Brabham BT40

[Bryan Miller]

Macau.

All references Philip Newsome from his book Colour and Noise.Except ch.no. notes.

18-11-1973.
A. Poon Brabham F2. ??????????????
McDonald in a BT40 , BT36 to ?????????????

1-12-1974.
Poon and McDonald both now in BT40's.

16-11-1975.

Misaki now in BT 40.

20-11-1977.
J. Ho in a Brabham. ?????

No more entities further.

Bryan.

[Chris Townsend]

Here is the list I have of BT40s in Canadian and SCCA races 1973 - 76. This is very incomplete for SCCA and 73-74 in Canada


1973

Alan Lader BT40
Craig Hill BT40 retained 1974
Mike Hall BT40 [Opert]
Ted Titmus BT40-33

South East Asia 1973
John Macdonald BT40 chassis no 35
Albert Poon BT40 kept for years and later raced by his wife
Brian Robertson BT40 [Opert]
also uses BT38 'ex Jaussaud' [Opert] this car also raced by de Adamich for Opert at Caracas, Venezuala


1974
Canada
Alan Karlberg Probably a BT40
Bill Eagles BT40
Craig Hill BT40
Peter Ferguson BT40 at Edmonton [as Ferguson races a Chevron B20 at Westwood and later in the season at Mosport and Halifax I'm guessing that this car is badly damaged at Gimli, the race after Edmonton for which I have no report, or else it was a hire car]

SCCA
Norm Johnson BT40
Dan Carmichael BT40
Mike Hall BT40

1975
Canada
Ron Householder BT40 ex Alan Lader

SCCA
Mike Rand BT40
Ken Duclos BT40-17
John Elder BT40

1976
Howard Kelly BT40 ex Craig Hill


Anybody able to fit any of those into a pattern or offer connections?!!

Chris

[David McKinney]

Some comments on Chris's impressive list:

Plus Robertson in a BT40 in Canada 1973 - the car he raced for Opert in Asia?
Jaussaud also drove an Opert BT40 in 1973, I think Roos’s regular mount

[Chris Townsend]

Agree Jaussaud in an Opert BT40 in 1973 but described as a new car built for the race at Trois Rivieres

Robertson's BT40 is Opert

Chris

[Chris Townsend]

Some more digging in Canadian race results for 1973 gives us the following updates on Brabhams

BT40s
Lader
Hill [both already mentioned in this thread I tink]
plus
Bill Eagles
Gilles Leger


At Sanair R3 we have the appearance of Hugh Cree in an unspecified Brabham, Peter Overing in a BT38 [not the Powell car] and Lader races the Eagles BT40 after stuffing his own in practice

At Debert, R5, Roos races an Opert BT35, but at Mosport R7, he has a new BT40

Chris

[allenbrown]

I've been working through this thread identifying Sprint BT40s.

The one I can't identify is:

Brabham-Hart BDA BT40 (1.6) - John Hart

Thanks

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

My researches into Canadian and USA FB/Atlantic races have led me to the vexed question of Brabham BT40s. There are a lot of gaps which I'm hoping someone can fill. There seem to have been at least 35 built, but I can only account for about 20, with all of 12 tied to a chassis number. This seems to be the worst documented of all Brabhams.

This is what I have:

Chassis no
12 Works F2 car for Watson; 1974 rented by works to Bautrone for Estoril F2 race; then 1976 John Hart for H/C until 1979; then to Barrie Duntall to 1981 then Alan Cook for H/C 1982

14 John Wingfield, then 1974-5 loaned by Wingfield to Chequered Flag for Ray Mallock; end 75 used by Len Booysen in British Atlantic and taken home to S.Africa by him - but no sign of him racing it there.

15 Unknown in period, for sale at a Coys auction in 2000

17 Ken Duclos 1973 - 75 [at least] Recently for sale on race-cars.com

18 Chuck Dietrich 1973 at least, now being restored by Westerburg Collection

19 Vittorio Venturi [F2] then Shangry La 1974.

21 Graham Eden, mainly for Cyd Williams until 1975, then David Winstanley 1976 -77. Williams had a big accident in a BT40 before this number is noted on his chassis, so there may have been an earlier BT40 written off in that accident

27 Unknown in period, now in Matthews Collection

30 unknown in period. 2003 owned by Mike Fazzi with an SCCA log book from 1980 with only school activity and a few vintage races

33 Ted Titmus [USA] to 1974 at least. Recently for sale on race-cars.com

35 John MacDonald [HK] to 1976, then to Pocholo Ramirez, 1988 to Jason Ho, 1992 to present owner Neville Mackay

36 Works F2 car for de Adamich; 1974 - 77 Tom O'Leary, then unknown until 1981 Chris Charlett in W. Indies, recently sold on race-cars.com

Here are the unknown cars

Opert
The Robertson car. Debuted at Singapore GP by Brian Robertson in April 73 and trashed. Rebuilt and used as hire car by Opert team in 1974 Canadian series.

The Hall car. Used by Mike Hall in pro series in 1973 and mainly SCCA 1974

The Roos car. New for Bertil Roos in Canadian series, August 1973

The Jaussaud car. New for Jean-Pierre at Trois Rivieres Sept 1973

Others
The Reeves car. Intended Ed Reeves for Dave Morgan to run 1973 F2 series. Crashed badly in testing and never raced. Sold to someone in Kent in 1976 but again never raced.

The Poon car. Albert Poon 1973, still being used by Mrs Poon in S.Asian races in 1977

The Lader car. New for Alan Lader 1973 [maybe run by Opert]. Ron Householder in Canada 1974-75

The Hill car. New for Craig Hill, 1973. Kept 74, appears with Howard Kelly in Canada 1976

The Leger car. New for Gilles Leger Canadian series 1973

The Eagles car. New for Bill Eagles, 1973 US/Canada, retained 74.

Where on earth did the rest go? Were they all in SCCA races?

Chris

[Pete Brennan]

Chris,BT40-30 was delivered new to the USA with BDA to Olie(Bill)Meyers in 73,he then sold car to his 2 Mechanics,Victor Tostado and Mark Munroe,Mark was the driver and unfortunatly was killed in a sprintcar in late 70's,car was sold to a Richard Christ,then John Whitton .Mike Fazzi sold the car recently.There are 2 other cars in Oz,Bryan Miller could give you the info on these,i believe they are both owned by Nev Mckay.

[Bryan Miller]

Chris,

BT40-12 , as you state John Watson , thence Wilson Fittipaldi for works .
John Hart for hillclimbs 1976 .
Barrie Dutnall , eng changed to Rover V8 for hillclimbs,1978/9.
Simon Law , hillclimbs , retired into storage after eng. blew up and retained untill 2000.
To Steve Worrand as restoration project. Not started.
2002 to Peter Boel of Brisbane Australia , and under restoration at the moment, with all correct components sourced , resides in Wynnum West , Queensland.

As Pete Brennan advised Nev. McKay has 2 x BT40s , one is BT40-35 and resides at Mona Vale in Australia , Nev also owns a second car which I am sure is the Albert Poon car , however this is still in S.E.Asia.
I will try to find out the chassis number.

Bryan. P.S. you gave up on the BT21's quickly.

[bobdar]

Chris: There was a car in the Colorado area that may be the Bertil Roos
BT-40 It was owned and raced by Cam Macarthur (sp?), then sold to Terry Allard, then sold to Bill Swope in Albuquerque. I emailed Bill to get the chassis number, haven't received any reply, will keep trying. When Macarthur had the car for sale, he had an album of photos of the car's history, including some of Roos. Also had heard that the Fazzi car, #30, was sold and shipped to Australia.

[allenbrown]

A minor snippet: BT40-17 for sale in VM Sep/Oct 1992 p94 by Peter Gates as ex-Duclos. It was said to be totally restored with a new tub.

Allen

[Richard Young]

Chris,
I have a feeling the Len Booysen car is in Ireland. I remember him racing it at Kirkistown in period, and something that looked very like it (black/white livery from memory) was part of Tommy Reids collection the last time I was there.
Richard

[jkeller]

Ron Householder still has his BT40, (at least he has A BT40, I have a picture of it that was taken about a month ago).
A friend of mine is going to see him next week, I'll have him look at the car and see what chassis number it is.

Jim

[troubadour]

Chris, I just stumbled onto this site and have some information you may find interesting. In early 1975 I bought the Bertil Roos car from Fred Opert as a roller then bought a Hart motor from him later that spring. Before I bought it Bob Kime raced it as a Formula C with an 1100cc BDA. He was northeast division champ in '74 and finished second in the runoffs that year. I raced it in CENDIV nationals and regionals as an Atlantic through the '79 season. I sold the car to Cam in the spring of '90. All of the paperwork went with the car but if memory serves the chassis was #11. I remember giving Cam a picture of the car from the winners circle of a pro Formula B race at Watkins Glen in August of '72 with Bertil Roos, Fred Opert and Miss Columbo Yogurt. Hope this fills in some of the gaps. Gary Wallace

[EliSolomon]

As far I am aware, the ex-Albert Poon car was trashed in Malaysia and has had its tub rebuilt by Neville Mackay (he's got the Macdonald Macau winning car). The Poon car is in pieces in Macau.

[allenbrown]

Thanks Gary and Eli. More gaps filled!

[Dan Rear]

At the Donington 78 Irish F there was an Irish BT40 entered, can't recall the driver now tho'. Finally, at this time, ie Spring 78, Paul Hutson was doing some Libre races in a BT40, quite a smart red one as I recall. Any thoughts on the latter?

[Chris Townsend]

The Irish driver in a BT40 at Donington in 1978 was John Ledlie

Chris

[Doug Hart]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Chassis no
12 Works F2 car for Watson; 1974 rented by works to Bautrone for Estoril F2 race; then 1976 John Hart for H/C until 1979; then to Barrie Duntall to 1981 then Alan Cook for H/C 1982

Chris, my father John, never actually had a BT40 .. What we had was a real secondhand BT38 that was seriously smashed by my brother Greg at Shelsey and rebuilt using a BT40 Tub .. No idea if teh tub had a chassis number and my father cannot remember either.. nobody cared then !!

I am sure that he got two BT40 tubs in one go and sold some on .. I remember going to brabhams and meeting bernie to buy some nice cotton reel rear wheels but not sure if brabham themselves were the tub suppliers.... any help ?

[allenbrown]

This post is to mark the point at which much of the material in this thread was split out from the giant Brabham BT28-29-30-35-36 thread and merged with a pre-existing BT40 thread. Much gratitude to John Turner.

Allen

[allenbrown]

I've had an idea!

Chris - you've identified about 20 BT40s in period so having chassis numbers as high as 36 doesn't make sense. But what if MRD didn't start from 1. Maybe they started from 11? Note that the BT38s appear to jump from BT38/1 to BT38/11. Note also that the one and only BT43 is often referred to as BT43/11, something I've never understood until now. Note that other manufacturers missed out numbers apparantly to give the impression of higher production figures.

Maybe the reason you can't find BT40-1 to BT40-10 is because they weren't built.

I looked in the Brabham+Ralt+Honda book at it says 28 BT40s were built, nine for F2 and 19 for FB. If my theory is right, you should be looking for chassis numbers 11, 12 and 14 through 39. That seems to square much better with what you have got so far.

Allen

[allenbrown]

Extra thought. I wondered for a moment why this practice would suddenly start with the BT38 but of course that was the first Geoff Ferris design and the first customer monocoque so numbering practice may have changed too.

Also, the BT38 was late, so delivering chassis 11 and 12 early in the season may have been a ploy to regain customer confidence.

Allen

[Andrew Fellowes]

Thruxton, April 23rd 1973

Heat One
51 Motor Racing Developments, Carlos Reutemann, Brabham BT40/33 (dna)
53 Marshall Wingfield Ltd, John Wingfield, Brabham BT40 BDA (dnf)

Heat Two
50 Motor Racing Developments, Wilson Fittapaldi, Brabham BT40/12 (dnf)
52 Motor Racing Develpoments, John Watson, Brabham BT40/15 (dna)

Official Programme/F2R

[allenbrown]

Thought you might like this shot I picked up from Ted labelled as Cyd Williams' Brabham BT40 at Silverstone F/Atl July 1975. Doesn't look a lot like a BT40 to me...

[Pete Brennan]

Hi Allen,
I do think it is a BT40,it has had a March body kit fitted.Roll hoop,oil filter mount ,wheels,fuel cell inspection cover in tub give it away.Mine looks the same.I will try to post a pic.
Cheers
Pete