Lotus the Lotus 48 was powered by a sign of things to come. The 48 was campaigned successfully in Formula Two and Jackie Oliver drove one to a fifth place finish in the 1967 German Grand Prix against cars with engines nearly twice the size and around a third more horsepower. The Cosworth FVA motor, which dominated Formula 2 from 1966 to 1972, has a four valve head, that was developed as part of Ford’s contract with Cosworth that would give birth to the Ford Cosworth DFV. The DFV in turn dominated the top tier of motor sport from 1969 until 1983 during which time the DFV motors powered 11 Drivers championship winners interrupted on three occasions only by Ferrari. This is one of several cars currently for sale on the Hall & Hall website linked here.

The 1967 270 hp V8 powered Alfa Romeo T33 ‘Periscope’ was first used in competition by Belgian Teodro Zeccolini in his home country for a hill climb event at Fleron which he promptly won. By 1975 a flat 12 version of the T33 had been developed that won the Sports Car World Championships in 1975 and 1977.

German born Kenyan Edgar Hermann bought this Porsche 911T early in 1967 in preparation for an attempt on the 1968 East African Safari rally but when the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon was announced he returned it to the factory to be prepared for the longer event in which he finished 15th. Hermann sold the car to Australian Porsche importer Alan Hamilton who converted it to RHD and drove in Australian Rally events until 1970. In 1987 this 911 had a second wind and was driven to a Class C championship win in the Australian Porsche Cup.

From 1969 was one of Jackie Stewarts World Drivers and World Constructors Championship winning Matra MS 80s, powered by a Ford Cosworth DFV as heralded by the Cosworth FVA. Team owner Ken Tyrrell managed to do deals with Matra to use their chassis, and at Stewarts insistence Ford to use the Ford Cosworth DFV for the 1968 and 1969 seasons. These deals were remarkable because Matra were trying to develop their own V12 for Formula One at the time.

While I was window shopping two V12 powered cars from 1970 took my fancy the first was this BRM P153 chassis #3 according to the Hall & Hall website, these cars were the first of three race winning designs by Tony Southgate, Pedro Rodriguez drove a car like this to victory at the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa at an average speed of 149.9 mph. Chassis #03 was driven by George Eaton in 1970 who’s best performance was a 9th place finish in the Canadian Grand Prix, Howden Ganley drove the car in 1971, his seasons best result 4th in the non Championship Spring Trophy at Oulton Park . Sweden’s Reine Wisell and Spains Alex Soler-Roig both qualified the car for a race each in 1972 but neither finished which left Austria’s Dr Helmut Marko to drive for the last time in the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix where he finished 8th.

According to the best sources I have the 1970 V12 Matra MS650 chassis #02 above has been used in just 6 events, unsurprisingly most of those who drove the car are French the three exceptions being Dan Gurney, who shared the it with Francois Cevert to record a 12th place finish in the 1970 Sebring 12 hours, Jack Brabham who shared the car with Cevert and retired from the 1970 Le Mans 24 hours and Algerian Bernard Fiorentino who shared the car with Maurice Grélin when it failed to finish the 1971 Tour de France. Chassis #02 was shared by Henri Pescarolo, Jean-Pierre Jabouille and Johnny Rives for the cars career best 2nd place finish, behind the sister car driven by Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Patrick Depailler and Jean Todt, on the 1970 Tour de France carrying the registration 197WS75 as seen above.

Finally there were two 1981 cars which grabbed my attention, first this Ligier JS17, powered by a fabulous sounding Matra V12, not sure which of the 5 JS 17’s built this is but Jacques Laffite drove the type to victory in the 1981 Austrian and Canadian Grand Prix which gave Laffite an outside chance of wining the title going into the final race of the season held in the car park at Caesers Palace. A 6th place finish meant Jacques secured his third consecutive career best 4th place in the championship.

I’ll be publishing a full blog about the Cosworth DFV powered Lotus 87 on 29th of December, the car seen here is chassis #87/R4, also currently offered for sale, was driven in 1981 by Nigel Mansell. Like many cars of this era it is probably more reliable now than it was in period .

I’ll save the best car in the building as a surprise, it was a prototype Friday car and it was a dream come true to see it in person. Don’t forget to tune in this Friday to find out what it was.

My thanks to Ted Walker for inviting me to join him on his trip to Hall & Hall and to Rick Hall for letting me take photographs of some of the vehicles in his care.

Wishing Abba Kogan, whom I believe owns some of the vehicles seen in these photographs, a swift recovery from his injuries, sustained in the Baku City Challenge, Azerbaijan recently.

Thanks for joining me on this “Christmas Window Shopping” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

TdF – Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Competizione #2127GT

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The Tour de France Automobile (TdF), sponsored by the Le Martin Newspaper and organised by the Automobile Club de France, was first held in 1899 and won by René de Knyff driving a Panhard et Levassor. The event continued until 1986 when François Chatriot and Michel Périn won the last competition in a Renault Maxi Turbo. The event was revived in 1992 under the Tour Auto name for pre 1966 cars.