Tag Archives: Chevrolet

Wheelbase Balance – McLaren Chevrolet M8F #10-72

Leave a Reply

There were three race winners in the 1971 Can Am Challenge Jackie Stewart won two races in his L&M Lola T260 while the rest all fell to Denny Hulme who won three races and eventual champion Peter Revson who won the remaining five in the fifth and final year of domination by the Traffic Yellow McLaren M8F cars.

The McLaren M8F was similar to the M8D raced in 1970 but had been upgraded by Gordon Coppuck with a 3″ longer wheel base, wider track, inboard rear brakes, sturdier gearbox to improve the handling and balance of the cars which had a choice of either 740hp 8.1 litre / 494 cui or just under 800 hp 8.4 litre / 512 cui Gary Knutson tuned alloy Chevrolet V8’s.

Agg, McLaren Chevrolet M8F, Brands Hatch

For 1972 the works McLaren team moved onto the M20 and sold on it’s M8F’s to the Young American Racing Team, one of which was driven to victory at Donnybrooke by rising French star François Cevert, while Trojan built up a number of M8F spec cars known as M8FP’s for customers to run.

The most successful M8FP customer in the 1972 Can Am Challenge was German Hans Weidmer who finished 8th from 21st on the grid at Edmonton driving chassis #07-72.

Agg, McLaren Chevrolet M8F, Brands Hatch

Helmut Kelleners sold his March 707/717 and raced a Trojan built M8FP #02-72 in various events through 1972 winning the Martini International at Mainz Finthen. In December ’72 Georg Loos won the Copa Brasil at Interlagos driving chassis #03-72.

By 1975 Peter Hoffmann had acquired #07-72 for racing in Europe and in 1976 returned the car to victory lane at Kassel Calden, Mainz Finthen and Ulm. Peter drove the car to three more victories at the Nurburgring in 1979 and 1981 and Hockenheim in 1980.

Today’s featured car #10-72 is seen with Charlie Agg at the wheel during practice for a classic race at Brands Hatch, #10-72 was never raced in period. Charlie Agg is the son of Peter Agg who revived the fortunes of Trojan and then Elva in the 1960’s.

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

Share

The Chuck Parsons Myth – Lola Chevrolet T222 #T222 HU7

Leave a Reply

Today’s featured car is a 1971 Chevrolet powered Lola T222, it is seen being driven with by of Britain’s most accomplished club drivers never to sit in a contemporary Formula Car by the name of Gerry Marshall at Brands Hatch in 1982. In both the contemporary programme notes and post race press reports the car is described as being “ex Chuck Parsons” and owned by Noel Gibbs an apparent novice to the motor racing scene.

In 1970 Lola Cars moved from it Slough premises west of London to Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire north east of London. All Lola cars built in Slough were given an SL prefix in their chassis numbers all Lola cars built in Huntingdon received an HU prefix in their chassis numbers.

The Lola T222 was a development, built for customers, of the 1970 Lola T220 with which Peter Revson had competed for Carl Hass (later to become Newman/Hass Indy Car fame) Racing. The T222 differed from the earlier model primarily by having a 10″ lange wheel base than the 1970 model.

01 Untitled-3sc

It is thought that nine vehicles were issued with a T222 chassis number which ran HU2 through HU9. The exact history of all 8 cars is not known, T222 HU1 may never have been issued because that number was thought of as the prototype T222 namely T220 SL/1. Now it get’s complicated.

T220 SL/1, the car driven by Peter Revson in 1970, crashed at Road America after it suffered a puncture. Two weeks later a new car appeared for Peter Revson with the chassis number T220 SL/2, but T220 SL/1 differed in one crucial respect, the front axle of SL/2 was ten inches further forward of the rear bulkhead than on SL/1.

It is believed that one of the early T222 chassis originally built in Huntingdon was hastily built up to replace the damaged SL/1 and shipped to Donnybrooke for Revson to race with the Slough chassis number T220 SL/02. It is also believed SL/2 might have become either T222 HU02 or perversely T222 HU/09 had it not been unexpectedly pressed into service in 1970.

The 1971 T222 models all shared the same wheel base as T220 SL/2 but there are some minor variations in the bodywork.

02 Untitled-1asc

T222 HU7, today’s featured car, was delivered to Bob Nagel who drove the car with blue bodywork in the 1971 Can Am Challenge his season best qualifying and race performances came at Donnybrooke where he finished 10th from 16th on the grid. The rest of his races apart from an 11th at Mount Tremblant were dogged by mechanical unreliability.

In 1972 Bob campaigned the HU7 again swapping the 7 litre / 427 cui Chevrolet V8 for first a 7620cc / 465 cui and later an 8095 cc / 494 cui unit. The larger motors contributed to three 8th places finishes which along with 2 10th’s an 14th place in the final 1971 Challenge standings 4 spots behind Charlie Kemp in the Bobby Rinzler T222 HU8.

Bob topped his 1972 season with a third place finish from 2nd on the grid in an ASR race run at Road Atlanta at the seasons end.

Gene Fisher bought HU7 for the 1973 season and appears to have started just one event at Road Atlanta with a Chaparral built 427 motor. Gene retired in the 1st heat from 21st on the grid and did not start Heat 2.

Despite apparently having lost a wheel during the course of the opening meeting for the 1974 Can Am Challenge at Mosport Gene started 11th and finished a season high 6th driving HU7 now in it’s forth year of competition. Engine and gearbox failures accounted for the cars three remaining races.

In 1981 Chuck Haines sold HU7 to Noel Gibb and the following year Noel did a deal with Gerry Marshall to lend him the car free of charge while Gerry tried to sell the car on Noel’s behalf, the car was not to be sold before the British Grand Prix meeting where Gerry is seen at the wheel here.

The throttle on Gerry’s car broke before he set a qualifying time so he started the Atlantic Trophy Race from the back of the grid. He worked his way up to 4th before easing off when his door came undone. After passing through the hands of three further owners T222 HU7 was purchased by I believe the current owner David Edwards.

While reading up on the Lola T222 I learned that Chuck Parsons never drove a Lola T222 in period and that the widespread myth that HU7 was ever driven by him possibly originated in the Brands Hatch publicity office with some incorrect programme notes.

My thanks to everyone who contributed to the Lola T222 thread at the Ten Tenths Forum particularly Gregor Marshall who’s post confirmed the identity of today’s featured car, Jeremy Jackson and David Edwards who posted details of the believed chain of ownership of T222 HU7, along with Tim Murray who kindly furnished me with the contemporary race reports from Autosport.

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

Share

93″ Wide – March Chevrolet 707 #707/2 and #707/3

1 Reply

For 1970 the ambitious March Cars embarked on a programme to build customer racing cars for every major open wheel category from Formula One to Formula Ford and included a 93″ wide two seat closed wheel Group 7 Can Am car for good measure.

March 707, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

Two March 707’s were completed one was run in the 1970 Can Am Challenge by the factory with sponsorship from STP for New Zealander Chris Amon, while the first of the two completed chassis was sold to German Helmut Kelleners who was sponsored by the Deutsche Auto Zeitung periodical in the inaugural Interserie Championship.

March 707, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

Of the two drivers Kelleners had the most success winning Intersiere races at Croft and Hockenheimring, any championship challenge was however halted by a couple of clutch failures and a disqualification from the first Hockenheim race after missing a chicane. Helmut won three non further non championship races in 1970 before he had March #707/1 upgraded to 717 spec for 1971, with new bodywork and the chassis number #717/1 being the most obvious difference.

Williams, March 707, Brands Hatch

The revised car was not so competitive and still having transmission problems winning no races in 1971.Austrian Stefan Skelnar bought the car in 1972 and raced #717/1 without any success until at least 1974 eventually refitting the original 707 type bodywork.

Williams, March 707, Brands Hatch

The works #707/2 built for Chris Amon was not ready for the opening races of the 1970 Can Am Challenge but qualified a respectable third on it’s debut at Donnybrooke, where Chris finished 5th. At Laguna Seca and Riverside Chris qualified 5th and finished 4th. There after there is no evidence of the car taking part in contemporary events.

March 707, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

March built a spare chassis tub #707/3 and it would appear to have been purchased by Canadian Gordon Dewar and raced in 5 events in the 1971 Can Am challenge after 4 retirements due to transmission and fuel pump issues Gordon is listed as retiring from the fifth due to illness.

In the early 1980’s Ted Williams acquired #707/3 and he is seen driving the car at Brands Hatch where he experienced handling problems due to a low ride height in qualifying and then low fuel pressure during the race. Later in the 80’s Ted survived a chassis shortening accident in #707/3/.

The #77 is so far as I have been able to ascertain Chris Amon’s chassis #707/2 which was being run at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed for Matteo Maria Tullio.

My thanks to Alan Raine, Simon Lewis and Tim Murray at The Nostalgia Forum for help identifying the #71 chassis number, driver and providing race reports.

Thanks for joining me on this “93” Wide” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you’ll join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Can Am McLaren. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

The Sucker Car – Chaparral Chevrolet 2J #2J001

Leave a Reply

The Chaparral 2J powered by a conventional 680hp aluminium block V8 with an unconventional, but race proven automatic transmission is one of the most fabled in all of motor racing, despite the fact that from just four starts it recorded just one sixth place finish at Road America with Vic Elford at the wheel in September 1970.

Chaparral Chevrolet 2J, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

The reason the Chaparral 2J, even today, draws so much attention is that it’s only point of reference is a hover craft, unlike a hover craft, which floats on a cushion of air, the 2J’s aerodynamics are configured to suck it to the ground. All though I do not believe it was ever put to the test, it is said that the 2000lb 2J, when stationary can generate enough down force that it could, in theory, stick it’s self to the ceiling.

Chaparral Chevrolet 2J, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

The first person to race the 2J in 1970 was none other than 1969 World Champion Jackie Stewart who qualified 3rd for the Watkins Glen Can Am race, but retired with brake failure. The team skipped the next couple of races and then turned up at Road America where Vic Elford qualified on pole and scored the cars only finish 6th place.

Chaparral Chevrolet 2J, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

Missing a couple of more races Vic then qualified on pole at Laguna Seca where the engine broke during the warm up causing a non start. Then at Riverside Vic qualified on pole again but the key to the cars aerodynamics the 55hp two cylinder two stroke Rockwell motor broke so that the pair of fans it drove, which sucked the air out from beneath the car to improve the road handling, were no longer operative causing Vic to retire from the race.

Chaparral Chevrolet 2J, Goodwood Festival Of Speed

The Chaparrals clever aerodynamics were a full six to eight years ahead of anything seen in Formula One, often considered the very apex of the engineering envelope. Unfortunately the 2J’s days were numbered thanks to a number of high profile wing failures in Formula One which had led the governing body of the sport, the FIA in Paris, banning all ‘movable aerodynamic’ devices.

It was clear despite Jim Hall’s Chaparral partner Hap Sharp insisting “If I can come up with a better mousetrap that is within the regulations, I ought to be allowed to use it”, that the fans on the back of the car were aerodynamic devices which permanently sucked the car to the ground, so long as the Rockwell motor was working, and so the concept behind the 2J was duly outlawed at the end of 1970 with it’s full potential completely unrealised.

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

Share

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

1 Reply

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 !

Share

Tomorrow Another Life – GALPOT Automobilia

Leave a Reply

I’ve been having a bit of a clear out whilst reorganising my library and the time has come to dispose of a number of items which may be of interest through my lightpress account on e-bay.

Chevrolet Corvair

From this weeks batch of French car advertisements taken form Connaissance des Arts magazine that I have posted comes this second generation Chevrolet Corvair ad which dates from 1965. Second generation Corvairs featured minor exterior restyling and independent rear suspension in place of the patented swing axle design of the earlier cars.

FIAT 850 Coupé

Also dating from around 1965 was this Fiat 850 Coupé ad with the wonderful strap line that translates “Tomorrow Another Life”. Regular readers may remember a FIAT 850 Automatic featured in an early GALPOT blog.

Mercedes Benz 230 SL

This ‘Pagoda’ Mercedes Benz 230 SL ad from 1966 asks “Do you want test the Mercedes Benz 230 SL?” with the reponse “Maybe, but then you will lose the peace you had before trying this car”. The 230 SL replaced the 300SL and was the first Mercedes Benz to be fitted with radial construction tyres as standard.

DAF 55 Automatique

Michelotti is probably best remembered for styling numerous Triumphs including Herald / Vitesse, Spitfire / GT6, TR7 / TR8 rare Italia 2000 and exotic SIATA 400F Coupé among many others, unknown to me until I posted this ad on e-bay was the he also styled the Dutch built DAF 55 Automatique powered by a French Renault watercooled motor driving the rear wheels through a continuously variable transmission.

Jaguar XJ6

Finally appealing “for some certain style of man” is this Jaguar XJ6 ad with a photo credited to JM Kollar dating from 1970, I have posted are two further XJ6 ads dating to 1971 and 1973 when production of the Series 1 XJ6 came to an end.

Thanks for joining me on this “Tomorrow Another Life” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a sample of the vehicles that were on display at the recent Hillsbrough Concours d’Elegance. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share

Traffic Yellow Customer Racer – McLaren Chevrolet M8 C

Leave a Reply

The 1969 season saw the Canadian American Challenge expand to an eleven race series, the most run in any year of the challenge, but only the McLaren Cars Team cars with New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme recorded wins. Bruce won six of the races driving his McLaren M8B and with Denny recording the remaining five.

McLaren M8C/D, Race Retro

For 1970 McLaren Cars updated the M8B to a design known as the M8D while offering a production version of the M8B built by Trojan known as the M8C, of the type featured today. Confusingly Trojan also built 15 McLaren M12’s featuring updated M6 chassis running with M8 size wheels and adapted M8 bodywork in 1969. The most successful exponent of the customer M8C in the 1970 Can Am Challenge was Canadian Roger McCaig who recorded 3 5th place finishes and an eventual 10th place in the 1970 Challenge standings.

Lothar Motschenbacher who drove one of the 1969 Mclaren M8B’s, a 1969 McLaren M12 and an M8C during the 1970 Can Am Challenge recorded one 5th place in his M8C at the last race of the season to finish a distant 2nd in the 1970 Can Am Challenge, to Denny Hulme who won 6 of the ten 1970 Can Am races in his M8D to secure his second Can Am Championship.

McLaren M8C/D, Race Retro

According to the Bruce McLaren Trust website Trojan built 15 M8C’s which were also raced in Europe and South American series. The Ford Cosworth DFV powered M8C driven by Chris Craft won the 1970 Swedish Grand Prix run for sports cars including a couple of Porsche 917K’s.

The most successful McLaren M8C appears to have been chassis #70-08 which was driven to three victories in Argentina by; Nasif Estéfano at Buenos Aeries in April 1971, Carlos Pairetti at Buenos Aeries in August 1971 and Osvaldo López at San Martin in March 1973. The car was listed on each occasion as being powered by a Ford motor.

McLaren M8C/D, Race Retro

The only other in period victory recorded for an M8C is the Chevrolet example driven by Siegfried Rieger at Hockenheim in November 1971, his car featured an M12 chassis with M8C bodywork.

The last ‘in period’ race recorded for any M8C, thought to be for today’s featured car M8C #30-25, was driven by Richard Dotkins at an Interserie event run at Zolder in August 1992, where the car finished 6th in Heat 2. Since then #30-25, which would never have run in the works McLaren Traffic Yellow colour scheme as seen here, is thought to have recorded at least 5 race victories in sundry (primarily classic/historic) events through the 1990’s; 2 by Richard Dotkins, 2 by Richard Eyre and 1 by Geoff Farmer.

McLaren M8C/D, Race Retro

The #30 series chassis number of the car would more normally be associated with a space/tube frame Trojan built McLaren M1B. The history of McLaren M1B #30-25 is, like the history of M8C/D #30-25 prior to 1992, also unknown at the time of writing.

The car featured to day was seen at Race Retro and is raced by Harry Reed.

My thanks to raceanouncer2003, Belmondo, David McKinney and Duncan Fox at The Nostalgia Forum for their help in identifying today’s car and it’s history.

Thanks for joining me on this “Traffic Light Yellow Customer Racer” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Can Am BRM. Don’t forget to come back now !

Share