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K got his 2.4 in 1966 and by that time it wasn't any more than an outdated banger.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.

The big cat that doesn't want to die

About a year ago I came across the sad story of a Jaguar XK150 about to be used for a banger race (a demolition derby, for you guys on the other side of the pond). 

As legend goes some guys received a call to go pick up a old rover and they were pretty astonished to find out it wasn't a rover at all, but this very sad big cat, incomplete and neglected. Some say it was a resto project left there, some say it was left there to rot. The guys apparently tried and convince the lady that the car was obviously worth saving and they were ready to pay for it rather than demolish it. The lady didn't seem to care about having money for it, she wanted to see it scrapped and demanded the car to be cut in half on the spot, understanding the poor lads were't ready for such a vile gesture. They apparently managed to convince her that the gear they had on them wasn't big enough for the task and she had satisfaction in seeing the roof pillars chopped off. 

It would have been bad enough for the poor cat but sometimes fate is nothing but a downward spiral. The lads in fact were looking for cars to race in the banger championship.

Somehow they decided to race the poor Jag. They paint it, remove the sellable spares, weld the doors (according to some sources they were missing when they found it) and in three months they are ready to take it to the local track for the sad event.

There's a video of the race, do yourself a favour and skip to minute 1.40, the horrible music adds shame to the disgrace. 

The teenage driver apparently has been abused all over the internet and he made an effort in explaining the story before the race and afterwards in a number of forums. I kinda appreciate that but still it is a real shame and certainly a bad day for any classic cars enthusiast. 

This is what he had to say for himself: 

"Im not going to get into an argument over it, as people have tried to have an argument with me about what i did and it hasnt worked, but i will gladly answer any questions people may have. But to answer your post mate, alot of the cars i would like to own  (mk1/mk2 granadas, xj6's, p5's,p4's etc etc) are all cars i would also like to race, i see these cars raced week in week out, and have raced a few of them, the way i see it is these are cars that are not financially viable to put back on the road and instead of sending them to the scrap yard, let them go out in a blaze of glory, also, any bits that are taken off the car that arnt needed when racing it are sold to people who own road goings ones, thus, keeping there road viechles going.

To answer another question about what condition the car was in after the race, it faired pretty well , was quicker than most out there, the back got a fair bit of damage and kinked the passenger side front wing a small bit and that was it, sold the car after it was raced but dont no what happened to it as ive heard a few diffrent stories from diffrent people.

Cheers Laurence"

I was pretty sure that was the last we would have heard of that poor troubled cat, but to my amazement it appeared on ebay about a month ago! I wanted to write a post about it but personal life got on the way and I'm only resolving in writing now that the auction is long gone... without bids. 

It's moving how this troubled cat seems to resist living above any sort of abuse. Unfortunately the starting price at £4.500 was extremely optimistic, even with the internet star status that this car keeps on building up, on the other hand I wonder what would be a reasonable price to ask.

I sure hope some crazy collector will buy it one day. Not sure what I'd like him to do with it.

D.C.'s workshop, English Motorsport Heritage

When my friend Simon asked me to get a day off work to go and see the state of his Frogeye Sprite's restoration I didn't have to think twice.

He took me to a dusty shed lost in the English countryside where we were welcomed by an amazing character cleaning his hands with a dirty cloth. In the yard I could already see beautiful spares left there to rot, few "sleeping" projects and a Giulia SS that has clearly been there to long. I lift the merciful plastic that covers it only to find the frame rusted way beyond repair. The car is basically collapsed in the middle. A real, sad shame. 

DC - "Oh, you saw the Alfa, huh? Nothing else can be done for that one, I'm afraid. The owner left it here about fifteen years ago. He did pay for the job to be started but then disappeared. I kept it inside for five or six years, but then I had to put it there. Beautiful car that was, I'll have to sell the few salvageable spares one of these days".

I knew that the visit to his workshop would have been worth a day off work but didn't expect such a start.

CCT - "I would like to take some pictures and write a feature for my blog, would you mind that?"

DC - "Take all the pictures you want, ask me all you want to know but please don't mention my name or say where I am. I've been trying to retire for the last 12 years and I keep on receiving projects. I had enough, mate. Really had enough."

He lets me into the office for a cup of tea and while he updates Simon on the latest about his Sprite I take a look around. It's exactly how I pictured it, maybe even better. He is now sitting at his huge desk with feet on the table, in front of him spare parts catalogs, bills, few dirty mugs and a tin of biscuits. On the walls a staggering amount of pictures collapsing in the frames or curled by the years. He clearly loves his job but it all also shows he had enough and he's been ready to "let go" for a number of years already. 

On the left a big panel collects 80 yellowed pictures. In that alone there could be material for a year of this blog. The beautiful D-type Michelotti sticks out. He remembers working on the car "about twenty years ago, nice car that was". Will tell the amazing story of this car in a separate post.

On the opposite wall a healthy number of XK's and E-types didn't distract me too much form finding the nose of a 512BB LM peeping in a picture.

DC - "I didn't do much on that car, the body was damaged on its way to England and I've been asked to fixed it. I reckon I did a very good job on that."

I wonder if the owner ever found out...

We then walk inside the workshop and a funny grin stuck to my face. It was just as expected. A dusty and chaotic mass of spares was framing projects of all sorts. A Jaguar Mark 2 guarded a Fiat X1/9 under a dusty plastic cover the same way an old pussycat would guard a wounded kitten, a 1939 Aston and a 1936 HRG  seemed ready to leave any minute now, the usual (and still sexy) group of MGs, chassis and engine of a pre war Cadillac than I can hardly figure on the road ever again.

D.C. has been very busy lately to put back on the road a Gwynne 180px, apparently a present of an extremely cool parent to his/her daughter. A very cute bath tube shaped design and a single door on one side. He just finished setting up the leather seats, hand stitched by an old friend of his, retired after a whole life in Aston Martin.

Finally, in a room of its own at the bottom of the workshop, Simon's Frogeye sits on a cart. As many other projects, he came in for a dent and ended up in a nut and bolt restoration that lasted over five years. It's not road worthy yet, but it sure looks amazing. Take a look for yourself.

It's really hard not to tell about other fascinating details of D.C.'s life, but a promise is a promise. If for any reason you think you need to contact him please enquire and I will ask for his consent. 

Candlestick Park 1965

I found this video of Candlestick Park SCCA event in 1965. Take a look at the battle between the Jag and the Ford.  I can't help thinking that with proper TV coverage that would have been one of the most famous battles of all time.