Bonneville - World of Speed 2012 Gallery

 

Lord Brocket’s butchered beauties

The Ferraris 340 America, 250 Europa GT, 195 Sport and the Maserati Tipo 61 ‘Birdcage’. What do these cars all have in common? The short answer is that one example of each of them did not fair too well in the hands of one Charles Nall-Cain, better known as Lord Brocket, who until being rumbled for insurance fraud in the mid-nineties was a well-known collector of Ferraris and Maseratis. After the crash of the classic car market in 1990 and facing mounting debt, Brocket attempted to defraud his insurers for around £4,500,000, alleging that these cars had been stolen from his collection. Despite later withdrawing his claim, Brocket ended up spending a few years in prison because of it. 

But what happened to the cars in the meantime is a sad tale. 

195 Sport 0123S as it appeared on Kidston.com

A quick breakdown of the cars, if you’ll pardon the pun (which you’ll only get later). Just 23 340 Americas were built, and Brocket’s 1951 specimen was one of only 11 of these that had the beautiful Vignale body made up of one gracefully sweeping arc from front to back when seen in profile (other bodies were built by Ghia and Touring). Since it has been restored it looks nothing like the original, but is simply made up: it has lost its windscreen to become a faux-Spyder, and has missing bumpers, different air intakes and outlets and so on. The 340 America was the first of the now famous Ferrari Americas, and also the first to use the naturally aspirated Lampredi 4.1 litre V12 that had been initially developed for the Ferrari F1 arm; it was no slouch. While the 250 Europa was another grand tourer style Ferrari to use the puissant Lampredi V12, the later 250 Europa GT shortened its wheelbase from 2,800 to 2,600 mm and opted for a Colombo 3 litre V12 based on that of the 250 Mille Miglia. It was the 250 Europa GT that Brocket had. With coachwork by Pininfarina and Vignale, it represents another important milestone in the history of Ferrari, being that it was the first to have the ‘GT’ monicker. 28 were built, of which Brocket’s model was the penultimate example to roll off the production line. Just to gauge how rare these cars are, fewer 250 Europa GTs (and 340 Americas for that matter) were built than 250 GTOs. This exact model was originally owned in succession by two Dutchmen, and raced once at Zandvoort, even taking part in a couple of hill climbs before Brocket became its sixth owner in 1980.

Gregor Fisken with  2456 at Laguna Seca in 2000

Brocket’s 1950 berlinetta chassis 195 Sport, one of only three to be bodied by Touring, also had an interesting life before he owned it, racing for example at Silverstone, the RAC International Rally and the Tour de France in 1951, while one of the other Touring 195s led at Le Mans and won the 1950 Mille Miglia. The 195 Sport concerned here was actually in need of total restoration when Brocket purchased it, having allegedly been found in the USA rusting in an avocado grove, but this doesn’t excuse what happened to it. Then there is the 1960 Maserati Tipo 61 ‘Birdcage’, a hugely important car. A chro-moly frame of about two-hundred tubes welded together gave this car its nickname as well as a much lighter but more rigid chassis than most of its contemporaries. A Camoradi Birdcage in white and blue team colours won the Nürburgring 1000km in 1960 with Stirling Moss behind the wheel, and again in 1961. Other drivers to throw around a 2.9 litre, 250 bhp, 177 mph Birdcage included the greats Jim Hall, Carroll Shelby and Lloyd ‘Lucky’ Casner himself, who originally founded Camoradi specifically to race the Birdcage. The Birdcage that Brocket owned was raced in 1960 and 1961 but was then partially destroyed in a garage fire and later dismantled. Brocket bought the bits and gave it a new frame, body and engine. The Tipo 61 and its ancestors (Tipos 63, 64 and 65) are crucially significant in the history of Maserati racing, being the last we saw of the marque in racing until the 21st century. Designed by Giulio Alfieri, three Tipo 61s in Camoradi colours were also entered at Le Mans in 1960, but despite being thrillingly quick all had to retire suffering from various problems including starter motor trouble for instance, a great shame. 

340 America is 0138 AM at Elkhart  Lake in 1985. Courtesy of Marcel Massini.

What happened to the examples that Brocket owned is a horrifying story to say the least. Afflicted by the aforementioned financial troubles, Brocket hatched a plan to defraud his insurers by staging a ‘theft’, even suggesting at one point that there had been interest from ‘Japanese buyers’ in the models. What he in fact did was have two employees dismantle the cars, cut up their bodies, scatter them across his large estate and bury them. Several engine parts and an OSCA 2000 also met an unfortunate end, although unfortunately little is known about what happened to it. His estranged wife at the time happened to be caught attempting to forge a prescription to quench her drug addiction, and ended up spilling the beans to the police. Brocket was duly tried and convicted. The 250 Europa GT has happily been accurately restored to its former glory, but during its restoration the body and many of the parts have had to be built again from scratch. The same is true of the 340 America which was virtually destroyed and is now residing in the USA, but the reconstruction is not at all true to the original as far as looks are concerned, and it has a different engine altogether. The Tipo 61 has been restored extensively and raced again in dark red at Laguna Seca in 2000. The 195 S however has not been fully restored yet; all that remains of the original body is the boot lid and badges. It remains for sale in its current state. Brocket also had time added on to his prison sentence when it emerged that he had been involved in further fraud, this time passing off a fake Ferrari 250 SWB that he had had built on the base of the much less valuable 250 GTE 2+2, giving it the serial number of a real short wheelbase 250 that had been missing for a long time. He may have got away with it had the real 250 SWB not been found, but that’s another story for another time.

T. Sherriff

Ferrari #2707GT Drogo

There seems to be a lot of confusion around on the internet and press about Ferrari chassis number #2707GT but hopefully Classic Cars Talks will be able to put a final word on the matter.

#2707GT left the line in 1960 and was first sold to Turin in July 1961 in configuration 250 GTE 2+2. The GTE, first Ferrari's production 4 seater introduced in 1960, was developed starting from a 250 GT Coupe. Compared to that these new luxurious Gran Turismo were 200 mm longer, 60 mm wider and, perhaps most surprisingly, over 15 mm lower and only 80 kilos heavier.

#2707GT didn't retain the GTE configuration for long for it was to be acquired by Pierre De Siebenthal to be part of the batch consigned to Piero Drogo and Nembo. Quite a few 250 in all configurations would have been delivered to these workshops across the sixties for different reasons, mostly to be updated, kept competitive and to be fixed after crashes. De Siebenthal, an active gentleman racer since the late fifties, was a good friend of Enzo Ferrari and the whole Maranello/Modena bunch of lads.  This obviously included Neri & Bonacini and Piero Drogo.
An article on an issue of "Auto Italiana" from 1963 reports: "… a batch of Ferrari GT are being consigned to customers from a collaboration of Neri & Bonacini and Carrozzeria Sport Cars of Piero Drogo. (…) The 1961 Ferrari engine has been updated with an upgrade from 6 to 12 carburettors and the conversion to dry sump. The chassis has been modified and lightened and the bodywork completely transformed. The new design, suggested from Ing. Bizzarrini, is designed to reduce to a minimum the drag. The new fool loaded heigh is 113cm, 15 less than the original car and total weight reduced by 40kg. The 290hp of the engine is enough to push the car up to around 275-280 km/h and it should qualify easily in the prototype class. According to Bizzarrini's calculations the new body should also guarantee a huge reduction in fuel consumption".

Magny Cours, 1970

The two carrozzeria were very close to each other and it is well known how they were usually helping each other with man hours, expertise and spares. This might be the reason why some refer to our car being "The Lost Nembo Spyder". According to this theory #2707GT was sold bare metal from Tom Meade to a customer in Lebanon, never to be seen again. This is obviously not the case, as recently  confirmed by a mechanic of Carrozzeria Sports Cars that recently came to see the car for himself.

the crash at the Nurburgring, 1970

#2707GT was then extensively raced up until 1970 when a crash at the Nurburgring took it off the tracks for good. The car went to populate De Siebenthal's notorious "scrap yard" but its fate was much more fortunate than the one awaiting the other cars that remained in his grounds in Lausanne for the better part of the next ten years. It was in fact acquired by the current owner (and Ferrari Specialist) that started a meticulous and patient restoration, a restoration that would last almost twenty years.

It was a great relief for me to discover that this car is alive and well today, for it's one of the most beautiful Drogo ever created. The side vents seem gracefully purposeful and the rear arches embrace the wheels more gracefully than for #2053GT, but still more proudly than on #2445GT or #1717GT. It is also interesting to note how for this car the rear window is not the more typical steep raked big window but rather a GTO mkII style vertical panel, more like on the other so called "De Siebenthal car", #3405GT.

 

Jack Brabham, documentary and Pub story

I have realised that I have been keeping Jack Brabham in that corner of the mind dedicated to legendary drivers that are no longer with us. But Jack is very much alive and well, considering his age.

Class of '26, he has been racing in Formula One all the way across ‘The Killer Years’ from 1955 to 1970. He was 44 by then but still as competitive and ruthless as he had ever been. Jochen Rindt, sadly posthumous World Champion in 1970, would have to battle him to the last lap twice in that championship. 

Click HERE to be linked to a nice documentary about the man Jack Brabham.

The internet is full of stories about Jack, including his undefeated record of being in ‘66 the one and only man that managed to win the title in a car bearing his own name, so here at CCT we decided to tell the obscure story of the Jaguar Mark I related to this amazing driver - a story we were told in a London pub.

Back in the sixties K.M. was one of the many young lads working as a mechanic in the flourishing British automobile market. Courtyards and small garages all over the island used to be the place where small teams of friends were having a shot at building race cars one way or another. K was in the second hand car trade, with a healthy network of mates all over the place and managed to buy for scraps a Jaguar MkI with a friend. The car didn't have external mods but was race prepped by Jack Brabham's workshop. I would love to have more information about Jack's involvement in the car but by the time K managed to get his hands on it it was nothing more than an old racer and that only.

We all know that ‘MkI’ is a retrospective name introduced to name the older version of the MkII in 1959. This "baby" Jag, presented in 1955 and produced from '57 to '59 was a well trimmed entry level sedan offered in a 2.4 and 3.4 straight 6. The model was extensively raced by the likes of Sir Stirling Moss and Mike Hawthorne and would go on to win two Australian Touring Car Championships.

K got his 2.4 in 1966 and by that time it wasn't any more than an outdated banger. With his friends he decided to update the rear fenders, removing the spats and reshaping the wings in fibreglass. He became friends with the young heir of a famous banker who had just stolen a considerable sum from his parents and was pretty much on the run looking for his summer of love. They fitted a roof rack and filled with the sixties spirit they set off for Morocco with K's savings and his friend's loot.

The plan was to stay over there as long as possible and I can only imagine their faces while on top of the deck of that ferry they were looking at England getting smaller and smaller wave after wave.

The poor Jag must have looked pretty scruffy on French highways with a lot of junk on the roof and two long haired jacks puffing cigarettes and whatnots.

"...We were going our own way pretty relaxed even if we knew that the car was capable of great things, we already had fun with it back home and we were honestly in ‘trip mode’, but when that guy with a brand new 911 passed us and cut our lane with arrogance I sort of lost my temper. I stuck to his bumper and he started to push hard trying to lose us but it was simply no match, even with the car on full load. I let him get out all he had and then left him in the dust. He had a girl with him in the car, I guess she must have lost a bit of respect for him that day."

The 2.4 had an unusual setup with a rear track 114mm narrower than the front. Some thought this was a design choice giving the car its unique look and allowing the stylish rear spats but it seems more likely that Salisbury didn't have a suitable rear axle available. One way or another, the narrower rear track made the car exceptionally stable at high speed. And K's car must have tested this many times along the way. 

After crossing Franco's Spain our heroes landed in Morocco where they enjoyed the best sort of holiday, the one that doesn't have a definite end. But the end eventually came one day with the realisation that there weren’t even funds enough to get back.

The only solution to get money fast and on the way home was smuggling. They invested most of the money left in the best hashish they could find and hatched a plan to get it into Franco's Spain. 

Tinkering with the fibreglass rear wings in the Tunisian desert didn't seem like a good idea, so they resolved to cut open the front wings and stuffed them with the precious high. They then used all their craft to seal everything up. Money was getting seriously short now and the car "hotter and hotter...by then the transmission became rattly, and I mean, really rattly". 

I can picture the scene. The ferry from Nador is slowly approaching the dock of Almeria after a night haul. Our lads have spent the last night taking all life had to give before the tricky trip. They don't even know what would have happened to them if caught with a couple of kilos of hashish in Franco's land. They really have no idea and probably never want to know, but know that it would be bad, very bad. But anyway, the plan was not to get caught.

Sailors and harbour dockers have just finished securing the ferry to land. The hatch starts to open, revealing the usual dusty first row of lorries that have just been travelling too much. The first row rolls away, the second starts its engines with the usual mechanical growl and so forth. The customs officers hide their chins in ordinance jackets after each cigarette puff. It's bloody cold at 5am in Almeria's harbour, the sun only a faraway shimmer in the east. Then they turn their heads with a jump. Something foreign has stirred in the bowels of the ferry. A different, deeper, rattlier noise. It's our Jag. Thanks to Brabham's service, louder and more savage. The officers weren't ready for what they saw - two bloody hippies in a rattling old Jag. Usually they saw these sorts of rats going the other way, what the hell were these guys up to?

K drives slowly between the lorries and buzzes towards the empty cars lane. The gate is closed, one officer holds a cup with two hands behind a glazed door, the other holds his collar shut while a wet cigarette looks at the ground from his deep, unshaven face. He approaches the car only to find a sleeping guy without a steering wheel in front of him. K politely waves the documents from the other window. The officer sighs at the sky and hates the Queen a bit more, he just can not be arsed this morning. K's mate needs to sneeze, but he has decided to be asleep and is going to stick to that plan.

The officer steps back to look at the registration plate and K reaches for the packet of cigarettes, only three left. Now two. The officer walks around the car and grabs the documents, mumbling.

The Jag shivers in the morning haze and doesn't like to idle. K is forced to rev as little as he can, the situation is already out of the ordinary and he doesn't need any more attention. The smoke from the exhaust wraps the boot of the car in a frantic effort to dissipate the morning myst. Drops of condensation shine on the bonnet, itself otherwise matte with dirt that has been there way too long. The officer mumbles something more and looks K in the eyes, who decides the answer is “London.”

The official spits out the fag and steps back from the car. K takes another puff from his cigarette. Time stops. The other officer, no longer behind the glazed door, has kicked it open and shouts something that makes the smoker with the deep face look from K to the sleeping figure on the passenger seat, throw the documents inside the car and bang his hand twice on the car roof, just above K. The gate opens and K brushes away the cigarette ash that has fallen into his lap, again. The car starts to roll slowly but just as it’s halfway through the gate, the engine stalls. K raises his eyes to the rear view mirror, his friend opens his wide. In the reflection the deep faced smoker gets a smoking hot mug from his colleague. They laugh and look the other way.

K restarts the engine and slowly joins the lonely traffic on Calle de Nicolás Salmerón, becoming just any other car. From the passenger seat a voice says “shall we eat something?" "Let's get out this town first".

They eventually managed to sell the car to someone on the coast. I never completely understood if the hash was included in this transaction or if it was sold separately. All I know is that if somewhere in the south of Spain you find  a 2.4 with fiberglass rear wings, then you could do worse than take a look at the front wings too. You might be in front of a Jag tuned up by Jack Brabham.

NB - Unfortunately there is no photographic record of the Jag and that amazing trip, all the ones you see here have been found randomly online and have been modified in order to suit the story.