Argo

[allenbrown]

Anyone spoken to this guy?

http://www.racingcarsforsale.co.uk/frameset-argo.htm

Allen

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

I'm not sure about the upgrading of 044-F3 because that chassis number doesn't explain it as the car Nugent ran in 1979.

Oh yes, good point. So does that mean he must have had two different cars?

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Chris, Rackham in B42-08? Do you mean B42-15, -08 was the ex-Daly, Gary Gibson car I think. The Rackham JM5 as -036 makes sense, as we know it was a late season car, only appearing after he'd been out that year in the Druid, B29, and B42. What an interesting year he must have had !

I didn't get to that Sept 79 Donington meeting so no idea on the Libre race I'm afraid.

[Chris Townsend]

Dan
Brain fade on my part. 42-15 it was!

However, Jim says the notebook remarks on two races at Brands after Sept. One of 50 and the other 53 laps. 50 laps - even of the club circuit - is way too long to be a libre race. Am I missing a Hitachi round between Oulton 8 Sept and Brands 14 Oct?

Chris

[Bryan Miller]

Right , contacted current owner of car up the coast from me , he hasn't looked at the plate for years and will do so and get back to me.
He thinks it is a JM6 , it is ex F3 bought in to Australia by Graham Brown and had been converted to Atlantic with FT200 etc. he does know that it is ex Desire Wilson , then Michael Bleekmolen ??spelling, car was damaged very severly by Brown in Western Australia , owner has had it for at least 15 years , but he can't remember how long.
Best I can do at this stage.
Bryan.

[Chris Townsend]

Wilson drove the Goodwin Racing JM9 a couple of times when Colin
Lees ran out of money, but I don't think Michael Bleekemolen EVER
ran an Atlantic race. [Don't know that by that stage in her career that
Desire ever drove F3 either...]

Interesting...

Chris

[Jstreet]

Hello everyone,

I am a proud owner of a Argo JM2, number 004. The car won the SCCA run-offs in the States in '79 and '80.

Now I have the opportunity to purchase another nice Argo but I do not know the history of the model. And I was hoping you guy's could help me.

The car is a JM17 FF2000. It is in great shape but I would like to know more about the car before I purchase it. Any information you can supply me is appreciated.

I would really like to know how many were built, are spares
available and what the value of the car is. The one I'm looking at was restored to a high degree a couple years ago.

Thanks,

John Street

[Dan Rear]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Wilson drove the Goodwin Racing JM9 a couple of times when Colin
Lees ran out of money, but I don't think Michael Bleekemolen EVER
ran an Atlantic race. [Don't know that by that stage in her career that
Desire ever drove F3 either...]

Interesting...

Chris

Agreed Chris, re Desire in the Goodwin JM9. Did she ever race F3 at all? Re the Bleekemolen issue, I don't think he ever used an Argo. Racing Team Holland did tho' in 1979, Rob Leeuwenberg and Arie Luyendijk used JM3s most of the year IIRC, with some reasonable placings. I wonder if Brian's mate means these Dutchmen rather than Bleeke.

I'm sure there was no Hitachi race between the 2 you mention.

[allenbrown]

Hi John

Can you tell us the owners of 004? Also, as we develop our understanding of Argo chassis numbering, it would be useful to know exactly how the number is expressed on your early car. Is JM2/004 or JM2-004-SV or what?

There seem to have been quite a lot of FFs as they are just about the only thing to explain the missing numbers between the 1982 JM11 at 065 and the start of the 1983/84 JM16 IMSA cars at 097. So maybe as many as 30 built.

Allen

[Dan Rear]

Allen, I don't recall that many FF2000s being built by Argo. OTOH there may have been 3 or 4 JM14s over here in 1983-84, I can only recall one JM17 a little later (Bobby Carville??).

I presume John's is the ex Bill Alsup car, probably the first FSV made in 78.

[Chris Townsend]

Dan

I thought the Alsup car was JM2-007-FV but could be wrong.
002 might have been a spare car for the Zeitler team

Chris

[allenbrown]

The so-dead-I'm-going-to-have-to-switch-it-off-soon FSV register on ORC has:

Argo JM2 Chassis #7 Ex-Alsup Ex-Jim Harrel
Argo JM2 Chassis #14
Argo JM2 Chassis #18?? Ex-Bob Cicconi ??
Argo JM2 Chassis #20 Alsup's championship car
Argo JM4 Chassis #23 Ex-Peter Moodie-Zeitler Team Car
Argo JM4 Chassis #33 Ex-Werner Erhard Breakthrough Racing

Somebody seems to have got the FSV register going again elsewhere so I think I can switch off my mummified version and link to him. I've never seen it as ORC's job to maintain registers but I didn't want that one to die.

Allen

[Jstreet]

Hello,

My Argo JM2 has the following chassis number. It reads JM2-004. There is no designation to the type of car, such as FSV, F3, etc.

I know some of the history of the car. As I have spoken in lenght with one of the early owners. And we keep in touch as much as possible. I will gather all the history I know and I will post it soon.

John Street

[jleonard]

Werner Erhard had two cars if not three. Has anybody called Steve Wills?

[Bryan Miller]

Dan,
You could well be correct; the owner seemed most concerned with telling me how long he had owned them than with their histories, he also has two other local cars, an Elfin 623 and a Nota Sportsman, the latter since 1970 and the Elfin since 1978, and none are apparently usable.
I will await more info from him.
Bryan.

[allenbrown]

The new FSV register, the one that's being actively maintained, has:

Argo JM2 Chassis 4 John Street (WA, USA)
Argo JM2 Chassis 7 Ex-Alsup Ex-Jim Harrel
Argo JM2 Chassis 9 John Street (WA, USA) - parts only.
Argo JM2 Chassis 14 Jacob Symovitch (PA, USA)
Argo JM2 Chassis 16 Ex- Mark Abel/ George Dyer Destroyed At Atlanta
Argo JM2 Chassis 18? David Loring ?? (USA) Ex-Bob Cicconi ??
Argo JM2 Chassis 20 Domenick Billera (PA, USA) Alsup's championship car.

Argo JM4 Chassis 23 Domenick Billera (PA, USA) Ex-Peter Moodie-Zeitler Team Car
Argo JM4 Chassis 25 Dan Schmutte (OH, USA) Ex-Lee Brahin
Argo JM4 Chassis 33 Jerry Peters (CT, USA) Ex-Werner Erhard Breakthrough Racing

Argo JM11 Chassis JM11-061-SV Bob Relinski (USA)

Allen

[Alan Brown]

Out in a clubbie at Brands Hatch on Saturday was JM10-62 F3, driven by John De Ritter. He does not know the early history, except that it was a 1983 car and had been recently been used in Monoposto races. I saw it in one in 1999 with a Ford 1600 driven by John Lewis. The car is now fitted with a VW Brabham F3 engine.

Other observations on Argos over the years include:-
JM1-018 F3 - Rick Gorne in Atlantic in 1979 [JM1X];
JM4-034 SV;
JM6-038 to 043 F3 seen in period or in Classic F3;
JM9-051/3/5 F3 seen in 1981;
JMX-001 - Toyota F3 Steve Bradley 1983 [I feel that this ought to be a JM10 but who knows?];
JM14-005 and JM14-06 seen in 1983 in FF2000;
JM17-105-FF - Bobby Carville FF2000 in 1985;
JM18-130 F3 - F3 in 1993.

Why the different form of numbering in the JMX and JM14 cars?

[allenbrown]

Very interesting. We definitely have a very large gap between the last of the JM10/11/12 cars around 1982/83 at chassis 065 and the first of 1983/84 JM16 IMSA cars at 097. Given that only months can have separated one production run from the other, a gap of 32 cars is baffling. Only the JM14s can explain that as the JM15 was a one-off (maybe two-off) Can-Am car.

It looks like Argo must have skipped a few (dozen) numbers. But why?

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Alan

Thankyou for confirming the Gorne car as 18-F3 for me. I thought it might have been 13. [The problem this raises is the 018-SV in the US]

Two questions: Do you have names associated to all those JM6s and 9s in F3?
If you observed the Gorne chassis number in Atlantic, do you have other chassis number observations from 1979 on that might be relevant to the Atlantic database thread?

Chris

[Dan Rear]

A few comments chaps.

First from Alan's comments I assume his observations were all in Britain, hence I guess the JM4-034 is the Olly Hollamby (or was it Bruce Venn ?) car in 1979, which was, I think, the only UK car they made for FSV. I saw it in mid-80 with a chap called Robbie Hislop, apparently a Kiwi driving, and non-too quickly!

The Gorne car was OTOH the ex-Stefan J 1978 F3 car converted.

A good number of F3 JM8s were out in Brit F3 in early '81, at Mallory April 12 for example: Beekhuis, Hutson, Sturdy, Rosso, Benamo, Booth. Tassin was in his Trundle RT3, but had been in a JM8 prior, so that makes at least 7 built. Not sure if any went outside of the UK that year, I don't recall any.

The Bradley 'JMX' was in fact a slightly modded JM8, not a 10.

The JM14 nos. are a mystery, given they fall between the JM10-12 nos, which make sense in the Argo run, and the JM17/18, which do too. I agree with Allen, why would they change the numbering sequence for the FF2000s?

The JM15, Allen, was I think a one-off Indy/CART car, not a Can-Am, and made for Bill Alsup in about 1982 ? Was it later made into a CanAm ?

[allenbrown]

Dan - I was thinking CART but wrote Can-Am. You are completely right.

[Jstreet]

All,

I contacted Thomas Pomeroy the chap who had owned my car and won the SCCA run-off's in it in 1979. He gave me the following owner information.

The first owner in the US was Zeitler Racing, who then sold it to Joe Hill of Westerville Ohio. Joe ran it for one season but poor maintenance made it less and less competitive.

Thomas Pomeroy bought the car from Joe Hill. Thomas was very successful in the car and won the 1978 SCCA run-off's but, he was disqualified for using illegal rods. He came back in 1979 to win it again. And in 1980 he rented the car to Curtis Farley, who won the 1980 SCCA run-off's in it also.

Thomas then sold the car to a Mr (first name not known) Brown who converted it to a single seater CSR. After this the history is unknown until the late 90's.

There is a long gap in the history until the late 90's "as the story goes" the car was stored in a Detroit warehouse. I have no proof of this. It is just the story.

Brian Elliott in 1999 had the car restored by McNamara motorsports in Indianapolis Indiana. It was finished in 2001.

Brian raced the car in 4 events then sold it to me (John Street) in 2002. I've been racing the car in vintage and historic events since then.

John Street

[Alan Brown]

Originally Posted by Dan Rear

A few comments chaps.

First from Alan's comments I assume his observations were all in Britain, hence I guess the JM4-034 is the Olly Hollamby (or was it Bruce Venn ?) car in 1979, which was, I think, the only UK car they made for FSV. I saw it in mid-80 with a chap called Robbie Hislop, apparently a Kiwi driving, and non-too quickly!

Confirmation that it was Bruce Venn in 034 in 1979. For interest, I have Arie Luyendyk in JM2-024 in Super Vee in 1981.

Alan Brown

[Chris Townsend]

To confirm John's 004 history.
I've been doing a bit of digging into SV Argos courtesy of Formula and Sports Car and two were imported by Zeitler in early 77. 007 is Alsup's 77 car, and 004 therefore that of Joe Hill. (Zeitler had been the Modus importer and when Jo Marquart started up Argo they continued the relationship.)
In 1978 Pomeroy gets 004 and 007 goes to Bill Cruse
Alsup gets 020 as a new car. Can't work out who gets 014, 016 and 018 yet though 018 could be Ciccone from new.

In 1979 the water-cooled engine is introduced. A number of drivers who've run in SV switch to the SCCA FC and run old air cooled motors or the watercooled engine on carbs rather than SV spec injection. Pomeroy is one of these - the SCCA finals wins for John's car were in FC both years. (Pomeroy also notable for being a driver with only one hand as result of a birth defect.)*

* This statement has since been corrected at post #116 - JT

1979: 004 Pomeroy [FC]
007: Cruse spare car [SV]
014: Unknown, perhaps Bill Vermeer [SV]
016: Mark Abel [SV]
018?: Bob Ciccone [SV]
020: James Havell [SV and FC on carbs]
023: Peter Moodie [SV]
025: Unknown, perhaps Cruse's new car [SV]
033: Werner Erhard [SV]
034: Unknown, perhaps Erhard's spare.
In addition to the above the following appear in JM2s in 1979 suggesting either extra cars or some renting out [Ciccone - Vogler as a pair of sprint drivers looks a good option]
Rich Vogler
Brian Johnson

[allenbrown]

Do we know anything about the other early Argos? Between all the information we have here now, how many numbers up to 65 can we fill in?

Allen