John and Mike Young

[David McKinney]

If the Anglia-racing John and Mike were brothers, it seems they would have been too young to be the Connaught-racing John and Mike

[Haydn]

According to all records I have the "Superspeed" John and Mike were definitely brothers.

HaydnM

[Bob Westwood]

Hi,
Yes John and Mike were brothers, John being the older and also the mechanical brains, thier father owned The Ford dealership in Ilford.
John started racing with a 100E anglia with overhead inlet and side exhaust
engine!and when from there. He would be 65-70ish now? The colour the Superspeed anglias were Crimson Lake a BMC colour of the time! Some inquired about and A40 at Brands, that was most likely Chis Arey (spelling ??) Unfortunatly
he died coming out of bottom bend at brands, his metal seat deformed
around him and made his seat belt come loose and his head came out of the
car hit the roof gutter. We had great races against Chris, it was a sad day.

Regards Bob Westwood

[Gerry Taylor]

Hi Bob, yes, Chris Arey. It was me that said I recall the car in one of the races I was in at Brands, Sad loss indeed. Gerry Taylor SWISH Anglia.

[Andy Law]

Any photos or technical/appearance specs would be most helpfull Bob
as i'm building a superspeed replica
what i know of superspeed thay marketed superspeed modified cars from there fathers ford dealership in ley street ilford Youngs of Ilford (now a peugeot dealers with no superspeed connection) Like the anglia 1650cc redrooster as it was known,
escort 2000GT out before the rs2000 using the same pinto,and various V6 converted cortinas escorts.
I heard john now lives in america and mike is still in essex
as far as i know the company ran from 1959-the late 80s

[Anuauto]

Originally Posted by Andy Law

escort 2000GT out before the rs2000 using the same pinto

But better known for putting 1600 pintos into Escorts? (Probably pre-dating the Mexico as well as RS2000 as it would not have been too sensible a conversion later?) Someone I knew had one for road rallies and someone else I knew bought one of their 1300 crossflows (that they removed from those converted Escorts) as the basis for a new engine for his stage rally Escort.

[Special v6]

Hi
I am new to this site,
I have been interested in Superspeed cars for a long time as I own two Mk2 Cortina V6's and a Mk3 V6, and live close by to the old workshop. I do know of a few Escort V6 and a couple of Cortinas, but no Anglias as yet. My friend Nick Davis is writing a book about this subject. I have spoken to Colin Hawker and Brian Grove a few times.
There are a few photos of Superspeed Anglias in book "Ford In Touring Car Racing" by Graham Robson
My friend Ian owned a 1650 red rooster Reg MLK827D sadly the car no longer exists.
Any Superspeed info will be appreciated
Regards Pete

[Haydn]

There was an article in I think the March 1990 Classic and Sportscar magazine with a segment on Glen Maskell and his "Superspeed Anglia". Glen indicated to me that the rocker cover was so rare that Mike Young wanted to buy it. So if Andy Law was trying to build a replica it would be a miracle if he found a genuine "Superspeed" rocker cover. They are quite unique in their dry sumped breather arrangement which has the neatest way of dealing with interconnection of crankcase and rocker chamber venting. Very innovative! Bob Westwood may remember this downward facing breather cast into the rocker cover.

Cheers

HaydnM

[chunterer]

It's been interesting to read all this although i wasn't around during that glorious era, the name Mike Young ribgs some bells from the 80's for some reason?

My memory is telling me that there was a guy called Mike Young who was something to do with Bob Sparshott's outfit that ran F2 and BTCC cars under the Cheylsmore Group banner in late 70's early 80's, but i might be getting confused here, sorry! just wondered ih it was the same guy?

[ian.stewart]

Hi
Im the Ian who had the road going SuperSpeed anglia, 1650 pre x flow, this was a Young bros standard car I think they used to make 3 Anglia varients, a 1500GT engine, a tuned 1500gt on sidedraughts and the"Red Rooster" 1650cc/135-140bhp killer anglia, Painted Bus Red as far as I know the only colour available, it turned out be a lot to quicker than the later RS2000s in custom form. BVH, Cam and Grp A downdraughts as my friend found out to his expense in with his new girlfriend sitting beside him.
The young Bros also appear to have done a lot of work for Dagenham, they certainly made and sold with factory warranty, V6 cortinas Mks 2,3,4,& 5s V6 Escorts, V6 Transits, 1500gt Corsairs, before the factory made them, plus many more that have been lost to history, as i dont think much of their records still exist.
ian

[Andy Law]

I do Have a Superspeed rocker cover and was wondering about that breather outlet cast into it,never seen how it connects properly,
I've taken a photo but cant seem to upload it.
At one time Superspeed marketed cars under the name Chelmer car company thay were also a Datsun Dealers for a short time.
Other cars to the list include Fiestas mk3 escort and v8 capri.

[Bob Westwood]

I have been away for a while, A few guys said they would like some ideas
of info on the Superspeed cars, I may be able to help please pm.
Regards Bob Westwood

[GORDON STREETER]

Its probably to late but I race wth John Young a fair bit.and no its not the same guy, he's even younger than me ! I was spectating at Brands Hatch and witnessed the Chris Airey crash, barrel rolling along bottom straight.
I dont know if his brother Tom still runs the tuning firm in Hampshire.
Len Dixon (LEDA ) ran the EART East Anglia Racing Team in the sixties.
Chris Craft was having a good look at my Anglia in 2000 at Silverstone when
Fords were bowing out or track racing at a TOCA day, they had a parade of all the racing saloons and had Tony Lanfrachi driving mine.

[john milne]

We purchased an ex Broadspeed Anglia from a guy called Francis Beechey in 1971, from the Superspeed Garage at Ley Street, Ilford. This had been fitted with 1600 Brian Hart twincam, by Superspeed, and was still in the original maroon Superspeed colour. The car was sprinted by my step-father, Peter Bennett during 1971 and then raced in the Esso Uniflo Super Saloon championship and other races in 1972/3. Quite a few class wins were taken with the car, quite often beating the "super cars" of the day! Mainly raced at Silverstone, but one trip to Brands ended up with 3rd overall in the Lex Oxfam pit stop race, behind Bernard Bird & Ray Calcutt. An FTD , first in class and team award was achieved at the only sprint that was entered at Lydden Hill, beating noted venue specialist Dave Bray in his 1900cc Escort. We have seen quite a few alleged Broadspeed Anglia's, but we still have the original green log book to prove it's heritage. The car was sold to a couple of nightclub owners from Birmingham in 1973, with an ex Le Mans Lotus +2s taken in p/x. This was the last we heard of the car, does anyone know of it's current whereabouts?

[John Turner]

Welcome, John. Good info.

[ghinzani]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

I was spectating at Brands Hatch and witnessed the Chris Airey crash, barrel rolling along bottom straight.
I dont know if his brother Tom still runs the tuning firm in Hampshire..

Probably the same? http://www.aireytuning.com/index.htm

[ronalr8]

I was pleasently surprised to see these postings relating to SuperSpeed Conversions as I was a fan of John, Mike and Chris Craft back in the good old days. I can remember the SuperSpeed showroom adjoining Youngs of Ilford (Ford dealers) in Ley Street in Ilford, Essex back in the 60's when they were producing their Anglia conversions. 1300cc engines in Anglia vans (yes vans) and 1650cc engines in Anglias. I saw them compete at the West Essex Car Club hillclimbs at Stapleford Abbotts airfield near Abridge, Essex. A few years later they were racing 1300 Anglia Supers in the British Saloon Car Champoinship with Mike and his elder brother John along with Chris Craft. Chris having campaign his SuperSpeed built 'orange box' Anglia previously.
After the Anglia's SuperSpeed went on to produce various engine conversions using the Escort, Capri and Cortina of which the Autocar magazine wrote glowing reports. I believe that Colin Hawker built his DFVW supersaloon on their premises as his transporter was always parked nearby. In the mid 70's Youngs became a Datsun dealer with SuperSpeed demoted to a side showroon and workshop still producing Escort conversions albeit on a much smaller and less publisied scale. At this time I was living in Wards Road adjoing the showroon and can remember see John in his pale blue Capri 3 (it sounded as though it was fitted with a V8) frequently as he lived close by in St Johns Road. Some while ago I heard that John was living in the USA and that Mike had links with a guy called Nigel Webb from Romford who was involved with Jaguar D Types. I don't think that there was any connection with the Connaught or laterly with the Mustang etc. I must point out that I only ever spoke to Mike and John briefly at Brands Hatch and that the above information is only my interpritation of events. I too would be interested in knowing more about these two talented guys and what they are up to today.
If anyone is interested I have magazine cuttings from Autocar of SuperSpeed Escort's and Cortina's which I am happy to copy for ths cost of postage.

[GORDON STREETER]

http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jong/index.html

Although this is a thread about the Young Bros. I use the above link to remind me of those "golden" times when I started to watch saloon car racing when I worked for Alan Fraser. Frank does a good job on his site and always wants bits n pieces to fill in missing parts.

[SidewaysFeltham]

Originally Posted by john milne

We purchased an ex Broadspeed Anglia from a guy called Francis Beechey in 1971, from the Superspeed Garage at Ley Street, Ilford. This had been fitted with 1600 Brian Hart twincam, by Superspeed, and was still in the original maroon Superspeed colour. The car was sprinted by my step-father, Peter Bennett during 1971 and then raced in the Esso Uniflo Super Saloon championship and other races in 1972/3. Quite a few class wins were taken with the car, quite often beating the "super cars" of the day! Mainly raced at Silverstone, but one trip to Brands ended up with 3rd overall in the Lex Oxfam pit stop race, behind Bernard Bird & Ray Calcutt. An FTD , first in class and team award was achieved at the only sprint that was entered at Lydden Hill, beating noted venue specialist Dave Bray in his 1900cc Escort. We have seen quite a few alleged Broadspeed Anglia's, but we still have the original green log book to prove it's heritage. The car was sold to a couple of nightclub owners from Birmingham in 1973, with an ex Le Mans Lotus +2s taken in p/x. This was the last we heard of the car, does anyone know of it's current whereabouts?

Interesting.

See my comment here. http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...=102828&page=2

Francis was an old chum of mine from back in 1958, when we all started driving.

We met again when we were both working for Ford Europe at Warley Brentwood, then Ford Europe HQ. He stayed on and I left to set-up my garage and racing/tuning biz.

Francsie eventually worked on Lotus Cortina liaison and with Boreham and FAV at Avely.

My automotive biz, which included my specialised bit, Felspeed Racing, did lots of work for Francis on the ex-Broadpseed car. It was originally fitted with an SCA modified to run under then GP II for ETCC.

Unfortunately, it had a cracked liner and refused to start: so using the simple expedient of towing it around the green opposite the garage one Saturday morning, I managed to start it and drove it back into the workshop!

A bit noisy and woke up those residents still enjoying a lay in!

Francis changed the lump, originally for a demon 1650: the twink came later.

The SCA went to Dennis at D A Shells in Forest Gate.

After a full rebuild and going through my paintshop, I tested the car at Lyddon at the TEAC Spring Open Practice day.

I heard only recently, that sadly, Francis has passed on to the big circuit in the sky.

His last abiding interest being narrow boats.

Small world!

[sterling49]

Originally Posted by Bob Westwood

Hi, I am new to this forum, there was a posting about Superspeed anglias and the Young brothers(a while ago) , I worked for John Young during these heady day at Superspeeds building and preparing the Anglias and Escorts etc for group 2 and Group 5
Regs, I may be able to help with info on these time if still interested. Regards
Bob Westwood

1st post here guys, so hi to fellow enthusiasts. I grew up just the 4 miles from Brands and went to most meeting fron 1962 onwards. The Young brothers, Mike and John prepared great cars under the "Superspeed" banner in Ley Street,Ilford and they were alway a lighter shade of maroon than there arch rivals, Broadspeed. Chris Craft and Mick used to race the 1300 Anglias ( I saw the original 1200 also in the '64 Motor 6 hour race, won by car 19, Whitmore and Sears,Lotus Cortina) but never recall that Superspeed ever ran Escorts. The "official" supported cars of the time were East Anglian Racing Cars (Roger Taylor and Alan Peer) who ran silver and red Anglias ( 1 litre and 1650 pushrod IIRC) and then Taylor had a metallic blue Twin Cam Escort, I think that Taylor's father was an exec at Dagenham. The other team of course was Broadspeed in the beautiful Rolls Royce maroon and grey Escort 1300 GTs, driven by Craft and Fitzpatrick.This was in the BSC ( group 2 or 5, I cannot remember which) and I believe Superspeed dissapeared from the track at the end of 1967, I could be wrong here though. IIRC the Young brothers then produced some superb roadcars, either Escort or the then new Mark 11 Coritna fitted with the essex 3 litre V-6 engine, for 1968, these were amazingly fast, and relatively inexpensive road cars.Remember that back then most family cars could just break 75 mph at a push ,I even wrote off (and was supplied) brochures for these cars, thinking that when my father's Mark 1 G.T. came up for replacement, he might have placed an order.......

They were great days, nicely prepared cars, raced hard and fair, unlike the grudge matches seen today in stock, sorry, touring cars

[SidewaysFeltham]

Originally Posted by sterling49

(Roger Taylor and Alan Peer) who ran silver and red Anglias ( 1 litre and 1650 pushrod IIRC) and then Taylor had a metallic blue Twin Cam Escort, I think that Taylor's father was an exec at Dagenham.

Quite correct. Roger's father was at the time Director of Production.

[superspeed3065]

I used to own a Superspeed special v6 Mk 1 Escort, I was the second owner after Thomas Motors Blackpool. It was red, had been made from a white Mk 1 1600 twin cam shell. It had unusual small rear flared arches, a cut down crossmember, chrome rocker covers with "Superspeed" blue stickers on them, a "special v6" badge on the boot lid etc etc. For its day it was absolutely brilliant. Reg number was NFV 100 G (1969) . Miles better fitted and balanced than ropey Crayfords and savage machines. Unfortunately I had the rallying bug and converted it into a 1600 crossflow rally car about 1982 or 3 and it was a total loss on its first event! The engine was fitted into a relatives Gilbern and left to rot. Such a shame. It could blow rs2000's and the like into the roadsides, no problem. I would like to find the MOTOR MAGAZINE of circa Oct 1969 that had an article in about that very car and pitted its performance against some 911 or other.

[oneofapair]

[QUOTE=jonners;1469311]I believe the Superspeed red/maroon was an Aston Martin colour.



Have a vague recollection that it was a Ford colour called AGATE RED, Not sure where that came from though!!!???
Also have an incling that one of the Youngs now builds A series axles for the Mallock type clubmans cars.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by superspeed3065

I used to own a Superspeed special v6 Mk 1 Escort, I was the second owner after Thomas Motors Blackpool. It was red, had been made from a white Mk 1 1600 twin cam shell. It had unusual small rear flared arches, a cut down crossmember, chrome rocker covers with "Superspeed" blue stickers on them, a "special v6" badge on the boot lid etc etc. For its day it was absolutely brilliant. Reg number was NFV 100 G (1969) . Miles better fitted and balanced than ropey Crayfords and savage machines. Unfortunately I had the rallying bug and converted it into a 1600 crossflow rally car about 1982 or 3 and it was a total loss on its first event! The engine was fitted into a relatives Gilbern and left to rot. Such a shame. It could blow rs2000's and the like into the roadsides, no problem. I would like to find the MOTOR MAGAZINE of circa Oct 1969 that had an article in about that very car and pitted its performance against some 911 or other.

Great info superspeed, welcome to the section and the forum in general!

[JTL392]

Originally Posted by mickj

Was Colin Hawker of 'DFVW' and the Tolman Capri fame a mechanic at the Youngs dealership?.

I'm sure I saw Colin racing a dark red 1300? Anglia at Crystal Palace also later the V6 Escort at Brands,I guess these were maybe Superspeed cars