Ford Capri Mk III - Group 1 (CC Racing Developments)

[chunterer]

Copied this in form Racing Capri thread to see if we can establish any further details on the 20-25 cars built between 1978-82.

We know a great many of the cars are still out there but we need to confirm what is what!

Some are still competing today:
David Thomas has an ex Gordon Spice CC car that Brian Chatfield may have later owned.
Ric Wood runs a modified 4 litre car, (not sure of origins)
There is an ex Vince Woodman CC Esso car that Brian Chatfield definitely later owned that was restored by Ric Wood but the current owner is not currently competing with chassis number CC20.
Stuart Graham's Faberge car which Terry Nicholls later ran as a modified Gartrac GA 3.4 car in Thundersaloons. This is either in a museum somewhere back in original black green and red colours, or is in bits awaiting a strip down and rebuild (one of them must be right!!)
There is also an ex Jeff Allam shell somewhere which was latterly run in modsaloons and northern sports saloons

chunterer.

[chunterer]

If we take 1981 and '82 for example and list the cars that ran, it might make something twig in someone's mind. We might even get to understand if non CC cars got 'numbered'.

1981

2x CC Prepared, Gordon Spice Racing/shell (Gordy & Phil Martin Dye)

2x CC Prep Equipe Esso (Vince Woodman & occasionally J Buncombe)

2x Broadspeed/ARE/Mirror Juicy Jeans (Rouse & C Sawyer-Hoare)

2x All Car Equipe/Richard Grant (Nick Whiting & Mike Kimpton). Whiting's was the ex Jeff Allam (CC3) BP car now owned by Ade Vickers (who might well register soon)?

1x Colin Vandervell (occassionally) Quite possibly Gerry Marshall's old Triplex car?

Following also ran at certain events:

1x Wayne Wainright. This was the ex Stuart Graham Faberge car. Possibly sold abroad at the end of 1981 to Semoulin, or??
1x Dennis Leech - bought it off Dave Brodie and ran it for most of the season
1x Chuck Nicholson - This was a CC Vince Woodman car originally (see CC list below)

1982

2x Spice (Gordy & Rouse)
2 x Esso (Vince & John B), Brian Chatfield also bought Vince's car (chassis number CC20 I believe) and is is now privately owned having been restored by Ric Wood in 2002.

1x CS-H (one of the Rouse built cars from previous year?)

1x Graham Goode, run by himself (not a CC car according to vivagt and ghinzani)

Certainly the total number of Capri's that ran in '82 was approximately half of the 11 odd that were entered (but not necessarily raced) in '81.

For the first year of Group A in 1983, Brian Chatfield had the 2 cars he bought, Graham Goode prep'd his to Group A spec and Mike Newman also entered one which may have been the other Esso car, which he continued to run into 1984. Mark Hales also apparently had at least one outing in a 3.0 Capri but was this one of the other 3 guy's cars or a different one?

[chunterer]

Further info gathered from the BMW 635 thread is that CC must have numbered all the cars they prepared from Capris though to the Lambo-Tiga Grp C car in mid 80's

The BMW's were assigned chassis numbers CC29, 30 and 31. In fact 29 became 31 after a shunt according to a source in the thread.

This should be considered when we're trying to expand knowledge of the Capris. If like the later BMW's crashed cars were assigned new numbers that might mean that less Grp 1 Capris were orignally built.

[chunterer]

Copied from main thread including unconfirmed but very useful chassis info from new member ORP.

Group 1 Ford Capri 3.0s:
Cars we know something about:

CC1 - Most probably Gordon Spice's first MKIII car. TBC
CC2 - Gordon Spice, (Spa)
CC3 - Orignally built for Jeff Allam in 1978. Nick Whiting then ran this car 1980/81. Dave Streather then ran it in Modsaloons for many years in the 1980's with latterly with an uprated 3.4 engine. Now owned by Ade Vickers, the Northern Sports Saloon regular. TBC whether it was owned by anyone else post Whiting and pre Streather and also pre Vickers?
CC4 - Rene Boulders, (Luxembourg)
CC5 - Gordon Spice/Motorcraft (Spa 1978-1st)
CC6 - Chris Craft/Motorcraft
CC7 - Jean-Michel Martin (Spa 1979-1st).
CC8 - Sold Abroad
CC9 - Andy Rouse (1980)
CC10 - Gordon Spice (1980)
CC11 - NEW INFO from Graham 'Skid' Scarborough:
The yellow Track Marshall car No 15 was indeed the car Chuck Nicholson bought from Vince Woodman in about late '80 early '81 It was CC11 and was Vince's Spare/Customer car. Chuck did a few Tricentrol rounds with it and basically ran it himself with sponsorship from Track Marshall. (An agricultural crawler tractor company which Chuck had previously just bought) I think Tony Sugden did also drive it once or twice. I then bought the car from Chuck at the end of '82 and raced it in Modified saloons in '83 and '84. In '83 it was in Track Marshall livery. For '84 I repainted it in Red and White Letchworth Roofing colours who were my sponsors for the next 4 years. In early '85 I sold the car to Metro Breakers. Unfortunately the car was soon written off. I think at Snetterton and I think being driven by a guy called Kevin Glynn. I don't know what happened to it after that. I dont think it was resurected but certain bits of it could have filtered down over the years.
CC12 - TBC
CC13 - Jean-Michel Martin (Spa 1980-1st)
CC14 - TBC
CC15 - Vince Woodman (Could this be the spare Woodman car that Jonathan Buncombe used on occasions in 1981/82?)
CC16 - TBC
CC17 - TBC
CC18 - TBC
CC19 - TBC
CC20 - Originally built for Vince Woodman and campaigned in the 1981/82 seasons. Subsequently owned by Brian Chatfield and run in BTCC Group A 83-85 and also Modsaloons. Then campaigned by other people in Modsaloons and Northern Sports/saloons TBC. Latterly owned by Ric Wood, restored then purchased by private enthusiast. Car now residing in original spec and livery in Wiltshire.

A late model CC car ran in 1981/82 in plain white VMW Motors livery. Also ran like this as a spare car in 1982, and was campaigned in the TT by Vince and Jonathan in this livery. Jonathan thinks this was one of the last and was the best one he ever drove...

There is some debate as to whether 20 or as many as 25 Capris were built. Some latter owners reckon only 20, but Dave Cook once advised that there were more likely to be 25 as a lot of the later ones were built for European customers. However this could mean 25cars total (including any Mk II's?), not necessarily 25 Mk III's?

So assuming that there were 25 Capri chassis numbers:
CC21
CC22
CC23
CC24
CC25 all TBC.

Dave Thomas's 'Group 2' car is ex Spice so I wonder if we can get the chassis number for that somehow? Dave recently sold this car but confirmed that Gordon originally sold it to Brian Chatfield at the end of 1982/early 1983 who sold it to Colin Woodcock, who then sold it to Dave. I can say for certain that the car Brian bought was a car that ran in the 1982 BSCC in the Shell/Mirror livery. Gordon and Andy Rouse drove two brand new cars in 1982 so could these be CC18 AND 19 OR CC21 and 22 even?

Other CC chassis info (SEE OTHER PROJECT THREAD IN MAIN SECTION):
CC26
CC27
One likely to have been the 1983 ETC Belga Group A Mustang driven by Vince Woodman, Jonathan Buncombe and the Martin brothers. The other potentially the Opel Monza BTCC car driven by Tony Lanfranchi and John Cleland in BTCC.

CC28
CC29
CC30
CC31 BTCC BMW (GB) Group A BMW 635 CSi's

The last major project car that the firm may have assigned a chassis number to is:
CC32 - Group C Tiga Lambo??

There's also a possibility that other cars were built or developed but may never have seen competitive action, or maybe were sold abroad were also given CC chassis numbers.

There's an awful long way to go with this folks!

[capridt]

I’ve just come across your CC Capri thread, I hope this may help. I bought my CC mk3 from well known former racer Colin Woodcock. My understanding is that: - he bought the car from Brian Chatfield who in turn bought it direct from Gordon Spice. Gordon has been down and seen the car on a couple of occasions but is unsure exactly which one it is as he never kept records, he thinks it may be his Motorcraft / Autocar one, in which case it may be CC 10. (Could this be the one he campaigned in '81/'82 with Daily Mail sponsorship?) I believe that the car was fitted with the RS body kit, big wheels etc by Brian, and the (bored & stroked) 3.5 engine by Colin. Colin told me he had a nasty shunt when a suspension link broke which necessitated the replacement of the front panel and inner wings, this may be when the identification plate disappeared. If anybody out there (Brian?) can throw light on its number, please let me know. Incidentally, the car will be up at the Autosport show in the Coys auction, so if anyone has more info. I will be there, please make contact. Thanks, DT.

[Martyn Jones]

Hi,

I too have just come across this thread, which is proving to be rather fascinating. I need to find out some background information on what is possibly a Spice / CC Capri III. It was raced by Ed Schinkel in Europe (and sponsored by his company Cricket & Co), it is RHD, and it has a Semoulin connection. It is a genuine Group 1 car and has all the right bits (including a long-range fuel tank), but it doesn't seem to have a CC Racing chassis plate.

If anyone has any information on this car, I would love to hear from them.

Thanks,

Martyn

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Martyn Jones

Hi,

I too have just come across this thread, which is proving to be rather fascinating. I need to find out some background information on what is possibly a Spice / CC Capri III. It was raced by Ed Schinkel in Europe (and sponsored by his company Cricket & Co), it is RHD, and it has a Semoulin connection. It is a genuine Group 1 car and has all the right bits (including a long-range fuel tank), but it doesn't seem to have a CC Racing chassis plate.

If anyone has any information on this car, I would love to hear from them.

Thanks,

Martyn

Hi Martyn, glad to have you posting!

If you have any images of the car it might be useful to post them in the main thread in the History section for us to investigate/discuss further.

Also I haven't yet thanked Dave Thomas forn the previous post! If I had read it properly I would have seen the Woodcock connection relative to my last post in the main thread!

[chunterer]

Martyn, the Semoulin car has featured a lot in the Facebook G1 and GA pages. Pure speculation of course, but as a rhd and likely not CC built it could well be the ex Stuart Graham, Wayne Wainwright car....This was originally a Mk2 uprated to mk3 spec in 1978/79. Wainwright bought if for 1981 resprayed white, but didn't have much joy but it had a distinctive bonet 'lip' over the grille which the mk2 upgrades often had for some reason. Semoulin is believed to have started running his car, also white with a funny bonnet lip, in 1982 in Belgium and some ETCC.

Could it be the same car?

The confusing bit is that Terry Nicholls bought a white Capri (strongly believed to be the ex Graham car) around the same early 80's period and turned his into a Gartrac car which has just been found in France!!

Perhaps Stuart Graham might be able to tell us!

[julietjones]

Chunterer,

Im wondering if you know how I might contact Dave Cook of C&C Racing Developments. I can't locate a web page for them.

It's a long story, but in short, I met a lady whom along with her husband used to race in a Gordon Spice Race and they befriended Dave Cook and Pete Clark back in the 70's/80's. I met her on the IOW when I went to retrieve my motorcycle last weekend and when I told her I was going back to a little town called Kirkbymoorside, she got very excited and emotional and asked that if I could find Dave that I get a postcard to him with contact details so they might get in touch again. It's a long shot, but will hopefully be fruitful.

Any ideas?

Juliet

squeak@snakebite.com

Originally Posted by chunterer

Copied this in form Racing Capri thread to see if we can establish any further details on the 20-25 cars built between 1978-82.

We know a great many of the cars are still out there but we need to confirm what is what!

Some are still competing today:
David Thomas has an ex Gordon Spice CC car that Brian Chatfield may have later owned.
Ric Wood runs a modified 4 litre car, (not sure of origins)
There is an ex Vince Woodman CC Esso car that Brian Chatfield definitely later owned that was restored by Ric Wood but the current owner is not currently competing with chassis number CC20.
Stuart Graham's Faberge car which Terry Nicholls later ran as a modified Gartrac GA 3.4 car in Thundersaloons. This is either in a museum somewhere back in original black green and red colours, or is in bits awaiting a strip down and rebuild (one of them must be right!!)
There is also an ex Jeff Allam shell somewhere which was latterly run in modsaloons and northern sports saloons

chunterer.

[chunterer]

Further useful information for the chassis list.

Iterestingly it seems that CC9 has been rebuilt and ran ladt year at Goodwood MM and Donington Classic. It is supposed to be Jeff Allam's 1979 CC car but in our list which originated from Dave Cook that chassis is listed as Andy Rouse's 1980 car.

Could the spice team have bought it off Jeff for Rouse to use or is there a new puzzle to unravel

CC10 is about to return to action at the Goodwin meeting (as reported by Mike Bell)

CC12 will be auctioned at Stoneleigh later this month

CC13 was rebuilt in 2013 with Goodwin MM in mind and is resplendent in Belga livery.

There is also an ex Bastos car that Ric Wood restored and since sold on but not sure of the chassis number.