35 replies to this topic

[Odseybod]

Latest teasure trove from scanning the paternal archive, these from the practice day of the 1963 Dutch GP - a race that Jim Clark in the Lotus 25 finished at leaast a lap ahead of anyone else (cue mutterings that Grands Prix these days are so processional ...). Anyway practice saw an early appearance of BRM's first monocoque car, the P61, though it didn't appear in the race. .  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having squeezed himself aboard, N.G.H. took it for a run.

 

 

 

Other interest was a new rear end for the ATS - in his report, DSJ suggested the threaded muff joints of the pipework would have done credit to a plumber.

 

 

 

Otherwise it was the usual suspects, with the Surtees Dino Ferrari 156 having its front-end geometry checked

 

 

... while Il Grande John seems to be at a loose end. .

 

 

Such fun having a time mcahine!

Edited by Odseybod, 09 May 2020 - 13:05.

[bradbury west]

Excellent photos, as ever, Tony. Very generous postings in such good resolution.
Roger Lund

[MCS]

Fantastic pictures, Tony - thanks for posting.  I've been looking at all things from the sixties to the early seventies recently and was wondering about Caltex.  They had a big operation in South Africa at the time I believe and their advertising was always prominent in races there, but I saw it at La Source on some Spa pictures the other day and here it is again at Zandvoort. Did it appear in the UK?

[Odseybod]

Thanks to Bradbury West, the Count is being sidelined and replaced with Mr Surtees. I really should take note of steering wheels ...

[Rupertlt1]

Great pix. Who are the two gentlemen staring at the Ferrari rear suspension? Could they be connected to Honda?

 

RGDS RLT

[Vitesse2]

Fantastic pictures, Tony - thanks for posting.  I've been looking at all things from the sixties to the early seventies recently and was wondering about Caltex.  They had a big operation in South Africa at the time I believe and their advertising was always prominent in races there, but I saw it at La Source on some Spa pictures the other day and here it is again at Zandvoort. Did it appear in the UK?

Don't think the Caltex name was ever used in the UK. It was a joint venture between Texaco and Chevron, but they operated under the Regent Petroleum name here. This is the text of an article published in The Times, May 3rd 1967, p26:

 

Big Caltex split-up in Europe

 

FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT, SAN FRANCISCO, MAY 2.

 

Standard Oil of California today announced a partial division of Caltex properties in Europe, under which a newly formed Socal subsidiary, Chevron Oil Europe, Inc.. will take over all Caltex operations in Holland. Belgium. Denmark, Italy, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In addition Chevron will acquire half of Caltex assets in Germany and Greece. with Texaco. Inc., Socal's 50 per cent partner in Caltex, retaining its 75 per cent interest in Regent Oil, plus the Caltex properties in Sweden and Norway.

 

Chevron will. however. obtain "some retail outlets" in the U.K. and Sweden. although the number was not disclosed. Socal will also obtain the assets and operations of two of the Caltex tanker fleets with a total of 33 owned and chartered vessels. Operations of Caltex in Spain, France and Turkey, along with Caltex operations in about 60 countries east of Suez. will continue under the 50-50 ownership of Socal and Texaco.

 

In the U.K., Texaco take over almost the entire Regent Oil operation, ceding to Socal only those retail outlets that seem to duplicate each other.

 

The Caltex 50 per cent interest in the 100,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Wales and the 10 per cent interest in the 42,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Ireland also go to Texaco. The split-up of German Caltex assets is more complex, and stems from an apparent Socal demand in recent negotiations that it obtain all Caltex holdings because Texaco, with their 97 per cent interest in Deutsche Erdöl, were already in a strong market position in that country. A compromise was finally reached with all refinery and marketing facilities split 50-50. Texaco, of course, retain their Deutsche ErdöI holdings.

[bradbury west]

Is the flat hatted gent on the right of the two chatting in the rear ground Gregor Grant? Whoever, OT a bit, he would seem to have well tailored jacket and trousers, real style for modern Goodwood.......
Until I saw the ATS at the Revival a few years ago, I had forgotten just how much steelwork there was at the rear end. I also think the cam covers look very stylish, shallow observation, I know...
Roger Lund.

[Ray Bell]

I thought the same, Roger, so we can be shallow together...

 

Could you possibly highlight the 'muff joints', Tony?

 

That BRM was a neat bit of kit, I guess there was a reason they moved on from that one...

[cooper997]

Tony, Magic series of photos from the TT/ PAT archive. Thank you for your efforts.

 

I went looking if I had the correct issue of The Motor that your father would have written and perhaps used these photos. But gaps in the collection have foiled that idea.

 

Quite possible it made the 26/6/63 issue, if not 3/7/63 - so if anyone has those to check it would be nice to add here (checking PAT's 'The Sporting Side' too).

 

Stephen

[Roger Clark]

It’s notable that the BRM doesn’t have a roll-bar to protect the driver’s head. By the French Grand Prix it had a bit of bent wire and at Monza it had quite a substantial looking bar which protected almost half of Hill’s head. 

[bradbury west]

It is interesting to see that both marques feature punched sheet on tube frame bulkheads originally initiated by Len Terry as he developed the 16 in 1959, as a device to add rigidity and better to receive chassis loads fed into it. This assumes correct triangulation, I believe, which makes the Ferrari version especially interesting as the respective corner diagonals help to complete the rectangulation, if I remember Len's briefings aright, he says as a non engineer......
Roger Lund

[ensign14]

What I know about mechanical issues couldn't fill a matchbox with the matches still in it, but, looking at the ATS...how would they ever be able to check the engine without sawing the chassis in half?

[Odseybod]

A lot of Matters Arising ... Glad they're proving interesting.

 

Ray, I'm afraid my plumbing knowledge doesn't go beyond wincing at the bill when some watery domestic disaster occurs, but I think a muff joint involves a sleeve between two bits of pipework you want to join. I imagine DSJ came across the term in his aeronautical days at Farrnborough, maybe involving fuselage framework (the Wellington springs to mind). And yes, there would have been some significant dismantling needed for an engine change or even relatively minor fettling, though maybe these muff joints simplified that? I really don't know

 

Stephen, afraid I don't know which isssue these appeared in, if they appeared at all - I'd imagine there was a 'proper' photographer (Maurice Rowe?) there as well, whose shots would have been more likely to appear in the report, though some of these might have been used in a follow-up Sporting Side a week later. The Grand Prix itself happened on the 23rd June that year, so all being well, the report would have been in the following Wednesday's issue (26/6). These negatives were in a large envelope marked 'For filing' - I imagine my Dad squirrelled them away until a Round Tuit turned up (glad to have completed the task some 57 years later). The Dutch film also includes a few detail shots of a couple of the other cars, which I'll post if anyone's interested. Frustratingly some of the other films in that batch are 120 format, which I don't currently have the technology to scan (including some nice GTOs at the BRDC Silverstone meeting that year).

 

I understand that despite all the steamship-style riveting, the P61's monocoque wasn't all that rigid, with associated handling problems. DCN will know more. But yes, Ray, quite pretty at this early stage - too early for it even to have gained a BRM badge on the nose, apparently. 

[10kDA]

The ATS muffs are the short cylindrical things with narrow hex flats, as seen near the ends of the roll bar brace tubes. The angle of the pic shot from the rear of the chassis positions one directly beyond the end of the mechanic's pliers. The muffs are internally threaded and join threaded ends of the tubes on the removable and stationary structure. The tube framing above the engine can be removed. There are a few more muff joints in those pics as well, incl. two on a fairly substantial lateral tube on the X framing locating the top transaxle mounts. Some of the other joints are typical tabs with bolts in double shear. I don't get why the mix of joining methods. I've been around aviation since age 11 or so, and around plumbing only out of necessity for the briefest-but-still-too-long periods, and I've never seen a muff joint on aircraft as a load-bearing structural feature. I'm guessing DSJ became familiar with muff joints while under the kitchen sink rather than while employed in aerospace.

[10kDA]

Re: BRM & lack of roll bar - when did roll protection become required by the rules? The P57 certainly had one in 1962. ???

 

Thanks for posting, great pics!

[Red Socks]

Article 9 of the ''International Racing Formula No 1'' regulations for 1961 valid until 31st September 1964 required :-

 

Compulsory anti roll bar complying with the following conditions:

(a)  not overhanging the drivers head.

(b)  exceeding in height the drivers head when sitting at the steering wheel.

©  exceeding in width the drivers shoulders when sitting at the steering wheel.

Edited by Red Socks, 11 May 2020 - 07:13.

[doc knutsen]

A lot of Matters Arising ... Glad they're proving interesting.

 

Ray, I'm afraid my plumbing knowledge doesn't go beyond wincing at the bill when some watery domestic disaster occurs, but I think a muff joint involves a sleeve between two bits of pipework you want to join. I imagine DSJ came across the term in his aeronautical days at Farrnborough, maybe involving fuselage framework (the Wellington springs to mind). And yes, there would have been some significant dismantling needed for an engine change or even relatively minor fettling, though maybe these muff joints simplified that? I really don't know

 

Stephen, afraid I don't know which isssue these appeared in, if they appeared at all - I'd imagine there was a 'proper' photographer (Maurice Rowe?) there as well, whose shots would have been more likely to appear in the report, though some of these might have been used in a follow-up Sporting Side a week later. The Grand Prix itself happened on the 23rd June that year, so all being well, the report would have been in the following Wednesday's issue (26/6). These negatives were in a large envelope marked 'For filing' - I imagine my Dad squirrelled them away until a Round Tuit turned up (glad to have completed the task some 57 years later). The Dutch film also includes a few detail shots of a couple of the other cars, which I'll post if anyone's interested. Frustratingly some of the other films in that batch are 120 format, which I don't currently have the technology to scan (including some nice GTOs at the BRDC Silverstone meeting that year).

 

I understand that despite all the steamship-style riveting, the P61's monocoque wasn't all that rigid, with associated handling problems. DCN will know more. But yes, Ray, quite pretty at this early stage - too early for it even to have gained a BRM badge on the nose, apparently. 

The monocoque in itself was rigid enough, there was however a problem with the tubular sub-frame that carried the engine/transmission and its attachment to the rear bulkhead of the monocoque. The P261 of 1964 carried the engine on low "horns" sprouting from the main monocoque structure, and was a much better unit with excellent rigidity.

[Odseybod]

The monocoque in itself was rigid enough, there was however a problem with the tubular sub-frame that carried the engine/transmission and its attachment to the rear bulkhead of the monocoque. The P261 of 1964 carried the engine on low "horns" sprouting from the main monocoque structure, and was a much better unit with excellent rigidity.

Thanks. I looked at that when I was doing the pics and wondered if it wasn't being a bit optimistic - almost a Lotus 49 approach four years earlier, though I hadn't noticed the tubular sub-frame. Presumably the P61's engine was also carrying some of the load/stresses?

[dolomite]

Thanks for these, Odseybod, fascinating pics. What a little jewel that P61 was in its original form, although it looks like the engine bay was so tightly packaged that getting at it to work on it might have been an interesting challenge for the mechanics... Also one wonders how successfully the air captured by those NACA ducts was able to actually find its way into the engine inlet trumpets. I presume these are 35mm negs, do you have any idea what type of camera they were taken on?

[Odseybod]

Yes, these are from 35mm negs, so almost certainly taken on his Leica. He was also dabbling with a 120 TLR at the time - from memory, a fairly inexpensive Yashicamat. Like I suspect most of us, he always had plenty of very sound reasons for urgently buying a new toy but even he came to accept quite quickly that mixing film formats was not a good idea (the few 2 1/4 square transparencies he took with it are lovely but pretty much unusable without their own projector).

 

The Leica was a Standard converted by the factory to II spec (i.e. with a rangefindr added), so would have been about 35 years old when these pics were taken. He acquired it in the early 1950s from a well-known London Leica shop that had accidentally advertised it at a low price - for once, my usually mild-mannered father stuck to his guns and that was the price he paid for it. He was always looking for something that was just as handy to carry on his travels, including various Instamatics which for posterity's sake, I really wish he'd left at home, as the quality's frustratingly poor. Meanwhile the Leica is still going strong - I try to exercise it at least once a year.

Edited by Odseybod, 11 May 2020 - 10:27.

[Michael Ferner]

Great pictures, many thanks!

 

 

I could look at the ATS plumbing all day...

[Catalina Park]

The BRM roll bar would be the top of the monococque chassis.

[Odseybod]

I wondered that, but it does look quite low in relation to the driver's head, whereas the earlier car's looks very 'fit for purpose'.

[dolomite]

The top of the monocoque would appear not to comply with the wording of the rules as quoted in a previous post "exceeding in height the drivers head when sitting at the steering wheel."
Subsequent photos of the P61 show that it acquired a bolt on roll bar sometime later in 1963.

[doc knutsen]

Thanks. I looked at that when I was doing the pics and wondered if it wasn't being a bit optimistic - almost a Lotus 49 approach four years earlier, though I hadn't noticed the tubular sub-frame. Presumably the P61's engine was also carrying some of the load/stresses?

As far as I know, the BRM V8 was not designed as a load bearing component, hence the tubular frame on the P61 and the P261's monocoque extending right back to the transmission bulkhead. The BRM H16 was, however, designed to be a stressed part, and was used as such on the Lotus 43 as well,  pre-dating the 49, whose DFV was designed as a fully load-bearing chassis component from the start.

 

Back in the day, I was an overseas member of ORMA, the (BRM supporters' club, and we used to get regular members' letters from the secretary, Mrs Molly Wheeler. (if memory serves). Members were given a BRM lapel badge, but being 14 I could not afford full membership so my badge was black and crome (for an associate member) whereas full members had a beautiful one enamelled in red,white and blue.

 

Seeing the P261s at Goodwood is always very special to me, having seen them at the Nurburgring in 1964 and Zandvoort the year after. Sadly, it seems the chance of seeing and hearing the cars from this era at Goodwood this year may not be very good.

Edited by doc knutsen, 12 May 2020 - 09:33.

[Roger Clark]

I like the fuel pressure gauge on the cockpit floor of the BRM - presumably not something that the driver needed to spend a lot of time looking at.  We can also see the tiny fire extinguisher behind the gear lever.  The regulations said you had to have one but not how big it should be.

[Sisyphus]

What I know about mechanical issues couldn't fill a matchbox with the matches still in it, but, looking at the ATS...how would they ever be able to check the engine without sawing the chassis in half?

Apparently, was that is exactly what they had to do to get the engine out.  That's what I remember reading at the time and it is repeated in Mark Whitelock's "1 1/2-litre Grand Prix Racing 1961-65" book.  I guess those dodgey looking muff joints were found to not add enough stiffness so they were welded up.  Whitelock notes (page 178):  "...a lack of stiffness in the engine bay had been overcome by welding cross-bracing tubing over the engine after its installation.  Had an engine change been necessary, the bracing would have had to be sawn through and then re-welded into place."  This is in reference to Spa after Zandvoort.  You do what you gotta do, I guess.

 

The BRM rear end is interesting as the extreme angle of the top A arm looks like the roll center must have been really low, in contrast to most other entries.  Have to dig around some more in Volume 3...

 

Great photos!

[Doug Nye]

Wonderful photo-set - great stuff.

 

The BRM P61 was regarded initially as a test vehicle and the team certainly played faster, and looser, with contemporary roll-over bar regulations than most, essentially equally-guilty, rivals.  Tall Graham, unbelted, could actually hunker down within the cockpit to get the top of his crash helmet more or less 'below the level' of the stressed-skin section behind his head.  This was regarded as compliance.  The 'single spike' featured on the car at Reims was, I believe, a fuel tank breather pipe - floppy, whip, no rigid 'protection' whatsoever.

 

The P61 semi-monocoque design (stressed-skin forward fuselage mated to a multi-tubular rear end supporting the engine/gearbox assembly and accepting rear suspension loads) proved deficient in torsional rigidity.  While both forward fuselage and tubular subframe were quite rigid per se, the weakness was in the junction between them.  So while the monocoque structure looked good in rig testing, and the tubular subframe looked good in rig testing - the combined assembly left something to be desired.  Hence prompt development of the all-monocoque P61 Mk 2 - or BRM P261...

 

Regarding the ATS - upon the cars' racing debut at Spa '63 their V8 engines were actually imprisoned by chassis-brace tubes welded-in after the power units' installation.  All very odd because the prototype as launched and tested had not been configured that way.  The added tubes did need hacksaw removal...  The muff-joints were the solution.  

 

All haste - and no speed.  

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 13 May 2020 - 18:21.

[Bonde]

"I've never seen a muff joint on aircraft as a load-bearing structural feature."

Junkers used a sort of muff joint at the wing root, even on as large a plane as the Ju 52; a spherical seat and flange cup-joint with a threaded muff over it at each spar boom (they had multi-spar wings). I wouldn't be surprised if Tupolev and Stout used the same type of wing-to-fuselage joints on their corrugated skin all-metal airframes, which were heavily Junkers-inspired.

 

The P61 has a very interesting pushrod rear spring activation - I'm sure Tony Southgate would have been aware of it when he designed the very neat 'definitive' 1983 Osella FA1F chassis. I wonder what Rudd's rationale for it was on the P61, as it disappeared on the P261 (one of my all-time favourite F1 cars, BTW, which I've had the pleasure of seeing and hearing at Spa in recent times).

[Arjan de Roos]

.......

 

Otherwise it was the usual suspects, with the Surtees Dino Ferrari 156 having its front-end geometry checked

 

 

... while Il Grande John seems to be at a loose end. .

 

 

Such fun having a time machine!

 

Very nice pictures all, thank you (and yes please post more (film)). The last two give great insight in how Ferrari worked during their real great days. Scuderia Ferrari attended with a massive 10 person squad (outside drivers Surtees and Scarfiotti). First photo shows Surtees and Forghieri at the left front wheel, while Carlo Amadessi kneels at the right one. Standing beside him I believe must be either Pignatti (obscuring his top) or Cattani. Yet inside the car sits Gianfranco Tugnoli (Magnetti Marelli specialist).

Very well possible that the gentlemen behind the Aero are disguised Honda tourists. Mr. Hans Hugenholtz Sr. was a good friend of Soichiro after helping out to develop the Suzuka track. Of course the first Honda F1 was tested first at Zandvoort too.  

The second photo shows animated conversation between Big John, Forghieri, Dragoni and Pat Surtees (head of time keeping). Wire obviously to keep the crowds at bay. Today the Zandvoort paddock is once more asphalted to become much larger again. No more brick yard unfortunately. 

Caltex is the give-away clue in many pictures of racing at Zandvoort. Not that Caltex did not appear at other tracks as a sponsor, yet in Holland there were many Caltex stations, that from 1970 split into Chevron or Texaco.

[10kDA]

Junkers used a sort of muff joint at the wing root, even on as large a plane as the Ju 52; a spherical seat and flange cup-joint with a threaded muff over it at each spar boom (they had multi-spar wings). I wouldn't be surprised if Tupolev and Stout used the same type of wing-to-fuselage joints on their corrugated skin all-metal airframes, which were heavily Junkers-inspired.

 

The P61 has a very interesting pushrod rear spring activation - I'm sure Tony Southgate would have been aware of it when he designed the very neat 'definitive' 1983 Osella FA1F chassis. I wonder what Rudd's rationale for it was on the P61, as it disappeared on the P261 (one of my all-time favourite F1 cars, BTW, which I've had the pleasure of seeing and hearing at Spa in recent times).

 

I've never seen under the skin of a Ju52 nor the corrugated Tu designs but the Stout-designed and derived Ford trimotors definitely had clevis-type pinned joints where the outer wing panels joined the center sections.

[dolomite]

That rough brick ground surface would seem to be a less than ideal environment for trying to do accurate suspension set-up....

[Odseybod]

A few detail shots that didn't make the first cut.

 

The unbadged P61 arrives with people power, and a close-up of its front suspension.

 

 

 

In comparison, how the Brabham BT7 organised things at that end.

 

 

 

The view most rivals had of the Lotus 25 that year (at least when Jimmy Clark was driving).

 

 

And more fettling at Ferrari (roaming Maranello mechanics were apparently quite scary).

 

 

As always, any corrections or elucidations gratefully received.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Michael Ferner]

 (roaming Maranello mechanics were apparently quite scary)

 

 

Heh!

[Bonde]

I've never seen under the skin of a Ju52 nor the corrugated Tu designs but the Stout-designed and derived Ford trimotors definitely had clevis-type pinned joints where the outer wing panels joined the center sections.

I'll see if I can find some photos :-)

[10kDA]

I'll see if I can find some photos :-)

I have pics of a number of Fords but they don't belong on this thread. Just saying...