161 replies to this topic

[Barry Boor]

Although of little interest to most tee-enn-effers, I though I would just post these new images of the old girl.

I have just received them from Peter himself. They show the car in its F5000 form with a Chevrolet engine in the back.

Perhaps of more interest is the background. The whole car was constructed inside one of those sets of double green doors!

We must have been mad!





As these pictures belong to my cousin, I would be grateful if anyone would refrain from re-printing them.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Although of little interest to most tee-enn-effers,

Typical Barry - self-deprecating as usual!!

Originally posted by Barry Boor
I though I would just post these new images of the old girl.

I have just received them from Peter himself. They show the car in its F5000 form with a Chevrolet engine in the back.

And very pretty she looks too!!

But how on earth did you get all that car into that Transit?? And unless my eyes deceive me that's a McLaren badge painted on the side of it ...

[Allen Brown]

Barry

Great pictures. I must get around to adding the Connew to my F5000 pages.

Allen

[byrkus]

Barry, is this Pierre Soukry's F5000 for Mallory Park?? Boy, it sure looked great with that monster engine in the rear!! Hope to see even more pics of the car, no metter which version/conversion!!

Get us some more!!

[Barry Boor]

Correct, byrkus. The PSRacing logo on the van is indeed indicative of the vehicle being owned by Pierre Soukry.

As I was no longer involved in the project during 1973 I cannot say for sure about squeezing the car into that Transit, but the following image may clarify the situation.

[Barry Boor]

RATS! I can't find the picture! If I do I'll post it.

Sorry!

[Gary C]

Great pictures, Barry!

[karlcars]

Does anyone have a picture of Mr. Connew himself? Motor Sport is looking for one...

[Barry Boor]

Peter has long been a believer in the old Aboriginal idea that if someone takes your picture he steals your soul.

I'll have a look around. I must have something but how current is another matter.

The thought occurs that perhaps Motor Sport should ask...... Peter!

[Barry Boor]

Just back from a few days in London, during which time I managed to get over to Essex to visit cousin Peter. I wanted to have my picture taken with the wooden buck I constructed to mould the nose from, and the nose itself. Sadly, the nose was inaccessible, buried behind a lot of stuff in the Connew shed and even sadder, all the bodywork bucks and fibreglass moulds have long since gone!

However, we were able to locate and extract the one and only airbox....



The airbox looks a bit old and tatty but nowhere near as old and tatty as the bloke sitting next to it.

Incidentist, the STP jacket was given to me by the STP rep at the time of the 1972 British Grand Prix... I guess that tells you quite a lot about my fashion sense and my reluctance to throw out old clothes!

[jorism]

Nice photo Barry, can you post the pictures from 2001 (posted above) again please?

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Incidentist, the STP jacket was given to me by the STP rep at the time of the 1972 British Grand Prix... I guess that tells you quite a lot about my fashion sense and my reluctance to throw out old clothes!

Very nice Barry. Don't worry about the fashion sense....seems to me to be an improvement over some of the things I have seen you wear. (Unless STP have had some connection with football which I have blissfully missed ;) )

PS why not make some of the earlier pics on this thread work again?

[Barry Boor]

I have re-uploaded the original 2 pictures. (They were originally on my old, no-longer-in-use website address.)

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
I have re-uploaded the original 2 pictures. (They were originally on my old, no-longer-in-use website address.)

Thanks Barry. It will never cease to amaze me what a pretty car it was for the ultimate shoe-string effort.

[Barry Boor]

I have to admit that I was never very keen on it in F.5000 guise. I think it looks all back and no balance. The main reason being the loss of the oil coolers beside the engine, which seemed to give the car better proportions.

But then, that's just my own view. I liked the yellow too.

I really must finish that 12th scale model.......

[David McKinney]

Is that a tear in your eye, Barry?

[Barry Boor]

No, several!

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by David Beard


Very nice Barry. Don't worry about the fashion sense....seems to me to be an improvement over some of the things I have seen you wear. (Unless STP have had some connection with football which I have blissfully missed ;) )

Not only that, he's actually wearing long trousers!

[Ray Bell]

'tis Winter in those regions...

Barry, I hope you gave that airbox a nice warm hug! Thanks for dragging out this old thread, too.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
'tis Winter in those regions...

That doesn't usually stop him ....

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by David Beard


Very nice Barry. Don't worry about the fashion sense....seems to me to be an improvement over some of the things I have seen you wear. (Unless STP have had some connection with football which I have blissfully missed ;) )

Scalextric Takes Practice

[Huw Jadvantich]

I remember thinking so at the time, but those pictures remind me what a pretty F1 car that was, a real credit to you guys. On the basis that what looks right is right it should have been on the front of the grid!
Apart from the obvious lack of funds, was there anything wrong with it, would it have been a player with a 'worked' DFV in it?

[Ian McKean]

Barry, It was only a few weeks ago that I looked at your web pages about the history of the Connew for the first time and I thought I should post here to let you know how much I enjoyed reading them.

Thanks!

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by Roger Clark

Scalextric Takes Practice

Nice one, Roger!

Originally posted by Barry Boor

I really must finish that 12th scale model...

Unfortunately that's not a Tamiya model, Barry... what a shame. So you've embarked upon a scratch-built then?

As a young laddie, I never did understand why Tamiya failed to model a BRM P160 kit in 1/12 scale. Just imagine how many variants they could have produced!

But that'll be down to The Fat Contoller, I guess....

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Vitesse2
That doesn't usually stop him ....

So he'd be prone to John Medley describing him as having 'air cooled knees'?

[Roger Clark]

I'm surprised that nobody has remarked that Barry's 1972 jacket still fits him. It must be very high quality as most of mine get smaller over the years.

[Barry Boor]

REPLIES TO OVERNIGHT COMMENTS:

The jacket may fit, Roger, but as you may notice, the zip is not done up!

Twinny, it's a semi-scratch build - using a DFV/Hewland DG 300/wheels & tyres from a Tamiya McLaren 23 model. AND, it is actually about 80% finished. However, I need somebody to make up the signwriting either in peel and stick or transfer form.

Ian, thanks for the comments.

Huw; anything wrong with it? That's hard to say because
a) we never allowed either Francois or David Purley more than 9000 rpm on the engine,
and b) in truth, it never really ran long enough to get the bugs ironed out.
TNF's esteemed doctor has pointed out that in his opinion the front suspension geometry was a bit awry, but the drivers never complained about the handling.

Vitesse - I HATE the day when the shorts have to go away for the winter. This year it was in October.

[RTH]

I can't help thinking it's such a shame this car isn't being restored it's such an important little piece of history and really does deserve to be seen again being demonstrated at the F.O.S

[Barry Boor]

As I have mentioned on other threads in the past, Peter is very keen to restore the car to at least be a static display item, but ££££'s are the problem.

There is a certain amount he can do when he makes a start but then finance will hold it all up.

I think it WILL eventually happen, though.

[RTH]

Do you know what is needed Barry, so that we collectively might keep an eye out for some of the missing bits over a period of time, - you might even get a few donations, I expect more than a few have sheds with old parts on shelves "waiting to come in useful"

[Huw Jadvantich]

I didn't realise quite how under funded you were, at the time it looked like (I think it was) Capricorn was a major backer. What did they do? It was written large on what looked like large air intakes on the side of the engine cover, were those side intakes for brakes or transmission or engine?

[Barry Boor]

Richard, please don't think I'm trying to be funny or facetious but it is somewhat unlikely that anyone has a Cosworth DFV or a Hewland DG.300 gearbox laying around in their sheds.

(Except one bloke who has a DFV and is very keen to hold on to it!)

No, the problem is more along the lines of various steel bulkheads, wishbones, uprights etc having deteriorated to such a degree that they would need a lot of work to bring them back to a presentable state, or indeed, would possibly need to be replaced entirely. In the case of bulkheads, this would entail removing them from the chassis where they were extremely solidly inserted using rivets for tensile strength and araldite for shear.

Quite what removal would do to the aluminium of the chassis itself is open to doubt.

In order to have this done professionally, we are talking BIG money but if I read Peter correectly he wants to do as much as possible himself. but at present is simply not in a position to do so.

Huw, underfunded? Well you could put it like that. Capricorn Sea Foods, who I believe were eventually absorbed into the Ross Frozen Foods group, paid for their own signwriting on the car. AFAIK, nothing else!

Apologies if you have been there before but if you haven't, trundle over to
http://members.atlas...boor/story1.htm
and have a read...

[Huw Jadvantich]

Barry, just finished reading it, what a fabulous story.....fabulous!

[RTH]

Barry:

Obviously take all those points, if however the intention is only to make a static exhibit then dummy only, blown- up or GRP DFVs & otherwise useless cracked gearbox casings etc which are rather more financially, realistically findable items might be of some help in getting the car on wheels at least..........and this is a pretty powerful medium , when it comes to finding information , or who might have what, at a sensible price, in a good cause

[jarama]

Barry,

I've just finished reading your story on the Connew theme... fascinating, evocative...


Carles.

[David Beard]

I think this might be a dummy DFV sitting on the floor of the Haynes museum



The sort of place that might like to be involved with a static display project?

[Barry Boor]

I know Peter has considered a dummy DFV. Certainly GRP ones are around but they are horribly expensive. I gather that damaged gearbox casings are not that easy to obtain.

As you say, Richard, this is an excellent source of info etc, but this Connew rebuild business has been discussed on other Connew threads before and most of these suggestions have been made earlier without eliciting any concrete responses.

David, where is this museum, please?

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
David, where is this museum, please?

Down the road from Vitesse2, I believe...

http://www.ukattract...otor-museum.htm

[Barry Boor]

Huw, sorry, I forgot to answer your other question. The intakes you asked about contained oil coolers. And here is one....

[David Beard]

Just found this reference to Connew in the September 79 edition of Kart & Superkart magazine. Apparently ex-Connew team member Roger Doran hurt himself in the kart GP at Silverstone that year. A letter from his dad...

[Barry Boor]

Very interesting find, David. I knew Roger went karting but I didn't think he was still doing it in his thirties!!!!!

Incidentally, I hear that Roger's son is, apparently, beginning to make quite a name for himself in the lower echelons of British single seater racing.

[conjohn]

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Incidentally, I hear that Roger's son is, apparently, beginning to make quite a name for himself in the lower echelons of British single seater racing.

Would that be Neil Doran in FFord Van Diemen for Kevin Mills Racing?

[Barry Boor]

Yes, I believe it is.

[P 4 Staff]

Barry...this puzzles me...there should be pictures of the Connew F1 around somewhere.
Best: Staff.

[Barry Boor]

Sorry, Staff, around where, exactly?

[P 4 Staff]

Well Barry.
Even if I missed to take a photo of the Connew at Östereichring in 1972...there must have been a lot of proffessional photographers at the place. Working for Motor Magazines I suppose. OK. I understand the difficulty to track down photos after so many years.
But I´m sure many of these Motor Magazines have pictures of the Connew.

Best Regards: Staff

[Barry Boor]

I guess so, Staff, although the very best opportunity to see the old girl, as Peter calls his creation, should have been in the Austrian Grand Prix 1972 video that is available from Duke.

Indeed, the car can be seen in the start sequence but alas, when they did the paddock walkabout featuring 'all' the cars in the race, somehow, they missed us. We are totally not there!

On the subject of still photos, I have some nice ones from Ted 'Ferret' Walker, black and white and from Brands; as well as a few from Maureen Magee. (The image on my ATLAS website is one of hers.

Here are a couple of pictures that you may not have seen before. These were taken in the Nurburgring paddock, before they kicked us out....

[Rosemayer]

Sorry if this was posted already

[P 4 Staff]

Barry...I found this in R&T March issue 1973.
The drawing is done by: Werner Bührer.
Interesting to know if you agree on the drawing.
I have also Rob Walkers report on the 1972 Austrian GP. But I beleieve it´s about 5 pages so I don´t know if I should post it here.


Best: Staff.

[Barry Boor]

I have seen this before. Somebody sent the whole page to me some years ago, but thanks for taking the trouble to post it.

The drawing is very good. Interestingly, the aluminium rear suspension top cross member shown was a very early one and was replaced by a more conventional system quite early in the car's life.

Here is a view of that early cross member, looking at the the underside of it, with its bottom surface removed.



It was beautifully constructed, mainly by Peter IIRC, but he decided to replace it with steel tubing in the end.