71 replies to this topic

[Alan Cox]

While scanning Veloce's website, noticed this announcement for Mr Ludvigsen's next publication

http://www.veloce.co...oup=Motorsport

[Hans Etzrodt]

IIRC, looking at the failures of the V-16 B.R.M., it was too complex a machine for the assigned engineers to handle.
The best part of this race car was its unbelievable breathtaking noise when at full song. ...simply iiiiiincredible!

[Terry Walker]

Also tricky to drive due to the incredibly steep power curve. Moss, in "The design and behaviour of the racing car" (I think it was, in tandem with Pomeroy) commented that a few hundred extra rpm could double the hp, not very helpful when exiting a corner. He also had reservations about the behaviour of the Auto-Union inspired trailing arm front end.

[Barry Boor]

If that is the actual cover design, I wonder if the book is going to concentrate more on the engine than the car itself.

If so, I wouldn't find it nearly as interersting as perhaps it could have been.

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by Terry Walker
Also tricky to drive due to the incredibly steep power curve. Moss, in "The design and behaviour of the racing car" (I think it was, in tandem with Pomeroy) commented that a few hundred extra rpm could double the hp, not very helpful when exiting a corner.

Having driven - and spun - a V16 I can just for once vouch for everything SM said; at least he stayed ahead of it, I was way behind (of course).

[RTH]

I found this 1954 book in a charity shop recently when new it cost 7s 6d.........I had to give half a crown more than that to secure it. Very splendid it is too with celluloid leaves giving cutaway slices through the engine.

[kayemod]

That must be just about my favourite book of all times RTH, my late Father had it and he always made me wash my hands before I was allowed to pick it up, but those see-through pages fascinated me, I looked at it over and over again. I've never seen another copy and 'ours' got lost in a house move, but thanks very much for finding it in that charity shop, I'll send you £1 and my address to mail it to.

[antonvrs]

I, too have a copy of that little BRM book, which I bought almost 50 years ago at Harry Morrow's Autobooks in Burbank, CA. I think I paid two dollars for it.
It's one of my most treasured posessions.
In the '70s a friend offered to pay for a new roof on my house in trade for the book! I couldn't do it. I'm not sure which of us was crazier.
Anton

[Mal9444]

Originally posted by Doug Nye


Having driven - and spun - a V16 I can just for once vouch for everything SM said; at least he stayed ahead of it, I was way behind (of course).

But if you spun it, Doug, surely you were ahead for at least some of the time! SM has a lovely story about the time he drove it at Dundrod (now there IS a frightening prospect) and came down the hill to the hairpin only to meet Fangio in the other V16 pointing up the hill, but going backwards - almost as quickly as SM was going forwards. As the corner before the hairpin is a fair ways up the hill, presumably Fangio spun on braking? So presumably stopping it was as scary as making it go?

Has not there been one at Goodwood?

[RaymondMays]

These cars don't seem to get many outings, which is understandable, bearing in mind their complexity. However, if anyone does know of when and where they may make an appearance, then I'm sure we would all love to know.

I was blown away when I did see them being demonstrated on the streets of Bourne, but that was at very low speed.

[kayemod]

In 1954, my Father rode from Sheffield to Liverpool on his BSA Gold Star, when he heard that two BRM V16s were entered for the Aintree 200 for Wharton & Flockhart. When he returned, it was all he talked about for at least a week, he bought that book with the see-through overlays of the V16 engine & supercharger, which I thought was the best book I'd ever seen, though I was only about 6 at the time. We had a 2 litre Standard Vanguard, so I didn't think that the BRM would be all that fast with only 1.5 litres. Dad also bought a 78 record of the engine note, though that didn't impress me too much either when it was played through our 1950s HiFi speakers. He died about 10 years ago, just into his 90s, and I don't think a single week passed when he didn't somehow get at least one mention of that BRM and the sound it made into a conversation, used to drive my Mother up the wall. I go to Goodwood most years, Wife & holidays permitting, but I've never heard the BRM V16. Does anyone think that there's any hope?

[James Page]

Goodwood would have to be your best bet I would have thought.

There was one at Shelsley for the centenary bash last year. In the morning, true to form, it had some problems and bumbled up sounding distinctly unimpressive.

They fixed it for the afternoon run, and this time it came past very much on the cam...

An astonishing noise.

[Alan Cox]

Does anyone remember the demonstration given by three V16 BRMs at a Silverstone Grand Prix, possibly some time in the 80s, when the National Motor Museum, Tom Wheatcroft and Nick Mason turned out? I recall reading about it, but don't remember seeing any photos.

Meanwhile.....

Surely the greatest-ever demonstration of a V16, mentioned previously in the Gerry Marshall thread of last year, when the great man wrung the neck of Nick Mason's Mk2 at a VSCC Silverstone meeting in 1990. Yes, Gerry is grinning like a child in a sweetshop. Wonderful memories......

[Doug Nye]

A very acceptable recording of the V16 on song is to be found on the internet - I am told. Google? Or - I think - that particular racing engine audio site been recommended here before on TNF?

Mal - the cars have run at both the Goodwood Festival and the Revival meeting. When Rick Hall passed another driver on Lavant Straight during practice for the Revival the driver in question told me: "I waved Rick past just to hear the BRM on full song, and as he drew alongside - about 4-5 feet away - I wished I hadn't. As the exhausts momentarily drew level it felt as if somebody had just stuck a red-hot poker in my ear!".

From the V16's cockpit it's not quite like that. It is very noisy - and there's tremendous mechanical noise from the engine and supercharger ahead and the transmission - but the worst of the exhaust note is blown out sideways in the stub-exhaust cars and out the back if the car's rigged with tail pipes; the famous noise is infinitely more penetrating for bystanders than for the white-faced trembling wreck in the hot seat.

Braking was tricky in the earliest V16s before flexure in the front suspension trailing arms was better controlled. The brake system itself was better understood by the time the short-wheelbase Mark II cars were introduced in 1954.

Because the two-stage centrifugal supercharging provided a virtually continuously rising rate of boost relative to revs - quite unlike the arched delivery curve of Roots blowers - the car lived in a world of wheelspin. Leaving the esses at Donington I felt confident enough to provoke it with a toefull of throttle to kick the tail out.

Big mistake...

The moment the rear tyres broke adhesion the wheels spun, the revs soared, the supercharger supercharged in sympathy, the engine slammed out more torque, more power, so the wheelspin accelerated, which accelerated the engine, and the supercharger, and the torque and the power, etc etc. Until the slow-witted dumb driver has twigged all this and backed off the situation goes within split seconds from Gawd Blimey to Gawd Awmighty - and in a cloud of blue smoke you're spinning across the track surface like a top.

Fortunately I redeemed myself by at least successfully steering it backwards across the grass to keep it off the wall. Suddenly it had stalled and I was sitting there in ringing silence - broken shortly by peals of hysterical laughter from the pits.

On the shot-down fighter pilot principle my pals ambled up and push-started me, and I did more laps in the old lady. Wonderful conundrum - and I was proud of the tinitus which afflicted me for the following three days. I thought initially it was going to be permanent - but I regarded permanently impaired hearing (at the time) as a small price to pay.

DCN

[Mal9444]

Doug - I was fairly sure I'd seen one at the Revival, but in this company am growing ever more wary of sticking my neck out (vide the new sign-off).

And what a wonderful description of your ride therein. The closest I've ever come to anything like that is a few laps of an airlfield circuit in a (replica) D-type. Well worth the effort just for the view down the bonnet - but nowhere near long enough to work out how to handle it. ('Ah yes' mused a friend to whom I later related the experience, he having driven a real one for real 'straight-line motoring at its absolute best'.)

Any good V16 footage in a Motorfilms Quarterly that we should all rush out and order? (I know -we're supposed to have got it every quater, anyway.)

[green-blood]

The recording on the net is of Nick Mason's car, its lifted from the CD that accompanied his "Into the Red" book. Mark Hales was driving. I love that CD, I used to have some decent computer speakers and a sub woofer thingy in my office, I loved putting it on really really loud.... once a manger came sprinting up the corridor to find out what was the noise, we convinced him it was a helicopter flying past

http://www.f1-fansit...sound/sound.asp

Its recorded at Donnington, recorded from the pits on a cool winters day, you can clearly hear the car on the far side of the valley...wow. And the rush as it goes past the pit is amazing, modern V10 eat your heart out, my favourite is the sound of the blips as Hales doubles down thorugh the box at the end of the straight. Guttural.

wonderful. Thanks Mr Mason for sharing that and shine on you craszy diamond with the world.

I have Mr L's recent V12 book. I've only started to really dig through, its gonna take a while, I love it. A whole book on the V16 should be superb.

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Doug Nye

The moment the rear tyres broke adhesion the wheels spun, the revs soared, the supercharger supercharged in sympathy, the engine slammed out more torque, more power, so the wheelspin accelerated, which accelerated the engine, and the supercharger, and the torque and the power, etc etc.
DCN

Fantastic. I'm almost there, hopelessly out of control, just reading...

"The supercharger supercharged in sympathy"...that's especially special

[Steve L]

One thing I've always meant to ask you about Doug (and completely off-topic )...

I remember from one of your C&SCC magazine columns that you bought an open-top sports special restoration project featuring a rather (in)famous radiator?!

I was wondering if you ever managed to get your car up and running, or was the most interesting component sacrificed to the cause of screwing one of the E-Types back together (and I don't mean Jaguar ;) )?

[Doug Nye]

Nope - the world-famous Hallam Special (ex-Albert de Dion, Christian Lautenschlager, Juan Manuel Fangio, Ayrton Senna, Norman Alonso and Edgar Jessop, of course - if you're buying) is still here in bits.

The radiator was a cut-down modification of an E-Type ERA original, acquired by the late Harry Hallam from Reg Parnell in the early '50s. Duncan Ricketts borrowed it during restoration of his now familiar E-Type and evidently it slipped first time onto the surviving mounts on his particular chassis frame - they seemed to have met previously. The cut-down rad was no use to him, and it's back with the Hallam here today.

DCN

[SCO]

Since reading Tony Rudd's book 'It was fun' I have been obsessed with all things BRM and the V16 in particular and have traveled up and down the country in order to hear that shriek from Goodwood to Bourne to Shelsley.

The thing is the revival should be their natural modern habitat but they have been absent for the last few years - it's time they made a return!

[Ralf Pickel]

I remember seeing the V-16s, if only briefly, as usual, at the first Revival. What a sound...
I have Nick Masons sound file as a ringtone in my mobile phone - makes people look !

[SCO]

Ralf,

I have exactly the same ring tone, mind you the phone speaker doesnt really have the same dynamic range much better on the hi-fi at full volume!

S.

[Ralf Pickel]

Thats right - but the pass along the Donington pit straight still makes the pockets in my trousers shake !!!

[VAR1016]

Well the magic sound of the BRM greets me each time I start up my computer. Best sound ever sans doute .

Interesting that Karl Ludwigsen has written about the V-16. He is pretty damning about it in his "Classic Racing Engines" ; his comments about its power output are quite contrary to those of Tony Rudd in "It Was Fun" - and Rudd was very firm in his comments too in that book. And of course I loved the story of Graham Hill's demonstration at Kyalami in 1968.

I recall that V-16 went up the hill at the second Festival of Speed. I cannot remember who drove it, but I would say that he was a brave man. I heard it howling its head off all the way up the hill.

Earlier a friend and I were most amused at the attempts being made to start the beast. It was being towed around by an R.A.C. breakdown truck - in the now sadly no-longer blue livery. Evidently they succeeded!

I suppose one does wonder about a 1.5-litre engine weighing about 500lbs: reminds me of the comment about the BRM H-16 engine viz: "It was supposed to weigh 300lbs and give 500 BHP; sadly these numbers were reversed."

PdeRL

[green-blood]

Interesting that Karl Ludwigsen has written about the V-16. He is pretty damning about it in his "Classic Racing Engines" ; his comments about its power output are quite contrary to those of Tony Rudd in "It Was Fun" - and Rudd was very firm in his comments too in that book

good point, I thiknk though in his Classic Racing engines it was included as a glorious failure, perhaps we'll get a more romantic view this time..

[flat-16]

Does anyone remember the demonstration given by three V16 BRMs at a Silverstone Grand Prix, possibly some time in the 80s, when the National Motor Museum, Tom Wheatcroft and Nick Mason turned out? I recall reading about it, but don't remember seeing any photos.

A pair of the blighters put on a pretty decent display at the British GP ’87 (on the day Mansell put in his career-defining performance against Piquet), I remember it well; must be the finest mechanical sound my ears have ever experienced. Mason was definitely in one of the cars, not too sure who else was driving.

BTW, it’s funny how my spell-checker recognises Piquet, but underlines Mansell…

Justin

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by flat-16



...BTW, it’s funny how my spell-checker recognises Piquet, but underlines Mansell…

Justin

That would be the card game would it not

PdeRL

[kayemod]

Originally posted by flat-16
BTW, it’s funny how my spell-checker recognises Piquet, but underlines Mansell… Justin

A bit odd that a spellchecker should make any distinction really, as I'm sure the late Colin Chapman, Sir Frank Williams and Lord Dennis of Woking would all agree that like piquet, employing Mansell was definitely a game of chance.

[Dutchy]

The original 45rpm Stanley Schofield record has been transferred to CD. Go to http://www.peterrenn...net/catlist.htm and scroll down to item 1298

JH

[Paul Parker]

I followed one of the Mk2 V16s at the Basildon street event in 1997. I was driving the Appleyard Alpine Rally winning XK120 and the BRM was so noisy I could not hear the XK's very noisy engine! During the run the V16 suddenly stopped on course in front of me and as I slowed down aware of the almost blissful silence (by now I was almost deaf), I realised that there was a lot of background noise.

The BRM's shrieking exhaust had set off every car alarm and much else for what seemed miles around. What a laugh that day was, driving the old Jaguar down one of Basildon's concrete dual carriageway roads at 90 mph following a D type during the morning practice run and both of us blasting past a blameless woman in a Ford Fiesta. All this with official blessing. I bet it wont ever happen again in our Democratic People's Republic of Britain and its Stalinist Health & Safety bullshit.

[Twin Window]

Originally posted by VAR1016

Well the magic sound of the BRM greets me each time I start up my computer. Best sound ever sans doute .

How does one achieve this?

I want to be in that place too...!

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by Twin Window
How does one achieve this?

I want to be in that place too...!

It's a good place to be.

Just save the file to your hard drive, and then go to Settings/Control Panel/Sounds. In the SOUND tab, you will find "Open windows". Click on this, select "browse" and pick your BRM file - et voila!

I have a Matra zooming past for shut down - after about five years of a 250 Testa Rossa.

PdeRL

[Wolf]

With appologies to Rob for being terribly late with this, here's two photos he's sent me to post in here, NGH doing a demonstration at '68 SA GP:

[oldtimer]

Let's not forget Fangio and Gonzales who loved that power band from the get-go, as I understand it, and Ken Wharton and Ron Flockhart who learnt to tame it. Hearing the V16s race was always memorable for me, viewing from the chicane at Goodwood decidely painful. Thank goodness for those short races.

[WDH74]

I too used to have the BRM as my computer start up sound, on a previous machine when I still lived with my parents. I'd copied it from the Into The Red disc, and edited it down to just the blast past the microphone. Used to really torque off my Mum if Dad or I had to use the computer early or late (he for work, me for school). BBBBBRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWMMMMM!

(on a related note, I also used to use a wav file of the Napier Railton being push started-I forget where I downloaded it from, but it was suitably raucous as well).

I love listening to the Mason recording on headphones.....you get a real sense of space as the V16 is going round the back side of Donington!

I must say I'll have to check out the Ludvigsen book.

-William

[David Birchall]

Originally posted by RTH
I found this 1954 book in a charity shop recently when new it cost 7s 6d.........I had to give half a crown more than that to secure it. Very splendid it is too with celluloid leaves giving cutaway slices through the engine.

You thieving s.. !!

I have a copy of the book that I bought about 20 years ago and it is still one of the prizes of my collection. I think I paid a bit more than a quid for it though.

At the inaugural Goodwood historic weekend I recall three BRM V16s starting in practice but I don't recall any running at the end of the weekend. Still a very special occasion.
David B

[Mal9444]

Originally posted by WDH74
I'd copied it from the Into The Red disc, and edited it down to just the blast past the microphone.

-William

How does one do this? I tried the original link on my office-at-work computer, which has only mickey mouse internal audio, and frankly couldn't see (hear?) what the fuss was about. Just tried it again at my office at home, where I have reasonable stereo speakers set either side the office. Flippin' 'eck! The car just went past my window....

I've saved the link to disc. It is now on my desk top. It plays in RealPlayer - but I do not know how to edit a MP3audio file.

Thanks

[Rob Ryder]

Originally posted by Mal9444

It plays in RealPlayer - but I do not know how to edit a MP3audio file.

Thanks

I use a piece of software called Audacity. The big advantage is that it is a FREE download.
It is available here
Rob

[Mal9444]

Thanks, Rob - I'll give it a go.

[h4887]

I've heard the V16 and quite delightful it is, but it's just a pussy cat. The award for The World's Noisiest Racing Car goes, albeit on a much humbler level, to the Ginetta G29 Thundersports car with the twin rotor Mazda. The sheer intensity and unpleasantness had to be experienced to be believed. The flames from the exhaust were quite spectacular, too - son et lumiere, as we say in Essex. When it started up in the paddock a clearing would suddenly appear round it, as anyone who did not have to be there beat a hasty retreat.

[Pedro 917]

Some pictures from last year's Festival of Speed :

[Kjetil]

A BRM V16 ran Saturday at Festival of speed in 2003.
The Combined Times Update on the Goodwood website says Rick Hall drove a BRM V16 P30 MKll. The engine layout was different to the car in the pictures above. It also had eight exhaust pipes at each side instead of a pipe to the back.

[ry6]

I look at the photos of these great cars since they have been "restored"/ "rebuilt"?

Then I look at photos of them in their "heydey".

The cars of to-day look far more clean, neat and prettily painted compared to the rough and ready appearance from the 50's.

Am I mistaken or have these things been "over-restored"?

[Alan Cox]

Yes ry6, in common with virtually all modern racing car restorations, the newly-restored examples always look far better finished and presented than they did when new - in particular Ferrari GP and sport-racers. Sad, but inevitable, I suppose.

[Dutchy]

When you are rebuilding a racing car it's very hard to know where to draw the line - there is an overrriding natural tendancy to make things very clean and shiny, especially where something has been repaired, welded, filled etc. after forty or fifty years of wear and tear. This situation isn't helped by modern techniques such as two pack paint (which has the huge advantage of being resistant to methanol) and very bight nickel plating which refuses to go dull in the old way.
Having said that a couple of season's hard use should restore some degree of patina.

JH

[rl1856]

Originally posted by green-blood
The recording on the net is of Nick Mason's car, its lifted from the CD that accompanied his "Into the Red" book. Mark Hales was driving. I love that CD, I used to have some decent computer speakers and a sub woofer thingy in my office, I loved putting it on really really loud.... once a manger came sprinting up the corridor to find out what was the noise, we convinced him it was a helicopter flying past

http://www.f1-fansit...sound/sound.asp

Holy S*&t !!!!

I underestimated the dynamic range of the recording when I first attempted to play it !!! Was I in for a surprise !!

The only thing in memory that comes close, was a recording of Bonneville Speedweeks, featureing a jet powered streamliner......

Best,

Ross

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by rl1856


Holy S*&t !!!!

I underestimated the dynamic range of the recording when I first attempted to play it !!! Was I in for a surprise !!

The only thing in memory that comes close, was a recording of Bonneville Speedweeks, featureing a jet powered streamliner......

Best,

Ross

Yes,

Good, isn't it?

PdeRL

[macoran]

Don't know where else to post this, but as it is about BRM I'll have a go here.
I have just read an Autocar article, 28th May 1965 on the BRM F2 engine.
The article is not credited to a writer, but is initialed at the end by E.P.E.

I have never known Edward Eves to sign off like that
.........anybody know who E.P.E may be ?

[West3]

Thought I'd revive this thread as I came across a longer version of the previously posted sound clip. Toward the end there's some on-board audio too! Better than a cup of highly caffeinated beverage to pop those eyes open in the am.

[karlcars]

Wow, a thread inspired by my book! Good stuff!

It's out and the url is http://www.veloce.co...oup=Motorsport

I hope to have put the project in the context of its times and to have explained how and why they did what they did. I'll be interested to see what you think.

Yes, there are differences from my views in Classic Racing Engines...

And of course I'm indebted to DCN big time.