1966 Brabham BT11A Single Seater

Lot details
Registration No: N/A
Chassis No: F1-2-64
Mot Expiry: N/A

As an offshoot of Jack Brabham Motors Limited, Motor Racing Developments was set up by the legendary Aussie racer Brabham himself and his great friend and race engineer Ron Tauranac. Although this talented partnership only built one MRD, they went on to produce a very long line of highly successful racing car designs under the Brabham name through their 1962-formed Brabham Racing Developments which quickly changed to Motor Racing Developments. The mission for MRD was to construct single seaters and sports-racing cars for sale to private owners, while at the same time the Brabham Racing Organisation would run a works Brabham team of their own in various categories including F1.
The Brabham/Tauranac partnership lasted for just under twelve years, after which Tauranac ran Brabham. Bernie Ecclestone first bought in and then bought up the organisation following Tauranac's departure to set up his own Ralt marque race team. However, with Ecclestone at the wheel, customer car manufacture was discontinued so that Brabham could concentrate all their resources on making F1 cars for the Brabham GP team. From a total of 343 World Championship victories contested, Brabhams took 35 Grand Prix victories, an impressive ten per cent success rate. Brabham type numbers go from the BT1, the solitary MRD raced by Gavin Youl in 1961, until the final BT58 of 1989 and 1990.
Being auctioned here is an important Brabham single seater from the Brabham/Tauranac era and of course the `BT' came from the personal involvement of Brabham and Tauranac. Chassis number F1-2-64, this car, as many others, does not have a chassis plate in evidence, has the highly desirable provenance of having been first raced by the great and later knighted Jack Brabham himself. The `A' suffix signifies that F1-2-64 was one of just five BT11A's specifically built for the Tasman Series held annually during the European winter in Australia and New Zealand and often in races on the African continent.
The space-framed BT11 initially appeared as the `customer' version of the BT7, which, in turn, was a development of the BT3 design employed by Brabham's two-car F1 team run from 1963. With bodywork made more effective after Tauranac followed aerodynamic advice from Malcolm Sayer at Jaguar, the BT3 saw the marque finish third in the Constructors Championship ahead of Ferrari in 1963, when Brabham works driver, the American Dan Gurney finished fifth in the Drivers Championship. So successful was the BT11 with the private owners in 1964 that the works Brabham team took over the last of the five BT11s to be built to F1 specification. Two BT11s, including the one supplied to Rob Walker's team, were powered by BRM engines, whilst the one raced by former motorcycle racer and F1 privateer Bob Anderson had a Coventry Climax V8 in the tail. Swiss Jo Siffert won a non-Championship F1 race at Enna for Walker in his BT11-BRM and was third in the Championship US GP, and Anderson's BT11-Climax was third in Austria. Walker's BT11 was then acquired by Willment, who, with Graham Hill at the wheel, won the 1964 Rand GP in South Africa, Frank Gardner driving the same car during the 1965 season.
We understand that this B11A was actually constructed very late in 1965 to the special order of South African Aldo Scribante, for whom it was first raced by Brabham in the Rand GP 4 December 1965 and covered by him in his Motor Racing magazine column in the January issue. As run by Scribante's equipe, the car dubbed F1-2-64/2 (for customs carnet purposes only though as the BT11 F1 with this identity has been owned by BMW since the 1960s) was fitted with a 2-7-litre Climax four-cylinder engine, an HD5 gearbox team and 13ins diameter wheels.
Since that first race, the period race history of this car has been quite remarkable with three outright victories for Dave Charlton during the 1966 season in the Bulawayo 100, at Lourenco Marques and in the Rand Spring Trophy, and second places in the Coronation 100 and the Festival Trophy. Driver and car also achieved a heat second in the Border 100 and a third in heat in the Killarney Trophy. In such a busy season, there were retirements for mechanical reasons from the South African Cape Trophy, the Rand Autumn Trophy, the Natal Winter and Rand Trophies and the Rhodesian GP.
In 1967, the Scribante BT11A, again with Charlton driving, was a non-finisher in the South African GP and the Cape Trophy. Between January and March of that year, a 3-litre Repco 620 engine was used instead of the Climax and, thus equipped, Carlton won the Kyalami Autumn Trophy. He also won the Rand Spring Trophy and took second places in the Bullawayo 100 and in the Rhodesian GP, and a second in heat one with a retirement in heat two in the Killarney Trophy. In addition, Charlton and the BT11A were non finishers in races in the Natal and at Lourenco Marques.
1968 saw the same car take part in a similar race programme, still run by Scribante, though this time, apart from Dave Charlton, Arnold Charlton and Tony Jefferies also drove, whilst for the 1969 season, Dave Charlton drove again for Scribante. In 1970 however, the team patron bought a Lotus 49 and
sold the Brabham to Ian Robinson, the car remaining in South Africa until rescued, minus engine, and brought to the UK during the 1990s by leading historic racer John Harper.
The car was raced by Harper and Richard 'Dickie' Attwood who asked the celebrated engineer, Stuart Davey, to 'sort it'. The car has now been effectively rebuilt by him, including a complete new suspension, and an invoice in the file shows the work done including a brand new 2.5 litre engine and HD5 gearbox.
As presented today, evocatively finished in green with a gold stripe, this historic Brabham, which can also accommodate a Repco 3-litre power unit, would obviously be eligible for all the major historic events and we are sure to see it on the top rung of the podium.