2 replies to this topic

[Joe Bosworth]

Back in 1970 I bought BT15-3-65. It was SCCA log booked by myself in May 1971 and I have owned ever since. The Brabham Register has verified it and has provided some useful 1965 racing history.

When I bought it I knew from the –3 serial number that it must have been very close to being a factory raced car as historically the first two or three of every new model at least starts its life under factory auspices.

Thanks to the Brabham Register and a subsequent contact there-from I have what I believe is a very full history of its 1965 season.

Its 1965 use was by Jim Sullivan, the Australian Driver to Europe award winner which explains its –3 numbering where obviously Jack and Ron made sure that the Australian driver was well taken care of for his first year overseas.

Sullivan ran under the umbrella of the Jim Balfour owned Team Promecon. My best source of history under Team Promecon was thanks to Peter Mockler who was very close to the team. Peter’s data includes the build sheets that included the start and finish dates of the build, February 7 to 25, 1965. Peter also has provided some photos of Jim and BT15 at Brands, likely to have been its first outing.

I bought the car from Fred Opert of Paramus New Jersey. Fred seemed to handle most of the Brabhams to enter the US in those days. I have a memory of asking Fred where the car came from and he replied that it was from France.

With this thread I am hoping that while there are still people who were around in those days that I could gather more information and history of the car in the Team Promecon days and subsequent to coming into Opert’s hands.

A second purpose of posting is that I would like very much to make contact with Jim Sullivan. Perhaps someone can point me the way to making that contact either by way of this thread or a private email, (doveratarachdotnetdotau).

On came on to the car having had a three-year break from racing after having been racing for some 17 years. I was interested in having some fun racing as by then I had done all that I really had wanted to racing in the US and Oz. I decided that Formula Ford looked like fun and decided to go that route. In those early days if FF there weren’t any clear cut winning cars so I decided to use a little free thought. I went through the process of thinking through what was the world’s best small open wheeler designed to race on treaded tires with relatively narrow wheels. The BT15 was the obvious answer so I went from there to source one.

Turning one into a FF was very straightforward. All it really took was substituting the layover transmission/engine plate with an upright one and weld up a couple of engine mounts. I never ran the rear engine cover so it is still in its original guise except that I got Jack B to autograph it a few years back. I also decided to buy a new Hewland box as I didn’t know the history of the one in the car and I didn’t want those kinds of hassles.

Probably the only mistake that I originally made was to build its first FF engine myself. I learned something in a hurry. Although I was a pretty good engine builder of modified race engines a learnt that doing a competitive blueprint engine was another thing all together. I really wasted most of a season until I woke up and bought an American built Quicksilver engine straight off the dyno. Quicksilver built about as good an American FF engine as was available and they agreed to guarantee 102 HP and to show it to me on a dyno before I paid up. It did and I paid.

Thereafter the BT15 was as good as any FF in the US until the side radiator FFs started to come in. Interestingly, while running SCCA races they sometimes lumped the Formula C cars in with us. Most were F3 variants so I got to see at close quarters how FC/FF/F3 squared up against each other on the track. Everywhere that I saw they performed absolutely equally.

I guess BT15-3-65 is a little unique as it can very legitimately race as F3 as well as FF in the class’s earliest format.

If anyone can/would help with information I will be grateful.

Regards

[Ted Walker]

By BT15-3-65 I assume that you mean F3-3-65 ???? My records tie up with what you already know.

[Dale Harvey]

Jim Sullivan has now retired and is living just north of Newcastle. I saw him at Oran Park last year and he spent a lot of time with Ed Holly and his BT15. Maybe Ed has contact details for him
edholly@optusnet.com.au
Failing that, try Newcastle's NBN3 television station they may be able to help. He used to work for them.
Dale.