11 replies to this topic

[petefenelon]

Heard today that Dr Joe Ehrlich died this week.

Probably better known in the two-wheel scene than to car racers, Ehrlich fled Austria in the 30s and worked on car and motorbike engines (including his own EMC bikes).

I remember a ine of slightly eccentric 'bitsa' F3s - long-lived cars that kept mutating from season to season, often as platforms engines tuned according to Ehrlich's own ideas - through the back half of the 1970s; not sure what Dr Ehrlich did after that.

Mark Thatcher's last stand in single seaters was in one of his F3s, wasn't it?

[RTH]

More sad news, I remember Ian Flux worked for him and as a result got his break in to racing in a Formula Atlantic Ehrlich and went on to carve out a career in racing as a professional driver .

[neville mackay]

....And I recall no less a person than Jody Scheckter twirling the Ehrlich in a few F3 races - must have been in 70 or 71. I think the same chassis was still doing the business with Fluxie several years later

[ghinzani]

Saw that sad news earleir in the week in Autosport - he was quite an age tho. Didnt the f3 car have a steel monocoque?

[fines]

[MCS]

Didn't the good Doctor buy the ex-John Player Special Lotus 73s - as pedalled by Messrs Trimmer and Vermilio - in 1973 (the year after their participation in the Shell F3 series) ?

I (vaguely) seem to recall Patrick Neve getting involved at some point in 1973 - the Monza Lotteria rings a bell...

MCS

[RJH]

Sad that the 'good' Doctor has passed away. He was a very talented engineer, witness his success with two stroke racing motor bikes.
He built space frame 1 litre F3's, then the dreaded steel monocoque car, raced for a time by Bev Bond, aquired the Lotus F3 cars then moved on to some barely modified March chassis for Formula Atlantic. He was involved in the abortive BMC twin cam Formula Two engine project, and built some pretty good F3 one litre screamers. I believe at one time he was a partner in the Progress Chasis company, making space frames for Lotus and others. But then who didn't?
We need more eccentrics like him in Motor Racing today.

[ian senior]

A very interesting man, and he must have lived to a ripe old age. He was involved with road cars too, and acted as consultant to Austin in the early BMC days. He proposed an ultra-light ecnomy car, and also produced some 2-stroke engines for a stripped down Austin A30. They evidently produced more noise than performance.

[RTH]

Originally posted by MCS
Didn't the good Doctor buy the ex-John Player Special Lotus 73s - as pedalled by Messrs Trimmer and Vermilio - in 1973 (the year after their participation in the Shell F3 series) ?



MCS

Yes he did .

[Mallory Dan]

Ian Flux always went well in Atlantic in Britain in an Ehrlich, up against 'better' cars, RT4s mainly. Did they also run Mark Thatcher occasionally in one, nowhere near as fast as Flux.

[charles r]

Didn't Ashley also have a go in the EMC F3? There must be some photographs somewhere...?

[Cirrus]

There are quite a few Ehrlich F3 pictures on Gerald Swan's F3 site http://www.f3history.co.uk (under "Manufacturers"), and although there are some from 1971, none of "Crashley" himself...