Cicale Can-Am cars

[allenbrown]

Tony Cicale built a sports car body for a Ralt RT1 to use in the Single-Seat Can-Am in 1978 and this led to a series of Ralt-based cars.

He modified or refined his car in 1979 and then built a second - or maybe two new ones - in 1980 for himself and Trueman. Later, these bodies appeared on a number of cars and they can't all be explained by those two or three Ralt RT1-based cars.

One, known as the Marquey, appeared in 1980 and was said to have been based on a March chassis, possibly a 80A. But photographs of the car on the 'Racing Sports Cars' web site show apparantly identical bodywork to the 1978/79 Ralt-based cars.

Could a March 80A really fit under a body designed for a Ralt RT1? How similar were the cars' dimensions?

Thanks

Allen

[Nordic]

Marquey

My french is not great, but this site claims the car was based on a Chevron.
To my eye the car looks the same as the Cicale in the pictures for 1980

BTW some of those can-am looked mighty strange, the sort on a mother could love

[allenbrown]

Hi Nordic

This page says that Roos has a Chevron B27 in 1979 and then returned in 1982 with the Marquey CA82, which it calls a March Formula Atlantic with a 2-litre Hart and a Cicale-style body. It also says Guider had used the same car the previous two years.

This is my understanding of the car but I also saw it referred to once as a March 80A.

And that's largely the reason for my question. Would a body designed for a Ralt RT1 really fit on top of a March 80A?

Allen

[allenbrown]

I've "borrowed" a few pictures from Racing Sports Cars (I know the owner and am confident he won't mind given what we're trying to do). You can click on these to get to the full-size image on his site.

Here is Tony Cicale in 1978 in his Ralt RT1:



and here he is in 1979 in the "Ralt RT1 1/2":



In 1980, he was in the two-car Red Roof Inns team with Jim Trueman. Here is Cicale's "Cicale-Hart" car at Mosport:



and at Mid-Ohio:



and here is Trueman's at Mid-Ohio:



Then Tim Evans drives one of these cars, said to be the "Ralt RT1 1/2" (implying Cicale's 1979 car) in 1981:



Meanwhile, here's the Marquey at Road America in 1980:



and at Mid-Ohio in 1981:



and at Mosport in 1982:



A second "Marquey" appears in 1982 but it looks like a Ralt RT2 to me:



All those Cicale bodies look pretty much the same to me. Am I missing something?

Allen

[allenbrown]

Adam Ferrington has been able to supply chassis numbers from Ralt production records:

Originally posted by Adam Ferrington
Allen,

Cicale bought two Ralt RT1s :-

RT1-94 delivered in Jan. 1978
RT1-149 delivered in about Feb 1979

Does this fit?

ADAM

From this we can be confident that the 1978 Cicale car was RT1-94 and the 1979 "Ralt RT1½" was RT1-149. This latter car seems to have gone to Evans for 1981 so one does wonder exactly what cars Cicale was using in 1980. Did he built two fresh cars? Did he update the 1978 and 1979 cars? If the latter, why would Evans still refer to his car by a 1979 name?

I've asked Adam if he can find any other RT1s going to Cicale or Truman for 1980.

Allen

[Adam Ferrington]

Allen,

No other RT1s to Cicale or Truman.....plenty to Robertson but only for F Atlantic or F Super Vee.

There is only the "Can-Am" RT2 (172) (see my e-mail) sent to Robertson in June 1980.

ADAM

[allenbrown]

Adam

That's very helpful as it implies that 94 and 149 were the basis of the 1980 cars too. It's hard to imagine Cicale buying second-hand RT1s to replace his 1978 and 1979 cars.

So if 94 and 149 were the 1980 cars, it further implies that Evans' 1981 car was indeed the 1979 Ralt RT1½ (i.e. RT1-149) and the car that Truman had in 1980 (and retained until early 1982 thus apparantly ruling it out as the Evans car) was Cicale's 1978 RT1-94 upgraded to 1980 spec.

But all implication only. Not sure where I locate the proof.

And I still don't know what was in the Marquey.

Allen

PS RT2-172 was the Bill Blackledge car. Gove's earlier RT2 "167" was one of the ex-Toleman cars.

[Dan Rear]

Allen/Adam

Moving this a little closer to home, any ideas on the Interserie F2/3000 cars used in early 90s ?

1990 Brands race, Roland Binder has a Ralt BMW, Rolf Gotz a March BMW, plus a couple of Maurers. I guess these were ex-works/Schafer cars. Josef Binder has a Lola Horag CanAm.

In 1991, a couple of other Marches, plus the BAT Chevy, what was that based on I wonder ? 1992 2 F3000 Reyanrd based cars, plus Lechners' Horag Lola, and 2 HSBs, whatever they were.

Some very interseting cars, a good mix of 'proper' sportscars + converted single seaters, though as a whole, not often especially fast. Any clues on the single seaters past histories anyone ??

[Jeremy Jackson]

Binder drove RT2-181. The Goetz car was an 832, anf Binder's was a T86/50, which he raced 90-92.

ISTR the BAT had some Lola bits underneath it, but of what type/vintage, I don't know.

Few other bits: Hasenbichler drove 812-8 for a while in Interserie, and Alfred Guldi drove the ex Eric Lang/Altfrid Heger 85B-12 from 95 onwards, and was still using it last year

[allenbrown]

When did Binder have RT2-181? I thought 181 was the Genoa Racing RT2 that went off to US Can-Am in 1982.

Could it have been ex-Can-Am when Binder had it?

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Gents, remind me on RT2s please, that thread seems like a long time ago now !! Weren't there 4 F2s made, 3 to Tolemans, 1 to Schaffer, plus -172, the Blackledge CanAm car. So where does -181 come in ? I thought the Genoa/Flammini car was one of the ex-Toleman 79 cars???

[Jeremy Jackson]

Allen,

I have RT2-181 as being used by Peter Hardt in 1984-88, then to Binder -> Heinz Steiner (1990) and Rolf Goetz (1991). I'll have to look at the old RT2 thread, but I thought the Genoa car was 168 (ex Toleman re-numbered?)- can't remember what was said off-hand. I'm frantically trying to find my source for this...

[Jeremy Jackson]

In the RT2 thread (Page 3), Derek wrote

"181 - built with, or for, BMW engine in early 1980 for Cassani (Dougal), to Schafer (Winkelhock etc) for 1981 and one race in 1982, then various drivers (Hardt, Binder etc) in Interserie from 1984-1991. Currently for sale in Germany."

I don't think that's a sort of circular link, i.e I don't think i gave him that info. in the first place! (as I didn't know it was for sale in Germany...)

[allenbrown]

I've just lifted the Ralt RT2 thread back to the top.

[Adam Ferrington]

RT2s from the Ralt list
Note :- before c/no 151 type no. was not listed but I believe all were RT1s

RT2-152 Toleman F2
RT2-153 Toleman F2
RT2-154 Toleman F2
RT2-172 Robertson (agent) marked Can-Am - delivered 12/6/80
RT2-181 Cassani F2
RT2-278 Stanley F2 delivered 18/2/82 (Allen, I missed this one on the e-mail I sent yesterday)

No other RT2s listed

ADAM

[allenbrown]

Hi Adam

So what exactly was RT1-151?

I re-read the RT2 thread earlier and it does make more sense if there were only three Toleman cars.

Thanks again for this

Allen

[Adam Ferrington]

Allen,

RT1-151 was a F.Super Vee for Robertson.....soon to appear on the RT1 thread.

ADAM

[Dan Rear]

At last the Stanley mystery revealed, thanks Adam ! So it was a brand new RT2, or maybe RT6, where did it go after Wyatt anyone know ? We had thought perhaps it was a converted RH6.

[Jeremy Jackson]

We know where 278 went, or at least Derek does - It was /is in Florida, after it's advert in Autosport (see RT2 thread)

[allenbrown]

To get this back to the Cicale-Ralts, I've just heard from Peter McLaughlin who owns the 1980 Trueman car. So should know more soon.

Allen

[dereklola]

Hello - I'm back!
Should be working on my race cars but - - - -

Many thx to Adam for providing the "Ralt Book" entries for the RT2 - out of interest where did that come from (or shouldn't I ask?) Did we ever really conclude why 152/153 became 167/????

Back to the Cicale bodies. It's my understanding that many people copied those bodies (I wonder just how effective the ground effects were) and they got refered to as Cicale bodies whether they were or not.

I might be able to find Tim Evans locally - will let you know if he remembers the Trueman car story.

I just phoned Richard (Dick) Guider and ask him to call me back. From previous chats with him the "3-ply" Marquey, the red/white one above, was his own design on a March chassis (may have been an 80A - don't know). I'll ask him about the earlier Marqueys and how much Cicale influence they had.

From memory there were some races where the car is listed as an RT2. This is probably confusion somewhere because Dick looked after both his own Marquey and Bill Blackledge's RT2 - and in some cases he drove the RT2.

Finally (maybe this should be on the RT2 thread) can anyone explain an RT2 driven by George McMillan, Bass Rock Garage, at Ingleston in 1983? Go to http://www.photobox.co.uk/shared/pho...6&page=&group=

By the way last weekend I met Eddie Wachs and Horst Kwech (of RT2 "167" fame) for the first time. They had their Toleman TG280 out for the first time in many years (in F2 guise). This car was their 1981 CanAm replacement for RT2-167. Also saw RT2-278 again and had a good look at it - definitely has a genuine looking Ralt plate with 278 on it. And has a totally unique rear suspension subframe.

Supper calls (she who must be obeyed)

Derek

Derek

[dereklola]

By the way the GTO-Racing/CanAm website (including Marguey) referenced above is an excellent collection of information but be careful using it - for instance quite a few of the pics are modern ones of restored CanAm cars and some of the summary information is misleading (assuming my French is reasonably correct). For instance he queries the 2.3L YBM engine in the March 744/77B car. Obviously it was not used in the actual CanAm series. This YBM engine is used quite a lot in historic racing here simply because BDGs and 420s are unobtainium (although we do try to police it to 2.0L!)

Derek

[allenbrown]

Originally posted by dereklola
Many thx to Adam for providing the "Ralt Book" entries for the RT2 - out of interest where did that come from (or shouldn't I ask?) Did we ever really conclude why 152/153 became 167/????

From Ralt. And, no, we didn't work that out.

Originally posted by dereklola
I just phoned Richard (Dick) Guider and ask him to call me back. From previous chats with him the "3-ply" Marquey, the red/white one above, was his own design on a March chassis (may have been an 80A - don't know). I'll ask him about the earlier Marqueys and how much Cicale influence they had.

The anticipation is killing me!!! I'm not sure that there was actually more than one Marquey. And could Dick confirm once and for all whether Marquey is spelt with a 'q' or a 'g'?

Originally posted by dereklola
By the way last weekend I met Eddie Wachs and Horst Kwech (of RT2 "167" fame) for the first time. They had their Toleman TG280 out for the first time in many years (in F2 guise). This car was their 1981 CanAm replacement for RT2-167.

Did you get the chassis number of the Toleman? Any idea what became of the second car that they had?

Good to have you back

Allen

[dereklola]

I'm pretty certain it's Marquey with a Q but I'll ask Dick. He hasn't returned my call yet - maybe off hydroplane racing - his first love. To my surprise marquey is not in the dictionary (nor with a G) - it's a little furry animal in case you didn't know - Dick lives in the forests near San Francisco.

Never even thought about Toleman chassis numbers. The other TG280 is owned by Paul Flowers of Alabama and looked after by Lee Chapman - see http://leechapmanracing.com/our_race_cars2.htm
- about half way down - I'll see what I can do about chassis numbers on those two cars.

Derek

[Dan Rear]

Derek, re the MacMillan 'RT2', I'm pretty sure this was in fact the ex-Leslie/Duffield RT4, NOT a proper RT2. Its early though, so I may well be getting it mixed up, did Jim Stevenson also have this car ??