16 replies to this topic

[david Jacobs]

I own what I thought was a 1967 Brabham BT23, but after a ton of research by Andrew Fellowes, it was discovered that I actually own the only F3 car built by Dr. Erlich, known as the EMC, and raced by Roger Keele, and Jody Scheckter. My quest is to repaint the car in the original livery when Jody drove it in 1971. Wold anyone have a color photo of it. It was raced at Donnington then by Jody,as well as a few other tracks.

[EDWARD FITZGERALD]

I own what I thought was a 1967 Brabham BT23, but after a ton of research by Andrew Fellowes, it was discovered that I actually own the only F3 car built by Dr. Erlich, known as the EMC, and raced by Roger Keele, and Jody Scheckter. My quest is to repaint the car in the original livery when Jody drove it in 1971. Wold anyone have a color photo of it. It was raced at Donnington then by Jody,as well as a few other tracks.

why not contact Jody at www.laverstokepark.co.uk I am sure he will know

[Giraffe]

I helped Andrew a bit with this together with Bev Bond with regard to obtaining info from Tony Keele. I'm not sure myself if he can help, but I will be talking to Jody tomorrow afternoon (Friday) and if there is anything specific you would like me to ask him, please don't hesitate to contact me before then.

[john winfield]

David,
I'm always learning on this forum! I had no idea that the 1971 EMC/Ehrlich was based on a BT 23. Anyway, regarding your livery query, I would think the best bet is to scour all coverage of the British GP meeting at Silverstone in 1971; Jody won his heat and, although he couldn't stay with the leaders in the final, went pretty well as I recall.
In the 1972 Marlboro Grand Prix Guide, there are two small F3 shots of this 1971 final, both taken at Stowe. I think that I can just see Scheckter in fourth place; his number is hidden but his early helmet design and the roll-over bar look right (checked with the f3history site http://www.f3history.co.uk/ ). What little there is visible of the car looks pale blue, similar to French racing blue.
John

By the way, I don't think Jody can have raced this at Donington in period; the circuit only reopened in 1977. http://www.formula2.net/ has race details for Formula 3 in 1971.

Edited by john winfield, 10 February 2011 - 10:08.

[alansart]

I actually own the only F3 car built by Dr. Erlich, known as the EMC

Erlich built several F3 cars and later ran them in Atlantics. In the 70's they tended to be a mid blue colour.

[david Jacobs]

David,
I'm always learning on this forum! I had no idea that the 1971 EMC/Ehrlich was based on a BT 23. Anyway, regarding your livery query, I would think the best bet is to scour all coverage of the British GP meeting at Silverstone in 1971; Jody won his heat and, although he couldn't stay with the leaders in the final, went pretty well as I recall.
In the 1972 Marlboro Grand Prix Guide, there are two small F3 shots of this 1971 final, both taken at Stowe. I think that I can just see Scheckter in fourth place; his number is hidden but his early helmet design and the roll-over bar look right (checked with the f3history site http://www.f3history.co.uk/ ). What little there is visible of the car looks pale blue, similar to French racing blue.
John

By the way, I don't think Jody can have raced this at Donington in period; the circuit only reopened in 1977. http://www.formula2.net/ has race details for Formula 3 in 1971.

John,

Actually, the chassis on which the EMC was built was a Brabham chassis, stamped RF1001, I think a BT21 chassis. Apparently Dr. Erlich had a connection with Brabham, making some parts for them, and bought the chassis on which Mike Keele built the rest of the car. The car was wrecked at Donnington in 1989, then the wreck was sold to Jay Galpin who had Simon Hadfield build it into the BT23, with FVA engine and Hewland FT200, which it has now. The reason we started to question if it was indeed a BT23, was the fact that the rear vertical chassis tubes were round as on a BT21, not square as on the BT23's.

David

[david Jacobs]

I helped Andrew a bit with this together with Bev Bond with regard to obtaining info from Tony Keele. I'm not sure myself if he can help, but I will be talking to Jody tomorrow afternoon (Friday) and if there is anything specific you would like me to ask him, please don't hesitate to contact me before then.

One more thing, can you ask him what engine was in the car when he ran it? Thanks. David

[Giraffe]

One more thing, can you ask him what engine was in the car when he ran it? Thanks. David

David, I will see if Jody remembers these things, but it is a fairly big ask! He would appear to be taking an active interest in his past exploits these days with his collection of cars that he raced and his appearance recently at 'Autosport International' so you never know. I'm talking to Jody about the US F5000 series he won for Sid Taylor and quite frankly I was surprised to get the interview due to the rather acrimonious relationship he had with Sid back in the day, but it seems he may have mellowed with the passage of time.............

[Vitesse2]

Stefan's site referenced above suggests the engine was the inevitable Ford, tuned by Ehrlich himself. Also Hodges' "A-Z of Formula Racing Cars" claims there were two EMCs, the car which Jody drove being the second.

[Giraffe]

Stefan's site referenced above suggests the engine was the inevitable Ford, tuned by Ehrlich himself. Also Hodges' "A-Z of Formula Racing Cars" claims there were two EMCs, the car which Jody drove being the second.

I recall Ray Allen in the EMC F3 in 1970, the last year of the 1-litre 'screamers'.

[Tim Murray]

Also Hodges' "A-Z of Formula Racing Cars" claims there were two EMCs, the car which Jody drove being the second.

This is confirmed in the Ehrlich/EMC history section on Gerald Swan's site which John Winfield posted a link to above.

[john winfield]

Stefan's site referenced above suggests the engine was the inevitable Ford, tuned by Ehrlich himself. Also Hodges' "A-Z of Formula Racing Cars" claims there were two EMCs, the car which Jody drove being the second.

At the 1971 Grand Prix support race, Roger Keele was also driving an EMC, entered by Joseph Ehrlich. Would that be the first? Stefan has that one down as a 606. (Sorry, slow typing again, better info from Giraffe & Tim).
OT, I have some vague recollection of driving with my brother, on a wet Sunday afternoon, from Tring to Milton Keynes (?) in search of Dr. Ehrlich's premises. We found them but I can't for the life of me remember what we saw. Absolutely nothing probably. Life was simpler then, and petrol cheap.

Edited by john winfield, 10 February 2011 - 21:34.

[Marticelli]

TNFrs on the motorcycle side of things are no doubt well aware that Joe Ehrlich's main endeavours were with split single two stroke motorcycles which had originated in Italy in 1912 and subsequently developed by Puch in Dr Ehrlich's native Austria, both before but particularly after the war. DKW in Germany also built many successful split single two stroke racers in the 30s. There is an informative reference on Dr Ehrlich and EMC motorcycles on Wikipedia here which mentions the work on F3 cars, but gives few details.

Ehrlich left the company he founded in 1967, so by the time of the F3 car being discussed, his involvement in EMC was reduced to that of sometime technical adviser, but he continued to work actively on his own motorcycle projects until 1995 when he was over 80. Although Wikipedia (above) suggests Ehrlich was directly involved, I think it more probable that the F3 car was a project by his old EMC company (which continued until wound up in 1977) rather than Joe himself as his main interest was in two wheels and two strokes. No doubt the project would have benefitted by association with Dr Ehrlich's widely acknowledged standing in the competition field but I wonder whether he was as much personally involved as this thread seems to suggest.

The Vintage Motorcycle Club (VMCC) has a large number of Marque Specialists (I am the M/S for OECand Blackburne for example) but the EMC M/S position has been vacant since the last incumbent, Ian Avery, left the position not long ago, and I am now trying to trace his current whereabouts to see what if anything he can contribute to this thread. I will post an update if anything useful materialises in due course.

Marticelli

Edited by Marticelli, 11 February 2011 - 00:49.

[Andrew Fellowes]

Erlich built several F3 cars and later ran them in Atlantics. In the 70's they tended to be a mid blue colour.

& the EMC at Monaco with Roger Keele was light blue.

This is the list I have from Gerald Swan's site.

1968 EMC reported as designed and built by Mike Keele based on a BT23
1971 EMC 606 based on the 1969 EMC
1972 ES1
1973 ES2
1974 ES2/3
1975 ES5
1976 ES5/2 or ES5/6
1977 RP3
1978 RP4
1979 RP4
1980 RP5

David's car has an RF tag on the rear cross member, it's not typical of other RF tags I've seen but has the number 1001. Some parts of David's car are typical BT21, other BT23 and few are neither. All the newspaper reports in 68 & 69 quote Mike Keele as the designer and builder but with his close connections with both Brabham and Racing Frames it's open to speculation that this may be a bit of a smoke screen.

I've spoken to Tony Keele who is quite sure his father designed and built the car, over the years the newspaper reports that said 'based on a BT23' seem to have grown into it being an actual BT23 converted and the trouble is that none of the key players are around to help! Simon I know believes it to be a Racing Frames chassis.


EDIT
before anyone tells me that RF didn't build BT21s it was AM let me say that there are a couple of BT21s advertised for sale early 1970's as being newly built by RF !!!! Ehrlich owned a BT21 and just maybe with the connections to Chris Lambert the EMC could well have been based on a BT21/23. It appears that when Robin Strange owned the car in the mid 70's it was called a Brabham based PVB 21/23.

Edited by Andrew Fellowes, 11 February 2011 - 03:59.

[Allen Brown]

Just to follow up on what Andrew has said, it's worth pointing out that there is still a considerable amount of uncertainty about the early life of the car.

What can now be said with confidence is that the car David has today can be traced right back to Ehrlich ownership. The bit we haven't entirely bottomed out is whether this was the EMC or one of two EMCs or the EMC rebuilt at some point using a Brabham chassis. Andrew has done a great job getting to the bottom of this and he's very nearly there.

The frame is stamped RF1001 implying it was built by Racing Frames but other accounts say that it was built by Keele Engineering. In the earliest pictures Andrew has unearthed it looks very BT21/23-ish without necessarily being a BT21 or BT23. However, it is close enough that it is entirely understandable that the car was run as a Brabham as early as 1975 when it was in Monoposto.

Hodges' A-Z says a second car arrived in 1969 but I'm not convinced of this. Gerald used Hodges as a source I believe, so we can't take one as confirmation of the other. What what I've read in Autosport and Motoring News, there's nothing to suggest that the 1969 car was different to the original car which first appeared at Silverstone on 27 July 1968. We were unable to find an accident big enough to have necessitated a new frame and there is no point at which two EMCs are run alongside each other. When the team did run a second car, it was a Brabham BT21B or BT28.

[Giraffe]

I own what I thought was a 1967 Brabham BT23, but after a ton of research by Andrew Fellowes, it was discovered that I actually own the only F3 car built by Dr. Erlich, known as the EMC, and raced by Roger Keele, and Jody Scheckter. My quest is to repaint the car in the original livery when Jody drove it in 1971. Wold anyone have a color photo of it. It was raced at Donnington then by Jody,as well as a few other tracks.

Well, I've spoken today (finally!) with Jody about the EMC that was run by "that mad guy Errlicker" who "burst a blood vessel when I told him that it was a pile of crap!" "I did win a heat at Silverstone in it however....".
Jody confirmed without prompting that the car was mid-blue in colour, and as far as he could recall was indeed Ford powered. I let him know that you were restoring it David, and he wishes you luck!
(Jody was inducted into the MotorSport Hall of Fame last night along with Sir Frank Williams, Sir Jack Brabham & Dario Franchitti)

http://www.motorspor...racing-icons-2/

[david Jacobs]

Well, I've spoken today (finally!) with Jody about the EMC that was run by "that mad guy Errlicker" who "burst a blood vessel when I told him that it was a pile of crap!" "I did win a heat at Silverstone in it however....".
Jody confirmed without prompting that the car was mid-blue in colour, and as far as he could recall was indeed Ford powered. I let him know that you were restoring it David, and he wishes you luck!
(Jody was inducted into the MotorSport Hall of Fame last night along with Sir Frank Williams, Sir Jack Brabham & Dario Franchitti)

http://www.motorspor...racing-icons-2/

Thanks very much for that, I am piecing together that when Jody ran it, it had a 1600 cc restricted twin cam. The only thing I need now is a color photo for the shade of blue and any other markings that I could reproduce.