Tag Archives: Ecclestone

Classic Competition Cars – Classic Motor Show NEC Birmingham

Today’s blog is all about some of the classic competition vehicles at last weekends Classic Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

Rosemary Smith,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

A couple of weeks ago I went to a talk at which Rosemary Smith, winner of the 1965 Tulip Rally driving the Hillamn Imp above, was to be the guest of honour, unfortunatley she had a fall and so could not make it so it was great to see her on her feet again at the Classic Motor Show despite the fact that some of her bones were still on the mend.

MG B Roadster,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Rosemary drove a Ford Cortina Lotus on the 1968 London to Sydney Rally and finished 48th six places behind Jean Denton who drove the MGB GT Roadster seen above in need of some tlc, who finished 42nd.

Discovery Beetle,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Among the taller vehicles at the show was the road legal Gulf liveried Discovery Beetle, above, built on a shortened 1996 Land Rover Discovery chassis and fitted with a 300 TDi which being lighter and more aerodynamic than a standard Discovey goes well on the road and is perfect for off road trials.

Cooper Daimler T87,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Having acquired a 1966 Cooper T81 formula one car and fitted it with a 7.2 litre / 440 cui wedge engine for hill climbing Martin Brain acquired a 1967 Cooper T87 Formula 2 chassis and had it fitted with a 2.5 litre / 152 cui Daimler hemi V8, more commonly found in the SP250 and V8 250 Daimler models, for hill climbing on tracks with tighter corners. The car was rescued from a Swedish Museum in 2011 by Gillian Goldsmith better known as a successful equestrian and car racer Gillian Fortescue-Thomas who has since competed with the Cooper Daimler as has her daughter Samantha.

Gould NME GR61X,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Powered by a 650 hp Nicholson McLaren Engines (NME) 3.5 litre / 213 cui development of the Cosworth HB Indy car engine the Gould NME GR61X is the most successful car ever to compete in British Hill Climbing with Scott Moran claiming 133 wins and Roger Moran claiming a further 16 and Alex Summers 8 since the cars first appearance in April 2005.

Empire Wraith,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Successful Trike hill climber and Empire Racing Cars founder Bill Chaplin called Dutch born Formula One aerodynamicist Willem Toet, most recently at Sauber, to work on the Empire Wraith hill climb challenger which is powered by a 180hp Suzuki GSR K8 motor. This example built at the Empire factory in Stathe Somerset in 2013 is the first of three built to date and is driven by Clive Austin and Chris Aspinall.

Healey Westland,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

In 1948 Donald Healey and Geoffrey Healey drove the Healey Westland above to a ninth place finish on the Mille Miglia, the following year Tommy Wisdom and Geoffrey finished 10th in the same event in the same car.

Marcos Prototype,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

By 1959 former de Haviland aircraft engineer Frank Costin had a CV that included designing the Vanwall Grand Prix challenger that won the inaugural World Constructors Championship in 1958 and subsequent demand for his attention included that of Jem Marsh with whom he founded Marcos Engineering in Dolgellau, North Wales. The prototype Marcos, using the same plywood construction techniques de Haviland used to build the Mosquito fighter bomber the Vampire jet fighter, built in 1959 powered by a Ford 100E engine is seen above awaiting some well earned tlc having disappeared in Lincoln for many years.

Italia 2000GT,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Only 329 Italia 2000 GT’s were built by Vignale and in 1996 Jorg Von Appen had #210, one of five Italia’s he owned converted to race spec to take part in the TR Race series, it survived four races and was recently purchased by the proprietor of Patterson’s Original Pickles.

Porsche 904 Carrera GTS,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

After withdrawing from Formula One at the end of 1962 Porsche built their first tube framed fiberglass bodied sports car which would culminate in the development of the 917 and later 936 models, originally known as the 904 Porsche badged the car Carrera GTS in deference to Peugeot’s ‘digit “0” digit’ numbering system. The GTS seen here was I believe used in competition by Claude Barbier and possibly later by Cyr Febbrairo.

BMW GTP,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

No doubt much to the annoyance of Formula Ring Meister Bernie Ecclestone the manufacturer who supplied the engines for his Formula One Brabham team split it’s efforts in 1986 between Formula One and the IMSA GTP series and invested in four March 86G chassis and fitted them with a 2 litre / 122 cui version of the BMW engine that had powered Nelson Piquet to the World Championship in 1983. A BMW GTP was driven to it’s only victory by Davy Jones and John Andretti in the Watkins Glen 500, while the Brabham BMW team scored on 2 championship points in the worst season for the team up to that time.

Eagle HF89,  Classic Motorshow, NEC, Birmingham

Dan Gurney’s All American Racers graduated to the IMSA GTP class in 1989, after claiming the driver’s and constructors’ championships in the GTO division Chris Cord in 1987, the teams all new HF89 was designed by Ron Hopkins and Hiro Fujimori and the following year Argentina’s Juan Manuel Fangio II drove HF89’s to three victories in the Topeka 300, Sears Point 300 with Rocky Moran and Del Mar Fairgrounds Road Circuit in November 1990.

Thanks for joining me on this “Classic Competition Cars” edition of Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Carrera Panamericana challenger. Don’t forget to come back now !

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’73 Chassis ’74 Body ’75 Paint – Brabham Cosworth BT42 #BT42/3

Today’s featured Brabham BT42 chassis #BT42/3 was completed in time for Carlos Reutemann to compete in the 1973 Spanish Grand Prix where he retired with drive shaft failure.

During the remainder of the 1973 season Carlos drove #BT42/3 to two season high 3rd place finishes in France and the United States which with four other points paying finishes helped him secure 7th in the final Championship standings.

Brabham Cosworth BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

After finishing 4th in the 1973 constructors championship Gordon Murray set out to improve on his Brabham BT42 design with a new car, the BT44, that kept the same overall dimensions but was built with a strengthened chassis, more sophisticated rising rate front suspension and tidier bodywork.

Carlos Reutemann nearly won the 1974 season opening Argentinian Grand Prix retiring out of fuel from the lead on the the BT44’s debut, he also briefly led the Brazilian Grand Prix before winning the South African Grand Prix and latter adding victories in Austria and the United States, where team mate Carlos Pace finished second, to secure 6th in the drivers championship while Brabham rose to 5th in the constructors championship.

Brabham Cosworth BT42, Manfredo Rossi di Montelera, Silverstone Classic,

Meanwhile #BT42/3 was retained as a spare by Brabham for the opening two races of 1974 before appearing at non championship Race of Champions and International Trophy covered in the newer BT44 body work for the teams second driver rookie Richard Robarts to drive.

Richard who had already failed to impress team owner Bernie Ecclestone with his speed in Argentina and Brazil finished the two non championship events in 12th and 15th places respectively before being fired in favour of Liechtenstein’s Rikky von Opel of the car manufacturing dynasty.

Brabham Cosworth BT42, Manfredo Rossi di Montelera, Silverstone Classic,

At the 1974 Belgian Grand Prix Brabham ran #BT42/3 for Teddy Pilette who finished his one off race with the team 18th from 27th on the grid.

Ricky like Richard also failed to impress Brabham’s management with his speed in five races leading up to the 1974 French Grand Prix the second event in which he had failed to qualify his Brabham BT44.

Brabham Cosworth BT42, Silverstone Classic,

John Goldie Racing decided run #BT42/3 for Surtees refugee Carlos Pace in France, Carlos also failed to qualify, but made enough of an impression to be promoted to the Brabham works second seat for the remainder of the season while Ricky called time on his brief Formula One career.

Two weeks later Lella Lombardi unsuccessfully attempted to qualify #BT42/3 for the British Grand Prix while at the end of the season Canadian Eppie Weitzes completed 33 laps of the Canadian Grand Prix from 26th on the grid before retiring with an engine problem on the cars final in period appearance.

Brabham Cosworth BT42, Manfredo Rossi di Montelera, Silverstone Classic,

For 1975 Martini sponsored the Brabham team which ran B spec BT44’s and despite the Carlos’s each only winning one race, Pace in Brazil and Reutemann in Germany, improved reliability meant Reutemann finished 3rd in the drivers Championship, while Brabham rose to 2nd in the Constructors Championship.

The self effacing Manfredo Rossi di Montelera, of the Martini & Rossi dynasty, is seen driving #BT42/3 at a couple of recent Silverstone Classic events in these photographs, the most recent of which can be seen from an on board camera on this linked video clip.

Thanks for joining me on this ’73 Chassis ’74 Body ’75 Paint edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again for Maserati Monday tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Lowering The Centre Of Gravity – Mercedes Benz C291

When the rules of the Group C Sports cars were ruined for the 1991 season, to the advantage of Formula One, at the behest of Messrs Ecclestone and Moseley to mandate 750kg vehicles to be powered by 3.5 litre / 213 cui motors of the same size as had been introduced to Formula One in 1989 Dr Hermann Hiereth sat down at Mercedes Benz offices in Stuttgart-Ünterturckheim and devised a flat 12 engine with transverse gearbox that lowered the center of gravity compared to the twin turbo V8 design that was being used to power the Group C Sauber C9 and C11 designs for the 1989 and 1990 seasons.

Mercedes Benz C291, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

Unfortunately Leo Ress responsible for chassis design at Sauber based in Hinwill, Switzerland was not present at the meeting in Stuttgart when the new engine layout was approved and so he had to make do with a low wide power unit that limited his options for the ground effect venturi that helped to suck the car to the ground as had become de riguer in racing cars since the advent of the Lotus 79 Formula One car.

Mercedes Benz C291, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Perhaps as a consequence of these restrictions Leo was left with no choice but to design a car that optimised top speed at the cost of handling, the exact opposite of what his rivals at Jaguar and Peugeot were doing with their V8 and V10 powered challengers.

Mercedes Benz C291, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

The overweight C291 driven by 22 year old rising stars Karl Wendlinger and Michael Schumacher retired from it’s first race at Suzuka after starting from 3rd on the grid and catching fire during the race after the fuel filler jammed partially open during a pit stop, at Monza the engine failed on the grid from which it was to have started 6th and again during the race which it started one lap down.

Mercedes Benz C291, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

The youngsters recorded an excellent 2nd place finish 1 lap down on the winning Jaguar XJR14 driven by Teo Fabi and Derek Warwick at Silverstone, before a disgraceful lap of 6m 55.969s convinced the team to stick with the heavily ballasted, to the mandated 900kg, but reliable C11 model for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Mercedes Benz C291, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

At the Nurburgring two C291’s were entered with Jean Louis Schlesser and Jochen Mass qualifying 6th right behind the sister car driven by Wendlinger and Schumacher, both cars retired gearbox and engine failure respectively.

Mercedes Benz C291, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

The two C291 cars qualified in the same order at Magny Cours as in Germany 6th and 3rd respectively, but retired with a broken throttle linkage and water leak respectively.

Mercedes Benz C291, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Little changed in the C291’s fortunes in Mexico where Wendlinger and Schumacher qualified 2nd but failed to finish due to oil pump problems and where Schlesser and Mass retired from 6th on the grid with electrical issues.

Mercedes Benz C291, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

The C291’s final appearance was at Autopolis in Japan where against form Jean Louis and Jochen translated a 7th place start to a fifth place finish and even more remarkably Karl and Michael translated a sixth place start in to a win.

Much as Ecclestone and Moseley had hoped Mercedes Benz abandoned Group C at the end of the season and entered the Formula One fray as an engine supplier initially to Sauber for whom Karl continued to drive.

Micheal of course after a one off appearance in a Jordan moved to the Benetton Formula One team with whom he won the first two of his eventual seven world championships.

Le Mans was as usual left to pick up the pieces wrought by the wreckless legislation promoted by Moseley and Ecclestone.

At the time of writing it is not exactly clear which C291 belongs to Andrew Haddon who is believed to be the owner of the car shown in these photo’s taken at Race Retro and Goodwood Festival of Speed some years ago.

Thanks for joining me on this “Lowering The Centre Of Gravity” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for another raucous Mazda Monday. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Large & Small – Cooper Mk V (T15)

For 1951 Cooper built the Mark V to compete in “500” Formula 3 events, the Mark 5 has also been given the retrospective Cooper T15 moniker.

Cooper Mk V, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

Improvements over previous “500” Coopers listed in their contemporary advertisements included a completely redesigned chassis, lighter body with hinged top panels for easy access fore & aft, reduced weight, smaller frontal area and rubber suspended alloy side tanks.

Cooper Mk V, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

A Mark 5 chassis could be supplied for £500 without an engine or £582 with a JAP excluding taxes, customers for the Mark 5 included a Mr Bernhard “No Angel” Ecclestone and a semi works team run by Ecurie Richmond with drivers Eric Brandon, who became the inaugural 1951 National Formula 3 Champion and Alan Brown was run alongside the team of works drivers Ken Carter and Bill Whitehouse.

Cooper Mk V, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

Today’s featured Mark 5 was modified to accommodate the larger frame of works driver “Big” Bill Whitehouse who raced the car in the UK, Italy and Germany during the 1951 season scoring a win at Silverstone and many podium finishes.

Cooper Mk V, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

The following season it was bought by Lewis “Pop” Lewis-Evans who shared the driving duties, with an emerging talent, his son Stuart who scored wins at Silverstone, Brands Hatch and finally at Chimay in Belgium during the 1952 season.

Cooper Mk V, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

Over the winter of 1952 ’53 a lowline body work was fitted to the car to capitalise on Stuarts 5′ 4″ frame, this kept the car competitive for 1953 before it found it’s way to Tom Wheatcroft’s hands in 1954.

The car remained in Tom’s Donington Collection until 2014 when the current owner acquired it and restored for racing this season.

Thanks for joining me on this Large & Small edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at Jim Clarks 1965 World Championship winning Lotus 33. Don’t forget to come back now !

03/05/15 PS Yesterday I learned from Doug Nye that Stuart Lewis-Evans was one of the earliest racers to use seat belts, this link shows Stuart wearing what appears to be seat belts of a type designed for use in aircraft at the Crystal Palace meeting in July 1953.

The Lewis-Evans family also had a novel way of carrying their Cooper atop their Land Rover as seen in this link.

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Plan B – Connaught Type-B #B9

While Raymond May’s was busy pumping the British motor industry for patriotic cash to lubricate the wheels of the newly formed British Racing Motor’s, to ex RAF pilots Rodney Clarke and Mike Oliver, backed by Kenneth McAlpine went about there motor racing in a far more pragmatic understated way.

Setting up behind the Continental Autos Garage in Send, Guildford, Surrey, Connaught, notice the pun, Engineering was founded by Rodney and Mike to build a 2 litre / 122 cui sports car around proprietary Lea Francis chassis and motors for Kenneth and Rodney to race in 1949.

The immediate success of the L2 in Rodney and Kenneth’s hands led the team to try their hand at building an open wheel Type A for Formula 2 using their own development of the Lea Francis motor for the 1950 season.

By 1952 a series of Formula 2 races counted towards the world championship and Dennis Poore finished 4th in the British Grand Prix the teams highest finish in the 1952 season limited to 3 outings in Britain, the Netherlands and Italy.

More sporadic World Championship appearances in 1953 which included private Connaught entries from Ecurie Ecosse, and Ecurie Belge did not bring any further success nor did the final appearance of five 2 litre formula two Type-A’s in the 1954 British Grand Prix run to the new Formula One 2 1/2 litre formula.

Rodney and Mike had hoped to use the Coventry Climax Godiva V8 for their Type-B formula one car in 1954 but when that got cancelled they came up with a plan B to develop a 2.5 litre / 152 cui version of the 2 litre / 122 cui Alta Forumla 2 engine against which they had been competing since 1950.

The Type-B made it’s only 1955 World Championionship appearance at the British Grand Prix where four works cars appeared alongside the private entry for Leslie Marr, they all retired except Jack Fairman’s entry which did not start.

Connaught B-Type, Tony Brooks, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

At the end of the 1955 season there was a non championship event run at Syracuse in Sicily, with the withdrawal of the works Mercedes team in the aftermath of the 1955 Le Mans crash the organisers called up Mike Oliver at Connaught to see if he could be tempted with an offer of £1,000 per car start money to bring two cars to race against the five works Maserati’s on the entry list.

Short of funds this was an offer not to be missed and after briefly testing a stream lined car which was to be entered for Les Leston and open wheeler chassis #B1 entered for debutant Tony Brooks the cars were packed into the back of a pair of converted 1939 AEC 10T10 Regal Greenline buses and sent on their 2,000 mile journey to Sicily.

On the Monday before the race Mike flew his car to Le Toquet in France to find a message informing him that the two transporter had been impounded because their documents were not in order.

Having sorted out the paper work the Connaught convoy set off for Sciliy with the buses being driven non stop in 12 hour shifts by the two pairs of mechanics. By the time they got to the Calabrian mountains the fun really started, the buses needed to reverse back and forth to make it round the hairpins which slowed progress down to 11 mph and one of the buses needed to have it’s brakes relined.

Meantime Tony Brooks, who’s 42 race CV was topped by just three non championship starts in a Formula 2 Connaught Type-A and one start for Aston Martin at Le Mans, took timeout from his dental studies in Manchester and flew down to Syracuse.

With no team in sight he and team mate Les Leston hired a pair of Vespa motor scooters and set about learning the track, in so doing Tony acquired a sore between his throttle hand thumb and index finger.

Both transporters eventually arrived in time for practice on the Saturday before the race and with out any sleep the mechanics set about preparing the cars.

Tony Brooks WB Tribute, Brooklands,

Tony had not so much as sat in his open wheel Type-B before the event and the teams priority in order to at least recoup their travel expenses was to start the race so practice laps were limited.

It came as a great surprise to find that Tony easily qualified a competitive third and would start alongside the leading Maserati’s of Luigi Musso and Luigi Villoresi with Les Leston not far behind.

The 243 mile race was run over 70 laps where Tony observed that “there was none of this business of using a foot of grass, as on an English airfield circuit, then bobbing back’, and reliability would be a major issue, in their favour the tight track suited Connaught’s handling which was at a premium over the outright power advantage of the Maserati’s.

The Maserati’s of Musso and Villoresi and Harry Schell led the three opening laps but on Lap 4 Tony passed Harry and then passed Villoressi with 10 laps completed.

Tony then went into a terrific dice with Luigi Musso who was working hard in his drum braked Maserati to keep the disc braked Connaught of Brooks at bay after swapping the lead several times and raising the average lap record speed from 99 mph to 102 mph Tony was able to ease away to a 50 second lead without putting any unnecessary stress on his car.

The Grand Prix win was the first for an English driver in an English built car since 1924 when Sir Henry Seagrave won the San Sebastian Grand Prix driving a Sunbeam.

After the race while tightening a handkerchief around his hand, injured by the Vespa, with his teeth Tony lost an expensive dental bridge piece from his mouth in the crowd as he prepared to go back to the hotel upon the motor scooter.

He fitted a spare he carried that night for the celebrations but since it was not very secure he restricted his conversation which the Scilians interpreted as another example of the famous British stiff upper lip.

Tony went on to contend for the 1959 World Title with Ferrari, but ended up finishing second to Jack Brabham driving a Cooper, and retired from Formula One in after finishing third in the 1961 US Grand Prix driving for BRM with 6 career championship victories.

Connaught went into steady decline after Ron Flockhart scored the manufactuers best championship finish of 3rd in the 1956 Italian Grand Prix, by the end of 1957 Connaught was auctioned off piece meal and Rodney and Mike returned to running Continental Autos.

Bernie Ecclestone bought two cars which he ran for in 1958 at Monaco and the British GP without success, until the death of his lead driver Stuart Lewis – Evans died from burns received after crashing his Vanwall in the 1958 Morrocan Grand Prix.

The last person to race a Connaught in a World Championship event was Bob “father of Boris” Said who started 13th but pushed his car into the pits after an accident on the opening lap of the 1959 US Grand Prix.

Tony is seen in today’s photographs wearing the blue shirt being interviewed during the the William Boddy Tribute at Brooklands and at the wheel of chassis #B9 at Goodwood Festival of Speed.

#B9 was built up from an unnumbered spare with original Connaught parts by by long-time Connaught specialist Spencer Longland, the original #B1 which Tony drove in Syracuse belongs to Bernie Ecclestone having been damaged in a fire at Syracuse in 1957 and been repaired many years later.

My thanks to Tim Murray, Alan Cox and Peter Morley at The Nostalgia Forum for answering my questions.

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

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No Angel – Tom Bower

A couple of weeks ago a friend gave me a copy of No Angel, a biography billed as “The Secret Life of Bernie Ecclestone” by Tom Bower.

No Angel Tom Bower

As a fan of Formula One who has grown up as Bernie Ecclestone evolved from emerging team owner of the Brabham team into Formula One’s self styled de facto benevolent dictator I found this an extremely engaging book.

The book covers Bernie’s humble beginnings in Suffolk, his days trading toys in the school playground in Dartford to becoming a prominent member of the not so well heeled post war London motor trade.

The Ecclestones were not ones for celebrating anything and Bernie’s sharp mind soon focused on little else except making money through motorbikes, cars, property development and private aircraft.

His unique selling point appears to be ability to sum up the value of anything and everything in an instant and make an offer that was always advantageous to himself.

He became involved in motor racing at Brands Hatch racing Formula 500’s with some success before retiring from the sport after a couple of accidents.

Bernie returned to the sport to manage the career of Stuart Lewis Evans but left the sport after Stuart died from burns sustained from an accident in the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix.

Through his friendship with Roy Slvadori Bernie became acquainted with a young firebrand named Jochen Rindt and their love of gambling and deal making led Bernie to manage Jochen’s career right up until his death at Monza in 1970.

In 1972 Ron Tauranac accepted Bernie’s offer of £100,000 for the Brabham Formula One team and in 1974 the team started winning Formula One races again and by 1988 when Bernie sold the team for $5 million the team had supplied Nelson Piquet with championship winning cars in 1981 and 1983.

From 1972 on, with the agreement of his fellow competitors Bernie also took on an ever greater part of the deal making that went on to secure start money and prize money for the British Formula One teams.

Soon Bernie was determining which races would be part of the World Drivers and Constructors Championships while securing the increasingly valuable TV rights and profits.

All this extra activity led to many arguments with fellow team owners, race organisers and of course the authorities posing in blazers who liked to think they were in charge.

Tom Bowers book tells of several offers Bernie made to both the Formula One teams and even the sports governing body to invest in their own future which were repeatedly turned down which Bernie took as a signal to take an ever deeper cut of the profits particularly from the TV rights and fees race promoters pay to secure an event on the championship calendar.

Bernie certainly does not come across as an angel backing all comers until it is time to see the green backs, dumping anyone who does not meet his exacting demands like a lead balloon, but through it all he does come across as extremely passionate about the sport even though by the time any one race has ended he is already on his way to the next.

I spent a couple of weeks over the Christmas break reading the book and I’d recommend No Angel to anyone who has an interest in motor sport or making money, unfortunately my interest has only ever been in the former.

Thanks for joining me on this “No Angel” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a car called “Elvis”. Don’t forget to come back now.

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Firey Derek Reed – Brabham Chevrolet BT43 #BT43/1

“In a Sandown Gold Star race I had the right rear wheel collapse while entering the bridge turn, in a high third gear, throwing me into the catch fencing at a great rate of knots. No doubt the fencing arrested my speed, but not sufficiently to prevent the abrupt stop against the abutment scuttling the poor BT43 and bending my body in a few places.”

Those are Kevin ‘KB’ Bartlett’s words describing the last moments of the unique Brabham BT43’s racing career at Sandown Park, Australia on the 9th of September 1979 as found in the book “F5000 Thunder – The Titans of Road Racing 1970 to 1981” by Ray Bell and Tony Loxley.

Brabham Chevrolet BT43, Brabham Chevrolet BT43, New Haw, Weybridge, Surrey, UK

The photo above is of the Chevrolet powered Brabham BT43 Formula 5000 car taken outside the Brabham factory in New Haw near Weybridge, Surrey, UK on the day it was completed by Bob Paton, one of the team who helped build it almost exactly six years earlier.

The car was the brain child of temporary Brabham owner Ron Tauranac before he sold Motor Racing Developments, the trading name of the Brabham Team, on to Bernie Ecclestone in 1972. The job of designing the BT43 was left to Geoff Ferris, best known for designing a successful line of Penske’s that won one Formula One race and dominated the the Indy 500 and CART Indycar championships of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.

Brabham BT43, Tommy Lee Jones, The Betsy

Photo Copyright Allied Artists Picture Corp

The BT43 was based around a Geoff Ferris designed 1973 Formula 2 BT40 chassis , with foam filled triangular deformable sides as first seen on the Gordon Murray designed 1973 BT42 Formula One car, with a sub frame at the back of the monocoque to carry the unstressed 5 litre / 302 cui Chevrolet V8.

The car was first tested by John Watson “on a wet and misty day at Silverstone”, after John had given the car a ‘significant hammering’ it was determined that the nose did not live up to it’s purposeful looks when it came to generating down force.

Brabham Chevrolet BT43, Kevin Bartlett, Sandown Park,

Photo Copyright Greg Falconer use arranged courtesy Ray Bell.

Martin Birrane was the first man to race the BT43 in 1974, but he only recorded two retirements and one failure to qualify (DNQ). Brett Lunger crashed the car at Brands Hatch in his first drive in it a Brands Hatch and Chris Craft followed that up with a 7th place finish at Brands two months later in October 1974.

Brett was back in the car twice at the beginning of 1975 failing to start at Brands and retiring at Silverstone. The cars next appearance was in an obscure 1978 film called The Betsy staring Tommy Lee Jones who’s character Angelo Perino drove the car in a sequence I have yet to see.

Brabham BT43 Radiator

By now the car was owned by Chuck Jones who sent it to Australia for Kevin Bartlett to use in the 1978 season, Kevin finished 3rd in the 1978 Australian Drivers’ Championship with the BT43 finishing a season best 2nd at Oran Park.

Colin Bond took over the driving duties for the four consecutive February meetings of the Australian 1979 season with his only result being a 4th place at Oran Park. Kevin then took a deposit on the car and raced it at the fateful meeting at Sandown Park described in the opening paragraph.

Brabham BT43 Radiator

In “F5000 Thunder – The Titans of Road Racing 1970 to 1981” Kevin went on to say “…. those cars carried enough fuel for a 165KM race, the broken tub was like a bomb ready to go off. One “firey” in particular, planted himself above me where the air box had been minutes ago, feet each side of the smoking engine and whilst the crash crew were cutting the car apart to extract me,(he) lent down and said to me “Don’t worry Kev, I’m staying, and if she goes I’ll drag you out no matter what” as he grabbed my fire suit lift tabs. Thanks once again, Derek Reed.”

While Kevin was recuperating the Australian authorities wanted either the duty due on the now wrecked car or for it to exported, the new owner who had only paid the deposit sent it on to a ‘friend’ in the UK before disappearing. The ‘friend’ in the UK refused to pay the shipping cost and until September last year it was believed the unique albeit damaged car had been dumped in the Thames after the storage costs had far exceeded it’s worth.

However in September last year almost 40 years after Bob Paton took the photo at the top of this post the 34 year mystery of the whereabouts of the BT43/1 were conclusively resolved when Sandy400e came forward and revealed that the BT43/1 had not been dumped in the Thames at all on The Nostalgia Forum.

Sandy revealed that he had been working at Overseas Containers Ltd in 1980 when he got wind of a car waiting to be scrapped on their dock. After inspecting the car, essentially a wreck with some bits missing already he bought it for £30.

Not knowing exactly what he was dealing with he disposed of the damaged engine and various bit’s and pieces to friends and enthusiasts over several years and believing chassis tub to be beyond repair and of no intrinsic value sent it to a scrap metal merchant.

After finding the only remaining items, two Australian made Newcell radiators, in his loft one afternoon last September Sandy did a bit of research on the internet and soon realised the wrecked car he had bought for £30 in 1980 was in fact the long lost Brabham BT43.

Kevin Bartlett confirmed that the radiators Sandy had found in his loft were those he had fixed to the back of the monocoque, when he fitted the chisel nose to the front of the BT43 in an effort to generate more front end down force, prior to the cars last race as seen in the third photo above.

Note the Brabham BT43 was never conceived or converted to Formula One specification, there is a myth that it was which appears to have roots in an erroneous article that appeared in Racing Car News in February 1978 on page 44.

My thanks to Bob Paton, Ray Bell, Allied Artists Picture Corp, Sandy400e for the use of their images and text from “F5000 Thunder – The Titans of Road Racing 1970 to 1981” by Ray Bell and Tony Loxley and to every one else who contributed to the “The strange tale of the F5000 Brabham BT43” thread at The Nostalgia Forum.

Next Sunday I’ll be looking at the Lola that can be seen following Kevin in the Brabham in the third photo above.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Firey Derek Reed’ edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for Maserati Monday. Don’t forget to come back now !

8/12/14 Post script I would like to thank everyone for the overwhelming response to this blog on some social media and I would particularly like to thank Geoff ‘Toughy’ Toughill …

Victoria Fire & Rescue Squad

seen above in this photo of the Victoria Fire & Rescue Squad on the far right in the second row for sending me this photo from his dad Keith’s Collection, seen with the moustache at the front. Keith and Geoff worked with the hero of today’s blog …

Derek Reed, Victoria Fire & Rescue Squad

… firey Derek Reed who stood above a very hot motor and the stricken Kevin Bartlett in order to drag Kevin out, in the event that a fire should break out while Kevin was being cut out of the wreckage of the BT43.

Thanks Geoff 😉

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