Monthly Archives: January 2012

Supercharged – MG PA

The MG P series was launched in 1934 part of a continuing series of upgrades of the earlier M-Type and J-Type roadsters.

The main differences were that the P Types had a slightly longer wheel base and a 36 hp variant of the over head cam cross flow Morris Minor / Wolseley 10 4 cylinder motor with more reliable 3 bearing crankshaft. The PB types launched in 1934 had a slightly larger and more powerful 43 hp motor.

Andrew Morlands 1934 PA seen here at Loton Park is fitted with an earlier supercharged motor possibly originating from an MG J3. Around 2000 PA types were built and a further with a further 500 PB types up to 1936.

Thanks for joining me on this PA edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a celebrity Ford Escort Mexico. Don’t forget to come back now !

Supercharged Map Reading – BPMC Navigation Exercise

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At long last the 2012 motor sport season has got under way, though not in quite the way I have ever experienced ever before. A couple of weeks ago I was informed that Bristol Pegasus Motor Club (BPMC) Membership Secretary Bob Bull was looking for a navigator to take part in the January BPMC Navigation exercise. I got in touch with Bob and he kindly agreed to take me along on Friday despite the fact that I have not read an Ordnance Survey map in something approximating 4 decades, since being introduced to the modern talking route finder a couple of years ago I have rarely had use for any kind of map at all !

This event was organised on three levels Beginners which included Bob and I, Novices for those competent at reading maps who were given an additional false origin exercise, a tulip reading exercise, a map feature reading exercise and herringbone reading exercise. Finally for the Experts there were map reading, false origin, tulip not in the correct order, map feature an a herringbone exercise. I’ll come back to the more difficult exercises in a future blog.

Photo Courtesy Dick Craddy

Bob kindly came and picked me up on Friday night in his ‘daughters Mini Cooper S’ a tidy supercharged model that would be ranged against the Mazda 6 of BPMC Chairman Andy Moss with co driver Chris Goodchild (above) ,

Photo Courtesy Dick Craddy

the Peugeot 106 Rallye of Chris Thompson and Alan Dillamore …

and the Ford Fiesta driven by Martyn with his teenage daughter Katie Davies doing the co driving. We all met with the event organiser Dick Craddy at map reference 494 943 on O/S Map 162 for a 19:30 start.

Bob and I arrived at the lay-by nice and early and wondered if we might try navigating by stars on what was a clear and dark night on the Welsh Boarder.

Once everyone had arrived and signed on Dick went through some basics about not using anything other than normal driving lights, observing the highway code at all times and he warned us that the local constabulary had been informed of our presence and that we should expect to see them at anytime, before handing us our instructions. In our case a list of fifty 6,7 and 8 figure map references with questions about features we could expect to find when we reached them.

Photo Courtesy Dick Craddy

Before setting off we plotted the map references and after the first dozen I realised I had forgotten to label them so we had to start again, nothing like starting at the bottom of the learning ladder. After what must have been nearly an hour I had about half the references plotted and Bob put the Supercharged Mini in gear and off we set towards our first map reference a junction in Mynydd-bach where we had to find out how many miles the sign post to Brynbuga read before heading in the opposite direction towards Shirenewton !

So far so good but then things soon started to get complicated, somewhere between reading the map and looking for clues as to where we actually were I missed a junction and we found our selves on a single lane track facing Chris Thompson coming from the opposite direction ! Chris kindly backed up to let us pass, somehow, it still escapes me how, we managed to do a figure of 8 and ended up back in Shirenewton. Doh ! we retraced our steps and found the junction we missed, found the correct answers to the questions and headed on toward Llanvair Discoed and found the answers to around a dozen questions before deciding to call it a day and heading to the final meeting place a pub next to Tintern Abbey. Note to self not all pubs are marked on an Ordnance Survey Map as PH (Public House) or Inn.

Needless to say we did not do very well coming in well and truly last, but Bob kindly offered to redo the exercise with me in a couple of weeks. They say practice makes perfect so if all goes well we will be back for crack at the next Navigation event a little the wiser.

If you live in the Bristol area and fancy having a go at this entertaining low cost sport why not check out the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club site join the club for just £10 and give it a go. The next BPMC organised Navigation Exercise is on March 16th.

Congratulations to Andy and Chris who easily won even with a deduction for being previous winners !

My thanks to Bob for his patience and taking me along, Dick for organising the event and providing some of the photo’s for today’s blog.

Thanks for joining me on this Supercharged Map Reading Edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Dominating Réunion – Alpine A110 1600S

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Jean Rédélé’s rear engined Alpine A110 “Berlinette” launched in 1961 was an evolution of the A108. Distinguishing features include proprietary Renault R8 running gear in place of the Renault Dauphin running gear of the A108 and a larger tail for the fiberglass body to accommodate the larger R8 derived motors.

The cars were manufactured at the Dieppe factory, which today operates under the the Renault Sport banner, with further cars being assembled in Mexico under the name Dinalpin and perhaps most unlikely of all from 1967 to 1969 in Bulgaria under the name ‘Bulgaralpine‘.

Over the years of production up to 1977 the choice of straight 4 cylinder engine sizes ranged from 95 hp 1.1 liters / 67 cui through to 125 hp 1.6 liters / 97 cui, the latter giving the a top speed of 130 mph and zero to 60 mph in 7 seconds.

With these sorts of performance figures the vehicle was a shoe in for a successful competition career in particular on tarmac rallies, Jean Vinatier won the French National Rally title in 1969 in an A110 and both Ove Anderson (1971) and Jean-Claude Andruet (1973) won the Monte Carlo Rally in A110’s the latter victory contributing to Alpine Renault, rebranded after Renault’s 1970 buy out, winning the first World Rally Championship in 1973.

The A110 cars also have a successful track racing history in Europe and the United State still winning its class in races as late as 1980.

During the course of finding out about the A110 I have found several inaccuracies one that the A110 was inspired by Colin Chapmans Lotus Elan, this is not true the A110 preceded the announcement of the Elan by 1 year. Also I have seen the A110 mentioned in connection with the Brazilian assembled Willys Interlagos, the Interlagos built from 1962 to 1966 and most successfully raced by Wilson Fittipaldi, brother of twice world champion and Indy 500 winner Emerson, was based on the A110’s predecessor the A108.

This particular vehicle seen at Castle Combe Classic and Sport Car Action Day was originally exported to Renault St Denis, Il de La Réunion out in the Indian Ocean between islands of Madagascar and Mauritius, in 1973. It immediately made an impact sweeping Réunion’s two biggest events the ‘Mille Kilometers‘ and ‘Tour de la Réunion‘ from 1973 to 1975. The car was acquired by it’s current owner in 1991.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Dominating Réunion’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you’ll join me again. Don’t forget to come back now !

Too Much Added Lightness – Lotus 27 27-JM-22 & 27-JM-2

Debut Winner – Ferrari 312 B2 #005

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Last week I looked at the Ferrari 312 B2 with which Clay Regazzoni inadvertently ended Jackie Stewart’s championship run at the German Grand Prix, this week Ferrari Friday features #007’s sister car #005 the first of the 312 B2 chassis built in 1971.

This photo, taken by a school friend, shows Jacky Ickx driving 312 B2 #005 in the 1972 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch. Ickx qualified on pole position and stormed away from championship contenders Emerson Fittipaldi and Jackie Stewart in the early going until lap 49 of 76 when the magic flat 12 lost oil pressure as a result of a split oil tank. Fittipaldi and Stewart then battled over the lead which Fittipaldi won.

Two weeks later Ickx won pole position at the German Grand Prix and this time chassis 005 held together to take a dominant victory on the most challenging Grand Prix track in the championship the Nurburgring.

312 B2 #005 was the first of the B2 chassis, readied for Clay Regazzoni in the 1971 season. Clay scored a debut win with #005 at the non championship 1971 Race of Champions but the rest of his 1971 season did not go so well with a pole position at the British GP and two thirds in Holland and Germany marking Clays only visits to the podium amongst 4 retirements and minor placings .

Clay started the 1972 season again with #005 scoring just one points paying 4th place finish in the season opening Argentine GP. In the month between the 1972 Belgian and French GP’s chassis #005 was assigned to Jacky Ickx who scored a further pole position at the Italian GP in addition to his achievements in Britain and Germany outlined above.

Arturo Mezzario drove #005 for the last time in the 1973 South African Grand Prix where he came home 4th.

If you are the school boy who took this photo, thanks for giving it to me all those years ago and please get in touch !

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Debut Winner’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at the Formula Junior Lotus 27. Don’t forget to come back now !

Hudson Super Six Special

Bombproof Escort – Ford Escort 1850GT FEV 1H

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Motorsport owe’s much of it’s history to the publishers of Newspapers keen create events which would resonate and engage their readers, indeed the very first recorded motorsport events emanated from the minds of the editors of ‘Le Vélocipède’, who in 1887 attracted a single car entry for a 1.2 mile race across Paris and ‘Le Petit Journal’, who in 1897 69 entries for a 79 mile ‘race’ from Paris to Rouen. By 1908 individual events took on global challenges such as the 12,000 mile 169 day New York west to Paris race which was co sponsored by The New York Times and Le Martin.

Possibly inspired by another 10,000 mile ten day event the London to Sydney Rally of 1968, Australian advertising sage Wylton Dickson came up with the idea of organizing a 1970 World Cup Rally to link London which had played host to the 1966 World (Soccer) Cup to Mexico which was to play host to the 1970 World (Soccer) Cup at a party in London over a glass of wine while chatting to Irish Rally Champion Paddy Hopkirk.

Wylton, who had never so much as seen a rally before approached Stuart Turner Ford competitions manager who gave him the thumbs up and the Daily Mirror who provided the sponsorship for the event. British Rally Champion John Sprinzel was allowed to set up an HQ at the Royal Automobile Clubs Belgrave offices from which to run the whole 16,000 mile event which crossed 26 countries on three continents in 25 days.

Good to his word when the 1970 World Cup Rally was announced Stuart Turner entered 6 Ford Escorts into the event for Poles Sobieslaw Zasada / Marek Wachowsk, Finns Hannu Mikkola / Gunnar Palm, England soccer star Jimmy Greaves with pro co driver Tony Fall, Monte Carlo Rally winners Raunno Aaltonen / Henry Liddon, British rally stars Roger Clark / Alec Poole and Finish rally legend Timo Makinen co driven by Frenchman Gilbert Staepelaere. Other entries in the 96 car field included a VW Beach Buggy a five car factory Moskivitch team from the USSR and two privately entered Rolls Royce’s a Silver Cloud and a Silver Shadow !

Ford’s official reason for fitting these bars in front of the windscreen was that they were to protect the drivers from Condors in the Andes mountains of South America, but it has been noted that these bars connect the top of the front suspension towers to the top of the A pillars which coincidentally helps transfer suspension shock to the roof diverting them away from some of the weaker welds in the bodywork.

It is thought enough parts were produced for just 8 of the 1970 World Cup spec 1850 GT Escorts, which after the disappointment of easily leading the 1968 London to Sydney Marathon only for the Lotus Twin Cam engine in Roger Clark’s Cortina Lotus to fail, meaning these cars were built to be bomb proof against all foreseeable eventualities. Instead of using Lotus Twin Cam motors Ford Kent 1600cc / 97 cui pushrod motors were bored out to 1850cc / 112 cui fitted with a single Weber carburetor and dry sump lubrication which aids ground clearance. These motors were simple, durable and above all easily repairable, they were tuned to run on the low octane fuel that was to be found in the high altitude andean mountains on the South American legs of the route where stages of 500 plus miles were not uncommon and average speeds in excess of 90 mph were expected in order not to attract penalty points.

Hannu Mikkola had a relatively trouble free run dropping just 9 hours in penalty points over the course of the 25 day marathon, 4 of the other Escorts in the top 6 of the 23 finishers. During the course of the event FEV 1H became one of the most famous of Rally Vehicles of all time and is still among the most loved. As a result of the 1970 World Cup Rally win Ford launched a new sporty version of the Escort called the Ford Mexico with the 1600 / 97 cui Kent pushrod motor fitted to an Advanced Vehicle Operations strengthened “Type 49” body shell.

In 1995 there was a 25th Anniversary re run of the 1970 World Cup Rally, miraculously Ford ‘found’ a new unused Escort shell and built a new car to the same specifications as FEV 1H. Hannu Mikkola came out of retirement with Gunnar Palm to win the rerun as well, the new cars registration is H1 FEV.

Thanks for joining me on this Bombproof Escort edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring

Monthly Archives: January 2012

Supercharged – MG PA

Supercharged Map Reading – BPMC Navigation Exercise

Dominating Réunion – Alpine A110 1600S

Too Much Added Lightness – Lotus 27 27-JM-22 & 27-JM-2

Debut Winner – Ferrari 312 B2 #005

Hudson Super Six Special

Bombproof Escort – Ford Escort 1850GT FEV 1H