Tag Archives: Ecclestone

After Hours Bull – Lamborghini Muira S

Gian Paolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, and Bob Wallace put in the hours to develop the mid engined P400 chassis that would form the basis of the Lamborghini Muira on after hours because Ferruccio Lamborghini had expressed his preference for considerably more sedate front engined GT cars his company had started manufacturing in 1963.

01 Lamborghini Miura S 6267sc

The bare prototype P400 chassis with it’s transverse V12 engine and gearbox mounted ahead of the rear wheels received a stellar reception at the 1965 Turin Motor Show and Ferruccio Lamborghini saw the value of allowing the vehicle to be developed as nothing more than a potential marketing tool.

02 Lamborghini Miura S 1415sc

By the 1966 Geneva Motor Show Marcello Gandini at Bertone had just completed the sleek lined body that marked the P400 out as an icon of it’s time, to my eye’s it is the kind of shape the Ford GT and later GT40 might have become, had it been built in Italy rather than Slough under the influence of Dearborn. Notably the P400’s body had been finalised so late that it appeared in Geneva with ballast in place of the engine, as no one was sure the engine would fit under the super slim body.

03 Lamborghini Miura S 6268sc

The P400 was ready for sale later in 1966 and 275 of the original 375 hp versions were made up until 1969.

04 Lamborghini Miura S 6269sc

In November 1968 a second type P400S also known as the Miura S was launched featuring 20 hp more and a variety of external and internal trim differences including chrome trim, electric windows, new rocker control switches and small improvements to the luggage capacity.

05 Lamborghini Miura S 6270sc

Muira S owners included Frank Sinatra and Miles Davis, the jazz legend crashed his under the influence of cocaine which resulted in him breaking both his ankles in 1972, coincidentally the year the last of the 762 Muira’s of all types was built.

06 Lamborghini Miura S 6265sc

The 1969 film The Italian Job depicts a Muira being driven at high speed into a dark tunnel inside which a Mafioso operated front end loader was waiting to catch the car and occupant which was then unceremoniously dumped down a ravine.

07 Lamborghini Miura S 6266sc

Today’s featured car, seen at Auto Italia Brooklands last year, was built as a white P400, seen in this link with singer Sandie Shaw, but converted to an Apple Green Muira S spec for the owner Justin de Villenueve who turns out to be model Twiggy’s manager Nigel Davis.

08 Lamborghini Miura S 6264sc

Later on the car is said to have belonged to one Bernard Charles Ecclestone of Formula One fame. In 1990 the center of the car was badly damaged by fire while the car was disassembled. The whole lot was returned to Saint Agata and returned to factory specifications. The current owners family bought the car in 2000 and he says that while it is not the easiest vehicle in the world to drive for someone of his stature the “vista ahead is to die for.”

Thanks for joining me on this “After Hours Bull” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a trip to Gordano Services on the M5 for a little competitive classic motorsport. Don’t forget to come back now !

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Murray’s Triangular Monocoque – Brabham Cosworth BT42 #BT42/6

After winning three World Drivers Championships two with Cooper in 1959 and 1960 and one with his own Brabham Team in 1966 Jack Brabham decided he was going to sell up and retire at the end of 1969. He got as far as selling the team to his partner the Australian designer/engineer Ron Tauranac in 1969 but after Jochen Rindt elected to stay with the Lotus team for 1970 Jack Brabham drove for the team in 1970 before hanging up his helmet with his team placed 4th in the constructors championship.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

The following season Ron ran the Brabham team with Graham Hill and Tim Schenken scoring a non championship race win with Graham Hill and a few points in the championship. Ron decided that he needed a business partner to continue and ended up selling the team to a former racer sometime team owner and driver manager called Bernie Ecclestone. It soon become clear that both Ecclestone and Tauranac liked things done their was and so Ron left early in 1972.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

For the 1972 season Graham Hill was still the number one driver with Argentinian Carlos Reutemann and Wilson Fittipaldi, brother of 1972 World Champion Emerson, driving second and third string entries.For the second year running Brabham finished 9th in the constructors championship last of the point’s scorers.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

For 1973 South African Gordon Murray was given the responsibility of coming up with the Brabham team’s new challenger and he came up with the Brabham BT42 built around a monocoque that unusually, for the time, featured a triangular cross section as seen seen in these photographs.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Carlos Reutemann and and Wilson Fittipaldi were the teams front line drivers being joined on occasion by Andrea de Adamich until he broke his legs in an accident on the opening lap of the British Grand Prix, Andrea was replaced by Rolf Stommelen and then John Watson in the final Grand Prix of the season at Watkins Glen.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Reutemann managed six points paying finishes with the best being two thirds in the 1973 French and US Grand Prix while Andrea, in an older 1972 Brabham BT37, and Wilson added another 6 points between them all of which moved Brabham back up to 4th in the World Constructors championship.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

This particular chassis is the sixth and final Brabham BT42 built it first appeared in the 1973 Austrian Grand Prix as a replacement for the chassis damaged in the accident at the 1973 British GP. Rolf Stommelen drove the car three times qualifying a best 12th in Italy and finishing a best 12th in Italy and Canada. John Watson qualified the car 24th for the US Grand Prix but the engine did not go the race distance.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Bernie Ecclestone sold chassis #BT42/6 and BT42/5 to Martino Finotto for the 1974 season, Finotto a seasoned sports car racer realised he was out of his depth in Formula One and so arranged for fellow sportscar racers Swiss Silvio Moser, 1973 and ’74 Le Mans winner Gérard Larrousse, Austrian Helmut Koenigg and Italian Carlo Facetti to drive the cars in several European Grand Prix.

Brabham BT42, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

In the end only Gérard Larrousse made a start in the car, having qualified 28th for the 1974 Belgian Grand Prix he retired with tyre issues. When Gérard unsuccessfully tried to qualify the car at the 1974 French Grand Prix it carried a particularly hideous airbox as can be seen in this linked image.

Thanks for joining me on this “Murray’s Triangular Monocoque” 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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