11 replies to this topic

[tedwentz]

During the heyday of Specialised Mouldings there was a stylist named Jim Clark.
In the late 1960's some of the most iconic British racing cars were bodied by Specialised.
Think Chevron B16, Lola T70, various McLarens, Brabhams, Merlyns, Royales, and so on. Does anyone know if Jim Clark penned any of these cars? If he did he is surely overdue for some well deserved recognition.

[Tony Matthews]

I'm really looking forward to replies from people who know - I assumed that body shapes like the T70 came from the Lola drawing office, but there must have been at least some input from SM, or is it that SM was supplied with a rolling chassis and the rest was up to them? Very interesting...

[Tim Murray]

A quick Google reveals that Jim Clark had major input into the styling of the Chevron B16 and the McLaren M6GT. From what I gather, Bruce McLaren, Derek Bennett etc came to Clark with some rough ideas and he took it from there. I'm sure kayemod will be able to tell us much more, when he spots this thread.

Edited by Tim Murray, 12 August 2009 - 11:04.

[Giraffe]

According to the book "Chevron, the Derek Bennett Story" by David Gordon, Derek Bennett completed the basic design of the B16, but called in Jim Clark to make sure "everything was done properly". Jim created a plaster plug, from which SM made the prototype's fibreglass body, but Derek was unimpressed with the initial performance of the car, and said that it would be the last time he took outside advice.
Post SM, Jim returned in 1975 to help design the bodywork for the Formula 3 B34, and somewhat later, he designed the bodywork for the stillborn Chevron roadcar.
New Zealander Clark was credited with the design of the Lola T70 bodywork while he was at SM, the first racing car to use carbon fibre re-inforcement.

[David Beard]

Another thread on the other Jim Clark:
http://forums.autosp...other jim clark

And two on specialised mouldings
http://forums.autosp...lised mouldings

http://forums.autosp...lised mouldings

Edited by David Beard, 12 August 2009 - 11:35.

[Tim Murray]

... Clark was credited with the design of the Lola T70 bodywork while he was at SM, the first racing car to use carbon fibre re-inforcement.

That's interesting, Tony, something to add to this thread perhaps:

Carbon dated?

[Giraffe]

That's interesting, Tony, something to add to this thread perhaps:

Carbon dated?

That claim is made in John Starkey's book, Lola T70.

[Tony Matthews]

Thanks for posting those, David, fascinating - there is so much catching-up to do for a late arrival like me!

[elansprint72]

According to the book "Chevron, the Derek Bennett Story" by David Gordon, Derek Bennett completed the basic design of the B16, but called in Jim Clark to make sure "everything was done properly". Jim created a plaster plug, from which SM made the prototype's fibreglass body, but Derek was unimpressed with the initial performance of the car, and said that it would be the last time he took outside advice.
Post SM, Jim returned in 1975 to help design the bodywork for the Formula 3 B34, and somewhat later, he designed the bodywork for the stillborn Chevron roadcar.
New Zealander Clark was credited with the design of the Lola T70 bodywork while he was at SM, the first racing car to use carbon fibre re-inforcement.

Those TNFers who visited Chevron Racing might have spotted the scale model of the B16, I think this was used in wind-tunnel testing. iirc the original design proved to be very light on the ground at the rear and the "orange boxes" were added to the rear flanks to give more down-force.

[kayemod]

I'm sure kayemod will be able to tell us much more, when he spots this thread.

You rang Sir?

Yes, I remember Jim Clark well, though not from his time at Specialised Mouldings, so I'm not sure I can help all that much with this thread as titled. For several years before I went to work there my Dad was SM's bank manager and with both Jackson brothers, we all belonged to the Huntingdon rifle club, so I went there quite often in my student days to be shown over various interesting cars they had in, projects they were working on etc, so I must have met Jim quite a few times, though I have no real recollection of the fact. I think Jim was with them almost from the start, certainly in the Upper Norwood days, but he left shortly before I joined. On a rather more junior level, I took over some of his work, I was actually taken on as a model maker, racing boat hulls for tank testing, and car models for their soon to be built wind tunnel, though I also did full size stuff as well, but usually as part of a team, not heading one as Jim would have done. Jim was a New Zealander, and he qualified there as an architect, though as far as I know, he never actually drew any of the car designs he worked on, his style of working was pretty much to make things up 'on the hoof', he had an innate sense of what was 'right', and he just created semi-masterpieces like the Chevron B16, Lola T70, McLaren M6 & M6GT etc as he went along, though often after making a scale model first. The way of working was to build the shape of a car onto an actual aluminium or plywood mock-up monocoque, using drawings from someone like Gordon Coppuck or Robin Herd in the case of the M6, but that left an awful lot of room for interpretation and modification in the three dimensional form, Jim always had an almost unequalled eye for that kind of thing. I left Specialised Mouldings to go to Lotus, eventually leaving there to set up my own business in Dorset, which I'm still running today, and that's where I met Jim properly for the first time, he was in partnership with another Jim, Jim Finch, and together they ran FKS Fibreglass in a small factory in Balena Close, Creekmoor, Poole, right next door to Graham McRae's place, which later became the original UK setup of Penske Cars. I digress, but Jim also worked at Lotus, before joining SM, doing much the same kind of work there in their Cheshunt days. He rightly claimed much of the credit for the original fixed-head Elan, and he's given quite a few mentions in Robin Read's most excellent book Colin Chapman's Lotus. At FKS, later to become Griffin Design, Jim continued doing much the same kind of thing. They did all the McRea and later Penske bodies, and also most of the Mirages, there were quite a lot more of course, some of which may come back to me given enough time for thought. They also did some sub-contract work for me, though rather more mundane stuff than race car bodywork. I seem to remember that wifely pressure played a large part in many of Jim's work decisions, I know that the then Mrs Jim kept telling him that he wasn't getting enough credit for the work he did, that he was "Too good for that place". He was spending a lot of time away from home, both commuting and working into the small hours, and for that and other reasons, Jim left Griffin to go it alone in a small lock-up quite near to his home in Swanage. I saw him there several times, and much of his time was occupied by work on various kit-car designs, when at FKS/Griffin he made one called the 'Griffin', which later became the GD-XM I think, bizarrely this used a Moris Minor van as a donor vehicle, which seemed like a strangely perverse choice at the time to me. He was always friendly with Neville Trickett who made many clever own-design kit cars in his premises in the grounds of Bryanston School near Blandford, I'd guess that the two of them collaborated quite a lot on various projects. This takes us to 1990ish, after which one of us moved and we lost touch. Jim Clark was a very talented guy, but there were a great many more characters with comparable skills, back in the days when the racing game was much more of a cottage industry than it was later to become.

[RTH]

Fascinating Rob !

I am going up to Arch Motors soon to gather some information for an article in 'Historic Lotus ' the HLR quarterly magazine.

Have you got any stories about them we can use ?

Edited by RTH, 12 August 2009 - 15:54.

[kayemod]

Fascinating Rob !

I am going up to Arch Motors soon to gather some information for an article in 'Historic Lotus ' the HLR quarterly magazine.

Have you got any stories about them we can use ?

Not a great deal I'm sorry to have to tell you Richard, except, and you're probably ahead of me here, my late Dad was Arch Motor's friendly bank manager. To avoid having to repeat this ad infinitum, as well as having the accounts of Arch and Specialised Mouldings, you can add to the list, Lola Cars, Charles Lucas, later Titan Cars as well, Bob King's Royale (I think), Richardson Racing Engines, and one or two others whose names escape me at the moment, as well as a great many of their employees. There was a simple reason for this, he was the manager when Natwest opened a new branch in Huntingdon, and trying to establish themselves in the area, they probably offered better terms than some of the others banks. The companies I've mentioned moved into the area around the same time, and he ended up with all of them. On Arch themselves, there's not a great deal I can tell you, ruddy-faced Bob Robinson founded and ran the company, and I think he was universally liked and respected, doesn't Bob's son still run Arch from the same premises today? As they were next door to SM, there was a lot of co-operation between the two, we were always doing odd-jobs for each other, though with all the welding and grinding, we thought it was a filthy place, and I'm sure that Arch thought much the same about us messy fibreglass people. Customers like Frank Williams would drive up in his van, the most immaculate Ford Escort you've ever seen, flawless midnight blue with that cute little white tab in the centre of the bonnet at the front just like the Brabham he ran back then, and creditworthiness permitting of course, collect items from both Specialised Mouldings and Arch Motors in the same trip. More may come back to me, but you should start an Arch thread if there isn't one already, I'm sure some will remember a lot more than I can.