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outdated banger.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.