20 replies to this topic

[Morris S]

Sad to report the passing of Harry Ratcliffe on Sunday 21st February 2016. One of the last of the original 60s tuning gurus, our man in the North and no mean Morris Minor and Mini racer in his day Harry had been suffering from dementia for quite some time. Please feel free to share any memories you might have of Harry, I'm sure there's a few. Rest in peace old pal.

 

Pete

 

Edited by Vitesse2, 27 February 2016 - 12:04.

[elansprint72]

I took my Mini to Harry and asked for suggestions; he wandered around it and wrote out a list of jobs in price-order (he had already established that I was skint). Top Bloke. RIP.

Edited by elansprint72, 25 February 2016 - 20:39.

[DUFFY]

In the 1960s Rochdale Motor Panels, manufacturers of the Rochdale Olympic had a very good social and business association with Harry Ratcliffe.

This unpublished photo taken in 1961 at an unknown speed event shows Harry’s Morris Minor  PDK 495  on the right and Harry and friends standing around

a Rochdale Olympic Phase 1  VDK 147. This was RMP factory demonstrator/development car and was fitted with a Harry Ratcliffe tuned Riley 1.5 engine.

 

RIP Harry.

 

Rochdale Owners Club.

 

[ReWind]

Maybe someone can check his birth date. Wasn't he born in 1936?
 
Oh, and then there is this website.

[Jagjon]

The attached     this website. is brilliant,  my era of Oulton etc.  thanks  ReWind.

[Rupertlt1]

More Morris Minor:

 

https://revslib.stan...log/st382xg5575

 

https://revslib.stan...log/gw386kq4441

 

RGDS RLT

[Morris S]

Harry Ratcliffe was born in 1935 as I stated and passed away last Sunday. I await your tributes but am not holding my breath. For anyone that is interested there's some great tributes on Facebook on a page entitled 'The Sporting Minis' including some great photos of the man.

 

Over and out.

Edited by Vitesse2, 27 February 2016 - 12:07.

[bradbury west]

Those of you who have frequented this parish for years will be aware of my huge admiration for Harry Ratcliffe. I am sure it is the same in all sports, where we identify someone in our youth or early days of our interest in whatever sport it might be, and that person assumes hero status. These figures are invariably not the super stars, the Moss, Clark, Gurney, Nuvolari etc figures, (other names are available to suit personal tastes) but for me it was always Harry Ratcliffe, ( and John Charles in football, and for dear old Len Terry it had always been George Abecassis) whom I saw racing at Oulton and Rufforth when I was a callow youth. The performance of PDK and the car's preparation were very special, as was Harry's driving skill. He might even have been at the first or second Castle Howard Hill climb, which was my first event spectating. I recall Alan Ensoll's D type and the dropdown doors of Lotus Elevens, a whole new world to an 11 year old. The world was a smaller and more parochial place in those days, so the likes of Harry held a higher prominence.
I followed his exploits in his Cooper S, at 1390cc quite an overbore, and the saga of British Vita Racing with Jeff Goodliffe et al. right up to the later Mini racers, matching the works cars ISTR, and the rear engine front drive Cooper Buick. The Mini Buick was an engineering exercise, just because they could do it. Harry reckoned the handling had the dynamics of a thrown hammer... They even took in the Targa Florio one year ISTR in a very hot Mini. Of Course, Jeff's antics in the blown 8port injected, lowered roof, Cooper S featured in the BARC hillclimb Championship furiously competing against Peter Voigt in the mk6 of my preferred marque DRW in 1968 and 69, and later in the Elan, so the circle was rounded when I had chance to talk to him a few years ago. Similarly, by a quirk of booking, I was fortunate to meet and get to know well the Rev Rupert Jones, who , in addition to being a very quick driver and navigator, plus an endurance record holder at Montlhery in an A35 in 1958, was also the press officer for British Vita RT so there was more Harry connections. Sadly Jeff died a while ago as did the Rallying Reverend.
I hasten to add that I never met nor knew Harry, being simply a fan.
I commend the Mount Green website, cited above, for a full profile of Harry and the whole Vita team. The Autosport profile article from January 1962 serves him well, and gives a good overview of the man and his talents. I recall an Autocar article from the same era in which he impressed me when, sceptical of all the last minute preparation pre practice indulged in by many others on race morning, he expounded his view that if the car was not ready when you put it on the trailer, there was little chance of winning. You will see that Harry developed his own fuel injection system, and only changed to Webers from 4 Amals as the Webers were a bit smoother, all down to the setting up, as with the 13:1 compression, very Daniel Richmond in skills and engineering, almost Duckworthian at times......
In an interesting similar period article on Rod Bloor and his A40, Rod reckoned that the A40 was better through the air than Harry's Minor 1000 and had a 5mph top speed advantage on like for like bhp.
On another occasion, at a very wet Thollt y Will hillclimb on the Isle of man in the late 60s, our longest hillclimb by some distance, and then some, I recall the track was foreshortened by 25% due to the cascading rain, and in the first 2 practice sessions dear old Harry was fastest overall in his Cooper S. Different story when the rain stopped and the sun shone, but the point was well made.
We had known that Harry was suffering from dementia for some years and our thoughts go out to Brenda and family, and to those in our sport who knew him well, and I include Barrie Williams and Brian Redman, unless I am mistaken. He was one of the old school of engineers.
Harry Ratcliffe was a rare talent, a man for his time, but in some ways ahead of his time. His record and reputation will stand all scrutiny.
Sharman of this parish is beyond contributing at present, but has asked to have his kind thoughts and racing memories of Harry remembered here. In a discussion on another thread about the colour of PDK Sharman pointed out that he KNEW it was grey because he saw Harry very close up when Harry passed him/avoided him after Sharman had spun at Oulton.
As I have said, I write this as a simple enthusiast of many a year in our sport, for whom Harry Ratcliffe always held hero status.
Thanks for the memories
Roger Lund

Edited by bradbury west, 26 February 2016 - 08:51.

[fuzzi]

As Roger says above it is surprising how small things impact on the young.

 

I first came across Harry Ratcliffe in the series of full-page adverts in Motor Sport for Duckhams Q20/50 oil. Harry was posed, pipe in mouth with a Mini engine apparently explaining the intracacies of tuning A series engines to a couple of young men. As a pipe smoker at the time I imediately felt an affinity to this bloke and always looked out for him in results and accounts of events. I still have the account of the Tholt-y-Will hillclimb which featured photos of Harry in a Mini-Cooper and Gerry Marshall in the works TVR. I found the British Vita site while researching my book and it fleshed out the man a little more for me. If space had allowed would have included Harry in the planned appendix on significant people in motor sport.

 

RIP Mr Ratcliffe

 

ETA  See the post with the Duckhams advert below - so much for the reliability of memory.

Edited by fuzzi, 27 February 2016 - 06:08.

[john aston]

He was certainly on my radar as a teenage enthusiast who spent as much time as possible at Harewood and Rufforth. The insane Vitamins were always the highlight at the hills- Jeff Goodlifff's Mini sprint was a  fuel injected 180bhp I think  .

[Morris S]

Great tributes, and thanks Roger. I want to compile these and some on the Facebook page to present to Brenda. Sad goodbye to an era isn't it, with Rupert Jones, Jim Barham, Nev Hodkin, Nobby Clark, Jeff Goodliff and now Harry gone. Jeff's Minisprint is still in fine working order , just as it was all those years ago, Harry's first Cooper S is under restoration as is the Cooper-Buick V8 Mini now owned by Jonathan Buncombe (which was actually built from Rupert's first Vita-D racing Mini!), so we'll still be able to enjoy their legacy.

[bradbury west]

OT a bit but do you know where the photo was taken, event etc, in the lovely shot of Harry in the Mini Buick shown on Facebook? Harewood?

Roger Lund

[Vitesse2]

Posted on behalf of Roger Lund. A Harry Ratcliffe advert for Duckhams. © Castrol/Duckhams.

 

[Morris S]

Roger the photo on FB was with a subsequent owner if it's the one I'm thinking of. I've not seen that many photos of good quality of Harry in the car, a few at Mallory, but there must be a lot out there as the car appeared in the press so often.

[Rupertlt1]

https://revslib.stan...log/jg080zm6734

 

https://revslib.stan...log/kq623jv0201

 

https://revslib.stan...log/xt984xh5867

 

RGDS RLT

[Morris S]

Not seen those pics before Rupert, thanks.

 

Harry's funeral service will take place on Friday 11th March at 11a.m at Holy Trinity Church in Littleborough (OL15 9DG) , Rochdale crematorium (OL11 4DG) at 11.50. Littleborough Cricket Club thereafter. Let's give Harry a great send off, feel free to arrive in an MG, Minor, Mini, Lotus, Escort or concrete boat.

Edited by Morris S, 05 March 2016 - 12:32.

[bradbury west]

RIP.

[mikeallen]

Does anyone know what happened to the British Vita website. This helped so much doing my Oulton Park book, there was so much in there for the historian. I'm now researching a book on Tony Sugden who crossed paths with Harry and many of the other Vita racers. If archived I would look to host. I hope it hasn't gone forever. Regards Mike Allen

[Arjan de Roos]

https://archive.org/web/

[cooper997]

Does anyone know what happened to the British Vita website. This helped so much doing my Oulton Park book, there was so much in there for the historian. I'm now researching a book on Tony Sugden who crossed paths with Harry and many of the other Vita racers. If archived I would look to host. I hope it hasn't gone forever. Regards Mike Allen

 

Mike,

 

I recall reading somewhere on the Mk1 performance conversion (Mini) forum of the demise of the British Vita website.

 

Check with Mark Forster here http://mk1-performan...k/mk1_index.htm

 

Stephen

[bradbury west]

We used to have a poster here called Luca, ISTR, who ran the site.
Roger Lund