34 replies to this topic

[petestenning]

My research has come across in a 69 programme what i recall as an often used ploy of mixing Formula 4/4 the imp engined mainly Vixen's with Formula Fords, both had simular performance.

Interesting to note the drivers some who were unknown at the time but become household names in club racing.

One such is Geoff Frizwell well known clubmans racers did not even knew you race F4.
Also one Patrick Longhurst , ' Pat ' the Davrian Modsport King.

The Vixen must have been the main stay of the formula at that time as the vast majority were using them.

With the exception of the following

Johnny Walker/Costin Walker
Philip Guerola/Briham
Derek Forrester/Speedcraft Matador
Perdal Developments/Peter Dalkin/A.J.Tobias/Mcnally F4
Johnny Saunders-Hyde/JSH


The works Vixen is driven by Keith Norman.

Do any original Vixens survive, anyone with memories of the cars , drivers etc.??

[RAP]

Pete
In conjunction with the Formula One Register I am working on a detailed record of F4 & Monoposto racing. Whilst interest is mainly in the slightly later era of F4 when F3 cars were eligible, we aim to cover it from its foundation in 1966. As with all F1R projects the intention is as complete data as possible on entries, grids, results etc. Perhaps you would PM me with the meeting details and if we are missing that programme could send me a scan.

In 1969 the were 32 events for F4 although 2/3rds of them were run in conjunctions with Formula Ford. The Vixen dominated both numerically and in the results. The class was Southern/Midlands based with the majority of races being at Snetterton, Silverstone, Brands & Lydden.

RAP

[GeoffE]

A car described as "Vixen VB1 F4/4" regularly competes in hillclimbs at Prescott. Date is given as 1968 and engine size 1040cc.

Currently driven by Grant Cratchley, I presume it is the car driven by Jeremy(?) Rivers Fletcher a few years ago.

In the same class is Ginetta G17-F4, 1969 998cc, driven by Martin Jones.

[Bloggsworth]

Bob Sparshott's "Spartan", a Lotus 49 in miniature, as I well know, having squeezed my 6' and more stone than I care to admit, down the footwell to hand rivet the panelling. It was built in his cousins garage in St. Albans. I then, to my everlasting shame, managed to stuff it into the bank on the bottom straight on one of its early appearances - I never drove it again! I believe Mike Wilds and Ian Taylor drove it with some success.

[Cirrus]

Now this is an interesting thread!

TNF member zoff2005 raced a Vixen, which I think he bought from Geoff Friswell. I'm sure he'll catch up with this thread soon.

I used to race in F4 in the "F3 car" era, and built my own car (Cirrus 004) for it, using an MAE. My very good friend, Iain Rowley ran the Spartan in F4. It was, indeed a very nice little car, and he has made many efforts to trace it in recent years, all to no avail. See here:

http://forums.autosp...&threadid=82864

Iain now runs Delta Motor Sport, and told me the other day that some Danish guys had called in with a Vixen in pieces that they were taking back to Denmark.

After selling the Spartan, Iain bought the Cirrus from me and ran it for a number of years. We regularly meet up with zoff2005 at races in the UK and Europe.

Small world, isn't it?...

RAP - I'll be seeing Duncan Rabagliati at Porto this weekend (Iain's transporting his Alexis for him), so I'll let him know about our links with F4 - we've probably got a lot of programmes and result sheets between us from the late seventies/early eighties

[Stephen W]

Originally posted by GeoffE
A car described as "Vixen VB1 F4/4" regularly competes in hillclimbs at Prescott. Date is given as 1968 and engine size 1040cc.

Currently driven by Grant Cratchley, I presume it is the car driven by Jeremy(?) Rivers Fletcher a few years ago.

In the same class is Ginetta G17-F4, 1969 998cc, driven by Martin Jones.

There is also one up in Scotland that appears at Doune from time to time.

[Mallory Dan]

Alan, re Iain's Spartan, thats interesting. I always assumed Iain's car was a Sparton, the Paul Jackson built cars of the late 70s. How old is/was the Sparshott Lotus 49-alike??

[John Saunders]

RAP
I ran a car in F4 in the70s and I have the 750 Motor Club Year Books from 73 to 78 with all the Championship Results if this is any help.

CIRRUS
I remember the Sparton F4 in the late 60s when I lived in Harpenden, there was an article in the local paper about a guy building a Racing car in his garage, that was Bob Sparshott.
I never realized that was the car Iain raced in F4.

As you say small world



John Saunders

[RAP]

Thanks to both Cirrus and John Saunders for the messages. Any offers of data are most eagerly welcomed but I should just clarify that we are cutting off Monoposto & F4 at the end of 1976 as that was the year F Junior emerged as a historic catergory within the Monoposto club and we have decided to treat 76 as a transitional year then concentrate on the historic FJ & F3 races. Obviously Fj & F3 cars continued to run in F4/Monoposto for some years but we have to draw a line somewhere and this seems most logical.
PS before I'm corrected, there were a couple of pilot FJ races in 1975 and the pre-60 cars were eligible before then in some events.
RAP

[Cirrus]

Small point, John, but it's Spartan, not Sparton. The Sparton cars were built by Norman Peirce (or was it Pierce?) and Paul Jackson in Surrey from the late seventies to the early eighties, as Mallory Dan says.

Dan. The Spartan was built about 68/69. It had inboard front suspension and a neat monocoque chassis. Maybe Bloggsworth can fill in a few more details?

The last known owner was Adrian Desoutter. He sold it on to a guy who ran it on the hills, and damaged it quite badly. As far as he knows it was never repaired

[John Saunders]

Sorry Alan I ment Spartan. I must be getting old.

[zoff2005]

The Vixen I drove in 1969 was a VB1 Formula 4/4 – not sure if this is the type or the chassis nr. My notes say it was ex Tony Soameson and was the original prototype 875cc car driven by Bottoms, Brittan and others. I bought it from Giorgio Costa but wrote the cheque out to Geoff Friswell, who sold his car to Giorgio the same day. This all took place on August 3rd 1969 at a very wet Silverstone. Giorgio did not feel like racing and decided to sell me the car and presumably Geoff did not feel like racing his and sold his to Giorgio. I ended up actually driving that day but had to start from the back as I could not get the car started (water in the fuel!).
The car cost £800 including trailer and spares (what these were I cannot imagine, maybe a couple of spare spark plugs). I used the same tyres all season (they were already 2 seasons old I think).
After Silverstone things went a bit better and I did several races in conjunction with FF, at Snetterton and Silverstone in particular. The performance was indeed similar between the two categories.
Bob Jarvis and Keith Norman were the best drivers, I was roughly on a par with Pat Longhurst and also battled with Ron Parker. Most of my races were at Lydden Hill.
I kept the car on the back of a VW transporter in the street in London. Could not be bothered to put it in the lock up which was the other side of town!

All the best
Marcus

[petestenning]

Are you by any chance Marcus Mussa who raced in Formula 4 often at Snetterton? . if so i remember many mixed races there in the early 70's.

The full entry for this race at Brands in 1969 1st June was ;-

Ron Parker/Vixen
Pat Longhurst/Vixen
Geoff Friswell/Vixen
Johnny Walker/Costin Walker
Scott Williams/Vixen
Keith Norman/Vixen 'Works'
Philip Guerola/Briham 750 cc
Keith Blaynee/Vixen
Derek Forrester/Matador
David Palmer/Vixen Honda 791cc
Peter Dalkin/McNally
A.J.Tobias/McNally
Johnny Saunders-Hyde/JSH
Julian May/Vixen
Steve Pearce/Vixen

Do i assume that Guerola and Palmer are using bike engines? Certainly Palmers entry is listed as Honda engined. I remember that F4 was called F4/2 THEN F4/4 , so F4/2 must have been the bike engined era.?

Pete

[RAP]

F4 started in the UK in 1966 for 250cc cars, copying a succesful class in Italy. The first UK race was 10 July at Malloy Park. At this stage most cars were Johnny Walker's JW4 and imported Tecnos. However Alec Bottoms also raced a Vixen Montessa.

For 1967 an additional class for 650 cc cars was added and the 250s rapidly faded away. In November of that year Bottoms appeared at Lydden with an Imp engined car. I am not clear at this stage if this was a try out for new rules for 1968 or whether there had been such a class all year but no-one had exploited it. Anyway for 68 there were 2 classes 4/2 for 650 bikes and 4/4 for 875 production car engines (Imp, Saab, Renault and Honda all tried at some time). I assume 4/1 related to the original 250s but I dont know what 4/3 was if anything. Palmer's centry in Pete's list would be using the Honda S800 car engine.

The 650s died out quickly and in 69/70 the class was dominated by the Vixen Imps. However not many races acheived large grids and for 1971 older 1.0 F3 cars were admitted and this started the end of the Vixen Imp era.

Any clarifications and corrections much appreciated.

RAP

[simonlewisbooks]

There was a JW being sprinted in the South West (well, Colerne at least) in 1996 with a modern 4 cylinder bike engine, I remember it being in the 1100cc single seater class when I ran my Cornish-built Morrish Kawasaki. Happy days...

There was also a 650 engined JW in the paddock being offered for sale at last year's VSCC Shelsley. It was parked opposite my stall all weekend and looked almost brand new such was the quality of the restoration. Very pretty little car and the owners wife who was sat patiently with it answering questions about it all weekend was very pretty too!

[zoff2005]

Originally posted by petestenning
Are you by any chance Marcus Mussa who raced in Formula 4 often at Snetterton? . if so i remember many mixed races there in the early 70's.

Pete

I am he. In fact now you mention it I spectated at that race at Brands, I remember driving up from my cousin's place in Eastbourne in a convertible Morris Minor and watching the race. Giorgio Costa must have been in it as well, as he had invited me along.
I then went to watch a race at Mallory Park – I remember that occasion as it was the first time I had ever seen Emerson Fittipaldi – it was his first F3 race.
And also a race at Cadwell Park (the day the first man walked on the moon!).
Next race was the wet one at Silverstone where I joined in the fun.
I raced several times at Snetterton. We usually did a F4/FF race and a libre race. I remember Colin Crabbe turning up in a Maserati 250F !
These races were obviously on the “old” track, when Russell was a proper corner.
At the end of the year I sold my car to Mike Wilds (via Bob Jarvis). Mike used to turn up at all the races in 1969 to drive the Costin Walker but never seemed to get into the car, or when he did it never seemed to run.Wilds was a Firestone technician at the time.
With “my” car he did very well, and then went on to FF and eventually to F1, before graduating to historics.
As I said before my car was the prototype car so I think it originally had the motorcycle engine and was then converted to Imp (so presumably it was the car driven by Bottoms in November 1967 as mentioned by RAP).
Geoff Friswell (aka the Whizz) will remember more about F4, and I have some of his photos I can post on this thread (I have posted them before somewhere).
Pat Longhurst and Bob Jarvis (who were business associates and car dealers in South London) ran the Davrians as well in 1969.
The Vixens were great little cars and I wonder why they did not keep going in another formula if F4 disappeared in that form.
All the best
Marcus

[Mallory Dan]

Was the Phil Guerola Briham any relation to a Brabham? And was Alec Bottoms any relation to Tony Bottoms, who, I think, won the Marlboro World Challenge (or similar title) in around 1983??

[ian senior]

Originally posted by Mallory Dan
Was the Phil Guerola Briham any relation to a Brabham? And was Alec Bottoms any relation to Tony Bottoms, who, I think, won the Marlboro World Challenge (or similar title) in around 1983??

No, Briham was the first name given to cars produced by Brian Hampsheir, who later made the Elden cars.

[zoff2005]

There is more on Vixens in this thread, also some photos

http://www.ten-tenth...highlight=vixen

All the best
Marcus

[Geoff.Harrison]

Keith Norman and I took his Vixen over to Belgium and Luxembourg to take in some hillclimbs.
At the first one near Spa Keith made FTD - on reaching Luxembourg the organisers mentioned start money
and at first we thought they were joking - I know it paid for the beer !
As Keith was on a roll with another FTD we decided to take in few more + start money
Scrutineering consisted of a cursory check - 4 open wheels then its a race car , no removal of body etc.,
Great stuff !

[RAP]

Geoff Harrison
In the early 70s Harrison KH2 appeared in F4. Would I be right in assuming you are the Harrison in question? If so, what if anything was the connection to Vixen? Any information about the Harrisons would be interesting.
RAP

[ian senior]

Originally posted by RAP
Geoff Harrison
In the early 70s Harrison KH2 appeared in F4. Would I be right in assuming you are the Harrison in question? If so, what if anything was the connection to Vixen? Any information about the Harrisons would be interesting.
RAP

Ken Harrison was the man responsible for the cars, but doubtless Geoff will be able to tell us if they were related.

[Geoff.Harrison]

Sorry not related , so unable to help in this instance .

However the mention of Bob Jarvis and Pat Longhurst and their Davrians - I was in Florence visiting friends
and having heard the sound of open exhausts together with seeing sports racing cars on trailers eventually found myself in square where scrutineering etc., was taking place for the Mugello sports car race - an open road affair in the hills above Florence .
Looking at the array of sports and GT cars I saw a tatty UK registered Transit truck together with a Davrian GT which had had the top cut off - Pat Longhurst !
After the usual ' long way from home ' comments he asked if I had brought a crash helmet with me as he was looking for a co-driver. I told him no and in any case I did not have an International comps licence - no problem was the reply - if I used his no one would notice that it was a different driver !
I took the easy way out and watched the race next day with my friends sitting on a hill side , eating and drinking with the other spectators , no entry fee , just arrive early before the roads close . Wonderful !

The same tatty Transit truck also took Keith Norman,myself and a Costin - Nathan Coupe to Luxembourg and Belgium for further hill climbs .

Geoff

[Fris the Whizz]

I've not seen any mention of (The late) Bernard Unett on the F4 thread, he raced the other works Vixen, and of course raced the works Fraser-Imps in saloons. I liked Bernard a lot, he used to speak his mind.

Zoff2005 mentions about the sale of my car, stating (Quote) "Giorgio did not feel like racing and decided to sell me the car and presumably Geoff did not feel like racing his and sold his to Giorgio." Sadly, much as I loved to race, at that time I had one of my many financial crises and decided to sell whilst I had a buyer!

Cheers,

Geoff.

[Tom MacMillan]

VIXENS AND HARRISONS

Two Vixens were campaigned in Scotland in the 70's and early 80's. Driven by Les Jones and David Milne. Or maybe David bought his car from Les.

And at around the same time Jerry Sturman and Alan Cox ran Harrisons on the English hills with visits to Doune.

[fyrth]

On the right Lister Noble with his ex-Peter Voight and everyone else G17 with it's new improved shape. On the left Martin Jones with his more standard G17, both of course with Imp engines and gearboxes.

[Tom MacMillan]

Wonderful fyrth. This forum really is the business!

[fyrth]

Tom

I compete against both of the Ginetta on the hills, although Lister currently taking a sabbatical as his new private pilots licence has provided a different interest. Warming to this theme another regular competitor Grant Cratchley standing beside his Vixen Imp August 2006 at Shelsley.



Fyrth

[Tom MacMillan]

The Vixen looks like a new car!

I owned Lister's car for 2 years;1979-80. Bought it from Sandy Hutcheon and sold it to Richard Homer.

I have a very similar pic of the Ginetta at Shelsley in 1979 which I will post once I have mastered the black art of posting pics on here.

[fyrth]

Tom

Grant attends to detail and why not? That is the nice thing about the 'old banger' end of the paddock on the hills these days, every cars is well loved, well presented and performs well. And here is another - Joe Tisdall with his newly refreshed Vixen Imp pictured at Gurston August 2007.




Fyrth

[Tom MacMillan]

Quite superb fyrth. I do wish they had a class in Scotland for the oldies.

[Bloggsworth]

Originally posted by Cirrus
Small point, John, but it's Spartan, not Sparton. The Sparton cars were built by Norman Peirce (or was it Pierce?) and Paul Jackson in Surrey from the late seventies to the early eighties, as Mallory Dan says.

Dan. The Spartan was built about 68/69. It had inboard front suspension and a neat monocoque chassis. Maybe Bloggsworth can fill in a few more details?

The last known owner was Adrian Desoutter. He sold it on to a guy who ran it on the hills, and damaged it quite badly. As far as he knows it was never repaired

A few. It really was like a 49, the chassis cross sections were almost identical, but smaller, as was the construction, not surprising given that Bob was an F1 spanner-man at Lotus with Bob Dance and stalwarts of that ilk. IIRC the original one which I dinged suffered from too much roll and a "lack of feel" (Well, my excuse anyway) I didn't realise it was sliding 'til too late! Unsurprisingly Bob and I sort of failed to bump into each other for a while after that, so I'm not sure how the roll problem was resolved, as it would have meant a major rebuild to move the inboard pick-up points to raise the roll-centre, perhaps it was accomplished with stiffer anti-roll bars, I'll try and remember to ask him when I'm next in Harpenden.

[Bruceg]

Hi: I just purchased a F4 Vixen VB1 as a restoration project. It's the last surviving car of three that came to Canada in the late sixties with Triumph 650 motors. I would like to make contact with any current Vixen owners in hopes of locating a set of body panels / moulds and perhaps a bit of history on Vixen and the VB1. I understand that there are a couple doing hill climbs in the UK and I’m hoping that someone on the forum can help me connect.

Cheers,
Bruce

[fyrth]

Hi: I just purchased a F4 Vixen VB1 as a restoration project. It's the last surviving car of three that came to Canada in the late sixties with Triumph 650 motors. I would like to make contact with any current Vixen owners in hopes of locating a set of body panels / moulds and perhaps a bit of history on Vixen and the VB1. I understand that there are a couple doing hill climbs in the UK and I’m hoping that someone on the forum can help me connect.

Cheers,
Bruce

Email me at advertising at hillclimbandsprint dot co dot uk and I can provide some contacts.

Edited by fyrth, 17 January 2010 - 12:16.

[dabeca]

The car below is actually a JW4/2 Costin Walker Formula 4. The cars original body work vanished in the 90's and jedi body work fitted in its place it has many owners over the years being very successful in the ASWMC and the irish hillclimb championship. It has had several different engines from Yams, Honda currently a Suzuki and originally a villers 250cc.
I am looking for contact details for a Mr Rod Pickup from up north as he has been mentioned as a holder of a Johnny Walker Register. If anyone has any info it would be much appreciated.