OK So lets get into some of this, I will post whenever I get the chance but things are a bit busy at the moment so please bear with me. Also please try not to get too wound up on the more controversial stuff, as I write it the way I see it, fully understanding that there are always different views on things, so happy for any input if you think I’ve got anything wrong . I say this because most of what I read in the mags and stuff is so peripheral that it must be aimed at a specific audience or to keep people focused for only short periods……
Lets look at the years 1964 and 1965 and as a car nut in my teens, I remember the simple fact that as far as fast saloon cars went, there were two makes that were the icons of quick road cars, Alfas and Jaguars. Aside from those, the rest were pretenders to the throne. In fact the first Jag E Type I ever saw was outside the King ‘bioscope’ in 1963, a bright red beauty…this my first close-up of a 150mph sports car.. and… it had three ‘wipers nogal…as they say today…awesome!
Both these brands had the recipe of the day…. Twin Cams…. and the hotter versions had …’Sidedraughts’ ….proper Weber ones not the SU’s.
What could be better, as even as a youngster I was immersed in the tech stuff…. what, with hemi cross flow heads and fancy rear suspensions, just how was anybody else going to come along and upset the applecart….yeh right!!
Mini’s were around and creating their own sort of ‘buzz’ but I never took to the things seriously and that is probably wrong but I just saw them as matchboxes with an engine designed by Robert Louis Stevenson being worked on by 100’s of smart people getting them to go… and not mash the scenery with hot metal bits in the process.
So, when Basil did his little trick with the Cortina GT in1963, nailing the Jags and Alfas….. Everybody…. and I mean, everybody involved in any way with quick cars…. sat up and took notice. This was no Twin Cam, nor Cross Flow, nor De Dion rear end but a pushrod Ford for heaven’s sake, running leaf springs and that newfangled cheap and nasty strut type front suspension!! Weren’t Ford supposed to make slow family cars??…. remember that the 997cc Anglia of the day could accelerate (not sure if that’s the right word) to 60mph in around 23 or 24 seconds???
The mindshift created by this happening was enormous but.. what was coming in 1964 was to really shake the tree, big time
……..when the two Lotus Cortinas hit the local tracks that year, lap records were simply obliterated. From the point of just cracking 2 mins at Kyalami the previous year, these cars were soon down to 1:55’s…… now these Cortinas did have Twin Cams (in fact three), Hemi Cross flow heads, rear coils and an A frame holding the rear axle in place (sort of!!). An additional master stroke was Ford grabbing the two top local tuners to go head to head, this very simple decision was to prove to be the flash of brilliance providing race fans with on track drama between BVR and Willie/Koos for the next few years and…..it did wonders for Ford’s PR. Think about it, Ford arrived on the scene from nowhere and simply turned everything upside down……I remember well the Alfa guys being very quiet indeed.
Nothing came close.
In 1965 there returned to SA one Bob Olthoff, carrying with him two Cobras and the Monstrous Ford Galaxie. Everywhere else in the saloon car racing world, the Galaxies had just about shot their bolt by that time, with the Lotus Cortinas touching 160bhp, plus Fords magical homologation papers reducing their racing weight from 800 to 760Kg…. the things were Faasst…but not fast enough in SA, Bobs Galaxie did the business and kept the Cortinas at bay. Some say that the two long-straight tracks of Kyalami and EL helped him to the ’65 title, maybe so, but he still gave a good account of himself on the shorter tracks.
A bit about the Galaxie. To some, this was just a huge, heavy tank and just who in his right mind would take a FuuuLLL size sedan to go track racing – madness.
The story, however, goes back to 1962 where the Fords, strangely enough, were getting a pasting at both Nascar and Drag racing from the Chev Impalas and Super Duty Pontiacs (the GM racing police were out fishing in those days) It was the early years of Ford’s “Total performance” programme and the Ford Special vehicle operation were requested to do the business on the Galaxie Coupe. Now what many people don’t know is that Ford eventually built a good number of 500 Coupes with Fibreglass body panels, aluminium bumpers, had the interiors gutted and incredibly, got the cars down to a Homologated (that word again) racing weight of 1380Kg yes….that’s only 280Kgs heavier than a Can Am. Compare that to a modern Lumina V8 at 1800Kg and you realize that the Galaxies may have been big and clumsy looking but not necessarily that heavy. Add one 427 Dual four barrel mill and the cars were ready to rumble. Problem was that they were still not nailing the Chevs and Pontiacs in Domestic leagues so the cars were put to use on racetracks outside of the USA instead. Homologation docs had to be redone and Holman Moody prepared the cars and supplied Disc Brakes, something very foreign to Qmilers and Nascar. 1963 saw the Galaxies competing in Europe, UK and Australasia and a few races in SA. Prior to the Lotus Cortinas of 1964, the Galaxies kind of took on the Jags and did a bit of ass kicking there. There is much conjecture as to what weights the cars actually ran at but it is safe to say that the Europen (Le mans homologated) cars ran at around 1500 to 1600Kg …..surprisingly, almost the same weights as the Jags.
The Works Galaxie competition parts list was spectacular for its time, listing all manner of bits from the lightweight fiberglass body parts (amazingly including doors), close ratio transmission, LSDiffs, special alloy components, super light radiators etc etc….. Lets face it, as much as I am not a Ford man, they did do a better job of this sort of thing than anybody else and as a result reaped the benefits.
At this point It is probably worth noting, on my favourite subject of Homologation, that the motor Co’s could basically do anything they wanted to. Specs were adjusted left right and centre…..but…..one good thing providing some sort of sanity was that all homologated parts had to be made available to the public. So that is why the proliferation of certain makes on race tracks became so apparent, those companies that were keen, made the parts available, those not involved ensured their cars remained in the car parks.
We know of course that Bob Olthoff was a gifted tuner, preparer and driver and I have no doubt that his Galaxie in 1965 was fitted with the best bits he could lay his hands on and along with his talent, probably resulted in the fastest specimen of its type in the world. It must have been close to that to beat the two local Lotus Cortinas to the SA title (about the only place in the world that that happened that year). His quickest lap at Kyalami saw the times around the 1:52 mark by end 1965. That’s eight seconds in two years…….
The real story of those two years, apart from all the mechanical stuff, was a very simple lesson in physics….. cars with good power to weight ratios were fast…. you may think that that is common sense…. but not many did it well…. and certainly none did it better than Colin Chapman… A Lotus Cortina at 751Kg (the lowest approved weight the cars ran at) was going to thrash an Alfa Guilia at nearly 200kg’s heavier than that, despite its fancy 5speed gearbox….simple. Alfa were forced to start work on the GTA along with a serious calorie count in quick time…..the following round was going to be Escort vs Alfa GTA…a lovely scrap.
Next up, though, the Mustangs…and my favourites the Gordinis. For me, smart engineering from the factory beats the alternative of average engineering + heaps of special parts to do the job. Whilst both ended up doing the businees on race day, the Gordinis were just clean… and in my opinion the least “trick” of the cars running in those years, beautifully engineered, the regulations seemed to be built around them.
More next time & we’ll keep the Minis to the end cos that is a story that defies logic………?