A brief (as in about two seconds long) scene in the Jo Siffert movie has caught my eye and I wondered if any TNFers could help ID the car it shows.

Siffert is sat in the cockpit of this car, with his full-face Bell helmet, with clear visor. I think he only started using this type of helmet in 1970. On his overalls are the usual Heuer, Firestone, Bio-Strath logos but also a Marlboro one. Again, my guess is that this dates the event as 1970 or even 1971.

The car in question is dark blue (e.g. Rob Walker dark blue) but has a white stripe running from nose to cockpit, with a dark blue pin stripe on either edge of the white stripe. The car appears to have an eight cylinder engine with the intake trumpets angled in towards each other and the exhaust pipes sweeping up over the rear uprights. The cam covers appear to be finned but there is no name evident on them.

The car has treaded rear tyres, not slicks and it appears to have a rear wing which is low (as in post Monaco-1969 low) but still mounted on the uprights, with bracing struts connected to the lower part of the roll-over bar. The roll-over bar is large, slightly squared off at the top.

The car has a race number, which looks like 37, and a roundel carrying an advert for some kind of restaurant with the letters PEY in the centre. It does not have any mirrors mounted on the cockpit surround.

What this suggests to me is a specialist hillclimb car which Siffert may have driven (raced or demonstrated?) but what, where and when?

I have tried Googling with no success. He did compete in the 1968 St Ursanne-Les Rangiers hillclimb but this was in the Rob Walker 49 and it is definitely not this car as I have footage of this event and he is in an open face helmet and my mystery car is certainly not a 49!

Of course, there is the possibility that this is someone else, e.g. his son or just an admirer, in a Siffert helmet! However, it does look like Seppi through the clear visor and the film has a 'period' rather than 'crisp digital' look to it. I know that it is easy to give a 'period' look to new film but the director of the film has not attempted to do this anywhere else in the movie when he has mixed current and period footage so I think it is unlikely he would have manipulated this one scene...

Over to you guys!

The first thing that came to mind when I read the description of the engine was Brabham BT19 or BT20....

Now then now then... a quick ferret at Allen's site suggests that the ex-Vogele BT20 F1-2-66 ended up as a hillclimb car:

http://www.oldracingcars.com/car.asp?CarID=BT20/2-66

I know nothing more about this one, but it could be an avenue worth exploring.

Hi Pete

That's an interesting suggestion! The rollover bar certainly looks similar to a BT19 in the way it is mounted halfway down the side of the tub.

Some other details: front top suspension consists of trailing radius rods, which are just visible in shot, e.g. not rocker arms which probably helps with dating. At the rear, there are reversed lower wishbones visible and twin radius rods.

Could anybody point me towards any period photos of the car in question in action on the hills?

Trailing radius rods definitely sounds like F1 Brabham.......


Paul M

Hello!

Sorry I'm late.

This would indeed be BT20 F1-2-66 which was hill climbing in Austria in 1969 and was bought by Sepi for his racing car collection after that season. The event you're describing sounds like the event at Frieberg on 26 April 1970.

After Siffert's death, the car as bought by Chassiang de Borredon and was in his museum near Rouen for many years. It ran at the French GP meeting in 1974. When he died, the collection was bought by Steve Hitchins and it was auctioned by Brooks at Monaco in 1992 and 1993, failing to sell. I haven't seen it since then - or maybe I have and failed to write it down.

Allen

Chassaing de Norredon, of course.

No, de Borredon

So why did Siffert paint the car in Rob Walker's colours? Red and White would have been more appropriate!

I guess it was just in the colour scheme it came from the previous owner. Although the colour is similar (it is a very dark blue, could even be black!) the strip runs up the car rather than a band across the nose...

Thanks Allen and everybody else who ID'd this - I knew you wouldn't let me down! I would have tried to do a screen grab and put it up for everyone to see but for rather obvious reasons I cannot! Best suggestion I can make is to see the film but it's only being shown in Swizterland for now... It really is fantastic.

Programm Jochen Rindt Show 1969


Blick 25.12.2005 Jo Siffert Storie from Roger Benoit


Clearly ex Hulme, Ligier, Voegel and Albert Franz Brabham Repco BT20-2

Excellent. Thanks Beat.

Beat - superb!

The Blick photo may have been taken at the same event, as the race number (37) is the same!

The wonder of TNF...your knowledge never ceases to amaze me - thanks guys!

Add me to the list of perpetually amazed at this place and to another list, of being delighted to look in on folks and their questions and the answers. Wonderful.

Received today from Jürg Kaufmann Photograph the originals

Fabulous!

Allen you have taken the precise words out of my mouth! Really superb...

And the present whereabouts of this car is...?

Well - 'it' was with Aba Cogan BUT there's something bugging me here - the car we had for sale at Brooks from Steve Hitchens looked fabulously original with beautifully faded patina to the works BRO green and gold livery. Its nose was also the distinctive and true BT20 shape, differently proportioned to the cone shown on the pix with Seppi aboard. Am I muddling BT20/1 and BT20/2 or is this not quite so cut and dried as was, perhaps, thought? Sorry to stick a potential spanner in the works - might just be brain fade, I've had a hard day.

DCN

Doug

The car was restored to BRO livery when it was in Rouen - or possibly earlier. When I saw it there in 1982, it looked like it hadn't moved for many years. I could dig ot my pictures if that would help.

The restoration was 1974 at the latest, 1970 at the earliest. By 1991, that would look "fabulously original with beautifully faded patina" wouldn't it?

I have no reason to think this isn't the same car. And I don't often say that!

Allen

OK - you I would believe - but what a disappointment! Completely taken in by that one. It must have been VERY badly displayed and stored.

DCN

Does his museum still exist?
I've looked into Google and found nothing, it seems it's not in the abbatiale du Bec Hellouin anymore.
Visited it 23 years ago and wanted to see the museum again...

Antoine

It's not been there since the mid-1980s. De Borrdeon died and his widow sold the entine collection to Hitchins and friends. It would have closed some time around 1986/7/8.

Great collection, wasn't it?

Allen

Allen,

I've tried to find that museum two years ago to visit it again during our honeymoon but my father didn't remember where it was, we saw it when I was 6-8 years old (1983-85) and touring the D-Day 's beaches.
We only remembered it was in a medieval building and there were a few blue racing-cars but the Seppi's Brabham looks familiar.