Tag Archives: Boor

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #5 – Connew PC1 002

One of the many highlights of 2015 were a precious few hours I spent cleaning and polishing all manor of wheels, wings, aluminium panels and nut’s and bolts in the company of Peter Connew and his family with his cousin Barry Boor.

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The reason circumstances brought us together was that Peter, seen at work on his lathe above, kindly accepted an invitation to give a talk about his experience building and racing the Connew PC1 to The Nostalgia Forum Hertfordshire UK Film Show at Ware Village Hall in May.

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Peter and Barry, seen below, devoted a huge amount of time to finding and cleaning the bit’s, many of which had not been seen or handled for forty years, to put as much as was possible of the car back together.

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Along with the foot pedals, steering wheel, instruments, cables, fluid bottles and original leather seat one box contained a couple of Hewland DG300 gear ratio’s which caused Alain de Cadenet to seek a discount when he bought the rest of the gearbox from Peter for his de Cadenet Le Mans car.

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In the absence of springs and shock absorbers pieces of wood were cut to replace them to keep the front suspension in shape, and in the absence of a Ford Cosworth DFV engine or Hewland DG 300 gearbox a sheet of wood was cut to support the rear of the chassis the correct 2″ inches off the ground.

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Peter’s kids Chris and PC all chipped in on the day before the talk as did Peter’s wife Iris, who helped out back in the day when the car was originally built and on this occasion painted the lettering into tyres, amazingly the 40 year old Firestones and Mag wheels still hold pressure though one would not want to use them for anything other than display purposes.

Connew PC1, TNF Herts Film Show, Ware Village Hall

As you can see by the comments on this link, the first appearance of the Connew PC1 in public since the 21st of October 1973, when a broken shock absorber caused Tony Trimmer to crash in to the barriers at Brands Hatch, and the talk by Peter were both welcome and well received.

Peter and Barry are keen to locate a Ford Cosworth DFV engine block and Hewland DG300 gearbox casing so that they can attach the rear wheel’s if you can help locate either at a sensible price please get in touch so that “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #6” is not too long in the making.

Thanks for joining me on this “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #5” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Desert Racer. Don’t forget to come back now !

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #4 – Connew Chevrolet PC1 02

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For my final blog on cars that participated in the 1973 Formula 5000 grid I am thrilled to be returning to Chadwell Heath and Peter Connew’s team who against all odds managed to build a car with beer money, run it on a wad of French Francs and made one world Championship start in the 1972 Austrian Grand Prix. After the Austrian Grand Prix where the team won £40 for completing more than 1/3rd distance before the suspension collapsed the Connew team entered a couple of non championship races at Brands Hatch. At the first the engine blew up after which they parted ways with driver Francois Migault. For the second Lec Refrigeration paid for the engine to be rebuilt in exchange for running David Purley who inadvertently knocked the steering wheel mounted kill switch off, that he had insisted on having fitted, on the warm up lap.

Connew Chevrolet PC1, Whalebone Library, Chadwell Heath

The freshly rebuilt Ford DFV motor was sold at the end of 1972 to pay off outstanding bills and Peter Connew struck a deal to run Swiss driver Pierre Soukry who had Formula 5000 Morand Chevrolet motor he had been using in his McLaren M10B for French Hillclimb events, European Formula 5000 races and had tried to qualify for the two non championship events which the Connew team had attempted at Brands Hatch in 1972. Mechanics Pinky and Perky are seen above sitting on the front wheels of the Connew with Pierre left and Peter right behind in this photograph taken outside the Whalebone Library Chadwell Heath just down the road from the Connew teams lock up.

Connew Chevrolet PC1, Mallory Park

The Connew PC1 02 is seen above in this photo by Don Shuttleworth taken at Mallory Park where the PC1 in F5000 guise was to have made it’s debut. Unfortunately before it had completed much more than a flying lap of practice Pierre had to return to the paddock to have an oil leak fixed. The problem proved insurmountable, the team tried to qualify for a F5000 race at Brands Hatch in August 1973 but again Pierre did not set a competitive time nor one representative of the speed he had shown in his Trojan built McLaren M10B #400-20.

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After the Brands Hatch Meeting Pierre was never seen or heard of again which is odd because he appears to have competed with a German licence since at least July 1967, when he won his class racing a FIAT Abarth at the Hockenheimring and was quite well known in hill climbing circles with an Abarth. Equally nothing has been heard of his 1971 ex team VDS Tasman McLaren M10B chassis 400/20. If you should happen to know what became of Pierre please do not hesitate to chime in below, Peter Connew would welcome any news of him.

Tony Trimmer, Connew Chevrolet PC1, Brands Hatch

For the final race of the 1973 Formula 5000 championship Peter did a deal with Portobello Inn Racing to run Tony Trimmer in the car. Tony qualified 23rd one spot behind his Portobello Inn Racing team mate Arie Lyendijk who on this occasion was driving a McLaren M18. After several laps of the race Tony suffered a suspension failure which put the Connew into the crash barrier with neither driver or car suffering further damage.

The Connew was taken home for the final time with many parts sold off, that might ordinarily be the end of the story but 40 years later there are plans afoot to put the old girl back on her wheels. Stay tuned.

My thanks to Peter Connew, Barry Boor and Don Shuttleworth for sharing their photographs.

Thanks for joining me on this “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #4” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at the last model to be built by ISO Rivolta . Don’t forget to come back now !

Brighton Speed Trials Under Threat of Permanent Cancellation !

In their infinite wisdom, Brighton & Hove City Council are seeking to ban the Brighton Speed Trials from 2014.

If you care about speed and or motorsport history, please sign this linked petition to save Brighton Speed Trials in 2014 and beyond.

It’s a faf to Register before signing, but relatively painless compared to loosing the event which has been run with few interruptions since 1905.

You do not need to be resident in Brighton or even the UK to sign.

Thanks and please spread the word through whatever social media you have at your disposal.

International Gold Cup Winner – Surtees Ford TS7 #01

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After quitting Ferrari midway through 1966 John Surtees joined the Cooper Maserati team and finished the season second to Champion Jack Brabham who became the, first and so far only driver to win the Formula Championship in a car of his own design. At the end of the 1966 season John drove a Lola T70 in the inaugural Can Am championship run by his own team winning three races and beating Mark Donohue to the Championship.

For 1967 ‘Big John’ joined the Honda Grand Prix team which netted a win in the Italian Grand Prix while he returned to defend his Can Am championship but with only a single win he could not keep up with the Bruce and Denny show which was gathering steam taking 5 victories between them in their orange McLaren Chevrolet M6A’s.

Two unreliable seasons in formula one followed first with Honda in 1968 and then BRM in 1969, but in 1969 John started building his first cars, designed by Len Terry the TS5’s were designed for the stock block Formula 5000 series, Team Elite ran one of these cars and with Trevor Taylor at the wheel it scored four straight victories.

After his poor run of results with the BRM P138 and P139 which netted a season best 3rd place finish John determined he would enter the 1970 season as a constructor designing the TS7 seen here with help from Sahab Ahmed and a plucky draughtsmen with not much Formula One experience but plenty designing consumer electrical goods namely Peter Connew.

Seen here earlier this year in the Wings and Wheels paddock at Dunsfold Aerodrome, with an 8′ wheel base the Surtees TS7 was a typical period garagistes car with a monocoque held together by three bulkheads, a Ford Cosworth DFV motor acting as stressed member of the chassis with a Hewland DG300 five speed gearbox at the back.

John made his debut with his new car at the 1970 British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch where Peter Connew’s cousin took the photo below. Peter can be seen at the extreme top right of the photo standing next to him is Sahab Ahmed.

John scored a season high 5th place finish with the TS7 at the Canadian Grand Prix and won the non championship Oulton Park Gold Cup with the same chassis which was restored to it’s present condition in 2010. In 1971 Brian Redman drove this chassis to a seventh place finish in South Africa, Allan Rollinson then drove it to a 9th place finish in the International Trophy at Silverstone and finally a week after wining the 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours with Helmut Marko, Gijs van Lennep drove the car to an 8th place finish in his home Dutch Grand Prix run at Zandvoort.

My thanks to Barry Boor for sharing his photograph.

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

Bugs In Malta – Mtahleb Hillclimb & Mdina Grand Prix

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A couple of weeks ago Barry Boor found himself at the Mtahleb Hillclimb & Mdina Grand Prix, in between his marshaling duties he managed to take a few photographs of the Bugatti’s which visited Malta to take part in the events and has kindly agreed to share them with us.

Genuine Bugatti Type 35’s are extremely hard to come by, even Nick Mason’s example is a bitza made up from an assortment of parts from various cars into a complete vehicle, so it is no surprise to find that according to the best information I have available all the cars captured by Barry are replica’s like Gregory Ramouna’s Type 35B R, seen here on the Mtahleb hillclimb, which appears to have been built in 1998.

Type 35’s were first seen at the Grand Prix of Lyon in August 1924 powered by a 2 litre / 122 cui straight 8 motor. Novel features of the car included the alloy spoked wheels and hollow front axle which all saved unsprung weight to the benefit of the cars handling. Above is a Type 35 R with a 2 litre motor unlike the type 35B which has a 2.3 litre / 140 cui supercharged motor.

The Type 35’s were very successful allegedly clocking up to 14 wins a week with the Likes of “Williams” and Louis Chiron leading the way in major Grand Prix. The Type 35’s were replaced by the Type 51’s in 1931 but with only 160 hp from their supercharged motors the Type 51’s were soon to be overpowered by the government sponsored Auto Union and Mercedes Team’s. Above is the Type 51 R of Phillipe Brebant.

Type 35’s and 51’s are very difficult to tell apart externally and even the experts can disagree, to show how difficult this is the Mdina Grand Prix entry list tells us that JM Laffonts car above is a 1931 Type 35B while the Bugatti builder site tells us that his car carrying the same registration is a Type 51 from the now defunct Blaydon Engineering, further more the car is listed on yet another Bugatti Builders post as a Type 35B R. If the truth on the identity of this car were to be decided by popular vote Type 35B R would win with two votes. Though in my humble opinion the car we are looking at is either a Type 35 or 35B because if it was a Type 51 it ought to have an easily discernible second fuel filler behind the passenger seat what ever the vintage.

One rough and ready way to tell a Type 35 from a Type 51 is to look at the rear fuel filler behind the seats, if there is one it’s most likely a Type 35.

Barry was told the reason many of these vehicles, like this 2007 replica Type 35B about to head on up the hill towards the walled citadel of Mdina, appear with so much patina is to keep the value down in the eyes of the taxman.

My thanks to Barry for sharing this fascinating in sight into Maltese Motorsport.

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

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #3 – The Connew Story

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Two years ago Barry Boor kindly granted me permission to start working on a no budget film about the Connew Grand Prix car which was designed by his cousin Peter Connew and ran 40 years ago today in the Austrian Grand Prix with Francois Migault at the wheel.

With many thanks to everyone who has participated in the making of the film I’m pleased to announce that you can now find out how the Connew, designed in a bedroom, built with beer money and run on a wad of French Francs fared on this link.

I hope you will join me in congratulating everyone who was involved in the Connew Team on their most unlikely achievement and wishing Peter well on his mission to rebuild the car. I am sure this will not be my last blog on this triumph of Peters maxim “there is nothing that cannot be done without common sense, application and half an ounce of common sense”.

Thanks for joining me on this “Sweet dreams are made of this #3” edition of “Gettin a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Sweet dreams are made of this #2 – Connew PC1 02

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Continuing the improbable but never the less true story of the Connew Grand Prix team that I started on Boxing day today I am looking at some of the trials and tribulations the team had preparing for the French Grand Prix in 1972.

Having built thier car with a dummy engine as seen in the previous Connew blog, Peter managed to secure funding from a French consortium lead by Vincent Mausset to run Francois Migault in 5 races.

The funding took the form of a ‘wad’ of French Francs which Peter, his cousin Barry and chief mechanic Roger Doran could only exchange to Pounds Sterling at £30 a time, thanks to foreign currency exchange restrictions in operation at the time.

Peter managed to put a deposit down on a second hand Ford Cosworth DFV engine, in need of a rebuild, from Phil Kerr at McLaren, and purchased a brand new gearbox.

Francois borrowed a truck from his brother who was in the furniture manufacturing business with a company called SAPAL, in return for the truck which was used as the teams transporter SAPAL stickers appeared on the Connew.

While final preparations of the car were made for it’s first Grand Prix and the truck was fitted out for racing car transporter duties, Barry got married, heroically spending just 24 hours with his bride before returning to help the team at it’s lockup in Chadwell Heath. FInally the team was ready to go with a truckie named ‘Mansell’ at the wheel of the SAPAL transporter, in Portsmouth customs officials were reluctant to let the truck leave the country because it was on French registration plates but the driver ‘Mansell’ was English.

Once in France just outside Le Mans the trucks engine blew up. The truck was towed to Le Mans, Francois home town and the team used the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit, where these photos were taken, to do some testing while the truck was repaired.

On the first day of testing it became apparent that the cars suspension had been damaged in transit and with that the teams plans to go to the French Grand Prix had to be abandoned while repairs to the car were made.

To be continued….

With thanks to Peters cousin Barry Boor for the photographs if you’d like to read the whole story of how the Connew team came together over a period of two years and it’s trials and tribulations the year after please read Barry’s account of his part in this ‘Boys Own‘ adventure here.

Hope you have enjoyed the second part of the Connew story and that you will join me again tomorrow for Ferrari Friday. Don’t for get to come back now !

Sweet dreams are made of this – Connew PC1 02

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Imagine a recently graduated 24 year old industrial designer, who knows nothing about motor sport, but with a passing interest in large American chromed land yachts sitting in an office designing record players in East London, i pods if your not sure of what a record player is, and the phone rings. His friends are calling to see if he would like to join them on holiday with the intention of taking in the 1969 Italian Grand Prix.

When his boss tells our hero that it is not okay to take the time of work to go on holiday our hero offers his resignation, and joins his friends anyway.

At the Italian GP our hero falls in love with the sound of V12 engines as they accelerate between the corners of the Monza track.

Upon returning to England he finds out about a vacancy in the drawing office of a newly established Grand Prix team owned by a former multiple World Motor Cycle champion and one time World Grand Prix champion.

Our hero’s attitude ‘that there was no problem in this world that common sense and application with half an ounce of intelligence can not overcome’ wins him the job, starting out knowing absolutely zero about the design of racing cars within months he is working on the design of a Grand Prix car.

When our hero sees the red car his new design is going to replace wheeled out into the sunshine for the first time, in that very instant he decides he is going to build a Grand Prix vehicle of his very own.

Our hero starts working from home, his parents home that is, on his own Grand Prix challenger, a friend tells our hero he may use a spare bedroom and lock up to start building his car, other friends chip in with time, suppliers ‘lend’ him various bits and pieces to be getting on with. As the design our hero is paid for near completion he then takes a job with an engineering company where he uses his and colleagues lunch hours to fabricate parts he cannot otherwise afford for his own Grand Prix challenger.

12 months after deciding to build his very own Grand Prix car our hero completes his chassis and he shows it to his cousin, a wood work teacher, who agrees to to join the team to make the bodywork using materials he has never used before.

Using only our heros own wages, friends time, goodwill and what can be scrounged including a dummy engine, once used by Jochen Rindt to win the 1969 US Grand Prix, gearbox and wheels our heros team push their improbably completed Grand Prix car one Sunday night out of it’s lock up, down the London Rd in Chadwell Heath to the only place with enough light to take a photo of their pride and joy, the forecourt of their local petrol station.

If this story sounds incredible then I’d like to welcome you to the incredible story of Peter Connew who in 36 months made the transition from record player designer to Formula One designer and constructor of the Connew PC1 02 Grand Prix car seen here in late 1971. To be continued….

Hope you enjoyed part one of my all time favourate Formula One story which will be continued at some future date, and that you’ll join me tomorrow for a look at some teutonic efficiency at ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring

Tag Archives: Boor

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #5 – Connew PC1 002

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #4 – Connew Chevrolet PC1 02

International Gold Cup Winner – Surtees Ford TS7 #01

Bugs In Malta – Mtahleb Hillclimb & Mdina Grand Prix

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This #3 – The Connew Story

Sweet dreams are made of this #2 – Connew PC1 02

Sweet dreams are made of this – Connew PC1 02