Tag Archives: Roe

IMSA King Elvis – Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo #88-01

According to the results available to me Don Devendorf a “scientist” at the Hughes Aircraft Corporation was campaigning a Triumph Spitfire and then Mueller Fabricators Triumph GT6 in the GP and EP SCCA classes with some success from 1968 to 1970.

By 1978 Don had founded Electramotive Engineering of California with John Knepp to prepare and successfully race a succession of Datsun’s.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Starting with a IMSA GTU Class 240Z before moving onto GTU Class 280ZX and GTO Class 280ZX turbo models up until 1984.

In 1985 Nissan decided to drop the Datsun brand in favour of Nissan and entered into a partnership with Electramotive to field cars in the top GTP class of the IMSA series.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

From 1985 Electramotive used Lola chassis similar to the Lola T710 chassis used by General Motors Corvette GTP team but adapted to take the Electramotive tuned turbocharged Nissan VG30 V6.

Initially the Nissan variant of the Lola T710 was known as the T810 in 1985, but for 1986 and 1987 the cars were known as Nissan GTP ZX-turbo’s with Lola T710 chassis numbers.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

The Nissan Lola chassis carried bodywork devised by Yoshi Suzuka which was easily distinguished from the Hendricks Motorsports GTP Corvette body by the large front intakes mounted below the windscreen.

By 1987 the GTP ZX Turbo had been developed into one of the faster cars on the IMSA GTP circuit scoring 5 pole positions and one win with Geoff Brabham and Elliot Forbes-Robinson sharing the victory spoils at Miami.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

For 1988 Electramotive commissioned Trevor Harris to design the chassis for today’s featured car, #88-01 built by Jim Chapman’s JC Prototypes, using the same Electromotive alloy block motor and running gear as the ’87 GTP ZX-Turbo and similar Yoshi Suzuka designed bodywork.

After gifting the two endurance events at Daytona and Sebring to the new Castrol sponsored Jaguar team, by not entering them. Geoff Brabham won nine of the remaining events, with a season high streak of 8 consecutive wins to secure the 1988 drivers and team championships for the Electramotive team.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Chassis #88-01 was known as the King of the IMSA circuit and given the nickname Elvis, much of the success of the car was due to an electronically controlled turbocharger waste gate devised by John Knepp.

Four of Geoff’s wins were with John Moreton acting as co driver, they also scored a fifth non championship win together at Tampa in November 1988 and one more with Tom Gloy sharing the driving duties at Mid Ohio.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

Surprisingly in 1989 Geoff Brabham drove #88-01 to a further seven victories to secure a second drivers title and team title for the Electramotive team, this included securing pole with Arie Luyendyk, Chip Robinson and Michael Roe for the Daytona 24 Hours where they failed to finish and winning the 1989 Sebring 12 Hours with Chip and Arie sharing the driving.

During the 1989 season Geoff and Chip shared #88-01 with team founder Don Devendorf to win at Miami and Atlanta and shared another two victories as a driving pair.

Nissan GTP ZX-Turbo, Goodwood Festival of Speed,

In 1990 Don sold Electramotive to Nissan and the team became Nissan Performance Technology Inc, NPTI. Elvis was wheeled out for it’s third and final season of competition and scored three more wins, including a second win at Sebring where Derek Daly and Bob Earl shared the driving. Derek and Geoff shared the driving to secure the chassis final two wins at West Palm Beach and Road Atlanta.

In all from 1988 Elvis made 32 starts, 16 from pole, finished 26 of those races and won 20 of them. Geoff went on to secure the 1990 IMSA GTP championship using a new twin turbo V6 NTP 90 chassis and the 1991 championship with a combination of a twin turbo V8 Nissan R90CK, twin turbo V6 NTP 90 and NTP 91 chassis.

Thanks for joining me on this IMSA King Elvis 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 !

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Wall Of Noise – Aston Martin AMR 1 #01 & #03

In 1989 Group C sports car racing reached new heights popularity among manufacturers when Aston Martin joined in the fun as a manufacturer. Aston Martin Tickford had supplied motors for the Nimrod Group C cars that were run from 1982 until 1984. They also supplied the even less successful EMKA Productions and Cheetah teams which ran sporadically from 1983 to 1985.

Aston Martin AMR1, Le Mans

The seeds of the 1989 program were laid after an agreement between Aston’s owners Victor Gauntlet and Peter Livanos that Aston Martin should go the whole hog and manufacture a Le Mans challenger wholly in house. A month after they announced their plans Ford took a controlling interest in Aston Martin and to the surprise of Gauntlet and Livanous agreed the racing program should continue on condition that it did not interfere with Aston’s production vehicles and that it would require no finance from Ford recommending a separate company should be set up to run the racing operation.

Aston Martin AMR1, Le Mans

Aston Martin and Ray Mallock, using the Ecurie Eccose name with whom he had won the junior Group C2 championship in 1986 created a new company called Proteus Technology Ltd known as Protech. Protech was to be funded for six years to the tune of £26 million by the Livanos family. Callaway Engineering was engaged to develop the 5.3 litre Aston Martin Virage V8 motor into first a 600 hp 6 litre / 366 cui motor and later a 700 hp 6.3 litre unit.

Aston Martin AMR1, Le Mans

The team hoped to have the first cars, designed by Max Bostrom, racing towards the end of 1988 and when the deadline passed they prepared themselves for a start at the first Group C race of 1989. An accident during testing meant the team were without a car to take to the first race of 1989 and so attracted a US$ 250,000 fine for missing the race.

Aston Martin AMR1, Le Mans

The AMR1’s first appearance was at Dijon where AMR1/01 driven by David Leslie and Brian Redman finished a distant 17th. At Le Mans which was a non championship event two cars were entered the #18 AMR1/01 for Redman, Micheal Roe and Costas Los while the #19 AMR/03 was driven by Leslie, Ray Mallock and David Sears.

Aston Martin (Callaway) RDP87, Le Mans

Despite circulating in a wall of noise equal to anything heard in the NASCAR Sprint Cup the AMR1’s were short on horsepower and overweight the #18 qualified 32nd while the #19 could only qualify 40th. The #19, seen at Arnage below, eventually retired with electrical issues early on the Sunday morning of the race while the #18 soldiered round to an 11th place finish.

Aston Martin AMR1, Le Mans

In the next race, at Brands Hatch, Redman and Leslie scored the teams best result a 4th place finish. Aston Martin finished the season 6th behind Mercedes-Benz, two private Porsche teams, Jaguar and Nissan but ahead of the factory Toyota team.

During the course of 1989 Bernie Ecclestone convinced the FIA that the future of Sports Car racing lay with 3.5 litre engine rules as required in Formula One from 1991. Aston Martin had no choice but to withdraw at the end of 1989 as they had no suitable engine and Ford had given the nod to Jaguar to use it’s own Ford Cosowrth HB V8 Formula One engine, and running the unfinished Aston Martin AMR2 for a year made no sense.

My thanks to fausto at The Nostalgia Forum for finding the link to the AMR2 wind tunnel models.

Thanks for joining me on this “Wall Of Noise 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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Dino Remembered – Ferrari 246S #0784

At the end of 1955 Alfredo ‘Dino’ Ferrari proposed the idea of building a twin over head cam 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui V6 motor for use in second tier open wheel Formula 2 racing to his father Enzo. Soon afterwards ‘Dino’ was hospitalised with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, while in hospital ‘Dino’ discussed the technical details of his idea with legendary engineer Vittorio Jano.

Jano translated his disscusions with ‘Dino’ into what would become the first ‘Dino’ V6 which was used in Formula 2 races in 1957, by which time ‘Dino’ had fatally succumbed to his illness.

The motor had the two banks of cylinders unusually inclined at 65 degrees by 1958 a larger version of the ‘Dino’ V6 had been installed in Ferrari’s Grand Prix cars and used by Mike Hawthorn to win the 1958 World Drivers Championship.

A 2 litre / 122 cui version of the ‘Dino’ engine was installed in a sports car, s/n #0740, for Peter Collins to drive at Goodwood in the 1958 Sussex trophy where he came 2nd. The sports car was indistinguishable from the older Fantusi bodied 250TR apart from the 3 twin choke carburetors sticking out of the bonnet /hood where the larger engined 250 TR had 6.

Ferrari 246S, Bobby Verdon-Roe, Siverstone Classic

Several more variations of the Dino V6’s were built and raced including single over head cam versions with 60 degree inclinations between the cylinders. #0784 seen here in the hands of Bobby Verdon Roe at the Silverstone Classic was the last of the 246S models to be built in 1959.

#0784 was fitted with a twin cam V6 and uniquely with Formula One derived independent rear suspension. On it’s debut Phil Hill and Graf Berghe ‘Taffy’ von Trips drove this chassis into second place in the 1960 Targa Florio. This would remain the cars best result despite the best efforts Richie Ginther, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Ed Hugus, Alan, Cornell jr, Ricardo & Pedro Rodriguez, and Bob Grossman.

In 1962 the car was fitted with the high tail body seen on the car today. Among it’s many owners since the 1960’s was Nick Mason’s friend and Pink Floyd Manager Steve O’Rourke who was briefly the custodian of #0784 in 1997. More recently in 2009 Bobby Verdon Rowe and Nick Leventis took this 246S to victory lane in a one hour race at the Goodwood revival in 2009.

Thanks for joining me on the Dino V6 edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

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