10 replies to this topic

[KGRP]

Hello,

Just a quick one for all you experts, is the story about Tony Brise and Griffin the pigeon pretty well known, and are there many pictures of said incident?

Cheers!

KGRP

[MCS]

Could you perhaps give us a clue?

[alansart]

The only thing I can think of is Tony Brise, a Griffin helmet and "frangible" bolts.

[D-Type]

Post 9 onwards sounds like the same thing.

Can someone post the photo?

[Tony Matthews]

Quote

Originally posted by alansart
The only thing I can think of is Tony Brise, a Griffin helmet and "frangible" bolts.

Ah, yes! Terry Ogilvie-Hardy! I did a cutaway of the Griffin helmet for motoring news, and Terry very kindly treated me, for some unfathomable reason, to a trip to the Playboy Club, in, or just off, Park Lane. How the other half waste their time! The frangible bolts caused a great deal of hilarity at the time and Terry was rightly miffed, I think the problem was that he'd introduced a word that was un-know in the general population, including a lot of motor-race fans and commentators. What's this about a pigeon? someone enlighten me. Did tony Brise hit one, breaking said bolts?

[HiRich]

The frangible bolt story would have been in 1975 (the year I started buying Autosport), quite possibly at the British Grand Prix. From memory Tony's helmet came off on a run through the catch fencing.
Terry's problem was not so much this introduction of the word frangible, but his claim that the bolts were designed to fail. Accepted wisdom at the time was that helmets perform best when they remain on the driver's head.

I would presume Griffin the pigeon attempted to test this theory in other environments (as D-Type's link indicates). I suspect the experiment was less than successful.

[alansart]

Quote

Originally posted by Tony Matthews


Ah, yes! Terry Ogilvie-Hardy! I did a cutaway of the Griffin helmet for motoring news, and Terry very kindly treated me, for some unfathomable reason, to a trip to the Playboy Club, in, or just off, Park Lane. How the other half waste their time! The frangible bolts caused a great deal of hilarity at the time and Terry was rightly miffed, I think the problem was that he'd introduced a word that was un-know in the general population, including a lot of motor-race fans and commentators. What's this about a pigeon? someone enlighten me. Did tony Brise hit one, breaking said bolts?

It didn't stop me buying a Griffin!



Unfortunately I had to bin it after a rather hard visit to one of Cadwell Parks barriers

[Tony Matthews]

Quote

Originally posted by HiRich

Terry's problem was not so much this introduction of the word frangible, but his claim that the bolts were designed to fail.

Yes, frangible! There was another school of thought, that if the forces on the helmet were so great that they threatened the life of the user, that it was better that the helmet came off. If the bolts did not break at a pre-determined load then the helmet might come off complete with head. I'm not saying T O-H was right....;)

[RTH]

At the time I think people thought it was a bit of quick thinking on your feet to turn a potential PR disaster in to a positive virtue, after apparently the strap had broken off the helmet. They were very popular with a big window ventilation holes a very distinctive look and not too expensive. I seem to think there were two incidents , one hitting the lower rim with a fence post and one when a pigeon struck the helmet.

[Tony Matthews]

Well, Richard, I think T O-H was pretty quick on his mental toes. He came up with a injected plastic skate-board for kids after the helmet. He was astonished that I knew why he had specified steel mesh in the ventilation eyelets in the visor - I said "Yes, because flame will not pass through the mesh!" I was under the assumption that it was a fact that every skoolboy noe.

[Cirrus]

I think the pigeon reference is to a picture in Autosport at about that time of a pigeon standing directly in the path of a single seater. The caption said something like "Griffin, the frangible pigeon, is about to meet his maker".

I've written about Griffin helmets in several other threads. When I worked at Gordon Spice, I had a drawer full of "non-frangible" helmet strap attachments to be sent out FOC to anyone who wanted their helmet to stay on. One of the great strengths of the Griffin GP helmet was its visor - a 3mm thick lexan moulding which could withstand a shotgun blast, it was much stronger than the other flimsy visors around at the time, and one of the first visors to have actually been the subject of serious design.