December 6, 2025 • 40 mins
On this Pit Stop mini-sode of the Break/Fix podcast our team, consisting of Crew Chief Eric, William Ross (Ferrari Marketplace Podcast) and Jon Summers (The Motoring Historian) delve into the history of British Club racing in the 1960s with legendary pro-driver and commentator, David Hobbs. The discussion covers David's early racing career, the dynamics and culture of club racing during that era, and significant figures such as Lofty England, John Coombs, and various renowned drivers like Graham Hill, Mike Hawthorn, and Jack Sears. Hobbs shares personal anecdotes, his experiences with different racing cars, including the famed white Ferrari 250 GTO and Jaguar E-Type, and his interactions with key personalities in the motorsport world. The episode also touches on the transition from amateur to professional racing and the evolution of race car engineering.
===== (Oo---x---oO) =====
00:00 Special Guest: David Hobbs 01:23 Early Racing Days; Apprenticeship and Career Beginnings 03:13 Racing Success and Challenges 08:30 Club Racing Insights 14:59 Technical Innovations and Gearbox Development 17:04 Evolution of Club Racing 21:11 Exploring the Drivers of the Ferrari 250 GTO 21:23 The Journey from Club Racing to Professional Racing 22:29 Negotiating Driving Fees and Starting Money 25:02 Jack Sears and His Long-Term Ownership of the GTO 26:35 The Jaguar XJ13 and Its Untapped Potential 30:23 Favorite Cars and Memorable Races 33:07 Sterling Moss and Other Racing Legends 35:33 Lofty England's Influence and Personal Stories 38:55 Concluding Thoughts and Farewell
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We always have a blast chatting withour guests about all sorts of different
topics, but sometimes we go offthe rails and dig deeper into their
automotive and motor sports pasts.
As a bonus, let's go behind thescenes with this pit stop mini
episode for some extra content thatdidn't quite fit in the main episode.
Sit back and enjoy andremember to like, subscribe and
(00:20):
support break fix on Patreon.
It is always fun to get back togetherwith John, the motoring historian, and
William from the Exotic Car Marketplace.
But today is extra special becausewe are gonna take a deep dive into
1960s British Club racing with.
None other than legendary prodriver and commentator David Hobbes.
(00:43):
So I wanna welcome David Hobbes backto break Fix as we dive into this
interesting part of Motorsports history.
Well, good afternoon, gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting me fora, a recap of 60 odd years ago.
Well, David, this comes about becauseJohn, William and I have been working
on a project about John Coombs andhis famous white Ferrari, two 50
(01:05):
GTO, and when we were digging intothe history, you start to realize
how small the motor sports world is.
Your name starts popping upbecause that's when your career
was starting to come about.
And so we figured, well, let's ask aliving legend about living history.
So let's dive into BritishClub racing in the 1960s.
Can you take us back?
Well, British Club racing in the1960s was actually very, very healthy.
(01:28):
And of course, in those daysit really was club racing.
The first two cars I drove in 1959,I drove by Mums Morris Oxford.
Which was hardly a racing car.
I drove it, took it from the tracks whenI didn't have it towed, how that is.
And in 1960, I drove my dad's XK one 40.
But unfortunately I was so naive and,uh, so raw that I had never quite
(01:51):
understood the, uh, ports of racing tires.
And I raced out on Michel X. In thevery first race with I ever turned
at, at Alton Park on the last lapof a GT race and was outta the race.
I, I modified that 'cause I was actuallya Jaguar apprentice at the time.
I had started off buying, being aDamer apprentice, but then I became
a Jaguar apprentice 'cause of mydad's affiliation with Daimler,
(02:13):
with his, uh, automatic gearbox.
I, you know, I, I chose the school,so I couldn't go to university,
so I became an apprentice.
But of course, I got so involved inthe racing and luckily, loft England,
who was the managing director of Jaguarwhen I became a Jaguar apprentice, was
the team manager who won Lamont for.
Jag in 1950, what?
Five, six, and seven.
(02:34):
Lofty was a team manager.
He had worked his way through the companyand by the time I was the apprentice,
he was the managing director, buthe also was a clerk of the course,
what you'd call a chief steward atlots of silvers to the club racers
run by the British racing driver.
Luckily for me, lofty tookrather fancy to my driving style,
and so he was a great help.
(02:54):
I had, uh, a funny incident and theapprentice supervisor, whose name was
Harold Barker called me into his officeand tore me off a strip and said I
was the worst apprentice I'd ever had.
I was never there.
I'd ever went to tech, I'd everpassed any examiners, which I didn't.
I. I did spend a lot oftime at the racetrack.
By 1961, I was driving the Low Elite,which my father's company had bought
(03:17):
me to help promote the gearbox becauseit had dad's automatic gearbox in it.
So although Harold Barker tore meoff this terrible strip, just said,
I dunno what you're gonna do ho.
He said, I think I justdon't see a life for you.
You're gonna be probably be homeless.
And he said, you'reabsolutely completely useless.
Well, luckily a couple of weekslater I was working in experimental
department and the foreman called me.
(03:39):
I was, says here, Hobbs.
He says, Mr. England wantsto see you in his office.
So I thought, oh, blindly.
This seems got a bit outta hand now.
So I went up to the office and Lofty said,oh Hobbs, we have an experimental car.
We have a prototype car, andwe'd rather like you to take
to silver to drive it for us.
Would would you be able to do that?
I said, I'm sure I could.
So, so the next thing, I'm walkingthrough the main office block with
(04:01):
the Lofty England as the managingdirector with, uh, Jim Haynes, who
was the, uh, chief engineer at Jaguar.
Wally Hassen, who was the chief engineerman, and, uh, Mike McDowell, who
was the competition manager for Ja.
And we walked past Mr. Barker'soffice and I was there.
He was look in the door while I'm walkingdown with all these heavy hitters and say,
oh, afternoon, Mr. Barker's still here.
(04:25):
That was the high pointof my apprenticeship.
Anyway, we did go testing and MichaelParks, if you remember the name, Michael
Parks was going to run me that afternoon.
He and his girlfriend werethere and his girlfriend.
Ultimately became EnzoFerrari's personal secretary.
And she is still alive and kicking,apparently living in Italy and
I just can't remember her name.
(04:45):
But she was a very bright young spark anduh, Michael was very attracted to her.
But anyway, I spun the car going throughthe old Abbey curve, which in those days
was pretty much a flat out lefthander.
It's gone now, but I spun it theflat spot, all the tires 'cause
they hadn't got his spare tires.
So we went back to the factory.
So during 1961, dad had abit of a windfall in the
(05:05):
Westinghouse breaker signal.
Bought some shares in the company and Ithought it'd be a great idea if we raced
the loads of elite with the gearbox,which of course the big thing about
dad's box was it was the four speed,the friction drive, no fluid drive.
So it used very little power.
It had four speeds with automaticor and full manual override.
So it made a perfect racing mops and wewere very successful in the Loads League.
(05:30):
Well, or races.
Of course, during that time, loftingwas a, was a big supporter, and when
I finished my apprenticeship at theend of 1961, a lot of things happened.
The Army draft finished at the end of 61.
I finished my apprenticeshipin December the 31st, and I got
married on December the 16th.
And Lofty had got me a professionaldrive with a guy called Peter
(05:51):
Berry who had a 3.8 mark, twoSudan and an XKE, both in green.
Bruce McLaren had driven for him in 1960and he asked me to drive for in 1961
and Lofty got me that drive in 1962.
So when I left apprenticeship, I gotup to a flying start with my racing
career by driving for Peter Barry.
(06:12):
And of course our biggest competitor,one of our big competitors, was for
two big competitors, a key endeavor,which is run by a guy called Tommy.
So with, and John Coon.
So I met John Coons fairly soon.
You know, after leaving Jag.
He knew that Lofty England knewme and thought a lot about me.
Funnily enough, in my last year whilethe apprentice supervisor was slagging
(06:34):
me off, I got a call to see if I'd goto entry because it was the British
Grand Prix today entry, and one ofthe supporting races was a GT race.
And I rushed up there.
He said, can you go and drive for Tommy?
Sat with an Ike endeavor, E type,and of course I rushed up to Adrian.
By the time I got there, JackSears, who was another very,
(06:56):
very, very good amateur driver.
I mean, he is a farmer, buthe was a hell of a driver.
Unfortunately, Jack Sears was also thereand he hadn't gotta drive that weekend.
So before I got there, they hadactually put him in the car.
They did gimme some lapse in it.
I was a bit nervous 'cause I'dnever driven a big car before.
I'd only ever driven the elite, so I wasused to about 85 horsepower, not whatever.
(07:17):
The Jag gave a couple ofhundred, 250, something like
that, and a much bigger vehicle.
Obviously John Coons was there at thatmeeting as well because Graham Hill
was driving John Coombs as E type.
This is before the Ferrari came along.
Coombs was very successful.
Graham Hill drove for him in the, uh, inthe 3.8, mark two, which was also white.
He drove for him an E type, which waswhite, and then of course they got the.
(07:40):
The two 50 GTO, which of course wasa hell of a car, and they had some
very spirited races with people likeTommy, who was a pretty good driver.
Michael Parks drove for him.
Obviously, he was a very gooddriver and some chap called
Sterling Roth drove for him as well.
In in the number seven before the GTO,he had a, a Ferrari, uh, two 50 short
(08:01):
wheel base, which was a hell of a car.
Those races used to be reallyexciting because they were very, very.
Compared to today.
I mean, these were modified street cars.
You could take the seats out oryou could put lighter seats in
and you could do other weightsaving, but you couldn't do much.
They didn't.
They didn't have a space frame like mostrace cars do today, so they were much
(08:21):
more difficult to actually get stiffener.
The chassis were never stiff.
But it made them very exciting racingand the, and the public loved it, and
John Coombs was a huge part of that.
David, there is so much to unpack here.
I'm sure we all have questions.
Our understanding is that Coombsbought this GTO because the
E type was not competitive.
(08:43):
And in an interview thatJohn Coombs had with.
Simon Taylor from MotorsportMagazine 15 years ago now.
He says that he had a meal with BillHaynes, where he said to Bill Haynes
that this car's like a pendulum.
If you don't make it lighter, I amgoing to have to race my Ferrari.
And coming outta that lunch, thiswhite Ferrari apparently spent
(09:07):
the winter of 1962 at Jaguar.
Evolving and this process gaveus the lightweight e type.
That's what we think happened.
Do you have any insight on thator were you in Daytona meeting,
bill France at that time?
I'm afraid I don't haveany insight on that.
No.
Uh, that would've been above my paygrade, but I couldn't believe that a
(09:28):
lot of people have done that, taken carsthat take 'em apart, and obviously the
lightweight E type was very, very good.
It still wasn't quiteas good as the Ferrari.
I dunno whether it had a bit less power.
The V 12 and the Ferrariwas a great engine and the
chassis was pretty good too.
The uh, GTO was in the end wasquicker than the lightweight.
Now obviously, lightweight Etypes now have evolved enormously.
(09:50):
They're not really jags anymore.
They're so different.
But, uh, yeah, so I can, Ican believe that being true.
And John Cobs is a huge, huge Jaguarfan, so I know he would've liked
to have made the Jaguar faster thanthe Ferrari, because after all he
was a Jaguar dealer in Guilford.
I just want to touch on that.
You talked about how a lot of thelightweights now are not really
(10:11):
anything like they were years ago.
I assume that for WPD.
The Coombs car might be in that category.
'cause you see it being racedat Goodwood all the time and
it presents like a new car.
I wonder if you, you are familiarwith the cars at Revs, the Briggs
Cunningham lightweight E type.
Is that as far as you are aware, morelike an original lightweight E that
(10:34):
Briggs Cunningham car got a name.
What's this type?
Is it the EJ two or whateverit's called, the e something.
I don't, I don't know.
I I, I'm just trying to thinkof what, where would be like an
original lightweight E Yeah, thatwould be a good comparison point.
What we are thinking about is, canyou look at this Ferrari and say,
well, the guys at Jaguar obviouslylooked at this Ferrari and then made
(10:56):
these changes to the Jaguar as aresult, and therefore we need an early
lightweight e point of comparison.
I think really that theJaguar we're trying to, uh.
I don't know about crib, but to tryand actually improve the E type by
following some of the Ferrari practices,uh, rather than the other way around.
I mean, I think the Ferrari wasalways the quicker of the two cars.
(11:17):
Well, 'cause the E type inthose days, they didn't have the
material ology that you got today.
These are E type straight sixes.
Give over 400 horsepower.
Well, when that straight six enginefirst came out, it gave about 160.
So to give four 60 is a massiveincrease, which obviously you wouldn't
be able to do with the originalblocks, crank shafts and main eng,
(11:40):
main bearings and that sort of thing.
So the only reason they can do thatis because of modern materials.
You know, I mean, I don't know thatthe in outs and the depths of the.
Cos England relationship orthe Coombs Jaguar relationship.
But I just know that John was a very,and at one stage he was talking about
trying to get me in one of his cars.
But of course, Graham was always there.
(12:01):
And so that was, uh, unlikely to happen.
But, uh, Coombs wasalways a very nice chap.
Terribly, terribly,terribly, terribly posh.
You know, it was aterrible English, terrible.
Like myself, who's rather unc Coth very,very smooth and urban was our cobes.
You told us that fabulous story a momentago about, you know, walking past Mr.
(12:22):
Barker's office with the chopped brass.
Yeah.
From Jaguar there.
Yeah.
Let's imagine our Ferrariarriving at Brown's Lane here.
You know, when BMW buy a Tesla.
They strip it down to the componentparts and they measure all those
component parts to do, you know, weimagine men in in white coats doing that.
(12:42):
Is that what Brown's Lane was like?
How many people did LoftyEngland or did Bill Haynes have?
To be looking at this and whatwould the process have been like?
Would they have drivenit around on the streets?
Would they have booked Silverstonefor a day and driven it down
to Silverstone to do that?
What do you think thatprocess would've looked like?
Hard to help you there, but I mean, Iworked in the experimental department
(13:03):
at Jaguar, which is where all thattype of person would've been, and
there wasn't very many people in there.
I mean, there's Mr. Walkerwho was the foreman.
And uh, he was really a farmer.
Obviously Bill Hayes would've been allover it and people like Mike Kimberly,
who was an ex apprentice but was ridingrapidly through the ranks and he ran the
(13:23):
XJ 13 when I tested it at Myra in 1967.
He was still a Jag, but by thenhe was one of the chief engineers.
And of course she ultimatelywent to work for Lotus and ran
Lotus for many, many years.
So people like him would've beenall over it, like it run, you know,
looking at checking everything out.
And like all engineers, my dadhad terrible issues 'cause my dad
(13:44):
was a fruit farmer from Australia.
His father had a fruit farm,his grandfather had, it was
an orange grove in Adelaide.
And dad was one of nine children,seven of whom were boys.
And it was assumed that he wouldjust go into the business, so
he didn't go to university.
But it turned out from a very early agethat he was a, a mechanical engineering
(14:06):
kind of genius, and he invented thatautomatic gearbox entirely on his
own and started when he was about19, invented all sorts of mechanical.
Machines 'cause of his day.
You know, those early carsback in the, in the mid-teen 19
teens, they were all crash boxes.
He didn't think they were muchgood for women, so he thought they
could probably have an automaticgearbox would be a good idea.
(14:27):
So he started working on it when he wasabout 19 and he had this problem all the
time that people would look at his stuffand say, well, Howard, you don't have
a degree in, in mechanical engineering.
Probably don't know enough aboutthat and I, I can guarantee it.
The people like Bill Hayes would'velooked at that RA and say, oh, well
we could have done that, or, or wewouldn't have done that, or whatever.
(14:48):
They would look at it, but theywould always be looking at it with
slightly jaish eye it, which obviouslysome of it bought on by, I suppose.
Jealousy.
Why didn't, I think it, obviously you,you ran your dad's box in your car.
Yeah.
What other race cars didyou guys try it out in?
Or did someone start usingit on a continuous basis?
(15:10):
I mean, how much successdid that have in the racing?
Well, it had a lot of success,but dad always had the problem of
manufacturing, you know, that everybodywanted him to make the gearbox.
They didn't wanna make it themselves.
Ford had a lot of prototypes.
We never had the gearbox in anyother racing applications except
that race where I met Bill France.
Jimmy Clark drove my load sleep inthe GT rate in the very first, what
(15:34):
was now the Rolex 12 hour, whichwas in those days, the continental
three hour, which is what took me toDaytona just a few weeks after I was.
Colin Chapman had called me back in likeOctober and said, could we borrow your
car for Jimmy Clark to drive in America?
So they borrowed it.
They flew in over there, they andJimmy Clark drove it and he was leading
(15:54):
the class by about five minutes.
And unfortunately when he came herefor a one and only fuel stop, the
start had got Friday and it wouldn'tstart when dad's company finally
went belly up at the end of 63.
Which is just over a year and ahalf later on the floor on the shop
floor was a five speed automaticFormula one car for Colin Chapman.
(16:15):
So Colin Chapman had certainlytweaked that this was the way to go.
Dad had had designed and developedand manufactured a gearbox for
him, which never actually got used.
But Dad spent a lot oftime also with Jack Braman.
Jack Braman came to see Dad onmultiple occasions asking to
talk to him about putting theautomatic in the Formula One car.
You know, it, it would've been perfect.
(16:36):
I mean, obviously now withelectronic controls instead of
hydraulic, it would've been better.
Obviously, you know, things havegone way further than dad had, but
he was the first guy to build afour speed automatic transmission.
Although, uh, Jim Hall gets the creditfor having the first automatic racer.
I'm not sure that I didn't beat him to itin 1959 with mum's boys up, but I'm sure.
(16:58):
That will certainly go unheralded.
Even if it was the case, we never,we never raced it in anything else.
So let's go back to the club racing scene.
I want to get a better understandingof what that meant because when we
look back on the history with oureyes now, we see famous names, Graham
Hill, Roy, Salvador, Jack, Sears, asyou mentioned, racing in these race.
The caliber of the racing andthe British club racing scene.
(17:21):
In my mind, I'm thinking when Ihear club racing, I think SECA, like
grassroots, amateur racing, but youalready had these pro drivers in there.
Was it a feeder system to something else?
Were the pro drivers usingit just to make money?
Were they using it to jump offto bigger races like LAMA or
SPA or something like that?
Kind of tell us about how it worked.
It certainly wasn't ever used.
(17:42):
I mean, no professional driverever went back at the club racing.
We had a lot of races in England,which would be national races.
They would be club racers sort to, butthey'd be very high end club racing.
Not really club racing.
When you got people like Graham Hill,obviously Graham Hill started club racing.
They all did.
I mean, Jimmy Clarkstarted in club racing.
I did.
(18:02):
Everybody did Sterling mos.
Of course there was no go-karting, so youcould take that outta the equation and
nobody could start until they were 17 inEngland because you had to have a driving
license before you could race a car.
Unlike today, where you canrace a four in one car when
you're 12 if you got the skill.
Yeah, some of that racing.
In England there was, we had a lotof racing in England, which was
(18:23):
a, was a very high level and itwas basically semi-professional.
Now the prize money wasobviously negligible.
Club racing, had no prize money.
Very, very small cups.
Trophies.
You were in Leamington Spa.
David, how far would you travel?
Would you travel all the way up toScotland for a race or, well, I never
did, but I did go, uh, I think thefarthest north I went was Alton Park
(18:46):
and the far south I went was Goodwood.
I never raced at Castle.
Coon raced a lot of Silverson becauseit was close to home, which is at
Leamington Park Race at Mallory Park.
I don't even know thatMallory Parks exist.
Race at Alton Park Ston.
Dub that
Mallory does say exists.
I was there a couple of summers agowatching, uh, motorcycle racing.
(19:07):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So got the front end lightover the start finish.
Yeah.
I like Mallory Park.
Yeah.
Had some good race at Mallory.
I won a race there.
Load as things had moved on in 1965.
I won the, I won the sports car raceand load the T 70, which is a bit
of a handful around Murray Park.
So, I mean, I mean I drove, I drovethe Jag and I drove the Morris
to and from the races, the elite.
(19:28):
We did have a two wheel trailer,but it was an open trailer.
It was just a two wheel trailer, andI had a Ford Zephyr to pull it with.
So we had about two spare wheels,maybe a jack and a hammer, and
that was sort of about it really.
Club racing in America.
Now it's just so bizarrely.
Club racing.
I mean, everybody comes with a closedtrailer and a mechanic and a manager and
(19:51):
all sorts of high tech equipment and yeah,everybody got racing tires, obviously.
But it is just a completely differentsituation to, uh, the club racing.
I started with now club racing in Englandalso has evolved and a modern club racing.
I have no idea.
I'm, I haven't been back toEngland for a club race for.
40 years probably.
So I don't follow it, but I'm sure italso has advanced enormously from my day.
(20:16):
My day was real, real amateur stuff.
No driver schools.
Jim Ru started the first driver schoolat Sefton, but he didn't start that till.
The mid sixties, it was very differentand it really was club racing.
Spent more time in the cafe, in thepub, in the bar after the racing we did.
Going back to John Coombs for a moment,when he took delivery of the Ferrari,
(20:40):
you were already in the States,am I to understand that correctly?
Probably still there, but.
I don't particularly rememberhim taking delivery of it.
All I know is a grave hill suddenlyappeared in it, you know, instead of
the lightweight, he'd suddenly eat type.
So having encountered John and,and you mentioned that he was a bit
posh, is there any reasoning behindthe white paint that he chose?
Was it to stick out because he wantedto sell more cars if he raced on
(21:01):
Sunday, went on Monday sort of thing?
Or was there a reason behind the white?
No idea.
Probably didn't like it.
He used to wear very lightgray suits or maybe light gray.
But what, let's talk a littlebit more about the drivers.
I'm sure you've got some on yourmind, William, that David has already
mentioned that we kind of wanna diginto a little bit more that either
owned this Ferrari or drove andraced this Ferrari at some point.
(21:23):
Well, I mean you get into, you know,obviously with the club racing, but at
what point to take that step up, was theresomething in between club racing and then
professional, obviously like, you know,Mike Parks and that, but then you had.
Jack Sears stepping up, but then youknow, Roy Salvador and that jumping
in, I mean, where's that stuff?
Is it just a big leap from club racing allof a sudden now you're going against the
big guys or how did that kind of progress?
(21:44):
Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, you are racing, club racingand obviously it was a feed of
system of sorts beyond drivers.
Obviously there were some olderdrivers, not many, and a lot of
people that did club racing hadno interest in going any further.
People like me and Jack Searsand Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark.
They had designed on, on going intoprofessional racing, even though
(22:07):
there wasn't much money in it.
Really very little money at the time.
Well, I think when Jimmy Clark wonthe World Championship, the first
year he won, I think his total takewas about a hundred thousand pounds.
You know, now we talk about drivers whoare getting two and a half billion dollars
a race, but then a hundred thousandpounds back in 1962 was significantly,
yeah, would be a lot more than that now.
(22:29):
But I mean, yeah, I just won someraces and then people started
asking me if I would drive for them.
In better club race club racersthat might have some money attached.
And they would actually ask me howmuch money I wanted to drive, or they
would tell me how much, and I wouldsay, well, how about 50 pounds more?
Or whatever.
And we'd sort of haggle over of thedriving fee, which was pretty low.
(22:52):
It'd be somewhere between25 and a hundred pounds.
But also in club racing,when you started to do well.
Like I did with the elite, theelite became successful, so
it became somewhat of a draw.
You could go to someone like Clive WormLayton who ran Mallory Park and you
could ring him up and you say, look, I'mwanting to enter the the B-R-S-C-C race.
(23:15):
In May.
How about some starting money?
And they'd say, Ooh, I dunno about that.
People starting money.
And you'd say, well, I don't want much.
I didn't want like a hundred pounds.
And you'd finally, you'd settle onabout 50 and so you would get some
money, but there was no prize money.
But there was what we call startingmoney, you know, appearance, money really
is what it was pretty low, but still.
(23:36):
Literally just pick up the phone and Yeah.
Yeah.
And call the track owner and, and saywhen you were planning the season Yeah.
Just to see where you could Yeah.
Called call the guys at Silvertonand try and get some starting money.
Yeah.
Years ago, Orlando C told me thatthose of you that used to be like roll.
Representatives, or whatever the phrasewas when asking for payment from a TV
(24:01):
company or a journalist or something.
What he used to do was he and Y andMass, I think was the other guy used to
do it with, they would ask what Sterlingasked for and then ask for half of that.
Now that gives the impression thateveryone talked amongst themselves.
So would you talk with Graham Hilland if Graham Hill was getting a
hundred dollars starting money,you might ask for 50 or 75.
(24:23):
Was it like that?
Well, I wouldn't be talking to Graham Hill'cause he would been above me, but I'd be
talking to other club drivers, people likeChris Ashmore and David Piper and Richard
Atwood, you know, people like that.
We were all, where weall started together.
Graham was a good bit ahead of me.
He is like four or five years ahead of me.
You know, I never get my first raceswhen I drove in professional races and
(24:44):
I was driving against people like GrahamHill or Jack Sears, Michael Parks, you
know, I could find, hardly believe thatI was actually in the same race that
they were in, you know, where they'dactually talk to me or say something.
You know, Graham Hill usuallyhad somebody horrible to say.
But other than that, everybodyelse was fairly nice.
So
let's talk a little bitmore about Jack Sears.
(25:05):
He owned the car for how long?
William?
Uh, he had it for a long time.
30 years.
What does he own?
The one car he owned that GTO for along time, you know, after it kind
of, I guess you'd say retired fromprofessional racing, you know, he took
it a lot of club racing and stuff.
But Jack owned that car for a long time.
Oh yeah.
After John Coombs had it.
Jack's his, seems to have had itall the way through the 1970s.
(25:27):
Oh, did he?
There's quite a lot of photographs ofJack Sears with the car painted red.
With it being around, uh, events.
I was sort of.
Surprise, the number plate is EUP.
And I've realized that it appeared ina number of books that I'd looked at
and I think I may have even seen it.
Uh, shows, believe it or not,I'm not really a huge car man.
(25:47):
I really only race'cause I like the racing.
I'm very poor on cars.
You asked me what model that is.
I mean, I'd say I don't knowI'm gonna, but I mean, Jack
Sears was a gentleman farmer.
He had a pretty big farm outin East Anglia, didn't he?
Hell of a driver and a, anda absolutely terrific guy.
I mean, he was such a g hewas a real GI liked Jack a lot
(26:08):
and he was very, very fast.
But yeah, I, I didn't realize, I didn'trealize he owned that car, but I see
it's gonna be an auction down here inFlorida and then Yeah, in January at comb.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, going back in, obviouslytrying to make the jag make it turn into
lightweight to compete with the fraud,besides trying to improve the motor, get
more horsepower and making it lighter.
(26:28):
Do you know what else they attemptedto do or did on that Jag to try and get
it more competitive with that Ferrari?
Not really.
I was doing on my own thing, soI, I don't really know, but I
mean I drove that XJ 13, whichwas gonna be their next big thing.
That's awesome.
By that time, Jaar was somewhatconstrained by the fact they've now
become part of British Leland, andof course the guy that ran British
(26:51):
Leland, was it the Donald Stokes period?
Yeah.
Stokes exactly.
S he put the kibosh on the, uh, XJ 13.
He just said, forget it, put it away.
Because Richard Atwood and I, I, Idrove it four or five times at Myra.
Mike Kimberley was the engineer incharge, and Malcolm Sayer, the, you
know, the renowned body work guy fromJag was there, and Sir William was there.
(27:14):
Lofty was there, obviously.
And a couple of mechanics and we ranit on Sunday morning at six o'clock
in the morning in sort of in secret.
Ultimately it was exposed.
We went to a test day at Silverstoneand Richard Atwin and I drove it.
It was Richard's first time in itto give them a, a workless, you
know, of what needed to be done.
'cause we were running five or sixseconds off things like GT forties.
(27:38):
And the reason that Lofty wanted meto test the car and not Norman Jewish,
who was the Jaguar test driver.
Because by that time I had drivenGT forties, lower T seventies and
other big engine powerful stuff.
So he asked me to drive it.
Norman Dures never quite got over it.
He was pissed off to the end ofhis life that I'd driven the car.
What was the potentialyou feel for that car?
(28:01):
I mean, do you feel with enough work onit, you know, engineering, that that could
have been competitive with the GT forties?
Well, the best thing about it bya country mile was its engine.
It had the twin overhead camversion of the V 12, which back
in 1967 was giving 570 horsepower.
I mean, it was an incredible engine.
In 1967, the car was very ancient.
(28:25):
It had the E type type of suspension wherethe drive shaft is like your bottom link.
It had rubber bushings everywhere.
It had Dunlop disc brakes, and Dunlophadn't made disc brakes for years.
It had like seven inch rims on the backand five inch rims on the front, where
now we replicate GT forces, which had got11 or 12 inch rims on the back and it had
(28:45):
an all done up our five race tires on it.
So it was very difficult to get areally good feel of how good it was.
And of course, that Malcolm Sayer,that swoopy looking body was so
fantastic at Lamar back in the fiftieswhen you know you were looking for
air, that you were looking for speed.
Relatively low horsepower, but youknow, the days of downforce had
started to appear, the lower T 70dad flaps on the front and they
(29:09):
had a, a, uh, spoiler at the back.
Just didn't have any of that.
This was very slippery, butprobably had horrible lift at
speed, front end, lift at speed.
I think the car needed a lot.
Richard and I gave them a, a good worklist, which would've helped obviously
decent sized wheels and tires, butmade a. You've only gotta look at
the difference in Formula One betweenthe soft tire and the medium tire for
(29:30):
qualifying to see the difference betweena 1960s Dunlop R five Treaded Tire,
which is like maybe six inches wide anda tire that's got a slick no, no tread
or very, very, those very early slicks.
A bit of tread, a little tinytread about 12 inches inches wide.
I mean, just right there.
You, you are looking atfour or five seconds.
(29:52):
Yeah.
And then of course, would the car havestood that sort of the chassis when
the chassis started to flex badly?
Um, when you're starting to put the loadsand those tires could generate through it.
If you added some sortof spoiler or wing to it.
So I don't know.
But the engine would've certainlybeen right on the top of the tree.
'cause the GT fortune when I was drivingthe GT 40 for golf in 1968, I mean,
(30:14):
they were giving about 385 horsepower.
With the what?
With the heads?
The um, Westlake?
Yeah.
With those heads.
They were giving about 385 horsepower.
Out of all the cars that youhad the privilege of racing and
driving, what was your favorite car?
Well, I drove so many, it's hardto tell, but I think the GT 40
was a very special car in its day.
(30:36):
I mean, it was great long distance car.
The engine, by the time I got roundto drive 68, were pretty reliable.
Had that beautiful ZFgearbox, which was terrific.
It, uh, was reasonably slippery.
It had very little down force, and it wasreally easy to drive and easy to set up.
Small adjustments of roll barsand bit of ride height and maybe a
(30:56):
camba, little bit of camba changewould make a big difference.
Didn't get too hot inside, whichwas great for long distance racing.
Had good visibility and it had no vices.
It didn't have any severe pushon certain corners or snap over
steer or anything like that, soit, it was a good car to drive.
The 9 62, you know, 10 years later wasanother incredible long distance car.
(31:18):
I mean, amazing, reliable as hell.
You run a whole thousand kilometerrace, then you go to the next thousand
kilometer race and run all the practicesessions and on that same engine, then
you might put a fresh engine for the race.
You might not.
So that was a hell of a car.
Single seaters.
Probably one of the best cars I everdrove was M 16 at, uh, Indy in 1974.
(31:39):
The McLaren, that was a hell of a car,but in some ways the very best car I ever
drove was the last McLaren Canam, the M20, which had been Peter Re's car in 1972.
Then McLaren pulled out becauseof the Porsche on saw and I drove
that car in Carly Black labelcolors for uh, Roy Woods in 1973.
(32:02):
And that was a hell of a, I can seewhy McLaren had won the championship
for like five years, six years ina row 'cause it was just slightest
touch to a flat change or ride height.
Major magic difference.
Had incredible traction.
One of our best races probablyever was in the, uh, cannon
race at Watkins Land in 1973.
I came second to Mark Donahue in the 917 30 against which we had absolutely
(32:28):
no hope 'cause it had about three, atleast 300 awards about, and we did.
And I beat all the other nine seventeens.
The, with Brian Redmond and JodyShechter, George Farmer, and a bunch
of other, no name has been, neverwas drivers, you know, like that.
People like Shechter know, obviously.
No good at all.
To me, that was one of my best ever races.
(32:48):
Uh, came second to, uh, Dar so to goback to drivers for a second, one of
the other folks that drove the whiteFerrari that we've been talking about.
Oh, we're talking about a white Ferrari.
Are we, we were, we were, yeah.
Carry on.
So Roy Salvadori, did you haveany interactions with him?
Can you tell us anything about him?
His personality, his driving?
Well, Roy was another driver who, whoI couldn't believe I was racing against
(33:11):
'cause there'd been a name for my youth.
But of course Roy wasreally all those guys.
The only guy that really, really, really,really, really, really meant it was Stern.
All the others, I mean, Graham,Graham, Hilde, but Sterling
was the ultimate professional.
I mean, he was the firstreal professional driver.
I mean, he worked out,he didn't drink much.
He didn't have sex the night beforethe race, an more that was supposed
(33:33):
to do, but he thought he was sosterling was, was the man and,
uh, he was the man really to beat.
He, he was the guy that sortof would accept standard.
The Roy Sam was obviously incredibly good.
Winning Lamont with,uh, Carol Shelby, 1959.
I mean, I knew Roy.
I didn't know any of 'em very well, buthe was always a bit of a hero of mine.
(33:55):
It was very quick.
So speaking of heroes, and I know this isa soft spot for John Summers, John being
a expert in the history of Mike Hawthorne,was Hawthorne an inspiration for you?
Was he a hero?
Did he inspire you to go into racing?
Well, unfortunately he didn'tbecause he was up against Sterling.
Although he handed toSterling, he gave Hawthorne.
(34:16):
His championship.
It hadn't been for Sterling.
Mos Hawthorne would never have wonthat championship because Hawthorne
spun in the Portuguese Grand Prix,which was in downtown Lisbon.
And to rejoin the track, he droveagainst the traffic and he was
disqualified and sterling ever.
The gent went to the stewards afterwards.
(34:37):
Of course, unlike the stewards today.
They listened to driver input.
Sterling said, I saychaps, that's a bit unkind.
You know, I mean, the chap had togo back 'cause he had spun the car.
So he, he had to, to rejoin the race.
He, he had to go against the traffic,you know, but not for long and
didn't hurt anybody without the way,so they reinstated Hawthorne who
(34:58):
won the championship by one point.
If you don't be for Sterling,you would never won it.
Sterling would've won it.
He's won and only championship.
But I liked Hawthorne andloved England, loved him.
He thought he was the best sixto sliced bread because he was.
That English gen always wore his bowstie always down the pub having a drink.
But I recognized even then thatSterling just had that extra something.
(35:20):
Mike didn't, I mean, not to saythat Mike wasn't a hell of a driver.
I mean, he was an incredibledriver, but to me, Sterling was,
I mean, I was only like 14 or 15.
So Albert Sterling tome was the bee's needs.
David, you've said a, a couple of thingsabout Lofty, sort of taking a personal
shine to you and you just applied there.
(35:40):
He sort of took a personalshine to Mike Hawthorn.
I mean, I always felt likeMike Hawthorn was quite a good.
Advertisement for Jaguar cars.
He was.
Do you think Lofty England was thinkinglike that or literally do you think it
was looking back on your relationshipwith Lofty England, do you think he
was just like, this is he's one of us.
I just like the guy personally.
I can work with him personally.
(36:01):
Do you think that's what it was, or?
I think he just had alot of respect for Mike.
I do know he was a great fan of Mike,but I'm not quite sure about their
relationship other than I don't knowhow well he knew him In my case.
The only reason he liked me was.
I lived in a place called AmericanHouse, which is halfway between
Leviton and Coventry, and I wouldcome out the drive on my motorbike,
(36:24):
going to work as an apprentice.
A lofty would go swooping by anE type, so I would race him to
work going to, uh, Brown's Lane.
The only thing is when I got there,lofty would be standing arms at
Kimba and he'd look at his watch.
Ho, I'm supposed to behere at nine o'clock.
You are supposed to be here at eight.
(36:45):
But then when I drove the Jag, mydad's Jag, having rolled it at the
first race, I had it repaired by oneof the guys in the body shop at Jag.
He repaired it at his house indorm tree in the garden shed
at the bottom of his garden.
And he knocked out.
We had to get a new hood 'cause thehood had opened on the way home.
And uh, I was with my girlfriend Margaret,who's in the other room now painting.
(37:08):
So I repaired it.
Unfortunately, when Joe went tospray repainted, it was duck in blue.
By the time he got home from work,it was like a May evening, so it
was about seven o'clock by thetime he got around to spraying it.
So it was a typical English May evening.
The humidity was high,so the car came out.
It was a mat car, Matt finish, whichtoday of course is very groovy.
(37:28):
But this was a rough mat.
This wasn't as smooth, Matt.
This was, this was, and thehood was a real makeshift job.
Knocked up the hood out ofsort of canvas or something.
So he always looked terrible, but as Isay, he was often the clerk of the course.
He had saw me at one race, racefor DB four and we swapped leads
pass, pass, REPA pass, rep pass,and eventually I won the race.
(37:50):
He was probably a 10 and aon the club circle at Silver,
the club circle as it was.
Lofty.
He thought I'd done a good job.
He said, what I like about you Holmes,is you, you race, you race well.
You race like you mean it.
And he said, I like that.
That's very commendable.
And from then on he,he followed my career.
So, uh, he became a bit of a fan.
So that's how uh, you lofty.
What was your bike?
(38:11):
So I can pick to you racing him to work.
When I was 16, my parentsbought me a lamb better.
Scooter, me and Margaret used todrive around flat out on his scooter.
I go about 55 mile an hour.
So I swapped in the board ofT Triumph speed twin, which
was before the swinging arm.
He'd only had a sprung hub, whichhad suspension without that much,
(38:31):
you know, bug roll suspension.
And uh, we used to drive around acouple of lunatics on that bike.
I love that bike.
It was driven so smooth, silkysmooth, silky smooth by the
horizontal twin engine was terrific.
American police used to have thosetriumph speed twins and the triumph
tiger one hundreds in those days.
So, uh, that's what I like to ride.
(38:51):
I wouldn't wanna write it now, but,
well gentlemen, I think that'sbeen an interesting look back into
early 1960s British motorsport.
I appreciate David joining us yet againto come on the show and talk to us.
I think we got what we need, right?
I think so.
Uh, nice to meet you.
That's fantastic.
Thank you very much, David.
(39:12):
Thank you for your time.
Thanks David.
I'm sure we'll meet again.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, David.
Alright, thank you Eric.
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(39:34):
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And remember, without you,none of this would be possible.
We always have a blast chatting withour guests about all sorts of different
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As a bonus, let's go behind thescenes with this pit stop mini
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(00:20):
support break fix on Patreon.
It is always fun to get back togetherwith John, the motoring historian, and
William from the Exotic Car Marketplace.
But today is extra special becausewe are gonna take a deep dive into
1960s British Club racing with.
None other than legendary prodriver and commentator David Hobbes.
(00:43):
So I wanna welcome David Hobbes backto break Fix as we dive into this
interesting part of Motorsports history.
Well, good afternoon, gentlemen.
Thank you for inviting me fora, a recap of 60 odd years ago.
Well, David, this comes about becauseJohn, William and I have been working
on a project about John Coombs andhis famous white Ferrari, two 50
(01:05):
GTO, and when we were digging intothe history, you start to realize
how small the motor sports world is.
Your name starts popping upbecause that's when your career
was starting to come about.
And so we figured, well, let's ask aliving legend about living history.
So let's dive into BritishClub racing in the 1960s.
Can you take us back?
Well, British Club racing in the1960s was actually very, very healthy.
(01:28):
And of course, in those daysit really was club racing.
The first two cars I drove in 1959,I drove by Mums Morris Oxford.
Which was hardly a racing car.
I drove it, took it from the tracks whenI didn't have it towed, how that is.
And in 1960, I drove my dad's XK one 40.
But unfortunately I was so naive and,uh, so raw that I had never quite
(01:51):
understood the, uh, ports of racing tires.
And I raced out on Michel X. In thevery first race with I ever turned
at, at Alton Park on the last lapof a GT race and was outta the race.
I, I modified that 'cause I was actuallya Jaguar apprentice at the time.
I had started off buying, being aDamer apprentice, but then I became
a Jaguar apprentice 'cause of mydad's affiliation with Daimler,
(02:13):
with his, uh, automatic gearbox.
I, you know, I, I chose the school,so I couldn't go to university,
so I became an apprentice.
But of course, I got so involved inthe racing and luckily, loft England,
who was the managing director of Jaguarwhen I became a Jaguar apprentice, was
the team manager who won Lamont for.
Jag in 1950, what?
Five, six, and seven.
(02:34):
Lofty was a team manager.
He had worked his way through the companyand by the time I was the apprentice,
he was the managing director, buthe also was a clerk of the course,
what you'd call a chief steward atlots of silvers to the club racers
run by the British racing driver.
Luckily for me, lofty tookrather fancy to my driving style,
and so he was a great help.
(02:54):
I had, uh, a funny incident and theapprentice supervisor, whose name was
Harold Barker called me into his officeand tore me off a strip and said I
was the worst apprentice I'd ever had.
I was never there.
I'd ever went to tech, I'd everpassed any examiners, which I didn't.
I. I did spend a lot oftime at the racetrack.
By 1961, I was driving the Low Elite,which my father's company had bought
(03:17):
me to help promote the gearbox becauseit had dad's automatic gearbox in it.
So although Harold Barker tore meoff this terrible strip, just said,
I dunno what you're gonna do ho.
He said, I think I justdon't see a life for you.
You're gonna be probably be homeless.
And he said, you'reabsolutely completely useless.
Well, luckily a couple of weekslater I was working in experimental
department and the foreman called me.
(03:39):
I was, says here, Hobbs.
He says, Mr. England wantsto see you in his office.
So I thought, oh, blindly.
This seems got a bit outta hand now.
So I went up to the office and Lofty said,oh Hobbs, we have an experimental car.
We have a prototype car, andwe'd rather like you to take
to silver to drive it for us.
Would would you be able to do that?
I said, I'm sure I could.
So, so the next thing, I'm walkingthrough the main office block with
(04:01):
the Lofty England as the managingdirector with, uh, Jim Haynes, who
was the, uh, chief engineer at Jaguar.
Wally Hassen, who was the chief engineerman, and, uh, Mike McDowell, who
was the competition manager for Ja.
And we walked past Mr. Barker'soffice and I was there.
He was look in the door while I'm walkingdown with all these heavy hitters and say,
oh, afternoon, Mr. Barker's still here.
(04:25):
That was the high pointof my apprenticeship.
Anyway, we did go testing and MichaelParks, if you remember the name, Michael
Parks was going to run me that afternoon.
He and his girlfriend werethere and his girlfriend.
Ultimately became EnzoFerrari's personal secretary.
And she is still alive and kicking,apparently living in Italy and
I just can't remember her name.
(04:45):
But she was a very bright young spark anduh, Michael was very attracted to her.
But anyway, I spun the car going throughthe old Abbey curve, which in those days
was pretty much a flat out lefthander.
It's gone now, but I spun it theflat spot, all the tires 'cause
they hadn't got his spare tires.
So we went back to the factory.
So during 1961, dad had abit of a windfall in the
(05:05):
Westinghouse breaker signal.
Bought some shares in the company and Ithought it'd be a great idea if we raced
the loads of elite with the gearbox,which of course the big thing about
dad's box was it was the four speed,the friction drive, no fluid drive.
So it used very little power.
It had four speeds with automaticor and full manual override.
So it made a perfect racing mops and wewere very successful in the Loads League.
(05:30):
Well, or races.
Of course, during that time, loftingwas a, was a big supporter, and when
I finished my apprenticeship at theend of 1961, a lot of things happened.
The Army draft finished at the end of 61.
I finished my apprenticeshipin December the 31st, and I got
married on December the 16th.
And Lofty had got me a professionaldrive with a guy called Peter
(05:51):
Berry who had a 3.8 mark, twoSudan and an XKE, both in green.
Bruce McLaren had driven for him in 1960and he asked me to drive for in 1961
and Lofty got me that drive in 1962.
So when I left apprenticeship, I gotup to a flying start with my racing
career by driving for Peter Barry.
(06:12):
And of course our biggest competitor,one of our big competitors, was for
two big competitors, a key endeavor,which is run by a guy called Tommy.
So with, and John Coon.
So I met John Coons fairly soon.
You know, after leaving Jag.
He knew that Lofty England knewme and thought a lot about me.
Funnily enough, in my last year whilethe apprentice supervisor was slagging
(06:34):
me off, I got a call to see if I'd goto entry because it was the British
Grand Prix today entry, and one ofthe supporting races was a GT race.
And I rushed up there.
He said, can you go and drive for Tommy?
Sat with an Ike endeavor, E type,and of course I rushed up to Adrian.
By the time I got there, JackSears, who was another very,
(06:56):
very, very good amateur driver.
I mean, he is a farmer, buthe was a hell of a driver.
Unfortunately, Jack Sears was also thereand he hadn't gotta drive that weekend.
So before I got there, they hadactually put him in the car.
They did gimme some lapse in it.
I was a bit nervous 'cause I'dnever driven a big car before.
I'd only ever driven the elite, so I wasused to about 85 horsepower, not whatever.
(07:17):
The Jag gave a couple ofhundred, 250, something like
that, and a much bigger vehicle.
Obviously John Coons was there at thatmeeting as well because Graham Hill
was driving John Coombs as E type.
This is before the Ferrari came along.
Coombs was very successful.
Graham Hill drove for him in the, uh, inthe 3.8, mark two, which was also white.
He drove for him an E type, which waswhite, and then of course they got the.
(07:40):
The two 50 GTO, which of course wasa hell of a car, and they had some
very spirited races with people likeTommy, who was a pretty good driver.
Michael Parks drove for him.
Obviously, he was a very gooddriver and some chap called
Sterling Roth drove for him as well.
In in the number seven before the GTO,he had a, a Ferrari, uh, two 50 short
(08:01):
wheel base, which was a hell of a car.
Those races used to be reallyexciting because they were very, very.
Compared to today.
I mean, these were modified street cars.
You could take the seats out oryou could put lighter seats in
and you could do other weightsaving, but you couldn't do much.
They didn't.
They didn't have a space frame like mostrace cars do today, so they were much
(08:21):
more difficult to actually get stiffener.
The chassis were never stiff.
But it made them very exciting racingand the, and the public loved it, and
John Coombs was a huge part of that.
David, there is so much to unpack here.
I'm sure we all have questions.
Our understanding is that Coombsbought this GTO because the
E type was not competitive.
(08:43):
And in an interview thatJohn Coombs had with.
Simon Taylor from MotorsportMagazine 15 years ago now.
He says that he had a meal with BillHaynes, where he said to Bill Haynes
that this car's like a pendulum.
If you don't make it lighter, I amgoing to have to race my Ferrari.
And coming outta that lunch, thiswhite Ferrari apparently spent
(09:07):
the winter of 1962 at Jaguar.
Evolving and this process gaveus the lightweight e type.
That's what we think happened.
Do you have any insight on thator were you in Daytona meeting,
bill France at that time?
I'm afraid I don't haveany insight on that.
No.
Uh, that would've been above my paygrade, but I couldn't believe that a
(09:28):
lot of people have done that, taken carsthat take 'em apart, and obviously the
lightweight E type was very, very good.
It still wasn't quiteas good as the Ferrari.
I dunno whether it had a bit less power.
The V 12 and the Ferrariwas a great engine and the
chassis was pretty good too.
The uh, GTO was in the end wasquicker than the lightweight.
Now obviously, lightweight Etypes now have evolved enormously.
(09:50):
They're not really jags anymore.
They're so different.
But, uh, yeah, so I can, Ican believe that being true.
And John Cobs is a huge, huge Jaguarfan, so I know he would've liked
to have made the Jaguar faster thanthe Ferrari, because after all he
was a Jaguar dealer in Guilford.
I just want to touch on that.
You talked about how a lot of thelightweights now are not really
(10:11):
anything like they were years ago.
I assume that for WPD.
The Coombs car might be in that category.
'cause you see it being racedat Goodwood all the time and
it presents like a new car.
I wonder if you, you are familiarwith the cars at Revs, the Briggs
Cunningham lightweight E type.
Is that as far as you are aware, morelike an original lightweight E that
(10:34):
Briggs Cunningham car got a name.
What's this type?
Is it the EJ two or whateverit's called, the e something.
I don't, I don't know.
I I, I'm just trying to thinkof what, where would be like an
original lightweight E Yeah, thatwould be a good comparison point.
What we are thinking about is, canyou look at this Ferrari and say,
well, the guys at Jaguar obviouslylooked at this Ferrari and then made
(10:56):
these changes to the Jaguar as aresult, and therefore we need an early
lightweight e point of comparison.
I think really that theJaguar we're trying to, uh.
I don't know about crib, but to tryand actually improve the E type by
following some of the Ferrari practices,uh, rather than the other way around.
I mean, I think the Ferrari wasalways the quicker of the two cars.
(11:17):
Well, 'cause the E type inthose days, they didn't have the
material ology that you got today.
These are E type straight sixes.
Give over 400 horsepower.
Well, when that straight six enginefirst came out, it gave about 160.
So to give four 60 is a massiveincrease, which obviously you wouldn't
be able to do with the originalblocks, crank shafts and main eng,
(11:40):
main bearings and that sort of thing.
So the only reason they can do thatis because of modern materials.
You know, I mean, I don't know thatthe in outs and the depths of the.
Cos England relationship orthe Coombs Jaguar relationship.
But I just know that John was a very,and at one stage he was talking about
trying to get me in one of his cars.
But of course, Graham was always there.
(12:01):
And so that was, uh, unlikely to happen.
But, uh, Coombs wasalways a very nice chap.
Terribly, terribly,terribly, terribly posh.
You know, it was aterrible English, terrible.
Like myself, who's rather unc Coth very,very smooth and urban was our cobes.
You told us that fabulous story a momentago about, you know, walking past Mr.
(12:22):
Barker's office with the chopped brass.
Yeah.
From Jaguar there.
Yeah.
Let's imagine our Ferrariarriving at Brown's Lane here.
You know, when BMW buy a Tesla.
They strip it down to the componentparts and they measure all those
component parts to do, you know, weimagine men in in white coats doing that.
(12:42):
Is that what Brown's Lane was like?
How many people did LoftyEngland or did Bill Haynes have?
To be looking at this and whatwould the process have been like?
Would they have drivenit around on the streets?
Would they have booked Silverstonefor a day and driven it down
to Silverstone to do that?
What do you think thatprocess would've looked like?
Hard to help you there, but I mean, Iworked in the experimental department
(13:03):
at Jaguar, which is where all thattype of person would've been, and
there wasn't very many people in there.
I mean, there's Mr. Walkerwho was the foreman.
And uh, he was really a farmer.
Obviously Bill Hayes would've been allover it and people like Mike Kimberly,
who was an ex apprentice but was ridingrapidly through the ranks and he ran the
(13:23):
XJ 13 when I tested it at Myra in 1967.
He was still a Jag, but by thenhe was one of the chief engineers.
And of course she ultimatelywent to work for Lotus and ran
Lotus for many, many years.
So people like him would've beenall over it, like it run, you know,
looking at checking everything out.
And like all engineers, my dadhad terrible issues 'cause my dad
(13:44):
was a fruit farmer from Australia.
His father had a fruit farm,his grandfather had, it was
an orange grove in Adelaide.
And dad was one of nine children,seven of whom were boys.
And it was assumed that he wouldjust go into the business, so
he didn't go to university.
But it turned out from a very early agethat he was a, a mechanical engineering
(14:06):
kind of genius, and he invented thatautomatic gearbox entirely on his
own and started when he was about19, invented all sorts of mechanical.
Machines 'cause of his day.
You know, those early carsback in the, in the mid-teen 19
teens, they were all crash boxes.
He didn't think they were muchgood for women, so he thought they
could probably have an automaticgearbox would be a good idea.
(14:27):
So he started working on it when he wasabout 19 and he had this problem all the
time that people would look at his stuffand say, well, Howard, you don't have
a degree in, in mechanical engineering.
Probably don't know enough aboutthat and I, I can guarantee it.
The people like Bill Hayes would'velooked at that RA and say, oh, well
we could have done that, or, or wewouldn't have done that, or whatever.
(14:48):
They would look at it, but theywould always be looking at it with
slightly jaish eye it, which obviouslysome of it bought on by, I suppose.
Jealousy.
Why didn't, I think it, obviously you,you ran your dad's box in your car.
Yeah.
What other race cars didyou guys try it out in?
Or did someone start usingit on a continuous basis?
(15:10):
I mean, how much successdid that have in the racing?
Well, it had a lot of success,but dad always had the problem of
manufacturing, you know, that everybodywanted him to make the gearbox.
They didn't wanna make it themselves.
Ford had a lot of prototypes.
We never had the gearbox in anyother racing applications except
that race where I met Bill France.
Jimmy Clark drove my load sleep inthe GT rate in the very first, what
(15:34):
was now the Rolex 12 hour, whichwas in those days, the continental
three hour, which is what took me toDaytona just a few weeks after I was.
Colin Chapman had called me back in likeOctober and said, could we borrow your
car for Jimmy Clark to drive in America?
So they borrowed it.
They flew in over there, they andJimmy Clark drove it and he was leading
(15:54):
the class by about five minutes.
And unfortunately when he came herefor a one and only fuel stop, the
start had got Friday and it wouldn'tstart when dad's company finally
went belly up at the end of 63.
Which is just over a year and ahalf later on the floor on the shop
floor was a five speed automaticFormula one car for Colin Chapman.
(16:15):
So Colin Chapman had certainlytweaked that this was the way to go.
Dad had had designed and developedand manufactured a gearbox for
him, which never actually got used.
But Dad spent a lot oftime also with Jack Braman.
Jack Braman came to see Dad onmultiple occasions asking to
talk to him about putting theautomatic in the Formula One car.
You know, it, it would've been perfect.
(16:36):
I mean, obviously now withelectronic controls instead of
hydraulic, it would've been better.
Obviously, you know, things havegone way further than dad had, but
he was the first guy to build afour speed automatic transmission.
Although, uh, Jim Hall gets the creditfor having the first automatic racer.
I'm not sure that I didn't beat him to itin 1959 with mum's boys up, but I'm sure.
(16:58):
That will certainly go unheralded.
Even if it was the case, we never,we never raced it in anything else.
So let's go back to the club racing scene.
I want to get a better understandingof what that meant because when we
look back on the history with oureyes now, we see famous names, Graham
Hill, Roy, Salvador, Jack, Sears, asyou mentioned, racing in these race.
The caliber of the racing andthe British club racing scene.
(17:21):
In my mind, I'm thinking when Ihear club racing, I think SECA, like
grassroots, amateur racing, but youalready had these pro drivers in there.
Was it a feeder system to something else?
Were the pro drivers usingit just to make money?
Were they using it to jump offto bigger races like LAMA or
SPA or something like that?
Kind of tell us about how it worked.
It certainly wasn't ever used.
(17:42):
I mean, no professional driverever went back at the club racing.
We had a lot of races in England,which would be national races.
They would be club racers sort to, butthey'd be very high end club racing.
Not really club racing.
When you got people like Graham Hill,obviously Graham Hill started club racing.
They all did.
I mean, Jimmy Clarkstarted in club racing.
I did.
(18:02):
Everybody did Sterling mos.
Of course there was no go-karting, so youcould take that outta the equation and
nobody could start until they were 17 inEngland because you had to have a driving
license before you could race a car.
Unlike today, where you canrace a four in one car when
you're 12 if you got the skill.
Yeah, some of that racing.
In England there was, we had a lotof racing in England, which was
(18:23):
a, was a very high level and itwas basically semi-professional.
Now the prize money wasobviously negligible.
Club racing, had no prize money.
Very, very small cups.
Trophies.
You were in Leamington Spa.
David, how far would you travel?
Would you travel all the way up toScotland for a race or, well, I never
did, but I did go, uh, I think thefarthest north I went was Alton Park
(18:46):
and the far south I went was Goodwood.
I never raced at Castle.
Coon raced a lot of Silverson becauseit was close to home, which is at
Leamington Park Race at Mallory Park.
I don't even know thatMallory Parks exist.
Race at Alton Park Ston.
Dub that
Mallory does say exists.
I was there a couple of summers agowatching, uh, motorcycle racing.
(19:07):
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So got the front end lightover the start finish.
Yeah.
I like Mallory Park.
Yeah.
Had some good race at Mallory.
I won a race there.
Load as things had moved on in 1965.
I won the, I won the sports car raceand load the T 70, which is a bit
of a handful around Murray Park.
So, I mean, I mean I drove, I drovethe Jag and I drove the Morris
to and from the races, the elite.
(19:28):
We did have a two wheel trailer,but it was an open trailer.
It was just a two wheel trailer, andI had a Ford Zephyr to pull it with.
So we had about two spare wheels,maybe a jack and a hammer, and
that was sort of about it really.
Club racing in America.
Now it's just so bizarrely.
Club racing.
I mean, everybody comes with a closedtrailer and a mechanic and a manager and
(19:51):
all sorts of high tech equipment and yeah,everybody got racing tires, obviously.
But it is just a completely differentsituation to, uh, the club racing.
I started with now club racing in Englandalso has evolved and a modern club racing.
I have no idea.
I'm, I haven't been back toEngland for a club race for.
40 years probably.
So I don't follow it, but I'm sure italso has advanced enormously from my day.
(20:16):
My day was real, real amateur stuff.
No driver schools.
Jim Ru started the first driver schoolat Sefton, but he didn't start that till.
The mid sixties, it was very differentand it really was club racing.
Spent more time in the cafe, in thepub, in the bar after the racing we did.
Going back to John Coombs for a moment,when he took delivery of the Ferrari,
(20:40):
you were already in the States,am I to understand that correctly?
Probably still there, but.
I don't particularly rememberhim taking delivery of it.
All I know is a grave hill suddenlyappeared in it, you know, instead of
the lightweight, he'd suddenly eat type.
So having encountered John and,and you mentioned that he was a bit
posh, is there any reasoning behindthe white paint that he chose?
Was it to stick out because he wantedto sell more cars if he raced on
(21:01):
Sunday, went on Monday sort of thing?
Or was there a reason behind the white?
No idea.
Probably didn't like it.
He used to wear very lightgray suits or maybe light gray.
But what, let's talk a littlebit more about the drivers.
I'm sure you've got some on yourmind, William, that David has already
mentioned that we kind of wanna diginto a little bit more that either
owned this Ferrari or drove andraced this Ferrari at some point.
(21:23):
Well, I mean you get into, you know,obviously with the club racing, but at
what point to take that step up, was theresomething in between club racing and then
professional, obviously like, you know,Mike Parks and that, but then you had.
Jack Sears stepping up, but then youknow, Roy Salvador and that jumping
in, I mean, where's that stuff?
Is it just a big leap from club racing allof a sudden now you're going against the
big guys or how did that kind of progress?
(21:44):
Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, you are racing, club racingand obviously it was a feed of
system of sorts beyond drivers.
Obviously there were some olderdrivers, not many, and a lot of
people that did club racing hadno interest in going any further.
People like me and Jack Searsand Graham Hill and Jimmy Clark.
They had designed on, on going intoprofessional racing, even though
(22:07):
there wasn't much money in it.
Really very little money at the time.
Well, I think when Jimmy Clark wonthe World Championship, the first
year he won, I think his total takewas about a hundred thousand pounds.
You know, now we talk about drivers whoare getting two and a half billion dollars
a race, but then a hundred thousandpounds back in 1962 was significantly,
yeah, would be a lot more than that now.
(22:29):
But I mean, yeah, I just won someraces and then people started
asking me if I would drive for them.
In better club race club racersthat might have some money attached.
And they would actually ask me howmuch money I wanted to drive, or they
would tell me how much, and I wouldsay, well, how about 50 pounds more?
Or whatever.
And we'd sort of haggle over of thedriving fee, which was pretty low.
(22:52):
It'd be somewhere between25 and a hundred pounds.
But also in club racing,when you started to do well.
Like I did with the elite, theelite became successful, so
it became somewhat of a draw.
You could go to someone like Clive WormLayton who ran Mallory Park and you
could ring him up and you say, look, I'mwanting to enter the the B-R-S-C-C race.
(23:15):
In May.
How about some starting money?
And they'd say, Ooh, I dunno about that.
People starting money.
And you'd say, well, I don't want much.
I didn't want like a hundred pounds.
And you'd finally, you'd settle onabout 50 and so you would get some
money, but there was no prize money.
But there was what we call startingmoney, you know, appearance, money really
is what it was pretty low, but still.
(23:36):
Literally just pick up the phone and Yeah.
Yeah.
And call the track owner and, and saywhen you were planning the season Yeah.
Just to see where you could Yeah.
Called call the guys at Silvertonand try and get some starting money.
Yeah.
Years ago, Orlando C told me thatthose of you that used to be like roll.
Representatives, or whatever the phrasewas when asking for payment from a TV
(24:01):
company or a journalist or something.
What he used to do was he and Y andMass, I think was the other guy used to
do it with, they would ask what Sterlingasked for and then ask for half of that.
Now that gives the impression thateveryone talked amongst themselves.
So would you talk with Graham Hilland if Graham Hill was getting a
hundred dollars starting money,you might ask for 50 or 75.
(24:23):
Was it like that?
Well, I wouldn't be talking to Graham Hill'cause he would been above me, but I'd be
talking to other club drivers, people likeChris Ashmore and David Piper and Richard
Atwood, you know, people like that.
We were all, where weall started together.
Graham was a good bit ahead of me.
He is like four or five years ahead of me.
You know, I never get my first raceswhen I drove in professional races and
(24:44):
I was driving against people like GrahamHill or Jack Sears, Michael Parks, you
know, I could find, hardly believe thatI was actually in the same race that
they were in, you know, where they'dactually talk to me or say something.
You know, Graham Hill usuallyhad somebody horrible to say.
But other than that, everybodyelse was fairly nice.
So
let's talk a little bitmore about Jack Sears.
(25:05):
He owned the car for how long?
William?
Uh, he had it for a long time.
30 years.
What does he own?
The one car he owned that GTO for along time, you know, after it kind
of, I guess you'd say retired fromprofessional racing, you know, he took
it a lot of club racing and stuff.
But Jack owned that car for a long time.
Oh yeah.
After John Coombs had it.
Jack's his, seems to have had itall the way through the 1970s.
(25:27):
Oh, did he?
There's quite a lot of photographs ofJack Sears with the car painted red.
With it being around, uh, events.
I was sort of.
Surprise, the number plate is EUP.
And I've realized that it appeared ina number of books that I'd looked at
and I think I may have even seen it.
Uh, shows, believe it or not,I'm not really a huge car man.
(25:47):
I really only race'cause I like the racing.
I'm very poor on cars.
You asked me what model that is.
I mean, I'd say I don't knowI'm gonna, but I mean, Jack
Sears was a gentleman farmer.
He had a pretty big farm outin East Anglia, didn't he?
Hell of a driver and a, anda absolutely terrific guy.
I mean, he was such a g hewas a real GI liked Jack a lot
(26:08):
and he was very, very fast.
But yeah, I, I didn't realize, I didn'trealize he owned that car, but I see
it's gonna be an auction down here inFlorida and then Yeah, in January at comb.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, going back in, obviouslytrying to make the jag make it turn into
lightweight to compete with the fraud,besides trying to improve the motor, get
more horsepower and making it lighter.
(26:28):
Do you know what else they attemptedto do or did on that Jag to try and get
it more competitive with that Ferrari?
Not really.
I was doing on my own thing, soI, I don't really know, but I
mean I drove that XJ 13, whichwas gonna be their next big thing.
That's awesome.
By that time, Jaar was somewhatconstrained by the fact they've now
become part of British Leland, andof course the guy that ran British
(26:51):
Leland, was it the Donald Stokes period?
Yeah.
Stokes exactly.
S he put the kibosh on the, uh, XJ 13.
He just said, forget it, put it away.
Because Richard Atwood and I, I, Idrove it four or five times at Myra.
Mike Kimberley was the engineer incharge, and Malcolm Sayer, the, you
know, the renowned body work guy fromJag was there, and Sir William was there.
(27:14):
Lofty was there, obviously.
And a couple of mechanics and we ranit on Sunday morning at six o'clock
in the morning in sort of in secret.
Ultimately it was exposed.
We went to a test day at Silverstoneand Richard Atwin and I drove it.
It was Richard's first time in itto give them a, a workless, you
know, of what needed to be done.
'cause we were running five or sixseconds off things like GT forties.
(27:38):
And the reason that Lofty wanted meto test the car and not Norman Jewish,
who was the Jaguar test driver.
Because by that time I had drivenGT forties, lower T seventies and
other big engine powerful stuff.
So he asked me to drive it.
Norman Dures never quite got over it.
He was pissed off to the end ofhis life that I'd driven the car.
What was the potentialyou feel for that car?
(28:01):
I mean, do you feel with enough work onit, you know, engineering, that that could
have been competitive with the GT forties?
Well, the best thing about it bya country mile was its engine.
It had the twin overhead camversion of the V 12, which back
in 1967 was giving 570 horsepower.
I mean, it was an incredible engine.
In 1967, the car was very ancient.
(28:25):
It had the E type type of suspension wherethe drive shaft is like your bottom link.
It had rubber bushings everywhere.
It had Dunlop disc brakes, and Dunlophadn't made disc brakes for years.
It had like seven inch rims on the backand five inch rims on the front, where
now we replicate GT forces, which had got11 or 12 inch rims on the back and it had
(28:45):
an all done up our five race tires on it.
So it was very difficult to get areally good feel of how good it was.
And of course, that Malcolm Sayer,that swoopy looking body was so
fantastic at Lamar back in the fiftieswhen you know you were looking for
air, that you were looking for speed.
Relatively low horsepower, but youknow, the days of downforce had
started to appear, the lower T 70dad flaps on the front and they
(29:09):
had a, a, uh, spoiler at the back.
Just didn't have any of that.
This was very slippery, butprobably had horrible lift at
speed, front end, lift at speed.
I think the car needed a lot.
Richard and I gave them a, a good worklist, which would've helped obviously
decent sized wheels and tires, butmade a. You've only gotta look at
the difference in Formula One betweenthe soft tire and the medium tire for
(29:30):
qualifying to see the difference betweena 1960s Dunlop R five Treaded Tire,
which is like maybe six inches wide anda tire that's got a slick no, no tread
or very, very, those very early slicks.
A bit of tread, a little tinytread about 12 inches inches wide.
I mean, just right there.
You, you are looking atfour or five seconds.
(29:52):
Yeah.
And then of course, would the car havestood that sort of the chassis when
the chassis started to flex badly?
Um, when you're starting to put the loadsand those tires could generate through it.
If you added some sortof spoiler or wing to it.
So I don't know.
But the engine would've certainlybeen right on the top of the tree.
'cause the GT fortune when I was drivingthe GT 40 for golf in 1968, I mean,
(30:14):
they were giving about 385 horsepower.
With the what?
With the heads?
The um, Westlake?
Yeah.
With those heads.
They were giving about 385 horsepower.
Out of all the cars that youhad the privilege of racing and
driving, what was your favorite car?
Well, I drove so many, it's hardto tell, but I think the GT 40
was a very special car in its day.
(30:36):
I mean, it was great long distance car.
The engine, by the time I got roundto drive 68, were pretty reliable.
Had that beautiful ZFgearbox, which was terrific.
It, uh, was reasonably slippery.
It had very little down force, and it wasreally easy to drive and easy to set up.
Small adjustments of roll barsand bit of ride height and maybe a
(30:56):
camba, little bit of camba changewould make a big difference.
Didn't get too hot inside, whichwas great for long distance racing.
Had good visibility and it had no vices.
It didn't have any severe pushon certain corners or snap over
steer or anything like that, soit, it was a good car to drive.
The 9 62, you know, 10 years later wasanother incredible long distance car.
(31:18):
I mean, amazing, reliable as hell.
You run a whole thousand kilometerrace, then you go to the next thousand
kilometer race and run all the practicesessions and on that same engine, then
you might put a fresh engine for the race.
You might not.
So that was a hell of a car.
Single seaters.
Probably one of the best cars I everdrove was M 16 at, uh, Indy in 1974.
(31:39):
The McLaren, that was a hell of a car,but in some ways the very best car I ever
drove was the last McLaren Canam, the M20, which had been Peter Re's car in 1972.
Then McLaren pulled out becauseof the Porsche on saw and I drove
that car in Carly Black labelcolors for uh, Roy Woods in 1973.
(32:02):
And that was a hell of a, I can seewhy McLaren had won the championship
for like five years, six years ina row 'cause it was just slightest
touch to a flat change or ride height.
Major magic difference.
Had incredible traction.
One of our best races probablyever was in the, uh, cannon
race at Watkins Land in 1973.
I came second to Mark Donahue in the 917 30 against which we had absolutely
(32:28):
no hope 'cause it had about three, atleast 300 awards about, and we did.
And I beat all the other nine seventeens.
The, with Brian Redmond and JodyShechter, George Farmer, and a bunch
of other, no name has been, neverwas drivers, you know, like that.
People like Shechter know, obviously.
No good at all.
To me, that was one of my best ever races.
(32:48):
Uh, came second to, uh, Dar so to goback to drivers for a second, one of
the other folks that drove the whiteFerrari that we've been talking about.
Oh, we're talking about a white Ferrari.
Are we, we were, we were, yeah.
Carry on.
So Roy Salvadori, did you haveany interactions with him?
Can you tell us anything about him?
His personality, his driving?
Well, Roy was another driver who, whoI couldn't believe I was racing against
(33:11):
'cause there'd been a name for my youth.
But of course Roy wasreally all those guys.
The only guy that really, really, really,really, really, really meant it was Stern.
All the others, I mean, Graham,Graham, Hilde, but Sterling
was the ultimate professional.
I mean, he was the firstreal professional driver.
I mean, he worked out,he didn't drink much.
He didn't have sex the night beforethe race, an more that was supposed
(33:33):
to do, but he thought he was sosterling was, was the man and,
uh, he was the man really to beat.
He, he was the guy that sortof would accept standard.
The Roy Sam was obviously incredibly good.
Winning Lamont with,uh, Carol Shelby, 1959.
I mean, I knew Roy.
I didn't know any of 'em very well, buthe was always a bit of a hero of mine.
(33:55):
It was very quick.
So speaking of heroes, and I know this isa soft spot for John Summers, John being
a expert in the history of Mike Hawthorne,was Hawthorne an inspiration for you?
Was he a hero?
Did he inspire you to go into racing?
Well, unfortunately he didn'tbecause he was up against Sterling.
Although he handed toSterling, he gave Hawthorne.
(34:16):
His championship.
It hadn't been for Sterling.
Mos Hawthorne would never have wonthat championship because Hawthorne
spun in the Portuguese Grand Prix,which was in downtown Lisbon.
And to rejoin the track, he droveagainst the traffic and he was
disqualified and sterling ever.
The gent went to the stewards afterwards.
(34:37):
Of course, unlike the stewards today.
They listened to driver input.
Sterling said, I saychaps, that's a bit unkind.
You know, I mean, the chap had togo back 'cause he had spun the car.
So he, he had to, to rejoin the race.
He, he had to go against the traffic,you know, but not for long and
didn't hurt anybody without the way,so they reinstated Hawthorne who
(34:58):
won the championship by one point.
If you don't be for Sterling,you would never won it.
Sterling would've won it.
He's won and only championship.
But I liked Hawthorne andloved England, loved him.
He thought he was the best sixto sliced bread because he was.
That English gen always wore his bowstie always down the pub having a drink.
But I recognized even then thatSterling just had that extra something.
(35:20):
Mike didn't, I mean, not to saythat Mike wasn't a hell of a driver.
I mean, he was an incredibledriver, but to me, Sterling was,
I mean, I was only like 14 or 15.
So Albert Sterling tome was the bee's needs.
David, you've said a, a couple of thingsabout Lofty, sort of taking a personal
shine to you and you just applied there.
(35:40):
He sort of took a personalshine to Mike Hawthorn.
I mean, I always felt likeMike Hawthorn was quite a good.
Advertisement for Jaguar cars.
He was.
Do you think Lofty England was thinkinglike that or literally do you think it
was looking back on your relationshipwith Lofty England, do you think he
was just like, this is he's one of us.
I just like the guy personally.
I can work with him personally.
(36:01):
Do you think that's what it was, or?
I think he just had alot of respect for Mike.
I do know he was a great fan of Mike,but I'm not quite sure about their
relationship other than I don't knowhow well he knew him In my case.
The only reason he liked me was.
I lived in a place called AmericanHouse, which is halfway between
Leviton and Coventry, and I wouldcome out the drive on my motorbike,
(36:24):
going to work as an apprentice.
A lofty would go swooping by anE type, so I would race him to
work going to, uh, Brown's Lane.
The only thing is when I got there,lofty would be standing arms at
Kimba and he'd look at his watch.
Ho, I'm supposed to behere at nine o'clock.
You are supposed to be here at eight.
(36:45):
But then when I drove the Jag, mydad's Jag, having rolled it at the
first race, I had it repaired by oneof the guys in the body shop at Jag.
He repaired it at his house indorm tree in the garden shed
at the bottom of his garden.
And he knocked out.
We had to get a new hood 'cause thehood had opened on the way home.
And uh, I was with my girlfriend Margaret,who's in the other room now painting.
(37:08):
So I repaired it.
Unfortunately, when Joe went tospray repainted, it was duck in blue.
By the time he got home from work,it was like a May evening, so it
was about seven o'clock by thetime he got around to spraying it.
So it was a typical English May evening.
The humidity was high,so the car came out.
It was a mat car, Matt finish, whichtoday of course is very groovy.
(37:28):
But this was a rough mat.
This wasn't as smooth, Matt.
This was, this was, and thehood was a real makeshift job.
Knocked up the hood out ofsort of canvas or something.
So he always looked terrible, but as Isay, he was often the clerk of the course.
He had saw me at one race, racefor DB four and we swapped leads
pass, pass, REPA pass, rep pass,and eventually I won the race.
(37:50):
He was probably a 10 and aon the club circle at Silver,
the club circle as it was.
Lofty.
He thought I'd done a good job.
He said, what I like about you Holmes,is you, you race, you race well.
You race like you mean it.
And he said, I like that.
That's very commendable.
And from then on he,he followed my career.
So, uh, he became a bit of a fan.
So that's how uh, you lofty.
What was your bike?
(38:11):
So I can pick to you racing him to work.
When I was 16, my parentsbought me a lamb better.
Scooter, me and Margaret used todrive around flat out on his scooter.
I go about 55 mile an hour.
So I swapped in the board ofT Triumph speed twin, which
was before the swinging arm.
He'd only had a sprung hub, whichhad suspension without that much,
(38:31):
you know, bug roll suspension.
And uh, we used to drive around acouple of lunatics on that bike.
I love that bike.
It was driven so smooth, silkysmooth, silky smooth by the
horizontal twin engine was terrific.
American police used to have thosetriumph speed twins and the triumph
tiger one hundreds in those days.
So, uh, that's what I like to ride.
(38:51):
I wouldn't wanna write it now, but,
well gentlemen, I think that'sbeen an interesting look back into
early 1960s British motorsport.
I appreciate David joining us yet againto come on the show and talk to us.
I think we got what we need, right?
I think so.
Uh, nice to meet you.
That's fantastic.
Thank you very much, David.
(39:12):
Thank you for your time.
Thanks David.
I'm sure we'll meet again.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, David.
Alright, thank you Eric.
We hope you enjoyed another awesomeepisode of Break Fix Podcasts, brought
to you by Grand Tour Motorsports.
If you'd like to be a guest onthe show or get involved, be sure
(39:34):
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And if you'd like to learn moreabout the content of this episode,
be sure to check out the followon article@gtmotorsports.org.
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(39:54):
families, and friends through Patreon.
For as little as $2 and 50 cents a month,you can get access to more behind the
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(40:19):
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