Tag Archives: Rolt

Remus – ERA R5B

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In 1936 today’s featured ERA R5B which became known as Remus was added to the 1935 ERA R2B known as Romulus at the White Mouse Racing stable for the Siamese Prince Birabongse Bhanutej Bhjanubandh Bira to drive.

ERA R5B, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

Like Romulus Remus was fitted with a 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui supercharged engine which remained in the car until 1979 when it was replaced by the 2 litre / 122 cui seen in the car today.

ERA R5B, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

Bira’s only notable success in the car was to win the 1936 Albi Grand Prix, after being left unused in 1937 Tony Rolt bought Remus and drove her to victory in the 1939 British Empire Trophy at Donington Park after it had been modified by Freddie Dixon.

ERA R5B, VSCC Spring Start, Silverstone

Tony and St John Ratcliffe Stewart “Jock” Horsfall both drove Remus on the Cockfosters Rally Demonstration Run on July 14th 1945 just two months after the end of hostilities in Europe.

ERA R5B, VSCC Spring Start, Silverstone

I F Connell briefly owned Remus in 1946 before selling her on to Peter Bell later the same year who entered her for John Bolster to race.

ERA R5B, VSCC Spring Start, Silverstone

Murray Walker in his autobiography “Unless I am very much mistaken” tells how while commentating for BBC Radio at Silverstone for the 1949 British Grand Prix John Bolster lost Remus in a big way and deposited himself “in a bleeding mess” at the foot of his commentary box, Murray’s understated commentary to the BBC Radio audience was “Bolster’s gone off !”.

ERA R5B, Charles McCabe, Silverstone Classic,

John retired from driving there after and the repaired Remus passed through a succession of documented owners before being bought by current owner Charles McCabe who is seen at the wheel above during a Silverstone Classic meeting.

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

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Scottish Hillclimb Champion – Chevron Holbay B17 #F3.70.08

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1967 Chevron started building cars with 1 litre / 61. cui “Screamer” motors to comply with the tertiary international Formula 3 regulations.

The manufacturers first Formula 3 model was the one off B7 driven by Peter Gethin towards the end of 1967, this was followed by a batch of 8 production versions of the B7 built in 1968 known as B9’s

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

A one off B9B with stressed panels incorporated into the frame was built at the end of 1968 and again raced by Peter Gethin who drove the car to a debut win.

The following year Chevron built 14 production versions of the B9B known as the B15 and in 1970 9 upgraded Formula 3 cars followed known as B17’s.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

I believe today’s featured car seen in these photographs at the recent Grand Finals Castle Combe meeting where it was driven by Jim Blockley is the same car as that advertised by David Pullen in October 2013.

Distinguishing features include the one piece top body work from the back of the cockpit to the nose, the exhaust, and the universal joint with sliding spline driveshafts in place of the more common for the period Rotoflex driveshaft couplings.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Jim Blockley, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

According to former Derek Bennett Engineering employee Kevin ‘Ossy’ Hodge, who was involved in building nearly all the B17’s, the car formerly belonging to David Pullen is the eighth Formula 3 B17 to be built and was originally supplied to Ken Sedgley.

Kevin also established recently that unlike Chevron’s GT’s chassis frames for the B8, B16 and later B19 models which were built by sub contractor Arch Motors the frames for the open wheelers were subcontracted out to Racing Frames in Ware, Hertfordshire.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Jim Blockley, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

In his notes on Ken Sedgley’s B17, see note 13 on this link, Allen Brown records that #F3.70.08 was raced by Ken in Formula 3 and Libre events with Holbay motors and upgraded the following year with a 1600 cc / 97 cui Holbay motor compliant with the new for 1971 spec Formula 3.

John Finch of Chesterfield bought and raced the car midway through 1971 and shared it with Graham Lynch in 1972, the following year a Formula Atlantic Spec production based twin cam was fitted and the car was raced in both Formula Atlantic and Formula Libre events.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

Alan Thompson bought the car for hillclimbing campaigning it in 1975 and 1976 which culminated in him securing the 1976 Scottish Hillclimb Championship.

Russell Paterson acquired the car in 1977 but crashed it before it passed through the hands of Bobby Howlings and M Wakefield-Brand in 1978.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

David Pullen bought the car in 1991 and in the spring of 2009 the car was significantly rebuilt with a 1964 to 1970 F3 spec 1 litre / 61 cui Holbay R70 MAE engine rebuilt by Stuart Rolt and Mk8 Hewland 4 speed gearbox by Cavan Riley.

John Pearson raced this car in 2014 prior to selling it to Jim Blockley who raced a Brabham in Historic Formula 3 events up until appearing in the Chevron at Castle Combe.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

The 1964 to 1970 Formula 3 engine specs required the use of a production engine block and a single choke carburetor fitted with a 36mm restrictor twixt the carburetor and inlet manifold.

The cylinder heads were free to be modified with gear driven cams replacing cam chains and dry sump lubrication for the crankshaft, the 1 litre / 61 cui Formula 3 motor’s were known as “screamers” because they could occasionally be buzzed up to 13,000 rpm with little or no damage.

Chevron Novamotor B17, Grand Finals, Castle Combe,

By far the most popular blocks used in the “Screamer” formula were the three crank bearing 105E and 109E blocks from Ford, Cosworth built a Modified Anglia Engine known as the “MAE” based on 105E but the term “MAE” appears to have carried over onto products for the same market from both Holbay and Novamotor who also used Ford 3 bearing engine blocks.

It was soon realised that the least resistance to flow was offered by a twin choke Weber IDA down draught carburetor with a blanked off choke, for which special inlet manifolds were built to fit engines that were tilted over at 30 degrees along the crankshaft axis in the chassis.

My thanks to all who contributed to the B17 thread at TenTenths and to the Ford 105E thread at The Nostalgia Forum especially Snakedriver, Ray Bell, John Saunders and David Birchall who kindly answered my question regarding the use of the blanked off twin choke carburetors.

Thanks for joining me on this “Scottish Hillclimb Champion” 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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Stirling’s Favourite – Ferguson Climax P99

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“Harry” Ferguson was born on Novmeber 4th 1884 in Growell, County Down, Nothern Ireland. He started work with his brother in a bicycle and car repair business in 1902, while there Harry started racing motorcycles in 1904 and on the 31st December 1909, having designed and built a monoplane, he became the first person to fly in Ireland.

Ferguson Climax P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed

In 1911 Harry went into business selling motor and agricultural vehicles. On seeing the short comings of some of the agricultural products he was selling he began devising his own, including a new hydraulic system and three point linkage for attaching ploughs.

Harry entered into a hand shake agreement with Henry Ford Snr for Ford to manufacture the Ferguson patents under license in 1939. In 1947 Henry Ford II, Seniors grandson, reneged on the deal and five years later settled with Harry out of court to the tune of $9 million, around half of which went to Harry’s legal representatives.

Ferguson Climax P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed

In 1950 Harry employed Aston Martin designer Claude Hill and along with two pre 1939/45 war friends Fred Dixon, who prewar had proposed building an all wheel drive Land Speed Record (LSR) car and former ERA racer Tony Rolt began working on an innovative all wheel drive road car featuring electric windows, disc brakes and access to the rear through a hatchback, all idea’s which were unknown in European passenger car production at the time.

Project 99 a research vehicle, that became the worlds first all wheel drive Formula One car, to promote the all wheel drive concept was given the green light in May 1960, just 6 months before Harry’s death at the age of 75.

Ferguson Climax P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed

The P99 made it’s public debut in an Intercontinental Formula race with a 2.5 litre / 152 cui Coventry Climax motor at Silverstone in 1961 where Tony Rolt’s former entrant Rob Walker entered the car for Jack Fairman alongside Stirling Moss in a similarly powered Cooper.

Fairman retired from the race with a broken gearbox that may have resulted from excessive engine braking in the absence of reliable brakes, while Moss went on to a comfortable victory in the Cooper. At the British Grand Prix, where the Fergusson appeared with a 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui Climax, Fairman qualified 20th but ran into electrical problems, after Stirling Moss had retired his Rob Walker entered Lotus 18 he took over from Fairman in the P99. The car was later disqualified for receiving a push start.

Ferguson Climax P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed

Stirling Moss was entered to drive the Ferguson in the Oulton Park Gold Cup, a non championship race for Formula One cars entered by most of the top teams except Ferrari and Porsche. Stirling won easily to record the first, and only, win of a (non championship) Formula One race with an all wheel drive car and coincidentally the last (non championship) win for a front engined Formula One car.

The Fergusons 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui Formula One motor was uprated to 2.5 litres / 152 cui and subsequently entered in a series of non championship Antipodean Formula Libre, unrestricted, races in early 1963 where Graham Hill drove the car to a second place finish in the Australian rain at Lakeside and a forth place in the sub tropical summer heat of New Zealand at Pukekoe where with a mile to go his gearbox packed up while again running in second place.

Innes Ireland drove the P99 in the next three events finishing third at Leven, but retired from both of the other races. Graham Hill raced the car one more time at Warwick Farm where he came home sixth.

Ferguson Climax P99, Goodwood Festival of Speed

After a conversation with Stirling Moss, who had praised the benefits of the P99’s all wheel drive,Indy 500 entrant Andy Granatelli instigated a test in which Jack Fairman and Bobby Marshman drove the P99 at Indianapolis with the 2.5 litre / 152 cui motor and recorded average speeds of over 140 mph, Marshman claimed he did not need to lift at all for any of the corners, the car was so underpowered. Andy was sufficiently impressed that he employed Ferguson Research to develop all wheel drive for his 1964 Indy 500 challenger the Studebaker STP Special.

Granatelli never won the Indy 500 with an all wheel drive car but kept backing the concept through various incarnations the last of which was the all wheel drive Lotus 64 built in 1969, after which all wheel drive was banned from the brick yard.

Rolt, Fergusson P99, Richmond Trophy, Goodwood Revival

Ferguson Research was also involved with five all wheel drive Formula One projects including the 1969 Lotus 63, Cosworth and McLaren M9A, the last two of which I’ll be looking at in the weeks to come.

Although not the easiest car to drive Stirling Moss once described the Ferguson P99, which fascinated him, as his favourite racing car. Stuart Rolt, of the same Tony Rolt family is seen driving the P99 in practice for the 2011 Richmond Trophy at Goodwood above.

My thanks to Alan Cox, E.B., Ray Bell, Roger Clark and Michael Ferner at The Nostalgia Forum for their patience answering my questions about the the Ferguson P99.

Thanks for joining me on this “Stirling’s Favourite” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a look at the first BRM to win a Grand Prix. Don’t forget to come back now !

08 07 13 Errata, I originally stated that Moss was entered in a Lotus 18 for a non championship race at Silverstone when the Ferguson made it’s debut, when in fact Stirling drove a Cooper Climax to victory in the race run to the Intercontinental Formula as now stated in the amended text. Thanks to Roger Clark for pointing out the error.

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