Tag Archives: McRae

Light Rally History – Race Retro

Today’s blog features some of the tremendously storied rally cars that appeared at the recent Race Retro exhibition.

Austin Healey 3000 Mk1, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

From 1960 comes this ex BMC works Austin Healey 3000 Mk 1 among it’s achievement’s was a 17th place overall and first in class driven by Pat Moss, Stirling’s younger sister, and Ann Wisdom on the 1961 Tour Of Corsica.

FIAT 131 Abarth, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

When FIAT introduced the 131 Miafiori Abarth in 1977 the company went on a rampage of the World Rally Championship winning the titles in 1977, with the Olio Fiat colours seen here, 1978 and 1980 winning 20 World Championship Rallies over that period, I am not entirely sure of the history of this car registered in Jersey it appears in 1977 colours but with a 1980 head light and grill arrangement.

Ford Escort RS1800, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

The original STW201R a works Ford Escort RS1800 was driven to victory in the 1977 East African Safari Rally by Björn Waldegård and Hans Thorszelius, the car was subsequently handed to Ford Heritage only to loose it’s identity original works colour scheme and be crashed at the hands of a TV Journalist. This car appears to be a replacement painted in the Rothmans Rally Team colours as worn by Ari Vatanen’s cars when he won the World Rally Drivers Championship with Dave Richards in 1981.

Toyota Celica TC, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

Björn Waldegård and Hans Thorszelius won the Safari Rally again in 1984 and with Fred Gallagher in 1986 driving the Toyota Celica TC models like the 1986 winner seen here, Finlands Juha Kankkunen with Fred Gallagher in the passenger seat won the Safari Rally in 1985 to make it a hat trick for the rear wheel drive Celica TC model.

Peugeot 309 Gti, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

Englands only World Rally Champion Richard Burns drove this Group A front wheel drive Peugeot 309Gti to a 16th place finish with Robert Reid on his second Lombard RAC Rally start in 1991.

Ford Focus WRC, Race Retro, Stoneleigh,

Finally this 2001 all wheel drive Ford Focus WRC has won four Rallies outright, with Colin McRae winning the 2001 Cyprus and 2002 Acropolis Rallies with Nicky Grist, Jari Matti Latvala the 2003 Tempest Rally with Miikka Anttila and Nejat Avci winning the Pirelli Turkey Rally in 2005 with co driver Memisyazici Batuhan, today this car is owned by Steve Rockingham.

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

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2.2 Stroker – Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII RSII

This weeks sticker car is a 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII RSII stickered up to look like the #8 vehicle Alistair McRae and Co driver David Senior drove to a 14th place on the Monte Carlo Rally, their debut with the team.

Mitsubishi Evolution VII RSII, Castle Combe

The highlight of Alistair and Davids year came at the following Swedish Rally where they finished fifth, after which it became obvious that the car was never going to hold it’s own against the Peugeot 206’s which would win their 2nd Championship on the trot. Just before the end of the season Alistair damaged his liver while training on a mountain bike forcing him to miss several events and by the end of the season Mitsubishi withdrew from the World Rally Championship completely.

Mitsubishi Evolution VII RSII, Castle Combe

The Evolution VII seen here at Castle Combe a couple of years ago was built on the larger Lancer Cedia platform than the Evolution VI. To compensate for the 150lb weight gain handling improvements were engineered by introducing an active center differential, more effective limited-slip differential and front helical limited-slip differential.

Mitsubishi Evolution VII RSII, Castle Combe

A standard Evolution VII was quoted by the factory as producing around 270hp though the actual figure believed by the contemporary press suggested over 295hp was more likely with acceleration from rest to 60 mph in less than 4.8 seconds and a quarter mile time below 13 seconds.

RS features included titanium alloy turbocharger while an option was close ratio five speed gearbox. This particular car has a long list of modifications to improve performance, handling safety and styling most significant of which include an enlarged 2.2 liter 134 cui Stroker Engine, up from the original 2 litre / 122 cui, Skunk S2 Cams, HKS GTII 7460R Turbo, Indigo-GT Club Intercooler, Hydra Nemisis ECU which together help bring the power up to 455 hp with over 500 ft/lbs of torque.

The car is fitted with a six speed gearbox, Exedy Twin Plate and Clutch and Evo IX differential to help transmit all of that power to the wheels which are Rota Grid 18″ x 8.5″.

The list goes mods goes on and on, save to say this car is well above factory spec and obviously gives the owner a lot of pleasure going on the considerable sums of money he has spent on it since buying it from a dealer in 2007.

Thanks for joining me on this “2.2 Stroker” 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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Balena Close, Poole, Dorset – Penske PC1 #001

After he had finished fabricating the Len Terry designed Eagle monocoques for All American Racers (AAR) in California, John Lambert returned to the Untied Kingdom and started a new business which was located on a small industrial estate outside Poole in Dorset where the rent was cheap. When Len Terry fell out with Frank Nichols they wound up Transatlantic Automotive Consultants based in Hastings where they had designed the AAR Eagle and Terry went to join Lambert, with whom he had worked at Lotus and AAR, in Poole starting a new business together called Design Auto.

In 1969 Len Terry started to design a series of stock block Formula 5000 open wheel cars called Leda’s, John Lambert looked after the construction of them in a facility off Balena Close on the Creekmore Industrial Estate on the outskirts of Poole, Dorset. When Leda Cars ran into financial difficulty they merged into the Malaya Garage Group in 1970. Three years later Malaya Garage Group did a deal with New Zealand racer Graham McRae selling the Leda Cars premises “lock, stock and barrel” with the cars manufactured now rebranded as McRae’s.

At around this time Roger “The Captain” Penske and Mark “Captain Nice” Donohue were experiencing many successes on the US racing scene which included three Trans Am championships, then only for manufacturers, driving the Captains Chevrolet Camaro in 1969 and AMC Javelins in 1970 and ’71.

In 1972 Mark won the Indy 500 in Roger Penske’s McLaren M16 and at the end of the year drove Penske’s McLaren M19 in the Canadian and US Grand Prix finishing a more than credible 3rd in his debut Grand Prix. The following year Mark and Roger won the Can Am championship with the “Turbo Panzer” Porsche 917/30. Having achieved pretty much everything in the US, including a NASCAR Winston Cup win at Riverside driving a Penske AMC Matador to become the last ‘road ringer’ to win a non oval race in that series back in 1973 Mark announced he would hang up his helmet at the end of the season.

Roger Penske made plans for a Formula One team in 1974 and sent Heinz Hofer to look at Graham McRae’s ‘low profile’ premises on the Creekmore Industrial Estate in Poole, Dorset UK as a possible base and concluded a deal for the premises. The Ford Cosworth DFV powered Penske PC1 was built to a design by Geoff Ferris and Mark Donohue was persuaded to come out of retirement to drive the car on it’s debut in the 1974 Canadian Grand Prix where he qualified 24th and finished 12th 2 laps down.

Penske Ford PC1, US Grand Prix, Watkins Glen

At the US Grand Prix, where Mark Donohue and Roger Penske fan, Brian Brown took today’s photograph of Mark in the PC1 at Watkins Glen the car started 14th on the grid, but retired after 27 laps with rear suspension problems. Brian recalls his first visit to a Grand Prix thus :-

“I was of course very excited to be seeing Mark race again, but being that it was my first live Formula One event, I was equally excited to be seeing Mario’s effort with Vel’s Parnelli Jones and the rest of the grid in person. We owned a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona and a 246 GT Dino at the time, so were very supportive of the Ferrari effort too.

My brother, friends and I spent a great deal of down time in the Kendall Garage watching the teams go about their business of working on the cars. One thing that was apparent was the absolutely professional presentation of the Penske team. Everything was spotless, just like their successful Indy Car counterpart that I’d observed in person since 1969 at Indianapolis. I was then, as now, a huge fan of Mark Donohue and Team Penske, but that aside, I always felt that they had too many positive resources not to be successful in Formula One.

I knew racing well enough to understand how tall the task Mark and the Penske team had ahead of them, but I also had the highest faith in their collective talents that I felt, given time, they would come right. I look back now and remember how I’d call in to our local ABC news tv affiliate to get the results of the races in 1975, always asking about the top six finishers along with Mark and Mario’s results.

Then came Austria and it was over for Mark and eventually Penske stopped the project – I was always appreciative that they carried on to get the victory with John Watson in Austria a year after Mark’s accident, something of a vindication for the mighty challenges that Team Penske faced in their Formula One foray. Watkins Glen 1974 was the last I ever saw Mark in person and despite the nearly 40 years that have passed, it seems like yesterday.”

Penske ended up building 3 chassis to the PC1 design chassis #001 seen here achieved a best 5th place finish, from 16th on the grid in the 1975 Swedish Grand Prix. Three races later Penske ditched the PC1 in favour of a March 751 which was raced until a new challenger until the new Penske PC3 was ready. As Brian alluded to above Mark Donohue was killed during practice for the 1975 Austrian Grand Prix after a tyre deflated pitching him off the track in to an accident which killed a marshal. Although Mark initially survived the incident he died the next day from a cerebral hemorrhage.

The debut of the Penske PC3 was delayed until the 1975 US Grand Prix where John Watson drove it in practice. Due to a misfire with the motor in the new car the team elected to wheel out today’s featured chassis one more time, John qualified 12th, finishing the race in 9th.

The following season Penske entered John in the PC3 and later PC4 models. With the latter the team won the 1976 Austrian Grand Prix, despite this success The Captain closed the Formula One program down at the end of 1976, deciding his future lay in the US racing seen where he would become the dominant force in Indy Car racing, with many of his winning cars being built in Poole, Dorset. Penske maintained facilities in Poole Dorset up until 2006. When the factory was closed one employee, Ivor, remained who had been part of the story going back to the Leda days, through the McRae years and into the Penske era.

In 2012 Brad Keslowski won his first NASCAR Championship driving a Penske entered Dodge a hitherto elusive goal on ‘The Captains’ to do list.

My thanks to Brian ‘ B² ‘ Brown for kindly agreeing to share his photograph; to kayemod, Nigel Beresford, Tim Murray, Tony Matthews, Dogearred and Doug Nye at The Nostalgia Forum for their help in piecing together the story behind Roger Penske’s presence in Poole, Dorset and a tenuous connection in the form of Lambert & Terry and their Leda Cars premises between the AAR Eagle and Penske Formula One efforts.

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

PS Shortly before this blog was posted some confusion has come to light about which buildings in Poole Penske and McRae occupied and when, local resident kayemod and Nigel Beresford who worked for Penske have confirmed that Penske took over the Balena premises from McRae, while artist Tony Matthews is sure he visited a second facility a couple of miles away on Factory Road to do cutaway drawings for McRae and Penske is not so sure the Balena Close address is correct. If any further developments come forth I shall post them below, and if you know the answer to the riddle please do not hesitate to chime in.

PPS Nigel Beresford has kindly confirmed with another former Penske employee Nick Goozée that the Balena Close facility is the only one Penske purchased from Graham McRae. My thanks to Nigel and Nick for settling the matter so promptly.

PPPS

Balena Close, Poole, Dorset

Kayemod Rob from the Nostalgia Forum has kindly sent me this photo showing “how that corner of Balena Close looks today, the small unit to the right is the original Penske UK base, formerly McRae Cars. The three parked cars more or less cover the width of the premises. The ‘Elegance’ unit to the left of Penske was once FKS Fibreglass, later Griffin Design. My ex-Specialised Mouldings chum stylist Jim Clark worked at FKS, and as well as Penske’s stuff, they also did almost everything for the Gulf GT40s and Mirages among others, their unit extended leftwards to fill the corner of the block. Penske later rented an identical unit to the right of the pic, which doubled their floor area, after some of the dividing wall was removed, they used to run their F1 operation out of that.”

Thanks Rob.

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Celebrity Car – Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS

The 200 mph front engine rear gearbox 550 Maranello road model was introduced in 1996 with a 485 hp 5474 cc / 334 cui 4 valve quad cam V12 motor that could take the GT car from zero to 62 mph in 4.5 secs.

Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Prodrive prepared a batch of 20 550 Maranello GTS’s for racing in Europe and the States where they were regular winners in the GT/GTS class in 2001.

Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS, Goodwood Festival of Speed

In 2003 another Prodrive 550 Maranello GTS beat the Corvettes by 10 laps at the Le Mans 24 hour race coming home 10th overall.

Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS, Goodwood Festival of Speed

This chassis has taken part in at least 42 Races in the GT/GTS class for at least four different teams from 2002 to 2006 it has never recorded an out right win but has scored several class wins.

In 2004 this chassis (Prodrive 03) driven by Darren Turner, Rickard Rydell and Colin McRae came in 9th overall at Le Mans but was beaten by two Corvettes which finished 16 and 5 laps ahead respectively.

Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Today’s featured Celebrity Car has been driven by a number of well known drivers including Colin McRae former World Rally Champion, Rickard Rydell former British Touring Car Champion, Alain Menu former British Touring Car Champion, Luc Alphand former World Cup Skiing Champion and Dakar winner, David Brabham, former Japanese GT Champion and Le Mans winner 2009, Jan Magnussen, former Danish Touring Car Champion, Danica Patrick queen of IRL and NASCAR, Darren Manning IRL driver, Christophe Bouchut 1993 Le Mans Winner, and one of my former racing instructors Tim Sugden former British and Asia Pacific GT Champion.

Thanks for joining me on today’s “Celebrity Car” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow, when I’ll be looking at a Formula One Lotus. Don’t forget to come back now !

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RIP Eddie Stobart – Ford Escort RS 1800 Replica

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

No trip along a British or European motorway is complete without seeing one of an immaculate fleet of Eddie Stobart trucks.

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

Eddie Stobart (Snr) founded an agricultural business in the 1950’s and his son Eddie Stobart (Jnr) built the company into one of the best known haulage companies in Europe over a period of 30 years.

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

Eddie (Jnr) sold the company to his brother William and business partner Andrew Tinkler in 2004. It is sad to record that Eddie (Jnr) predeceased his father aged just 56 last week.

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

This Ford Escort MKII RS1800 Replica appears to have started life as a 1972 Ford Escort MK 1 1100L and been reshelled with a post 1975 style body.

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

This Eddie Stobart sponsored car was successfully campaigned in 2006 and 2007 in selected historic rallies by 5 time British Rally Champion Jimmy McRae, father of World Rally Champion Colin McRae.

Ford RS1800 Replica, Race Retro, Stoneleigh

Most recently this Escort has been run by Whelan Historic Motorsport in historic rally events for Jim Whelan and co driver John Atherton.

Slightly off topic congratulations to Kevin Harvick who made it two Sprint Cup wins in a row yesterday when he won the traditional Grandfather Clock at Martinsville last night. This was the first time I have ever seen my man win a Cup Race on TV.

I hope you’ll join me again for another edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’. Don’t forget to come back now !

Stop press ! It is with a heavy heart that I have to report Mr Ed Arnaudin contributor of many fabulous photo’s to ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ passed away during the red flag period of the Martinsville race.

A proper appreciation of Ed will follow in due course, in the meantime I hope you join me in honouring and celebrating his life by typing his name in the ‘Search psycho on tyres box’, in death as in life Ed has much to share.

Condolences to the best friend I have never met, Steve Arnaudin and his family.

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