Revision 1967 and Explanations

A great many readers keep their old copies of Motor Sport, many having them bound year by year, not only for re-reading during dull moments, but as books of reference. Consequently we feel duty-bound to give space to putting right some errors that crept into print during 1967. Some of these were due to careless writing on the part of the staff, others due to the inexperience of some temporary staff, some due to inadequate scrutiny during proof reading, and some due to the growth of the circulation getting the better of the production and printing staff. None were wholly excusable, nor do we claim to put right every mistake, especially some of the “howlers” in the Small Ads, which club journals such as the Vintage Bulletin, the S.T.D. Register News, the Railton Magazine, Porsche Post, and so on, delight in reproducing, to our delight and amusement as well, but the following are some of the more important ones.

The January 1967 issue saw the start of a new form of type and line-spacing, with page numbers, dates and title all squeezed into one bottom corner instead of being spread across the top of the page. Perhaps it was this change of face, or just the cold weather, that caused our marked copy to have only two corrections. On page 15 Nigel Arnold-Forster, Editor of the lively Vintage Bulletin, was said to be driving a Farzer-Nash, instead of his usual Frazer Nash, and in a letter from the R.A.C. about road-racing in the I.o.M. [was it really that long ago?] we referred to the T.T. at Dunrod. This should have been Dundrod, that super road circuit to the West of Belfast where the motorcycle boys are still able to race, but where the R.A.C. will not sanction racing any more. In February, on page 123, in a letter from Anthony Blight the omission of a vital comma made it read as if he was writing about a designer named Petit Jano. Now you and I know what he meant, but there may be some newer and younger readers who do not know of the French designer Emil Petit, who was responsible for Salmsons and an abortive G.P. car known as the SEFAC (not to be confused with SEFAC Ferrari), or the brilliant Italian designer Vittorio Jano; whose last design was the D50 Lancia G.P. car, which passed on to Ferrari and won numerous races in 1956, with Jano still keeping an eye on the development. In March some recent race results were compiled on page 168 and the average speed of the New Zealand G.P. should read 162.378 k.p.h. and not 162.490 k.p.h. while the Cordoba Formula Three race average was 130.679 k.p.h., not 143.411 k.p.h. For the mathematically minded the New Zealand race average was 100.9 m.p.h. which we convert to k.p.h. with six-figure tables. The Argentine races were calculated by the organisers in kilometres per hour. In the results of the Lady Wigram Trophy Race Hulme was given as driving a Repco-Brabham, when by F.I.A. ruling it should have been a Brabham-Repco. Other runners in that race were correct, with Brabham-Climax, Brabham-Ford and Lotus-Climax and at times like these we really appreciate Ferrari, Honda and B.R.M.! In the Argentine Formula Three races J. P. Jussaud appeared, and this should have been Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, the sandy-haired French driver in the Matra works team who has been supporting Henri Pescarolo throughout the season in the F.3 Matra team. On page 173 is a list of drivers given by the F.I.A. and they forgot Peter Revson, who should be added to the list. On page 179 in the short test with a Fiat Dino V6 it was claimed that it did the standing start 500 metres in 16.6 seconds. This should have been 400 metres, as Fiat were trying to impress the English Press and had marked out their nearest measurement to our quarter-mile. The 500 metres is the shortest metric distance accepted for record purposes by the F.I.A., all very confusing.

Something happened in April for the file copy is as pure as the snow outside, but we made up for things in May. The Siracusa G.P. on May 21st was left out of the Fixture List; on page 381 Alfa Romeo were said to have withdrawn from Grand Prix racing at the end of 1952, when in fact it was 1951, their last race being the Spanish G.P. at Barcelona. In 1952, because Alfa Romeo had withdrawn and B.R.M. would not commit themselves to say when the V16 would be ready to race, the major G.P. races were run to Formula Two, in those days an unsupercharged Formula, dominated by Ferrari. In the Sebring report on page 401 the J-type Ford was described as having a “bread-basket ” body. Our reporter meant to say “bread-van,” referring to the cut-off tail style started by the Scuderia Centro-Sud with a GTO Ferrari some years before. In those days racing two-seater coupés had sleek “streamlined “sloping tails and this GTO Ferrari appeared with a very low roof line running almost horizontally from the top of the windscreen to the vertical back, in which there was a window. This was on a front-engined car and when it came to Brands Hatch to race someone nicknamed it the “bread-van” and everyone thought it looked very funny. Since the advent of the mid-engined coupés this body shape has been accepted without comment. One of the Porsche team drivers was written as Schuetz and it should have been Udo Schutz. He is the very tall, strong German driver who cannot fit comfortably into a 910 or 907 Porsche so he has the top of the cockpit removed. Schutz is a very hard, determined driver, not of Grand Prix calibre, but a good man for long-distance racing or rugged circuits like Nurburgring, Targa-Florio and Mugello. In case he is not remembered he won the 1,000-kilometre race at Nurburgring with Joe Buzzetta, the Mugello race with Mitter, was 3rd at Aspern and 3rd in the Paris 1,000-kilometre race. On page 412 of the centre-spread, some enthusiastic cutting-to-size of the caption to the photograph of the Le Mans Porsche tail made it a nonsense. The original exhaust pipes ended in a fibre glass expansion box inside the long tail and one end of this box was the wide slot in the extremity of the tail. Unfortunately the idea did not work and fumes got into the cockpit, so as a temporary measure two long metal tubes were fitted in the box from the inlets to the outside atmosphere and these were shown sticking out of the tail, in the photograph.

In the June issue the Reims 12-hour meeting was omitted from the Fixture List and on pages 480 and 508 David Yorke’s name was spelt without the “e,” not that it worried David, for he has been in the racing game too long to get upset about such things. In the 1950s he was team-manager to Peter Whitehead, in those difficult days when British G.P. cars were virtually non-existent and British drivers were struggling to get entries, even with Ferraris and Maseratis. He was team-manager to the Vanwall cars and enjoyed seeing the red cars driven into the ground by Tony Vandervell’s all-conquering team with Moss, Brooks and Lewis-Evans driving, and today is team manager for the Gulf-sponsored Ford “Mirage” team. On page 491 the Hon. Patrick Lindsay’s 250F Maserati was described as looking “un-Ferrari-like in its black paintwork,” a slip which is self-evident. In the results on page 516 David Piper’s Ferrari is given as a 250LM, whereas it is a 275LM, the figure denoting the capacity of one cylinder in c.c.s. Twelve times 275 is 3,300 c.c., the capacity of the LM. On numerous occasions Ken Tyrrell’s name was spelt with one “r,” but like David Yorke he was not put out, having been in racing for an equally long time, and is often referred to as “Chopper” due to his business interests in a wood firm. July was a bad month, due to holidays and heat, no doubt, for it started on page 586 when Peter Procter’s Anglia accident was described as happening at Silverstone, when, in fact it happened at Goodwood. Procter has made a fantastic recovery from his terrible burns and is around the circuits once more, alas not as a driver, but is helping out in management. On the next page the Ford France entry at Le Mans was described as a Mark IV whereas in fact, it was a Mark II, and the same fact applies on page 589. In a footnote to a letter about Brooklands on page 591 it is said that Vickers Ltd. bought the track in 1936. This was 1946, just after the war. Another date error was on page 621 in the article on films, the I.o.M. T.T. film being 1922, not 1902. In the article on Mefco racing they were said to have bought a 904 Porsche in 1954. If they had they would have cleaned up all the racing; it was 1964 and later they are quoted as having owned an XX 120 Jaguar! In the caption to the Le Mans start on page 630 (yes, we know centre-spread pages do not have numbers), the Ferrari number 25 is credited as being entered by Filipinetti whereas it was Chinetti’s N.A.R.T. entry, and number 1 Ford was entered by Ford not Shelby—the Californian team prepared the car. On page 634 the Lotus 49 is said to have a Ford 3-litre engine, which to our way of thinking should be a Cosworth 3-litre. Until such time as the Ford Motor Company actually make the V8 engine, or own Cosworth Engineering, it will be a Cosworth engine in Motor Sport, no matter what others say. When the opportunity arises we will list all the firms who make the parts which Cosworth assemble into that powerful V8 Grand Prix engine, and apart from Autolite sparking plugs the name Ford will not appear high on the list; however, we do not deny or fail to acknowledge the wonderful thing that Ford have done with their money, and unlike Firestone, B.P. and Esso they are continuing to supply good honest money. In Formula Three we always refer to Ford engines rathei than the “tuners,” Cosworth, Holbay, Lucas etc., for the basic engine is made by Ford, the crankcase castings, head castings and so on. originate from Dagenham.

On page 638 in a trade-puff for Schrader valves, one of the best international monopolies that we know, the fourth line is one of our best efforts. It reads “Beyond this time fatigue of the rubber of body valve is likely to impair the air seal etc.” One unkind reader suggested that it should have been “Boddy the valve.” We never have worked out this one!

We find it hard to believe, but the August issue seemed to be perfect, but that is only our idea. In September on page 792 Gurney was credited in the results of the German G.P. with a new lap record in 7 min. 15.1 sec. That would have been a record, it was actualy 8 min. 15.1 sec., although in practice Clark came close to breaking 8 min, for the Nurburgring, with 8 min. 04.1 sec. and we would wager an under-8 min. lap this year. While on lap records, on page 793, Ickx is given 1 min. 27.8 sec. for the Zandvoort lap record. It was 1 min. 27.9 sec., a speed of 171.726 k.p.h., which was remarkable as it was an outright record for the Circuit, with an F.2 Matra, compared to Clark’s 1 min. 28.08 sec. set up at the Dutch G.P. The race average speed was 168.769 k.p.h., not 168.870 k.p.h., and the race took place on July 30th, not July 17th. Dates, times and speeds are our headache, but if they are not right there is little point in putting them in. In August poor Bob Anderson lost his life while testing at Silverstone, and in the obituary we said he was 30 years old, whereas he was 36 years old. In our report of the B.O.A.C. race, on page 814, the type-setter got in an awful muddle at the top of the second column. The first two lines should have been at the top of the first column on the next page. If that is done it makes sense!

In October we reported that the fastest time by a motorcycle at the Brighton Speed Trials was put up by Phil Manzano with 20.81 seconds. This was a long way out for Ian Ashwell did 19.47 seconds on his supercharged Vincent, clocking nearly 170 m.p.h. over the bumps at the end of the course, which had the rugged Ashwell saying “Ker-rist.” Our “reporter ” could not have seen the airborne Vincent.

In the Motor Show writings in the November issue the rather gormless-looking Jaguar Special by Fortune called the “Pirana ” by the Weekend Telegraph we spelt “Piranha.” Both are correct, the spelling with an “h” being given us by the London Zoo, that without an “h” being the American spelling. In case it was not made clear, it is the name of a small and vicious fish.

On page 1,042 in the report of the United States G.P. it was not very clear at the end whether Clark stopped at the pits for repairs, when his rear suspension broke. The answer is that he did not, the picture in the centre-spread of the suspension wired in place was taken after the race. In the tabulated results Spence and Irwin retired with broken connecting rods in their engines; the single word “rod” could have meant radius rod, connecting rod, throttle rod etc.

On page 1,048 we mentioned Mike Hawthorn’s accident as being in a 3.8-litre Jaguar; it was a 3.4-litre, the enlarged engine not being produced until during 1959.

Finally, in the last issue of 1967, on page 1,129 it was said that the F.I.A.T. was found in 1903, it should have been 1930, and in the centre-spread, page 1,151, the Lola-Ford of Parnelli Jones at Riverside is credited with a 7-litre version of the 4-cam Indy engine. That would be some engine. It was an enlarged 4.2-litre Indianapolis engine of 4.7 litres.

In the article about economy cars, dictated on the day the £ was devalued, there was a stupid slip when the Bugatti-inspired Baby Peugeot was described as o.h.c.; this rather pedestrian little car, for Ettore’s influence, had 3 T-head side-valve engine of 655 c.c. Further on, in the same article, lines transposed by the printers made it appear that the 350 c.c. Nomad had fully-automatic, torque-converter transmission; the Nomad or Gnome of 1926 made do with friction transmission and it was the Constantinesco of circa 1922 which predated the Daf as a two-cylinder car with automatically-variable transmission, although this was achieved by a mysterious torque-converter situated between its vertical water-cooled cylinders, which could only be understood by making a Meecano model of the mechanism. Whereas the Daf has a simple variable-belt drive and an air-cooled flat twin powcr plant. A few lines further on the Gillet £100 car built by British Ensign, also in 1926/7, with a 4-cylinder water-cooled engine and proper car-type transmission, was given an “e” to its name, by someone who was thinking more about razors than cars and omitted to check with Doyle! And, also in this stop-press article, the Triumph Super Seven, a rather superior 748 c.c. baby car with 3-bearing crankshaft and Lockheed hydraulic four-wheel-brakes got mixed up with the £100 cars, whereas, on its introduction in 1927, this Triumph tourer was priced at £149 10s., and the picture purporting to be of that splendid economy car, the Fiat 500 F, was of an earlier model with the rear-hinged doors.

That is about the lot, many other errors having been pointed out by eagle-eyed readers, for which we are grateful; many we saw ourselves when it was too late for an alteration. Other errors were corrected the following month in short paragraphs. Our New Year Resolution? Yes, you are right, but we will not keep to it, we are only human.

W. B. — D. S. J.