35 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

https://dl.dropboxus...MAY 12 2014.jpg

 

 

Photo Strictly Copyright: The GP Library

 

DCN

[elansprint72]

Lotus 30, 40? 

[bradbury west]

Felday 4 BRM 2 litre
Roger Lund

[kayemod]

Lotus 30, 40? 

 

The late Colin Chapman would have been deeply, deeply and thrice deeply offended by the very suggestion.

[elansprint72]

The late Colin Chapman would have been deeply, deeply and thrice deeply offended by the very suggestion.

Tee Hee- time I got my own back for buying some of his defective products!     

[Gary Davies]

Basil: Now will you get on with it? 

 

O’Reilly: Look, look, look, this lot here ... an hour and a half. This one’s easy... lick of paint, lick of paint, lick of paint, one hour.

[swintex]

He must have had extremely long arms.

 

And maybe a third one for the gear lever.

 

Or mabe the steering wheel isn't correctly located yet?.

[Doug Nye]

That is exactly right.  I last saw this car 47 years ago. Then yesterday morning - on Bonhams business...

 

 

DCN

[bradbury west]

Has the owner had any joy with the transfer box stuff, Doug? Something of a massive project, methinks

Roger Lund

[Derwent Motorsport]

How does a car get into such a state?

[Doug Nye]

It seems it lay on a Dorset farm for many years - having been used for fun in occasionally lapping impromptu grass tracks... I think it is just about saveable. For sale at no reserve...

DCN

[Glengavel]

Give it to those two gonks on C5's Classic Car Rescue...on second thoughts don't, I don't know why I even said that...

[JtP2]

Why, didn't you like the original configuration and want it destroyed?

[3304hl]

With all due respect, I suspect Colin would have been delighted at how light it is....

[JtP2]

Wait and see the weight after the Ch5 car restorers have attacked with a 10" angle grinder

[nicanary]

Wait and see the weight after the Ch5 car restorers have attacked with a 10" angle grinder

I wouldn't actually admit to watching that if I were you - the members of this forum have taste.

 

(How much did you pay for this pile of junk Mawio? I know how we can increase the value, let's "stance" it like them kids do.")

[T54]

Well, if one is not too picky about size, there is always this one...  for about the same price? 

 

 

Edited by T54, 20 May 2014 - 04:07.

[sterling49]

Felday Ford? When I saw Jim race it at Brands , it had a B.R.M. 2 litre V-8 fitted. He was doing well until the engine got tired in the 2nd heat ( iirc ! )

[Doug Nye]

The model box is lettered 'Ford Felday 5'. The Galliers Collection included both the Felday 4, originally BRM V8-engined, and the Felday 5, which originally in 1966 had a 7-litre Ford V8 engine, probably now Chrysler Hemi V8-engined. While the 4 has a monocoque backbone structure, the 5 is a multi-tubular spaceframe design.  The Felday 5 is ex-Maurice Starbuck, of Sheffield, circa 1972-73...does anyone recall him - or indeed is Mr Starbuck still around?

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 20 May 2014 - 17:29.

[Mistron]

Maurice Starbuck is / was the brother -in-law of the chap who owned the Mistron / Pandora. I'll dig out the email address I had for Denis' son who would be able to put you in touch. I think he was still alive about 4-5 years ago. Steve Wilkinson will know i'm sure, as it was who he put me in touch with Denis in the first place I think

 

Interestingly, I supplied a load of stuff from 'Motor racing' magazines to the owner of the Felday 4 I think, including a cutaway and a couple of articles. There was a spaceframed Daimler V8 engined car built alongside the backbone car which was road registered so they could paractice for the European events whilst they were still open to the public!

 

Al

[john ruston]

Graham Galliers was a marvellous man but he did buy some rubbish along with a few decent cars.

[Doug Nye]

Nobody's perfect...

 

DCN

[bradbury west]

I recall Mr Starbuck as a Harewood regular in the 60s, in some sort of special, poss Cadillac engined, along with the likes of Malcolm Bateman in his device, and Phil Chapman in his, 400WB, which is still competing ISTR
Perhaps northern photographer John Holroyd has some shots of Mr Starbuck
Roger Lund

[Mistron]

Just found an email from Graham, and apparently the cut out and one of the articles was in 'Motor' of 27/3/'65. Graham commented that the cut away drawing (by Hatton)  shows clearly the diff/short axle assembly which is what I was absolutely stuck for.

 

Al

[jeffbee]

Felday Ford? When I saw Jim race it at Brands , it had a B.R.M. 2 litre V-8 fitted. He was doing well until the engine got tired in the 2nd heat ( iirc ! )

I was there as well and, yes, it had a BRM 2 litre V8.

 

I remember reading later that Clark found the car difficult.  At the time 4WD was generally considered to be the way to go and it was probably a useful exercise for the input that Clark could give Chapman. 

[pete53]

I was there as well and, yes, it had a BRM 2 litre V8.

 

I remember reading later that Clark found the car difficult.  At the time 4WD was generally considered to be the way to go and it was probably a useful exercise for the input that Clark could give Chapman. 

Mac Daghorn, who usually raced the Felday 4 BRM, drove the Felday 5 ( 7.0 Holman Moody V8 Ford block) at the Brands Guards Trophy meeting in 1966. It didn't figure in results.

Motor Racing magazine did a technical feature on the car in the October 1966 issue.

 

I never knew a slot racing model of the car had been made - a somewhat surprising choice of a car to model.

[Doug Nye]

Apparently the car wasn't merely used for grass track racing, it was converted by Tammy Aberg and John Head of Rosary Garage, Bramshaw, who fitted a Rover V8 engine driving through a conventional Hewland gearbox for leading autocross exponent Ken Piper. Might anyone have a photo of the car in that form?

 

DCN

[robjohn]

I never knew a slot racing model of the car had been made - a somewhat surprising choice of a car to model.

 

The Felday slot car shown above is probably a 2WD version but MRRC also made a 4WD system and originally chose the Felday for that. It also made a Novi-Ferguson in 4 & 2WD forms (and a Merc W154).
4WD was thought the way to go in slot racing too at one time, though even more briefly than in 1:1.
The MRRC 4WDs were complex and finely engineered and are now among the "holy grail" models for collectors.

Rob B

 

[pete53]

The Felday slot car shown above is probably a 2WD version but MRRC also made a 4WD system and originally chose the Felday for that. It also made a Novi-Ferguson in 4 & 2WD forms (and a Merc W154).
4WD was thought the way to go in slot racing too at one time, though even more briefly than in 1:1.
The MRRC 4WDs were complex and finely engineered and are now among the "holy grail" models for collectors.

Rob B

Thanks for that Rob. I never knew 4wd was toyed with by any slot car makers. I can now see why they may have chosen the Felday to model.

[bill p]

Thanks for that Rob. I never knew 4wd was toyed with by any slot car makers. I can now see why they may have chosen the Felday to model.

 

 

Russkit also produced 4-wheel drive 1/24 scale slot cars, Lola T70 and Lotus 38, which were powered by two Russkit Mabuchi engines - some say this was a way of getting rid of an over-order of obsolete engines!  The Russkit cars did not have the complex arrangement of the 1/32 scale MRRC cars which had tiny universal joints allowing the front wheels to steer. 

[kayemod]

The Felday slot car shown above is probably a 2WD version but MRRC also made a 4WD system and originally chose the Felday for that. It also made a Novi-Ferguson in 4 & 2WD forms (and a Merc W154).
4WD was thought the way to go in slot racing too at one time, though even more briefly than in 1:1.
The MRRC 4WDs were complex and finely engineered and are now among the "holy grail" models for collectors.

Rob B

 

I thought I knew about MRRC history, many years ago I was friendly with owner Alban Adams' son Barry, but I never saw an MRRC Felday, I didn't think it had progressed much beyond the prototype stage. Their 4WD Mercedes 154 was a very clever piece of miniature engineering by ace designer Ron Burgas, and they are indeed much sought after today by collectors, but let's not get too carried away, they were never terribly good at their intended purpose as competitive slot-racers. I had a Mercedes W154 and it soon got retro-engineered to RWD with the cheaper but far more practical and effective MRRC 3-pole power. The originals were clever, and from memory I think each cost something like 42 shillings, a fair stretch for a still at school teenager, and I don't remember any of these cars being available in any form other than build-it-yourself kits, and that was perhaps their Achilles heel, very few buyers were up to the task. All 4 driveshafts incorporated ball-races but these were crude. Instead of properly assembled metal items, they consisted of a shallow plastic cup into which you had to stick tiny balls using grease, then clamp these in place with the other half. Later versions may have been better thought out, but that's what my early one was like, and it didn't work too well at all. If the ball races weren't tight enough, you left a trail of greasy balls around the track, after which the car ground to a halt, and if tighter, the car was so stop & start that it was impossible to drive smoothly, so not a competitive proposition at all. Another fault was the electric motor, a long double-ended double-wound 6 pole, for those who understand such technicalities, the torque /revs combination was completely wrong. Undoubtedly clever again, but I'm fairly certain that no 4WD MRRC car ever performed competitively in a top level event. None ever made an appearance at national level, though makers MRRC tried to suggest otherwise. At the 1964 National Finals in Watford, the first I ever attended, official MRRC works driver Barry Adams failed to make it through the qualifying heats. The event was important to the company, so a deal was reached for Ken Stokes an MRRC customer to race the RWD works car in the final, even though Ken believed his own W154, also conventionally RWD to be better, presumably some inducement was involved. Ken was one of the best drivers around back then, and he duly won the final with his loaned car. When UK magazine Model Maker, later Model Cars, carried a slightly ambiguous race report, an MRRC advert in the same issue had a picture of the winner alongside an ad for the by this time un-loved 4WD version, with obvious implications. I don't think they'd have got away with that in later Trade Descriptions Act times. Those 4WD MRRC cars were an important part of UK slot racing history, but I'm pretty certain that no such car ever achieved any significant racing success.

 

Edit, just noticed Pete 53's post. For a brief period, 4wd was in UK slot racing vogue, just as it was for a short time in full-size F1, and for much the same reasons, though we all made our own cars back then, almost nothing was available ready-to-run. Early slot cars used motors intended for model railway use, they had to, that was all there was. These motors were torquey but not very powerful, all intended for lowish amps. Early tracks tended to be rough and bumpy with fairly low grip surfaces, and not much was readily available in the way of tyres, or anything much else for that matter. Hard rubber was all there was, and many racers used rounded O-rings, the cars handled quite well, but traction was a real problem. MRRC were one of the first suppliers to offer motors expressly designed for slot cars, though these were little more than the old model train units with hotter windings. Wheelspin was becoming more of a problem, though MRRC again did make some slightly better tyres in their tiny Bournemouth workshop, which wasn't much more that a large mezzanine shed above owner Alban Adams' builders yard. Around this time 4wd slot cars seemed like the way to go, four tyres providing traction had to be better than two. One popular solution was a pair of small round German motors called Milliperms, one driving a pair of wheels at each end with no kind of interconnection, little power, but if weight was kept down, some effective cars resulted, and another way to go was a model train motor called a Ks Mk 1 with one double-ended shaft long enough to drive an axle at each end, but again not much power. Cars like these won a lot of races for a few years, but then everything changed quite suddenly. Track surfaces became grippier, track power increased through the use of more efficient track conductors and multiple trickle-charged car batteries, and then what we'd all been waiting for, far more effective and easily obtainable synthetic rubber tyres which largely solved the traction problems, and 4wd was then seen as an expensive and unecessary complication, just as it was in full-size F1, and at the time most of us weren't sorry to see it go.

 

Apologies for the lengthy post, but I can bore for hours on the subject of my slot racing past, and I did mention that Felday at the beginning...

Edited by kayemod, 25 May 2014 - 20:16.

[Derwent Motorsport]

I have all my slot cars still in their carrying case I used to take them to events, unused for 40 years and they include a scratch built Felday 4 wheel drive using the K motor as mentioned above.

I should get round to selling the cars along with most of the made up metal kits I have. Perhaps in the winter.

[Alan Cox]

Sold for £14,950 at yesterday's sale

http://www.bonhams.c.../21906/lot/306/

The Felday 5 made £32,200

http://www.bonhams.c.../21906/lot/307/

[Louism]

Apparently the car wasn't merely used for grass track racing, it was converted by Tammy Aberg and John Head of Rosary Garage, Bramshaw, who fitted a Rover V8 engine driving through a conventional Hewland gearbox for leading autocross exponent Ken Piper. Might anyone have a photo of the car in that form?

 

DCN

Hello,

 

I spoke about that car with my old friend Terry Lewis from Goodwood, I was a young french pupil in the early seventies and I spent several stays in his home to improve my english. Terry was working for Ken Piper at Chandlers Ford near Southampton...

 

 

Yes, I drove that car, Ken had booked a place and entered it in an autocross, but the day before the event, Ken became ill, so he asked me if I would drive it in his place. We arrived a little late, unloaded it, went to scruitineering... it passed, and almost straight away it was our turn for first practice.... now don't forget, I had never driven it before !!

I can remember this so well.... The flag dropped.... long drag up to the first bend.... by now going very fast....... arrived at the braking point.........NO BRAKES.... pump pump...pump..... some brakes..  lots of out of control steering   arrive at the sharp right hand bend.... completely sideways..........perfect Scandinavian  flick !!!! ... the rest of the lap was mostly out of control.............and got fastest time in practice  !! (not much real competition)  some time during the next hour, someone pointed out that part of the chassis welding was cracked !! it was reported to the scrutineer, who said that we could not continue..... which, just maybe wasn't a bad thing !!

 

We/Ken have some pictures of it somewhere, in fact there is film of it when Ken had an accident in it...... it took off like Webber's car at Le Mans !!  He went to hospital, but was O.K... sort of !!     I'll have a look in my photo box when I get time.

 

Very warm regards

Louis Monnier

Edited by Louism, 28 June 2014 - 05:48.

[Giraffe]

Sold for £14,950 at yesterday's sale

http://www.bonhams.c.../21906/lot/306/

The Felday 5 made £32,200

http://www.bonhams.c.../21906/lot/307/

On their way down under.... I'm told they have been acquired by a Yorkshireman domiciled in Australia.

[Alan Cox]

 

Hello,

 

I spoke about that car with my old friend Terry Lewis from Goodwood, I was a young french pupil in the early seventies and I spent several stays in his home to improve my english. Terry was working for Ken Piper at Chandlers Ford near Southampton...

Thanks for posting Terry's fascinating recollections, Louis