1962 Lotus 24
#1
Posted 24 April 2002 - 20:39
Advertisement on Dupont Registry on September 1996.
1962 LOTUS 24 F1 I.D. #947. Original Coventry Climax V8, Colotti 5 speed. Ex. Jack Brabham
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#2
Posted 24 April 2002 - 20:50
DCN
#3
Posted 24 April 2002 - 22:38
Unlikely, I would think Jack would have used anything he could have salvaged...
#4
Posted 25 April 2002 - 01:28
And yes, i haven't looked anywhere deeply, this just came up since I remembered some report about Ricardo's FJr. Cooper being restored (it was unrestorable, last time I saw in 2001 or late 2000 in Valle de Bravo, it was still all chopped up, missing pieces, the frame was not original mostly, it had been lenghtened to allow for a larger engine and the skin was all but gone, and the parts of the suspension and other stuff was used in several bitza specials since the sixties; yet the tachometer needle was fine so they probably rebuilt around it).
Just wondering if the 941 is somewhere safe.
And of course Porsche 917 chassis 015 which Pedro used at daytona 1970, was "found" and because some complex wiring (only JWAE's car used that wiring supposedly) it was converted from a 917 PA Interseries back to a 917K and of course the value increased about 20 times. And of course it is a fake.
Happens all the time.
#5
Posted 25 April 2002 - 06:06
A 21 numbered 936 and a 24 numbered 947 both exist today....
#6
Posted 25 April 2002 - 18:02
Syd van der Vyver, the South African Champion of 1960 and 1961 acquired a Lotus 24 Climax V8 in late 1962 and ran it in the Rand and Natal Grands Prix. He went reasonably well in the Rand race until retiring with clutch trouble, but rolled the car and damaged it badly in a crash during the final of the Natal GP. He had placed 3rd in his "heat" behind Ritchie Ginther and Bruce Johnstone (BRM's).
Syd rebuilt the car and won a local National championship race in it, I think the Royal Show Trophy, at Roy Hesketh circuit, in 1963. The car was soon after destroyed in a garage fire.
Syd was a brilliant mechanic/engineer, who helped sort Stirling Moss's cars handling at Pipbrook for a spell, but he could never get the best out of that "24".
It passed on to Dave Hume would entered it for the odd event up to 1966. Then it disappeared from the scene.
When Syd originally acquired the car it was reputed to be an ex-Brabham Lotus. Whether it was "947" or not nobody will probably ever know.
#7
Posted 25 April 2002 - 18:10
So it wasn't destroyed in the garage fire?Originally posted by ry6
The car was soon after destroyed in a garage fire......It passed on to Dave Hume would entered it for the odd event up to 1966. Then it disappeared from the scene.
#8
Posted 25 April 2002 - 20:44
We had just been discussing the garage fire in detail that very afternoon, and I had the burned-out 24 in my mind's eye, the short-circuit being that Jack's 24 was burned out in the van der Vyver fire, not in this Surbiton fire which claimed his stop-gap Lotus 21. Bugger! Thanks Dave.
I must, however, relieve myself of another JB fire story which you might appreciate... 'Flight' magazine wanted to produce a feature story on F1 racers beginning to take to the air, circa 1962. They arranged an air-to-air photo shoot at Fairoaks Aerodrome, just outside Woking, Surrey, home of McLaren today. The participants were to be Jack in his Cessna 310 twin, Colin Chapman in his Piper Aztec, Innes Ireland in his Beech Bonanza and John Cooper in his Piper TriPacer (I think) single.
John was last to go up to format on 'Flight's camera 'plane. He was a nervous pilot and liked to have company. On this occasion Colin Chapman - having done his bit - crammed into the back of the cabin, and a career 707 commercial pilot friend of JNC's took the right-hand front seat. Jack was still airborne, stooging around to watch. He saw JNC formate (loosely) on the camera plane, then break off and go round the circuit to land. It was a horrible, gusty, bumpy day, and the little PIper was all over the sky during final approach.
Evidently, just around the commit height, John suddenly panicked, bawled at his 707 pro pilot friend "Here, you take it!" and let go of the controls. His pal, taken by surprise, made a wild grab but it was too late. The Piper hit hard, bounced and nosed over, bending the prop and ending-up standing near vertically, tail in the air, wings crumpled.
As spectators rushed towards the wrecked 'plane, JNC, 707 pilot and ACBC all decanted onto the grass, and Jack - who had seen the whole thing from the air - landed and taxied across to the scene, being the first to reach them. He found a terrific row raging between Chapman and Cooper, which speaks volumes about each of them as characters...
Seeing fuel dribbling from a split tank seam, Colin's reflex action was instant:
"Quick John", he bawled, "SET FIRE TO IT!!!!" - "Claim the insurance!!!".
John obediently rummaged in his pockets, producing a lighter. Then he had typical second thoughts:
"No, no, I can't do that, we'd never get away with it...".
Colin:
"Go on, quick, you won't get a second chance! Quick before anybody else gets here!"
John, encouraged:
"Right, OK Colin, stand back everyone..."
He reached out with the lighter, towards probably 40 gallons of AvGas, then (wisely) had an awful but realistic second thought:
"NO! Hang on - I bet The Old Man hasn't paid the premium..."
And do you know...he was right.
DCN
#9
Posted 25 April 2002 - 21:33
Originally posted by Doug Nye
.....this Surbiton fire which claimed his stop-gap Lotus 21.....
...interesting, considering the stop-gap nature of the car and how obsolete it already was... and compare this...
"Quick John", he bawled, "SET FIRE TO IT!!!!" - "Claim the insurance!!!".
hmmm... how are we for statutes of limitation?
#10
Posted 26 April 2002 - 23:10
DCN
#11
Posted 27 April 2002 - 01:18
#12
Posted 28 April 2002 - 08:01
It was burned out in a garage fire but the "remains" were rebuilt and then Dave Hume eventually acquired the car.
As a matter of interest we were told by Syd that this was the ex-Brabham car which Jack had used to come 6th in the 1962 Belgain GP. (I note that Jack also came 5th in the British GP with it?)
Apparently Jack had bought this 24 to use while he was working on the first of his Brabhams.
#13
Posted 15 April 2003 - 21:57
Originally posted by Doug Nye
I must, however, relieve myself of another JB fire story which you might appreciate... 'Flight' magazine wanted to produce a feature story on F1 racers beginning to take to the air, circa 1962. They arranged an air-to-air photo shoot at Fairoaks Aerodrome, just outside Woking, Surrey, home of McLaren today. The participants were to be Jack in his Cessna 310 twin, Colin Chapman in his Piper Aztec, Innes Ireland in his Beech Bonanza and John Cooper in his Piper TriPacer (I think) single.
John was last to go up to format on 'Flight's camera 'plane. He was a nervous pilot and liked to have company. On this occasion Colin Chapman - having done his bit - crammed into the back of the cabin, and a career 707 commercial pilot friend of JNC's took the right-hand front seat. Jack was still airborne, stooging around to watch. He saw JNC formate (loosely) on the camera plane, then break off and go round the circuit to land. It was a horrible, gusty, bumpy day, and the little PIper was all over the sky during final approach.
Evidently, just around the commit height, John suddenly panicked, bawled at his 707 pro pilot friend "Here, you take it!" and let go of the controls. His pal, taken by surprise, made a wild grab but it was too late. The Piper hit hard, bounced and nosed over, bending the prop and ending-up standing near vertically, tail in the air, wings crumpled.
As spectators rushed towards the wrecked 'plane, JNC, 707 pilot and ACBC all decanted onto the grass, and Jack - who had seen the whole thing from the air - landed and taxied across to the scene, being the first to reach them. He found a terrific row raging between Chapman and Cooper, which speaks volumes about each of them as characters...
Seeing fuel dribbling from a split tank seam, Colin's reflex action was instant:
"Quick John", he bawled, "SET FIRE TO IT!!!!" - "Claim the insurance!!!".
John obediently rummaged in his pockets, producing a lighter. Then he had typical second thoughts:
"No, no, I can't do that, we'd never get away with it...".
Colin:
"Go on, quick, you won't get a second chance! Quick before anybody else gets here!"
John, encouraged:
"Right, OK Colin, stand back everyone..."
He reached out with the lighter, towards probably 40 gallons of AvGas, then (wisely) had an awful but realistic second thought:
"NO! Hang on - I bet The Old Man hasn't paid the premium..."
And do you know...he was right.
DCN
I was re-reading Stuart Turner's "Twice Lucky" in the bath this evening and a very similar story came to mind. Background - Turner's committed Ford to building a whole pile of RS200s, then Group B gets cancelled and the cars are basically obsolete before they've even turned a wheel, so they're in storage at at Reliant's factory at Shenstone...
While we had the Shenstone factory full of RS200s, in various stages of completion with many now facing an uncertain future, Reliant sold the adjacent building, which shared a common wall. Mike Moreton called me one day to say that fire had broken out on the other side of the wall and that although there was no thread to the staff, he had feared for our own stocks:
"I wasn't quite sure whether to have the RS200s pushed away from the wall to save them, or to have them pushed the other way so that we could claim the insurance money. I think I may have made a mistake..."
At which point I guessed, "You've saved the damned things, haven't you?"
"Yes, Stuart, sorry, but I have!"
Having failed with fire, and having noted that the nearest river was too far away to rely on a flood, we decided to close the Shenstone operation, put the cars in store, then, after a lot of hard work be a development team led by Bill Meade, we converted all the remaining stock into road cars.
#14
Posted 16 April 2003 - 21:23
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the (original) car indirectly the cause of Ricardo Rodriguez's death when John Surtees took pole from Ricardo in it during the closing stages of first practice for the Mexican GP? Ricardo desperately wanted to be on pole so jumped back in his Rob Walker Lotus 24 and had a fatal accident. Lovely car though......
#15
Posted 03 January 2012 - 09:43
Restarting my series of Saturday Lotus Blogs I was looking for information on David Coplowe's Lotus Climax 24 which came in 10th at last years Goodwood Revival, would any kindly soul be able to tell me which of the 15 (?) 24's David drove and or which teams/drivers it belonged to in period ?
Relevant answers may be credited and used in a forthcoming blog.
Thanking you in anticipation of your responses :-)
#16
Posted 03 January 2012 - 22:47
#17
Posted 04 January 2012 - 09:16
Restarting my series of Saturday Lotus Blogs I was looking for information on David Coplowe's Lotus Climax 24 which came in 10th at last years Goodwood Revival, would any kindly soul be able to tell me which of the 15 (?) 24's David drove and or which teams/drivers it belonged to in period ?
I have that as '947'. The others in the race were the three BRM-engined cars built by Parnell (P1, P2 and P3).
#18
Posted 05 January 2012 - 10:05
Reading the earlier comments on this thread it looks like 947 started out as Jack Brabham's which possibly went to Syd van der Vyver who rolled it in Natal. Then after being repaired was damaged in a garage fire with the rebuilt remains going to David Hume.
In post #14 Pedro917 makes mention of 947 in connection with Ricardo Rodriguez, I believe he has confused 947 with Rob Walkers chassis 941 mentioned in post #4 .
I wonder if cedricselzer can give me an approximate time frame for Monte Shalett's ownership of the 'ex Brabham' car ?
Edited by arttidesco, 05 January 2012 - 10:06.
#19
Posted 05 January 2012 - 19:08
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#20
Posted 05 January 2012 - 21:55
Edited by arttidesco, 05 January 2012 - 21:56.
#21
Posted 07 January 2012 - 02:23
Shot at 2012-01-06
#22
Posted 07 January 2012 - 10:47
Jeff thanks for posting the photo
I guess those extra ducts in the nose were required to keep the driver cool in the warmer African climate ?
#23
Posted 01 March 2021 - 19:52
I know that this is quite an old thread now but I believe that references to Lotus 24-947 as '947' does this car a great disservice, as it implies it is not the real thing or has somehow been recreated at a later date and that is not so.
I've just completed a comprehensive investigation into its provenance and am quite sure that the car was not 'destroyed' by fire in 1963 as has been suggested in some quarters. I have a copy of a photo which shows it still largely intact after the fire. As Cedric quite rightly points out, the car was rebuilt by Syd van der Vyver for Vern McWilliams and sold to Dave Hume, who actually entered it for a race in South Africa in March 1966, although he was unable to take part due to running out of time to race-prepare it.
I have traced a continuous ownership chain from then until the present day, including interviewing all surviving owners or their descendants while it was in both South Africa and the USA. The car was rebuilt and in running condition in South Africa until 1974 when the then-owner put a rod through the side of its block.
The next owner contacted Tony Mantle of Climax Engine Services saying that he had bought the car and asking about buying parts to rebuild the engine and I have seen some of that correspondence.
I have also spoken to the US owner who brought the car out of South Africa (he had relatives there), the next US owner after that and the US dealer who sold it back to the UK in 1998. Its history since it has been back in the UK is well-documented.
#24
Posted 01 March 2021 - 22:22
Originally posted by arttidesco
.....Pedro917 makes mention of 947 in connection with Ricardo Rodriguez, I believe he has confused 947 .....
Just clarifying...
The confusion is with arttidesco. Pedro917 mentioned that Ricardo crashed 941, but says (quite reasonably) that the indirect cause of the crash was John Surtees getting pole position in 947.