Tag Archives: Southgate

Thrown Together And Sent To America – BRM Chevrolet P154 #01

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Like many would be designers Tony Southgate built an Austin 7 special, while serving an Engineering Design apprenticeship with a non automotive company, raced it three times before the engine broke thus ending his career as racing driver.

Upon finishing his apprenticeship Tony joined Lola where he was involved with drawing of the Lola Mk VI which eventually evolved into the GT40. Not wishing to be tea boy on the GT40 project Tony joined Brabham and stayed until Lola’s founder Eric Broadley also disentangled himself from Ford and the GT40 project.

Rejoining Lola in Slough Tony was involved with the design of the Lola T70 and a broad spectrum of open and closed wheel Lola racing cars which included the Lola T130 / Honda RA 300 Formula One car which John Surtees drove to victory in the 1967 Italian Grand Prix.

Tony was lured to Santa Ana to work for Dan Gurney on a still born Eagle F1 project before he became involved in designing Eagle Indy Cars which achieved a remarkable 1-2-3 finish in 1968, later amended to 1-2-4.

After a couple of years with Lola Tony was asked to join BRM where he would briefly team up with John Surtees again before the 1965 Champion deemed it would be better to go his own way and started his own Formula One Team.

While at BRM Tony first designed the BRM P153 Formula One car, with which Pedro Rodriguez managed to win the 1970 Austrian Grand Prix. Alongside the Formula One car Tony got “…sucked into doing the Can Am car, the P154.” featured to day.

Mike Wilds, BRM Chevrolet P154, Brands Hatch

Due to time constraints, in Tony’s own words, the P154 ‘…was thrown together and sent to America for the mechanics to sort out on the hoof.” Power for the Castrol sponsored P154 was courtesy of a BRM tuned Chevy V8.

Canadian Deptartment Store heir George Eaton, who also drove for the BRM Formula One team through most of 1970, was assigned the responsibility for driving the P154 in the 1970 Canadian American challenge which got off to an inauspicious start, in the tradition of many BRM projects, at Mosport where George qualified 7th and retired with oil and transmission problems.

At Mont-Tremblant George qualified the BRM, today’s featured chassis #P154/01, 9th and finished a personal season high 3rd behind Dan Gurney in the winning McLarem M8D and Jackie Oliver in the Autocoast Ti22.

The rest of Georges season was a catalogue of failures interrupted by two 5th place qualifying positions the first at Road Atlanta where the engine blew during practice meaning George did not get to start and the second at Donnybrooke where a broken rocker arm caused George’s retirement.

For the last three races of the 1970 Can Am Challenge the highly esteemed and accomplished Mexican Pedro Rodriguez drove a second BRM P154 managing 9th, 5th and 3rd place finishes to equal Eatons best result. After finishing the final race at Riverside Pedro told the designer “… it was the worst car he’d ever driven.”, much to Tony Southgates embarrassment.

The following year BRM built improved P167’s initially using the P154 chassis tubs before building two complete new P167 cars which achieved a small measure of success in the European Interserie series in 1971.

P154 #01 featured today appears to have been run with P167 body work by David Hepworth in Europe on at least 3 occasions in 1972. Former double British Hillclimb Champion David, who bought the entire BRM Can Am project including all five cars along with “three tons of spares, then sold P154 #01 on to Lol Hopkins who entered the car for at least one event in 1973.

Today’s featured photo was taken at Brands Hatch in 1982 with former works Stanley BRM Driver Mike Wilds at the wheel, Mike qualified 5th for the Atlantic Trophy race on seven cylinders. At the start he managed to blast through from the third row of the grid in to the lead, he is seen here approaching Hawthorn Bend on the opening lap. Mike maintained a 5 sec lead until first a fuel pressure problem intervened and then the brakes faded completely causing him to leave the track and retire without further damage or injury. Mikes only consolation was that he established a new lap record of 1m 30.78s with an average speed of over 103 mph, 1 second faster than the fastest qualifier for the race Ray Mallock and about 27 seconds off the pace of the Formula One cars that weekend.

P154 #01 still exists and was recently sold with a few modifications having survived at least one major accident and a couple of rebuilds.

Tony Southgate went on to design the BRM P160 the last BRM to win a championship Formula One race and the BRM P180 the last works entered BRM to win a Formula One race before joining Shadow where he designed race winning Formula One cars and the 1974 Can Am Challenge winning Shadow DN4. He had a brief spell at Lotus where he had a hand in the design of the race winning Lotus 78.

Tony also designed most of the Jaguar XJR Group C/IMSA racers which won the World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans and Daytona 24 hour races, before working on endurance racer programs with Toyota, Nissan and more recently Audi.

George Eaton became president of the Eaton’s Department Store empire and oversaw a period of it’s steady decline.

Mike Wilds was part of Ray Mallocks 1986 Ecurie Ecosse Group C2 World Endurance Championship winning team in 1986 and is still to be found racing in historic events, testing numerous cars particularly for Colin Bennett’s CGA Engineering when not instructing race car drivers or helicopter pilots.

Thanks to all those who contributed to the BRM Can Am cars thread at The Nostalgia Forum which revealed the identity of this car.

Thanks for joining me on this “Thrown Together And Sent To America” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t for get to come back now !

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Right Tyre, Right Time – BRM P180 #P180/2

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Despite winning the 1971 Austrian and Italian Grand Prix BRM lost their Yardley sponsor to McLaren at the end of 1971, but started 1972 with a plan for a five car assault on the 1972 World Drivers and Constructors championships using three different models the P153 from 1970, the P160 from 1971 and a new design the P180. All three models were designed by Tony Southgate and there was some interchangeability of suspension that was used to update the older models.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

The P180 differed from the earlier models by having the radiator at the front moved to the rear in a bid to get a 33/67 balance in the weight distribution from front to rear in a bid to improve traction.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

One of the novel features of the P180 was the steering wheel popping up through the cockpit fairing.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

The P180 made it’s debut at the Spanish Grand Prix with Peter Gethin at the wheel, Jean Pierre Beltoise also had today’s featured chassis #P180/2 available to him but found the older P160 more to his liking. Gethin started 21st and Beltoise started 7th, both retired.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

Howden Ganley drove #P180/2 in the ’72 Monaco Grand Prix where he qualified 20th but crashed on lap 47. Beltoise won the race from 4th on the grid in the older P160, this would prove to be BRM’s final championship Grand Prix victory. With the weight balance of the P180 being more like 30/70 the P180’s were modified.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

While the work was carried out the P180’s appeared at two non championship meetings, Reine Wisell qulified 7th for the Gold Cup at Oulton Park but was rear ended by his compatriot Ronnie Peterson on the start line which broke Reine’s finger and caused his retirement. At Brands Hatch for the Rothman’s 50,000 both Beltoise and Ganley preferred to race the older P160’s.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

The P180’s appeared again at the Italian Grand Prix where Beltoise qualified #P180/2 16th and finished 8th to score the models only Championship race finish. Both P180’s were taken to the Canadian and US Grand Prix’s Bill Brack joined Beltoise in Canada and Brian Redman replaced the Canadian in the States. No finishes were recorded and the cars failed to qualify in the top 15 for either race.

BRM P180, BRM Day, Bourne, Lincs

The P180’s final appearance was in the non championship John Player Challenge at Brands Hatch, where Beltoise qualified #P180/2 7th. The track was wet at the start but Beltoise elected to go to the start line on intermediate tyres where as almost everybody else was on wet tyres. At the start of the race Beltoise was left behind but as the track started to dry out he was perfectly placed to pick off those ahead of him to score the BRM team’s final race victory.

Tony Southgate, who say’s of the car what it really lacked was a budget to develop the engine, left BRM to join Shadow for 1973 and BRM decided to retire the P180 in favour of using yet another update of the P160 for 1973.

Howden Ganley is seen driving the car above at last years BRM Day.

My thanks to Ray Bell, RCH, kayemod Rob and MCS at The Nostalgia Forum for their help in finding out the cause of Reine Wisell’s broken finger.

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

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Fifty Fifty – BRM P160E # P160-07

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For 1972 BRM lost their Yardley sponsorship but managed to land an even bigger sponsor in the form of Philip Morris who were interested in stealing some of the lime light Players were basking in thanks to their “Gold Leaf” brand logo’s appearing on the championship winning Lotus cars of Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt in 1968 and 1970 respectively.

BRM P160 E, BRM Day, Bourne

In order to give Philip Morris’s Marlboro brand maximum exposure BRM determined it would enter every Grand Prix of the 1972 season with five 48 valve V12 powered cars of three different designs dating back to 1970 with a roster of eight different drivers. Some how Jean Pierre Beltoise managed to keep his head in the ensuing chaos and won the Monaco Grand Prix in a BRM P160 a design dating back to 1971 and the final non championship John Player Victory Trophy race of the season in the new for 1972 BRM P180. These two races would prove to be the last ever contemporary Formula One race victories for the team ever.

BRM P160 E, BRM Day, Bourne

For 1973 designer Tony Southgate left the chaos at BRM to start afresh with the new Shadow Team while BRM decided to downscale to a three car operation for a more or less regular trio of drivers, using an updated version of the BRM P160. Swiss driver Clay Regazzoni who was on what turned out to be a one year sabbatical from Ferrari and Frenchman Jean Pierre Beltoise BRM’s incumbent winner who was in the middle of a three year stint at British Racing Motors (BRM) were joined by a young Austrian upstart called Niki Lauda who decided that suicide was best avoided in favour of yet another bank loan for one last attempt at hitting the big time in Formula One.

BRM P160 E, BRM Day, Bourne

Clay Regazzoni made an immediate impact by winning pole for the first race of the 1973 season at the Argentinian Grand Prix but from there things went steadily down hill for the team particularly after they had locked out the first three starting positions for the 1973 Race of Champions at Brands Hatch with Beltoise and Lauda sharing the fastest lap of the race with the Lotus of Ronnie Peterson.

BRM P160 E, BRM Day, Bourne

At the very next race the non championship International Trophy held at Silverstone today’s featured chassis #P160-07 the first of four E specification chassis, appeared for the first time with Clay Regazzoni qualifying 8th and finishing a respectable 3rd. Clay drove the car on five more occasions failing to improve on 8th in qualifying and slipping no lower than 12th and finishing similarly.

BRM P160 E, BRM Day, Bourne

#P160-07 was not used for the British Grand Prix and when it reappeared at the 1973 Dutch Grand Prix Jean Pierre Beltoise was at the wheel. Beltoise qualified the car no better than ninth and no worse than 16th in 6 races netting two 5th place finishes and a season high 4th place finish at the Canadian Grand Prix from a 16th place start.

JP Beltoise drove #P160-07 on it’s last in period appearance at the 1973 US Grand Prix where the car finished 9th from a 14th place start after which the car was briefly fitted with a Westlake V12 for testing in 1974 again with Beltoise at the wheel. By now Regazzoni had signed to rejoin Ferrari and on his recommendation Ferrari signed Niki Lauda to join him and so the Austrian finally started repaying his bank loans on his way to becoming a triple World Champion.

Philip Morris moved their Marlboro sponsorship to McLaren in 1974 with whom they won the first of many championships with Emerson Fittipaldi at the wheel in the opening year of their thirty year partnership.

Tony Southgates new for 1973 Shadow DN1 design did not better his BRM P160 design the Shadow team finishing 8th at the seasons end, 3 points and one spot below BRM in the championship table.

Today’s featured car was seen at last years BRM Day in it’s home town Bourne, Linconshire with J Burt at the wheel.

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

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