Group A Rover 3500 SD1/Vitesse - History & Whereabouts

[Chris Griffin]

The ex Leech car has been stripped and re-built by Ken Clarke for a customer of his and is currently in Bastos colours with a 4.5L engine on carbs.

The history of the TWR cars is quite interesting and varied. The only way to track the history of them is by the TWR Chassis number. Around 20 or so existed and often changed colour depending on the event/season.

[Jesper OH]

From the '84 Bathurst book it says that the two Mobil Vitesses were the BTCC-cars withdrawn from that championship earlier in the year. Given that the '84 ETCC-series was still running as Bathurst went underway, it makes sence to enter a "back-up" team for the race down under.

Always wondered how Tom Walkinshaw managed to enter two manufactures (although under the same ownership umbrelly) in the same races! Rover was a factory supported team from before TWR took on developing the XJS'. Any clues in this?

Dave Price Racing ran the Rover-programme during 1980 and got Tom Walkinshaw involved for 1981. TWR most have taken full control some time after this as it was this team that developed the future group A Vitesse during 1982. This info from Motorsport November 2003 as is the following info:

The under sized TWR Rover could have something to do with homologated engine size. Both the 3500 and the Vitesse is homologated with an engine displacement of 3542 cc's, but measured to the minimal tolerance it ended up as 3495 cc's (never heard of this "loop hole" before). During the BTCC group 1-era the 3500 could compete in the maximum under 3500 cc catagory, while the Vitesse might have been able to run to a lower weight than with the "big" engine.

Remember some old video of the '83 ETCC races. At the Silverstone TT Gordon Spice is seen in a dark green (or blue?) Vitesse.

So who actually build the group A Rovers? Tom Walkinshaw Racing most have done the majority of cars for a two car BTCC team during '83 and '84 (before withdrawing) 2 and later 3 cars for the entire ETCC-programme 1983-1986 as well as two car for the french Super Tourisme series (don't know excatly when). This could quickly tally those 20 Chris Griffin mentions.
Andy Rouse Engineering running two cars at any given time during 1984, with one car ending in Australia. ATN running 2-3 cars over their 3 years and a bit of running, while John Donnelly build his ATCC car for himself. No clue to the number of privateers in the BTCC.

Jesper

[Garry Holmes]

Isn't Gerry Cain's car that has run in Mod prods originally an ex TWR car???Also I seem to remember Brian Chatfield also having one.

[KA]

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

Remember some old video of the '83 ETCC races. At the Silverstone TT Gordon Spice is seen in a dark green (or blue?) Vitesse.

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-11-024.jpg

from

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-11-photo.html

[ghinzani]

Originally Posted by Chris Griffin

The ex Leech car has been stripped and re-built by Ken Clarke for a customer of his and is currently in Bastos colours with a 4.5L engine on carbs.

.

No change there then, with the 4.5l engine!! I assumed Dennis would be delivering spare parts around the Exeter area with it. I recall him saying at Thruxton in 87 that he had araldited the block together and my boss remarking something to the effect of "the Leyland lorry engine getting a bit tired is it?". Having said that the only Leyland V8 lorry engine I can recall was the AEC 760, which at 11 litres might have been a bit big for even Dennis to get away with!!

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by KA

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-11-024.jpg

from

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-11-photo.html

Nice array of pics there.

The Spice car, Jesper refers to was green one of 2 cars i think that Martin Thomas ran for Gordy and CS-H.

The Spice car was driven by Neil McGrath in '84-86 and then i think by Skid Scarborough in '87.

Back to the theory of 20 odd TWR Rovers i'm gonna sketch the following then. assuming each year there were new chassis total number each year in brackets:

1983
2x 'Sanyo' & 1x 'Hepolite' BTCC
1x 'Barclay' ETC
(4)

1984
2x 'Sanyo' BTCC (later the Bathurst 'Mobil' cars)
3x ETC (2 Fleet & 1 Gitanes),
1x Supertourisme France 'Marlboro'
1x 'Computervision' Rally but was this a converted race car?
(7)

1985
3x ETC 'Bastos'
1x 'Computervision' rally (same question applies as '84 car)
(4)

1986
4x ETC, (3 'Bastos', 1 white) and
1x France or other European 'Marlboro' ?
(5)

That makes 20 but is assuming several other liveries that appeared like the NZ brown, Pacific white and Herbie clips were just reliveries exisitng cars from previous years?

Another point - the '84 Spa entry has Andy Rouse listed as a driver for the Manthey German Vitesse (although he never raced it) so can we speculate if Rouse was actually the car builder and was asked to drive to help with set ups at all?

[Dave Carvell]

I thought I would try and shed some light on your Rover conundrum.

Being one of the drivers mentioned, I can clarify that the car I drove in the 1987 British Touring Car Championship was the Bathurst Grp A Class Winner in 1984 which was driven by Armin Hahne & Jeff Allam. This being originally a TWR Sanyo Car.

The car was purchased by Richard Potter for me to compete in the 1987 season. The car underwent extensive updating with current spec TWR engine & transmission and ran on 17" Speedline Wheels, as the "works cars" of the time. The car ran in its original white bodywork with sponsorship from Castrol and Steetley.

At the end of the 1987 season the car was sold to a Belgian Team for the Spa 24hr race. The car now sported dark blue bodywork with yellow trimmings and sponsored by Eurodefi (there is a picture of it earlier on in this thread). Incidentially, the other car that Eurodefi ran was the Herbie Clips car that Hulme & Allam had won the Tourist Trophy with previously.

As for where these cars are now - I don't know, but we do know that "my" old car was severely damaged at Zolder at a European Championship round in 1988. I don't know if it survived, or not. I would love to know what happened to it, so if anyone knows more, please let me know. If I had a choice of any racing car I have ever driven, this is the one I would want back.

[chunterer]

Mr Carvell, welcome to the thread and Ten Tenths in general - is this your 'debut' on here?

Thank you for your input on what has become a bit of a holy grail of Rover investigations: 'We must find the truth'!

Now we know the origins of your '87 BTCC car and what happened to it after that.

I was quite young when you were out in that car, and thought that considering you'd jumped from a Metro to that (surely a difference of 200 plus bhp?) you did pretty well. The car was nicely turned out.

Have you any particular memories from the season, I.E battles, stories for us?

There are a lot of Benelux based members so I'm sure that somebody will find this thread and offer some more detail as to what happened to the car after the Zolder shunt you mentioned, and then hopefully we can trace it, if indeed it is still in existence.

Do you happen to know the chassis number of that car by any chance?

It would be nice to start to verify of the 20 or so TWR chassis we've identified which one yours was (obviously an earlier one as it was originally a '84 Sanyo BTCC/Mobil Bathurst car.)

Indeed the 20 or so is so far a bit of an educated guess, but by no means definite.

[davyboy]

Welcome Dave, again like Chunterer I remember seeing your car back in the 1980s as well, its great to have you here on 10-10ths.
Aside from the family-tree-tracing of the cars raced back then, maybe you could give us some insight into how much these machines were costing and what people were spending to run a season in one. Clearly the trio of TWR-Bastos machines were consumate in the professionalism of their build and turnout and I imagine they spent a small fortune on their mid-1980s campaigns, but what about privateers like yourself and Dennis Leech ?

[Dave Carvell]

Yes Chunterer it's my first time !!! I only found this forum because I have just become a member of The Classic Touring Car Club and the link to this site is on their home page. Glad I found you all.

Just raced for the first time in 6 years at Silverstone in a Classic Thunder event. The weather was kind to me (wet) and I was able to secure a 4th place behind the "big bangers", in a Scirocco made famous by my son Rob in the VW Cup in 2004.

Going back to Rovers - my car was chassis number 004, as you rightly say "an early one". From what I could tell, the main difference on the later cars was the rear axle location, which was much better. I was lucky enough to be able to drive the Herbie Clips car in testing and found the brake balance could be a lot more appropriate because it didn't have the axle tramp problems of my own car.

Looking back, had we not had a wiring harness fault for the first half of the season, we would have gone much better. From mid-season onwards the car was quite competative, unfortunately by then, the RS500 had been Homologated and things got quite difficult for us, but never the less, we had some good races and podium places.

Davyboy was asking about how much it cost for us privateers. Our budget was meagre compared to the works assisted teams. You have got to remember that ours was a true privateer outfit. I was Team Boss, Chief Mechanic and Driver, with only the assistance of my Brother Ron to help prepare the car during the week, after we had finished work of course, and Richard Potter and a few others came along to help on race days. I hope this doesn't sound like a complaint because I am delighted that we were able to compete in the British Touring Car Championship with the resources that we had - you certainly couldn't do it today.

I came across a race set-up sheet that we were given by TWR for data purposes and it refers to a pre-race set-up for Brno, dated 29th May 1986. The car concerned was chassis number 014, which was one of the Bastos cars of '86. I don't know if this was Tom's own, or A. N. Other.

Keep up the good work.

Regards
Dave

[Al Weyman]

I only found this forum because I have just become a member of The Classic Touring Car Club and the link to this site is on their home page.

Ditto, thats how I found this great place as well Dave, welcome to the site.

Off topic but I will be entering my car for several rounds of Classic Thunder, just waiting to see how it goes at Brands GP on the 15th before I commit so see you out there with another monster for you to do battle with, hey and why ar'nt you entering a Rover? :-)

Anyone had a good look at my mate Gery Cain's Bastos look alike SDI. No history as it was a modified road shell but an altogether beautifully put together car that is probably far more competitive than the originals.

[Jesper OH]

Another welcome to Dave from me too

Currently I'm looking for group A results (followed by race reports and general news) and have Dave Carvell down for two 2nds at Snetterton in August and at the Silverstone finale in October.

http://forums.autosport.com/showthre...threadid=86731 (the annoucement)

The Snetterton race must have been a close one with the top-3 covered by 1.5 second. Mike O'Brien winning in the Docking-Commodore and Pete Hall third in a Sierra RS Cosworth.
At Silverstone Hall won in the updated RS500, but Carvell finished ahead of fellow Rover driver and class A top scorer Tim Harvey.
(I only have top-3 finishes and only for the latter half of 1987)

Chassis numbers is also a very welcome addition to the general understanding of what happened when. If 014 was used during Brno '86 I would suggest that at least less than 20 TWR Rovers were build. From recent experiences I have learned that the art of building a Touring Car is so complicated that excisting chassis is very often rebuild rather than created from new. TWR went through 7 Jaguar XJS's during their 1982-84 ETCC campain. 1 and later 2 cars during '82, 2 cars for '83, while 3 cars were seen during '84.

Jesper

[Happy Snapper]

I know Dennis Leech quite well from GT racing next time I see him I'll ask what happened to the car.

[Grandslammer]

Jeff Allam at Thruxton September 1981

[chunterer]

Nice couple of Thruxton pics there Slammer! Interesting to note the rear spolier adorning the car, an eventual homologated part for the Grp A Vitesse but was just an add on for the 3500 I believe.

Originally Posted by Jesper OH

Another welcome to Dave from me too.
The Snetterton race must have been a close one with the top-3 covered by 1.5 second. Mike O'Brien winning in the Docking-Commodore and Pete Hall third in a Sierra RS Cosworth.
At Silverstone Hall won in the updated RS500, but Carvell finished ahead of fellow Rover driver and class A top scorer Tim Harvey.
(I only have top-3 finishes and only for the latter half of 1987)

Chassis numbers is also a very welcome addition to the general understanding of what happened when. If 014 was used during Brno '86 I would suggest that at least less than 20 TWR Rovers were build. Jesper

Yes that would appear to be the case Jesper and David's input has certainly helped us narrow things down a little. I suspect therefore, that the latter cars are more likely to be new ones as the development really kicked off once the Ovlov's started to push on and TWR needed to extract everything possible out of the Vitesse.

I wasn't there but I remember thinking the Snett round must've been a blinder. Mike Newman was in amongst it at some point in the venerable 635. This event also had the ex TWR cars of Chatfield and Griffin (that I referred to earlier) in it as well IIRC?

Certainly David was a defacto front runner by the end of the season and in hindsight although Sierra RS Cosworth/500's and M3's were spectacular, they ultimately did for Group A IMO.

We now know that David's car (004) was a 1984 Sanyo BTCC car which later went to Bathurst. It will also be interesting to determine who pedalled it in the first half of '84 (and if it was actually built in '83 come to think of it?)

For '84, Tony Pond drove one of the cars and the other was driven initially by Peter Lovett and then latterly by 'Schles'. I think that Schles' car was actually a brand new one as I'm sure he stacked one early in the season? Perhaps somebody else may confirm this?

For the real anorak stuff we also know this: The Sanyo cars began the season with black plastic bumpers (as did the ETC Fleet entries) but these were later colour coded by the time of their last race at Silverstone in June.

Similarly Andy Rouse and CS-H's cars also began the year with black bumpers and they too were painted. In the case of Rouse this was because he had a brand new car after Lovett 'inadvertently' tipped him into the pit wall at the start of the International Trophy meeting triggering immense carnage!

[Dave Carvell]

I have just come across the Sales Brochure for the TWR Auction which is quite helpful in pinning down Tom's own chassis number for the 1986 season.

It says:- The example included in the sale carries a TWR chassis plate which states 'Model: Group A Rover Vitesse, Chassis Number: 019, Build Date: January 1986'. It then goes on to say that it was run in all 14 of the ETCC rounds in 1986, driven almost exclusively by Walkinshaw and Percy. The exception to this was round 8 at the Osterreichring where Armin Hahne replaced Walkinshaw and in round 9 at Spa where Eddy Joosen joined as third driver.

It won at Monza and Donington, finished 2nd at Jarama and Estoril, 3rd at Misano, Silverstone and Zolder and 4th at Hockenheim and the Nurburgring.
This car is now owned by Jeff Allam .

In reply to Jesper OH, I had 3 x 2nd places in 1987, Snetterton, Silverstone and the Oulton Park 1 hr race - sharing with Jeff Allam. I also had a 3rd place at Thruxton. They were all absolutely cracking races !!!

I'll see what else I can find out.

[Jesper OH]

Thank you Dave

Most helpfull info.

Regards
Jesper

[Al Weyman]

Is there any truth in what I heard it from a good source who has built a replica and went the musuem to see the TWR cars and measured it all up and reconned they were definitely overall smaller. Guy in question has been known to be a bit of a prankster on occasions but I would like to know if there was any truth in this as I had heard it before.

[chunterer]

Thanks again Dave for extra info.

It would be good if someone like Frank De Jong, a known Touring Car expert and historian who is a member of Ten Tenths to come on here and give us some clues as to what happened to your '87 (004) car from 1988 onwards - he's bound to know something. I think somebody mentioned that Michel Delcourt drove one of those blue/yellow '88 Spa cars (one of which was yours I think?) so maybe someone like Frank can check with somebody who knew him at the time.

So as there is definitely a number 19 chassis, then we're back to the original idea of potentially 20 cars being built over the period!

Hmm, btw I have a feeling that 'dimensions' issue may well stay as part of an unfounded myth Al!

[chunterer]

Also, having flicked through an old 1984 BTCC Review, there is mention that other than preparing his own ICS car and the Daily Mirror car of CS-H, Andy Rouse's Race Engineering business also tended to Neil McGrath's ex Gordon Spice 1983 car. (later the Skid Scarborough car)

It is unclear though whether the car was still owned by Martin Thomas, or Neil bought it off him and got ARE to run it for him?

[Jesper OH]

A few links

http://www.nick-humphrey-motorsport.co.uk/page%201.htm
Dennis Leech's Vitesse during 1989

http://www.motorsnippets.com/auction...les+Hardy%26Co
The TWR 019 for sale

http://www.roversd1.com/racing_rovers.htm
1983 BTCC review? Haven't read it yet, but looks interesting.

Jesper

[William Dale Jr]

Originally Posted by chunterer

So as there is definitely a number 19 chassis, then we're back to the original idea of potentially 20 cars being built over the period!

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but the first TWR-built Commodores bore 20-something chassis numbers. I'm not sure what the first one was, but the Herbie Clips VL used at the 1988 Tourist Trophy (and the aborted Birmingham BTCC round) was 022. It makes sense that the Commodore chassis numbers would have simply been a continuation of the Rover sequence.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by chunterer

Hmm, btw I have a feeling that 'dimensions' issue may well stay as part of an unfounded myth Al!

Another 'fact' I was told some years ago was that any cars that were raced exclusively by Mr TWR himself were never sold on, but were cut up or destroyed in some other way.
The inference was that he had additional help to ensure his lap times weren't too far behind those of his professional drivers!

Er, allegedly...

[Jesper OH]

This then should be the record for chassis TWR #019 for the 1986 ETCC campain (data from Frank de Jong's site plus own notes). Car driven by by Tom Walkinshaw and Win Percy with Eddy Joosen added as 3rd driver for Spa-Francorchamps, and also qualified in the car for Nogaro, but didn't drive. Only two Rovers starting this race? Casualty in qualifying?
1986 saw fixed start numbers, at least for the top contenders. TWR Rovers raced #7, 8, 9 and 33, with #8 being the Walkinshaw/Percy combo.

1986-03-23 - Monza, 1st
1986-04-06 - Donington Park, 1st
1986-04-13 - Hockenheimring, 4th
1986-05-04 - Misano, 3rd
1986-05-18 - Anderstorp, 2nd + fastest lap
1986-06-08 - Brno, 2nd
1986-06-15 - Österreichring, DNF (fuel pressure) + pole
1986-07-13 - Nürburgring, 4th + pole
1986-08-02/03 - Spa-Francorchamps, DNF (rear axle) + pole
1986-09-07 - Silverstone, 3rd
1986-09-14 - Nogaro, 16th (9th in div. 3) + pole
1986-09-28 - Zolder, 3rd
1986-10-12 - Jarama, 2nd + pole
1986-10-19 - Estoril, 2nd + pole

Regarding Österreichring I think that Major Tom himself parked the car before Win Percy had a go. Thus Win was able to move over to the eventual winning car, that had been driven by Armin Hahne and score points for the championship. This left slated driver Gianfranco Brancatelli without a drive for the day.
Only two DNF's for 14 races, which must be quite a fair record.

The winning car of Tom Walkinshaw Brands Hatch, August 26 (GP support race), was then descriped as being won in an "old test hack".

Jesper

[Jesper OH]

just got confirmation from Kaj Bornebusch, that his car was indeed a TWR car - picked up at a test session at Snetterton (presumably early 1986). One TWR mechanic at hand and one TWR driver to check the car and then Kaj doing some testing.

First race then was a round at the Swedish group A championship at Mantorp Park. In his first race for 18 years (!) he was leading untill "falling asleep" at the very last corner, loosing victory to Ulf Granberg in a Volvo.
At the ETCC race at Anderstorp later in May Kaj Bornebusch invited one of Sweden's greatest national names Bo "Emma" Emanuelsson to share the drive. The original (and only) engine was sick, but thanks to a very helpfull Major Tom the engine from an intended museum car was transplanted.

Daughter Eva did a few endurance races with Lady Cup colleages, including the '88 ETCC Nogaro in September and the Finnish Kemora 500 on 21st of August 1988.
So far no chassis number has turned up or any history of the car later than 1988.

Kaj Bornebusch tells that the engines were difficult, but he praises the handling immencely. Having driven Porsche 911s in the 1960's and then Sierra RS500's after the Vitesse experience I tend to believe the Rover was very good in that department.

Jesper