Luigi Musso:

He was one of the best drivers of his time and I think obviously he would have improved with experience – he died really rather young.

Do you think that the relationship between Collins and Hawthorn did him a disservice at Ferrari?

Possibly, I don’t know how the politics went at Ferrari, because he certainly wasn’t an easy man, but in truth I just don’t know.

Masten Gregory:

He was a funny bloke, quite amusing. Very competent driver, mostly in sports cars, though he did of course do Formula 1. Just one of those guys who made up the season, you know, another person who came in, there were only about 18 cars so I got to know him quite well.

Stuart Lewis-Evans:

Well Stuart Lewis-Evans was one of the fastest drivers in the world, I mean he really was exceptionally fast and in fact, unfortunately as you know he had an accident and maybe he was going a little bit too quickly. But he was a very competent driver – even though he was quite a small guy, he was pretty wiry.

I think that was the reason Tony Vandervell gave up – once he’d beaten the red cars he’d done what he wanted to do, and the tragedy made him think ‘well, I don’t want to go on anymore’

Archie Scott-Brown:

Well Archie, the fact that he only had a stump for an arm didn’t make any damn difference at all. He was exceptionally competent, a very nice guy and a great loss to the sport, really.

Innes Ireland – do you think his reputation as a bon viveur belied his talent?

Yes, well Innes was a character – motor racing needs characters – and he was also a very fast driver. I mean he was, for quite a long time, as fast as Jim Clark when he was driving the same cars at Lotus. He was such a fun person to have around. I think Colin Chapman handled him very badly, quite honestly, but I think I can understand why, because Innes was a sort-of take it as it comes sort of guy and I don’t think Colin liked that sort of thing – I think he liked to feel that people were a bit more dedicated, which of course Innes was, but it just didn’t show in the same way as with Jim Clark.

Perhaps similar to Kimi today?

Yes, good analogy.

Mike Hawthorn:

Hawthorn was very fast, when he was on form. People always cite it as being a great race when he beat Fangio at Reims, which is really not correct, because what happened was he was smart enough to be in front of Fangio coming into the last corner, and he waved him past. Fangio took the bait, and went around him, then Mike dropped back and coming up to the start/finish line he just pulled out and passed him. So he outsmarted him. I mean he had a lot of ability as well, but that was not the way people painted him – his ability concealed many other events. You know, Mike was a great character, he was blonde and tall, drank beer. You were either a Hawthorn fan or a Moss fan. I was dedicated, teetotal, just chased crumpet and went racing. Mike had a more expansive life, let’s put it that way!

The thing you’ve got to remember is that these guys were playboys, but once they got out there that all went by. Some were introvert, some were extrovert, just because you’re one way or the other doesn’t affect, in any way, your driving skills.

Were the number of mechanical failures and breakages you’d experienced whilst driving for Lotus and Maserati a reason for joining Ferrari in ’62?

Quite honestly, if the Maserati had been made by Ferrari it would have been a much better car, because I think Ferrari engineering is the best and Maserati design is great. I wanted to go to Ferrari because he’d asked me to drive his car, had agreed to paint one in Rob Walker blue and was going to give it to me for the year. It would have been a great thing if I only hadn’t had my crash.

Ferrari had a difficult time in ’62 – do you think you might have given them a competitive edge?

Yes, but I think if I’d been there I could have helped them sort it out, because I’d had so much experience in driving cars, figuring out how to remedy things. I like to hope I could have got a better car than they had.

How did Rob Walker feel about having to cope with the politics at Ferrari?

Well there wouldn’t have been any. That’s the great thing: they were going to paint the car in his colours, give it to us to run. Alf Francis would have been there when it was being built, therefore we’d have had our group and he’d have had his. And obviously he would expect us to try and beat him in the same way we’d expect him to try and beat us, so I think it would have been a very amicable arrangement.

The post A Few Words with Sir Stirling Moss appeared first on Dylan Michael.

“It was off and on a years’ work – still racing in between. Funnily enough I got involved with the trial for the movie John Sturges and Steve McQueen were going to do, Day of the Champion. You had two camps – the MGM and the Warner Brothers’, and they were both running around signing people up – effectively I signed for Warner Brothers. They did some trial footage at the Nurburgring, but at a certain point Warner Brothers decided there wasn’t room for two movies and scrubbed theirs, which I think was probably a wise decision, though it would’ve been interesting to see what they actually came up with, because Sturges had made The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, those sort of movies, so it would’ve been a serious effort. It was interesting actually, meeting John Sturges and comparing him to John Frankenheimer – they were very different sorts of people. Sturges appeared to be very matter-of-fact, very down to earth, whereas Frankenheimer was a much more artistic type of person. But both were obviously great in their own right.

The whole moviemaking thing was a bit of an eye-opener to somebody like myself, coming in from the outside – you sort of got the impression that there was an awful lot of time wasted, but really when you think about it, it was such a huge project with so many people going in so many different directions, that to actually make it happen was a huge achievement. In hindsight Frankenheimer must’ve been a great organiser because things always seemed to happen – there didn’t seem to be a great deal of panic, which there was certainly a great deal of potential for, because you had a professional group of people: cameramen, make-up and lighting and actors, then you had a big group of total amateurs – in terms of the film world – and to coordinate all of that was obviously a fair achievement.

I didn’t do any direct to camera stuff as an individual, but to have all that stuff pointed at you in such a controlled atmosphere, it wasn’t easy. I think that the most relaxed footage they got was in that pub somewhere near Brands – basically everyone filled themselves up and had a great party. Frankenheimer was struggling a bit to get people to relax and not look wooden, and I think one of the ways to do that was to actually get some beer flowing. Graham was almost a stand-up comedian, and that’s the surprising thing in the film – if he’d just been himself it would’ve been great, but it’s not easy having a camera put in front of you and being told what to say, and how to say it. It definitely wasn’t Graham because it’s not just the camera, it’s all the people and the lights and everything else. Phil was probably – as far as the drivers went – one of the better actors, he sort of played himself, really.

James Garner was great, a really nice down to earth guy – he wasn’t particularly ‘Hollywood’. He was a very capable driver, a very keen driver, too – he liked racing and he liked cars, which made a big difference. I found him a really nice, pleasant guy.

Sabato could barely even drive, from memory. Montand wasn’t capable, but watching him, he was certainly very professional. Sabato we had some very funny moments with. We had this GT40 with a trailer hitch on the back of it, which it became my principal job to drive, Frankenheimer used to sit beside me and work the cameras – he had television lenses strapped on beside the camera lens, so he could see what he was shooting from inside the car via monitors. It was basically a Formula 3 car, or Formula Junior car with the front wheels cut off it and the trailer hitch attached, so the camera was just focusing on the driver. I got the distinct impression he didn’t like Sabato, and when he put him in the trailer hitch we’d be doing some scenes and Frankenheimer would say ‘Hang it out a bit’ and you know you could hang the GT40 out and it would hang the trailer out into the ditch basically – it was very obvious, after a while that Frankenheimer wasn’t very impressed with Sabato, and the more I hung him in the ditch, the better. But Montand did a lot in that trailer car too and it was interesting watching him work because he’d, you know, get going and you could see it must’ve been bloody terrifying – you could see it was bothering him – but then he’d pull himself together and act again, so very professional. I mean I wouldn’t have wanted to sit in the thing for all the money in the world! I tend to think that occupational health and safety these days wouldn’t fully approve it!

Francoise Hardy was very interesting, she was quite aloof on the movie, but probably that was a deliberate thing in that first of all she didn’t know all these motor racing people – probably had no interest in motor racing and sort of kept to herself. But after the shoot was finished – in fact it might have been after the premiere – I had dinner at the Dorchester, where Frankenheimer was staying, and Francoise came. She was just a totally different person – relaxed, chatty, friendly, and I think that was the true person. She obviously got on very well with Frankenheimer.

A lot of the driving was very compromised by the cameras and all the paraphernalia that they sort of crammed into and onto the cars, but it wasn’t really a major issue because we weren’t really going hard out. Some of the stuff on the banking at Monza would have been 100/120mph, but quite often the fastest you went was going back to start a take again. We didn’t do whole laps, but there were sequences of corners and things, then you know, you’d all turn round, go back in the other direction, and sort of hoon it, whereas the stuff that was actually shot tended to be quite controlled. If you get a bunch of racing people in that environment then every now and then they want to break out, certainly was in terms of repositioning cars! I mean at Clermont they shot on various different parts of the circuit, and you know, because it’s quite a long circuit, a bit of hooning used to go on between the various shooting spots.

I spent two or three weeks at Clermont, quite a lot of time at Brands too, and Monza. We actually did some of the Monaco stuff in the town of Clermont – I remember there were scenes going up the hill at Monaco, and a lot of what appeared in the film was actually shot at Clermont. My hotel room was next to James Garner’s and they were using that part of the hotel for some of the scenes between him and Jessica Walter. There was probably a lot more done at Clermont than just the racing scenes, but they were identified as somewhere else.

We saw the odd clip, or rush, whatever they call them, but it wasn’t until it was all put together that I really got a grasp of the storyline. I guess the initial reaction, and not just from me, was that it was all a bit over the top. But to be bluntly honest – I’ve watched it a number of times since – looking back, it was all pretty much as it was. Slightly embellished in what people were saying, in that I don’t think we used to talk that way, but what the people were saying in the movie was what I guess people were thinking privately at the time. So in that regard it was probably fairly close to the truth, but as I say, we didn’t tend to talk about it quite so much…”

The post Chris Amon talks about ‘Grand Prix’ appeared first on Dylan Michael.

The first notable racing film of the 1960’s, The Young Racers (1963), was 32 year-old producer/director Roger Corman’s thirty-sixth feature film and thanks to his economic methods, not one of them had lost a penny. Armed with a $150,000 budget; a script originally about bullfighting; and a skeleton crew, he set out to capture the sights and sounds of the 1962 European Formula One season, visiting Monaco, Spa, Rouen, Reims and Aintree. The film proved to be an international success and in terms of production methods it established a precedent, proving the feasibility of simply arriving at a few races and using the paddock as a backdrop to the dramatic action.

Corman’s distributors, American International Pictures (AIP), had a long history of youth oriented B-movie fare, including such cinematic delights as I Was A Teenage Werewolf and the series of Beach Party films which starred singing heartthrob Frankie Avalon. Given the success of MGM’s well-known Elvis Presley racing pictures, it was only a matter of time before Avalon put down his beach ball and picked up a crash helmet. In the atrocious Fireball 500 (1966), he starred as Dave Owens, stock car driver, singer, ladies’ man, and all-round tough guy, who unsuccessfully treads the fine line between laidback cool and rudeness – proving beyond doubt that only Elvis could make such a potentially noxious concoction palatable. The producers followed this with more of the same good ole boy NASCAR nonsense in Thunder Alley (1967), which starred another singing heartthrob, Fabian Forte (who had also appeared in Fireball 500). Both films prominently featured the work of West Coast customizing legend George Barris, who for Fireball 500 created a replica of Richard Petty’s iconic number 43 Plymouth (supposedly raced by Owens) and a barely recognizable Plymouth Barracuda, whilst for Thunder Alley he modified a Dodge Charger. The latter cars toured America promoting their respective films and were subsequently licensed as 1/25^th scale plastic kits, the sales of which rivaled the box office takings.

Fabian Forte would don overalls once again for the last of AIP’s racing films, The Wild Racers, shot over the summer of 1967 in much the same style as The Young Racers, and featuring action from Formula 2 races at Rouen, Brands Hatch, Jarama and Zandvoort (which were cunningly presented as Formula 1 events to the unsuspecting audience) along with the Sportscar race at Magny Cours. An underrated and stylish piece of filmmaking, it also contains some extraordinary footage, much of which centers around the Winkelmann Brabham BT23 driven by the “King of Formula Two”, Jochen Rindt.

After the successful releases of AIP’s films the floodgates truly opened, and with the gradual relaxation of censorship laws filmmakers could focus increasingly upon unsavory characters and violent action for cheap thrills. “Raw Flesh Against Steel!” exclaimed the advertisements for the “crash-o-rama” flick Pit Stop, which centered around ‘Figure Eight’ racing and contained some genuinely hair-raising sequences. With its grotesque array of protagonists and atmospheric black and white photography, Pit Stop is exploitation filmmaking at its finest, though any picture directed by Jack Hill should not, however, be held as a standard, for few such talented men operated in the milieu of B-movie production. Proof enough might come from the ill-advised viewing of writer/director/star William F. McGaha’s 1968 opus The Speed Lovers, which co-starred NASCAR driver Fred Lorenzon as himself, and placed the duo at the center of a rather implausible race-fixing plot to negligible dramatic effect. Equally uninteresting were John Russell’s dealings with a similar bunch of gangsters in Fireball Jungle (1969) and singer Marty Robbins’ romantic exploits in the artistically barren Hell on Wheels (1967). Stock car potboilers aside, feature-length documentaries also exploited the dangers of oval racing – US cinemagoers could hear the racing philosophies of Mario Andretti and Parnelli Jones in Profile of a Race Driver (1966), or see the remarkable story of stock car hero Tiny Lund – Hard Charger (1969) whilst countless others extolled the daring of the Figure Eight racers and dirt-trackers. Perhaps the most interesting documentary of the period chronicled the difficult first season of Grand Prix star James Garner’s American International Racing team. The Racing Scene (1969) followed the team to the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours, then to Limerock and St. Jovite for the Formula A events, and combined first-rate on-track footage with an uncompromising look at their mixed fortunes.

The proliferation of adventure and espionage films resulting from the success of the Bond franchise led to the inclusion of brief racing sequences in many films during the latter half of the decade, largely in efforts to lend a little additional glamour to proceedings. Examples included the Spanish caper movie The Magnificent Tony Carrera (original title: El Magnifico Tony Carrera, 1968), which opened with an F3 Lotteria at Monza; whilst the denouement of the atmospheric spy thriller A Dandy in Aspic (1968) played out against the dramatic backdrop of the Avus banking in Berlin during a Formula 3 race; and secret agent Stephen Boyd pulled an associate from the burning wreckage of an F2 Lotus at Brands Hatch in Assignment K (1968). Oddly enough Stirling Moss appeared momentarily alongside racing fan and team owner Peter Sellers in the overblown spoof Casino Royale (1967). When asked in typical fashion to “follow that car” Moss does so, on foot – “Idiot” remarks Sellers “I’ll get Fangio next time”. The legendary Juan Manuel Fangio was himself no stranger to the big screen, appearing in two Argentinian productions: the comedy Viaje de una nocha de verano (1965) and the racing drama Turismo de carretera (1968) along with his cameo in Grand Prix.

The big budget Japanese production Safari 5000, attempted to rival the epic scope of Frankenheimer’s film, and featured action from the Monte Carlo Rally along with the titular event. Unfortunately, in spite of being the highest grossing Japanese film of 1969, Safari 5000 (originally entitled Eiko e no 5,000 kiro) was seemingly never released internationally, at least not in its original form. A heavily edited version was released in Europe in 1972 with an advertising campaign inexplicably featuring artwork of Jacky Ickx in a Ferrari 312 B2 at Indianapolis! Viewers must surely have been somewhat disappointed at the absence not only of Ickx in his Ferrari, but of an intelligible plot.

During 1960s the Italian film industry was booming and the film-makers of Cinecitta were notoriously swift to exploit the latest cinematic trends down to the very last Lire. After the release of Winning several racing dramas went into production. The first, Formula 1: Nell’Inferno del Grand Prix (US title: Maniacs on Wheels) attempted to lend a little authenticity to proceedings by featuring none other than reigning World Champion Graham Hill and ex-Ferrari driver Giancarlo Baghetti (who also served as Racing Advisor) as two of the protagonists, whilst the starring role went to Giacomo Agostini, who, rather unimaginatively portrayed a motorbike champion given his shot at F1 stardom. Though his role could hardly be described as challenging, acting-wise Agostini isn’t bad – he looks suitably unimpressed when first shown his new 4WD Grand Prix car – and thankfully Hill isn’t really onscreen for long enough to appear as magnetically wooden as he had in Grand Prix. The racing sequences interspersed footage from the ’69 Monaco, Canadian, American and Italian Grands Prix with staged sequences shot mostly at Monza using F3 cars. The crew also attended the rainsoaked F2/F3 meeting at Albi and captured some exciting shots of the field  slithering through the downpour. Agostini would return to the big screen for another racing asventure the following year, this time co-starring with pop singer Mal in the risible Amore Formula 2. It was aimed squarely at the teen market and opened to terrible reviews and mediocre box-office, thus ending his spell as a matinee idol. Opening later the same year, Le Mans – Scorciatoia per l’Inferno (English title: Le Mans – Shortcut to Hell) would be the third and final racing drama to emerge from Italy during this period. It starred American actor Lang Jeffries as an ex-driver turned manufacturer, haunted by the memories of the Le Mans crash of 1955 and troubled by the young upstart he has hired to drive for him. Footage from the 1970 Spanish and Dutch Grands Prix along with the Italian round of the Formula 5000 Championship was combined with more Baghetti coordinated slipstreaming action from Monza, this time using a variety of Formula 2 machinery, predominantly a Tecno (doubling for a Ferrari 312B in the race footage). With typical Cinecitta resourcefulness and sensationalism, footage of Jacky Ickx and Jackie Oliver’s fiery collision in Spain, and the aftermath of Piers Courage’s fatal accident at Zandvoort were made integral to the plot – the combination of the latter with a staged accident being a decision of questionable taste.

With the commercial failure of Le Mans the brief vogue for racing films largely ended, and the genre of the ‘road movie’ emerged, which would more accurately reflect the climate of social disillusionment in which they were made, as a series of displaced loners threw off society’s shackles and hit the road. Commercialisation, in the guise of the multiplex cinema, would soon put an end to the era of the exploitation ‘quickies’, just as corporate involvement would effectively end the glory days of the privateer in motor racing. Of course a big budget and decision making by committee is no guarantee of success, just ask the Toyota F1 team, or alternatively take a look at Days of Thunder…

First published in Octane magazine February 2011

The post Big Screen Action – Racing B-Movies 1966 – 1971 appeared first on Dylan Michael.

Renault’s little Dauphine saloon would become a prime example of the ‘race on Sunday, drive on Monday’ mentality, scoring several high profile victories straight out of the box. The Dauphine was developed as a successor to the then ubiquitous 4CV, and set new standards for interior comfort and durability, not to mention modernity of design, the result of rigorous testing and a painstaking attention to detail. Spurred on by the immense success of Renault’s compact and affordable family saloon, not to mention post-Suez concerns over petrol supplies, rival firm Simca were busy developing something distinctly more angular in response. The 1000 appeared at the 1961 Paris Salon, importantly beating the rumoured ‘Super Dauphine’ to the marketplace, it was available only in red, white or bleu [sic], and rapidly became highly successful, thanks not only to its modern appearance, but to useful touches such as fold-down rear seats and doors that opened at right-angles. Performance too was a factor, as even after former Simca employee and race-tuning specialist Amédée Gordini had worked his magic on the Dauphine’s little 845 cc engine, it struggled to outperform its 944 cc rival.

Renault were extremely quick to react and, less than a year later, in June 1962 the ‘Super Dauphine’, now called the R8 appeared, a challenge to the Simca in every respect, from its en vogue boxiness to the 956 cc engine. Constructed on the Dauphine chassis, the R8 retained the rear-engined, rear-wheel drive layout, eschewing the trendsetting hatchback of their R4. Whilst this was regarded as something of a backward step, the R4’s pioneering engine cooling system was carried over, and it became the first economy car to feature disc brakes all-round which, along with the Dauphine’s extant rack and pinion steering proved to be performance enhancing refinements. Indeed, the Simca with its drum brakes (discs would finally be fitted to the front wheels in ’69) and unresponsive worm and roller steering, a source of much criticism, suddenly looked rather old-fashioned in comparison.

Nevertheless the Simca continued to sell strongly, especially in the export market and, thanks to an association via Fiat, with famed tuning specialist Carlo Abarth, 100 examples were customised to racing spec, and proved highly competitive during the ’62 season. Given their success, four variants of the Abarth enhanced 1150 were set to enter full production the following year, with upwards of 55hp (compared to 40hp in the standard model), disc brakes and, on the top of the range 1150 SS, a six-speed ‘box, along with a tacho and oil pressure gauge.  Sadly this formidable little car was to be short-lived, for that same year Fiat sold their controlling interest in the company to Chrysler, who swiftly cancelled the project.

Ironically, that same year “Le Sorcier” (The Sorcerer) Gordini was working his magic on the R8, and in doing so was creating one of the most significant cars in French motorsport history, but more of that next week….

“There were, of course, accidents aplenty, a couple of them fatal, but the fierce competition brought such names as Denis Dayan, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Alain Serpaggi  and Jean-Pierre Jabouille into the limelight and is remembered today as one of the most closely contested racing championships of all-time.”

With the Abarth collaboration at an end, and managerial changes in progress, Simca focused their attentions on larger saloons, their 1300 and 1500 ranges successfully replacing the popular Aronde. This left a sizable gap in the market for something small and sporty, aimed at the younger generation, and at the Paris Salon in October 1964 Renault’s, frankly insane, answer appeared.

Originally available only in French Blue with the two signature white stripes, there was no mistaking the R8 Gordini. Thanks to a cylinder head of Gordini’s own design, the 1100cc engine now delivered a staggering 95 hp (almost twice that of the top-of-the-range Major), good for 105 mph and enough to see off a Mini Cooper. Though the suspension was beefed up and lowered, a servo assist added to the brakes, with all that power to the rear wheels, not much weight, and a notorious swing axle, there was little that could really be done to make the Gordini any less of a handful, but unsurprisingly it was these very elements that made it so popular. Mechanically straightforward, and with most parts interchangeable with the standard model, the R8 Gordini was advertised as the ideal car for the motorsport enthusiast on a budget, and with the works’ rally team giving the all-conquering Coopers a run for their money there were bound to be plenty of takers.

La Coupe Nationale Renault 8 Gordini was the brainchild of journalists Georges Fraichard, Paul Dupuis and Alain Bertaut, whose magazines, Action Automobile and Moteurs, provided support along with Renault themselves and petrol company Elf. The championship began in 1966, coinciding with the release of Gordini’s even quicker 1255 and 1296 cc versions, and aimed to give the next generation of French racing drivers the first step towards a professional career, by letting them demonstrate their talents on a series of challenging circuits (along with rallies and hillclimbs in the first year) in equally matched machinery. The Gordini Cup became an enormous success, with heavy press coverage and large crowds drawn by the spectacle of twenty (or more) cars being driven with an unsurprising combination of skill, exuberance, bravery and flamboyance. There were, of course, accidents aplenty, a couple of them fatal, but the fierce competition brought such names as Denis Dayan, Jean-Pierre Jarier, Alain Serpaggi  and Jean-Pierre Jabouille into the limelight and is remembered today as one of the most closely contested racing championships of all-time. Unfortunately for Renault, the racing success of the R8 would not be continued with its successor, the front-engined, front-wheel drive R12 Gordini, introduced in 1971, which simply proved ill-suited to the demands of circuit competition and was retired after just three seasons.

It’s fair to say that Renault’s immensely popular R8 had rather eclipsed the Simca 1000 over the latter half of the sixties, the “Régie” certainly reaping the benefits of their successful racing programme in terms of domestic profile and sales. Simca however, had not been idle, their little car proving enormously successful in the export market, and having lent its chassis and mechanicals to the pretty, but gutless, Giugiaro penned Coupé 1000, in much the same way as the Dauphine/R8 running gear had been utilised in Renault’s stylish Caravelle/Floride range. Complaints over the performance of the 1000 range continued, but it wasn’t until 1967 that the restyled Coupé received a boost in power to 1204 cc and 82 hp, good for 100 mph and with servo assisted disc brakes, suspension and steering to match. Had Abarth still been tinkering with Simcas the 1200S might well have been truly spectacular, but as it was the task fell to Radbourne Racing in the UK who briefly picked up where the Italian had left off.

The little 1000 meanwhile had been suffering from a severe lack of development, with gradual increases in performance generating ever more wayward handling characteristics, a situation addressed by a full overhaul of suspension, brakes and steering for 1969. It was to prove timely, for the introduction of the costly Renault 12 was to effectively spell the end for the Gordini Cup, and it didn’t require much imagination to see that Simca’s new 1000 Rallye might be able to fill the gap left by the beloved R8. The Simca Racing Team would provide much the same opportunity for aspiring drivers, and much the same spectacle for fans as the Gordini Cup. The Rallye models would remain in production until 1978, by which time it had evolved into a fully-fledged racing car, every bit as popular as the R8 had been in its heyday.

For two boxy, unassuming little saloons, the R8 and the 1000 proved not only extremely versatile, but also immensely characterful, and in France they have attained much the same iconic status we reserve for the Mini. Few cars have endeared themselves to so many: from the families to whom they were simply day-to-day transport, to the racers who campaigned them, and the mechanics who worked upon them, they were reliable, fun and easy to fix or even customise. Refined they weren’t, but then when was the last time you saw anyone go misty-eyed in fond recollection of a BMW 5 Series?

First published on discoveryuk.com

The post A Tale of Two Saloons appeared first on Dylan Michael.

I mentioned the Piranha a few weeks ago, in reference to its brief appearance in the latter series’ of The Man/Girl From U.N.C.L.E. but as it graced a total of only six episodes its place in the pantheon of spy cars must be considered slight at best. As I recall it didn’t really have any answer to T.H.R.U.S.H.’s autogiros in The Karate Killers, Solo having to poke his P.38 through a gap in the awkward gullwings and fire off a few random shots, as opposed to deploying any fancy hardware. Bizarrely though, according to the designer of the AMT Piranha and creator of the 1967 U.N.C.L.E. special, Gene Winfield, the car was as close to the real deal as any of its contemporaries, the nose-mounted flamethrowers, rear propellers (for amphibious use) and braking parachute all being fully functional. Indeed, given a little more time Winfield believes that the Piranha could actually have been further customised for amphibious use. Other non-functioning equipment also included door-mounted rocket launchers, a laser gun, rocket boosters and infrared TV and radar concealed under the revolving dashboard, all of which makes a certain Aston Martin seem a little under-equipped.

Originally Winfield had been hired by the shows producers to customise a Dodge Charger, which was due to arrive in showrooms that year (1966), but with the project close to completion MGM execs pulled the plug, fearing that having received such strong publicity for their new model, GM might just cut short their contract. As a result the Charger made only brief appearances, in unmodified form, and into the limelight, albeit briefly, would step a truly unique car Winfield was in the process of developing: the Piranha.

Marbon Chemical, a division of Borg-Warner, was eager to promote the use of plastics in the automotive industry, but rather than approaching the Detroit manufacturers with small-scale proposals, elected instead to demonstrate the versatility, strength and durability of their product by constructing an entire car – running gear aside – from it. Racing engineer Dann Deaver, co-founder of Michigan-based Centaur Engineering, was recruited to design the car, and by late ’64 a prototype was under construction, based upon a racing spaceframe and rear-mounted four-cylinder water-cooled Sunbeam engine. The most important element would, of course, be the thermoformed bodywork, made from Marbon’s marvel plastic “Cycolac”, and Deaver’s design did not disappoint, simultaneously appearing both classically curvaceous and futuristically streamlined. The bodywork was moulded in two halves and bonded along a central seam, which was then covered with a strip of Cycolac trim.

The CRV (Cycolac Research Vehicle) Centaur would be unveiled at the Society of Automotive Engineers Convention in Detroit in January ’65, with press releases announcing that the easy-to-assemble kit car would be available for just $3,500, and capable of around 150 mph. It proved such a success that Marbon quickly commissioned Centaur to construct a second prototype, this time to be powered by an air-cooled flat-six Chevrolet Corvair engine generating 180 bhp and raced in the SCCA Championship. The CRV-II was unveiled five months later, this time utilising the Cycolac to create a monocoque tub – a genuine test of its rigidity – upon which the suspension was mounted. The car immediately proved successful in the hands of driver/engineer Trant Jarman, who won the SCCA Central Division Championship in the D-Modified class (though in actuality only one race, at Indianapolis, was eligible!), and apparently proved the strength of the Cycolac beyond question in a collision with an E-Type. Also raced by Centaur co-founder Forbes Howard, the car would latterly be fitted with a roof before disappearing into private ownership. It is yet to resurface, but is believed to reside somewhere in Japan.

Needless to say, Marbon were very pleased with the returns on their investment, and plans were laid to produce road-going versions, to which end CRV-III was constructed and promptly destroyed in order fulfil mandatory crash-testing. The road-going coupes CRV-IV and V were completed in early 1966, once again using Corvair power, and with an unmistakably space-age look about them, but now using fibreglass for the chassis. Both cars were deployed to Europe for promotional purposes, doing the rounds of factories and design houses, number IV vanishing into the ether in the years since, number V being written-off by an employee of OSI design in Italy. The company felt so bad about the accident that they offered to create a replacement for Marbon, which became known as the OSI CRV, and continued to perform publicity duties until being sold to a Marbon employee in the Netherlands who used it in competition. It’s racing career at an end the car spent some thirty-odd years in a barn, but is happily now under restoration.

The success of the Marbon cars attracted the interest of the AMT Corporation, whose Custom & Speed Shop in Phoenix, headed by Gene Winfield, had been developing concept cars with the likes of George Barris in order to promote their kits. Having purchased the rights to build the CRV along with Marbon’s stock of Cycolac bodies and fibreglass chassis, the car was renamed the ‘Piranha’, Winfield was placed in charge of the project and plans were laid to produce up to fifty cars a year. Naturally a racing programme was planned in order to promote the new cars, firstly on the dragstrip, then in a return to SCCA events.

Twenty-four-year-old Fred Smith was tasked with designing the Piranha ‘Funny Car’ chassis, with assistance from driver Walt Stevens, whilst mechanic Joe Anahory took care of the nitro-powered 392 Chrysler Hemi engine, and Winfield designed the distinctive Cycolac shell. With a chromoly frame weighing just 68 pounds and the use wherever possible of lightweight aluminium and magnesium components, the finished car weighed-in at just 1,550 pounds, which combined with around 1,400 horsepower made it a formidable proposition. With a wheelbase of only 120 inches there were concerns that the car would become airborne, but thanks to the clever use of ducting the air in under the nose, and out ahead of the cockpit, frontal downforce was never an issue. Trouble was the Piranha had issues with its competitors, too slow for Top Fuel races, and unlike anything on the Funny Car circuit, the unclassifiable car generated almost as much controversy as it did publicity. But as Stevens and Anahory toured dragstrips across the country, taking on and beating practically all who challenged them, they soon became fan favourites and the car a regular press feature, whilst the heavily promoted model kit became a big hit.

With the ’67 ‘Summer of Love’ in full swing, Dick Carbijal hit the SCCA circuit in the turbocharged racing Piranha, and Winfield completed work on the U.N.C.L.E. special, a kit of which was also released, whilst detail changes to the CRV cars were finalised prior to the commencement of the production run. Things appeared to be going to well, but before the year was out AMT had pulled the plug, and the Piranha was dead in the water.

If AMT’s publicity ambitions for the project had quickly been realised, they soon discovered that it was insufficient ammunition in the battle against falling model sales. Most dispiriting was the realisation that the production costs per hand built unit were in the neighbourhood of $4,000 higher than their target selling price, meaning that their only option would be to sell the cars in kit form. The final nail in the coffin however, would be the announcement from GM that production of the Corvair would cease in 1969, which promised an expensive redesign and the negotiation of a new supply contract. Just four road cars were completed before AMT sold their stock of parts back to Marbon.

The U.N.C.L.E. special meanwhile had proved a disaster, reputedly trundling around the backlot leaving a trail of parts and oil in its wake. Aside from the malfunctioning electrical gadgets, and cockpit temperatures akin to a greenhouse, the high sills made it thoroughly impractical to climb into or out of with any grace or speed, especially in the case of poor mini-skirted Stephanie Powers. The car was soon retired, as unfortunately was the show itself. As ownership of the chassis reverted to Marbon, the bodywork and spyware were removed by Winfield and refitted to an AMT chassis, which was subsequently sold and then disappeared, finally being traced and restored by Hollywood FX specialist Robert Short. The Marbon chassis is now in the process of restoration to road-going spec.

The AMT racer meanwhile continued to be used in hillclimbs and road races by new owner Dick Carbijal until the close of the decade, when after having been sold and converted for road use it sat forgotten in a haulage yard for some twenty years, before being rescued and beautifully restored to its original spec by enthusiast Frank Zucchi in the nineties. Post-restoration the asking price was some $120,000 but thankfully that hasn’t kept it away from the historic racing circuit. The Funny Car, also recently restored, now resides in Don Garlit’s drag racing museum in Ocala, Florida.

Marbon’s body shells would go on to grace a number of VW-based kits into the seventies, after they joined forces with Allied Industries, the run ending with the hideous ‘Seagull’. The body moulds were sadly destroyed when Allied relocated. Dann Deaver remained in the Cycolac car business with Centaur, who had become a research and development arm for Borg Warner, designing the Jeep XJ-002 concept car in 1969/70 and the mysterious Can Am I. Both projects were in collaboration with the Bolide Motor Car Corporation, whose President was none other than Jack Griffith of TVR fame.

As I’ve said before, there’s something about the design of most fibreglass cars that gives them the air of a backyard special, but that simply wasn’t the case with Deaver’s early CRV cars, nor with the AMT racers. Only about twelve cars were completed by Centaur and AMT, and the remaining examples are understandably now highly sought after, even the badly damaged CRV-V currently being under restoration. As for the probably the most prized of them all, it’s unknown whether CRV-I still exists – it was last seen in 1973, being raced by actor James Brolin using VW power in place of the old Sunbeam unit. So James, if you’re reading this – and I like to think you do – where’s the car?!
For more information on the CRV and AMT Piranha please visit Nick Whitlow’s excellent site.

First published on Discoveryuk.com

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Now it may come as news to some people, but once upon a time the Italians churned out films at an astounding rate, and as the famous ‘spaghetti’ western genre began to lose steam, a new wave of action films, known as poliziotteschi, took their place. Taking their cue from the likes of The French Connection and Magnum Force, the poliziotteschi would often focus upon tough cops treading the fine line between law enforcement and vigilantism, brutally thwarting an apparently endless mob of bank robbers, purse-snatchers, drug dealers, pimps, hitmen and, of course, Mafiosi. Now what has this to do with Alfa Giulias you might wonder? Well, as luck would have it a lot of these tough cops, or the baddies they were chasing, drove Giulias – they were ten-a-penny back then and apparently as disposable as spent cartridges – and barely a film passed without several being demolished. Sad yes, but death in action must surely be preferable to a slow and inevitably rusty decline…

Indeed, the poliziotteschi have frozen the Giulia in a period of time when they not only comprised the bulk of the Italian police fleet, but were amongst the most popular domestic cars in production, as is reflected by the fact that the model remained in production for 16 years. The greatness of Giuseppe Scarnati’s design was the simple notion of placing a powerful (1,290 or 1,570 cc) engine in a comparatively light car, which though adhering to the three-box design school, retained a mysteriously low drag-coefficient. This was largely thanks to some very clever aerodynamic touches around the bonnet and windscreen – with its pronounced curvature – and the slight overhang at the rear of the roof, subtle elements which complimented the overall smoothness of the bodywork – no stripes or spoilers needed here.

Handling, as one might expect, was superb, complimented by a five speed ‘box and disc brakes, initially only available on the 1963 racing spec Ti Super – the most sought-after Giulia of them all – but latterly across the range. The Ti Super (Ti being an abbreviation of the racing category Turismo Internazionale) entered production in 1963, and lasted barely two years before the racing department turned its attention to the GTAs, during which time just 501 examples were made. The model featured floor-mounted gear shift (at the time other models had a column shift), three-spoke steering wheel, bucket seats, plexiglass windows in the rear, in addition to which sound-proofing was removed and the bodywork was constructed using thinner gauge steel, all of which added up to a weight saving of 200 kg.

Of course the standard 1,570 cc Giulia was plenty fast enough for everyday use – be it on the school run, as a getaway car or pursuit vehicle – the twin cam engine was good for over 100 mph, as the films attest. Indeed we owe a great debt of thanks to Remy Julienne and his team of stunt drivers, for had they not set about wrecking them en masse – their final moments forever preserved on celluloid – they’d only have wound up rusting in the scrapyards. So if you’ve any doubt in your mind that a boxy car can shift, I’d like to direct your attention to youtube and a few onscreen demonstrations in the likes of Poliziotto Sprint (aka Highway Racer) and La Polizia è sconfitta (aka Stunt Squad).

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Sadly nobody involved in the production of Rush appears to have reached the same conclusion, and though the resultant film might capture the sound and fury of a racing car unlike any other, what it fails to capture is the speed or skill of Grand Prix racing, in part because it lacks what might be considered a true racing sequence. Where Grand Prix utilises the film medium to its fullest extent in the pursuit of visceral realism, Rush misdirects its audience with a series of heavily edited sensory assaults, none of which lasts long enough to generate any tension from the racing itself. Journalist Simon Taylor, who actually commentated on the ’76 Japanese Grand Prix, reprises his duties here, adding what narrative there is to the images flashing before our eyes, and without him it must be said that even a fan like myself wouldn’t really know what was going on.

Beneath its hyperactive visuals though, Rush is a relatively straightforward biopic, delivering a quick précis of two careers, and exploiting the rivals’ famous differences of personality for ease of storytelling, whilst never really pausing to explore either character. The lead performances – especially that of Daniel Brühl – are uniformly excellent, but I can’t help feeling that the opportunity to explore two genuinely nuanced characters was missed. In reality, as I understand it, Hunt and Lauda were friends, not the best of friends perhaps, but that they remained on good terms at all through a year of such intense competition and adversity is incredible and surely makes the nature of such a relationship worthy of exploration. The protagonists of Rush however display few subtleties, each man having been reduced to his most basic characteristics: the ambitious Lauda with a brittle façade of ruthlessness, whose greatest fear is to find happiness and lose his competitive edge; and Hunt the swaggering, seemingly fearless bon vivant, living for the moment, yet famously prone to tension-induced vomiting before races and whose excesses obviously mask self-doubt.

Perhaps the issue for me is that screenwriter Peter Morgan attempts to cover too much ground, engineering events for the purposes of characterisation, rather than allowing them to be revealed through the extraordinary circumstances as they actually occurred. And it’s very much a two-man show, with Lauda’s wife Marlene popping up to humanise him a little, the supporting cast otherwise having to act like caricatures, especially the other drivers who are portrayed as a bunch of mop-topped half- wits, only Clay Reggazoni being given anything approaching a character – that of a lazy womaniser – though it’s clear he was featured only for expositional purposes.

I must apologise if this review sounds overly harsh, for there is much to like and be admired in Rush, not least Ron Howard’s energetic directorial style, which somehow feels appropriate given the film’s independent roots, lending the story both an air of immediacy and disguising the constant requirement for historical exposition. Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography also warrants mention, his innovative use of Indiecam cameras mounted inside crash helmets and on the cars is genuinely striking, whilst his colour palette creates an unmistakably seventies atmosphere, without resorting to the muddy shades of brown we’d usually associate with films of the era.

In spite of my reservations, it’s a pleasure to have had the opportunity to write about a new film set in the world of Formula 1 and the factual inaccuracies one might recognise as an enthusiast are ultimately of little concern, for the average cinemagoer wants only entertainment, not a lecture on tyre wear. The sights and sounds of F1 seventies-style will surely be enough to enthral audiences, many of whom will be experiencing them for the first time, and in the end, as John Surtees said to me at Goodwood, perhaps it’ll inspire a few youngsters to get involved in the real thing, which I guess is what Frankenheimer’s film did for me.

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What drew me to the Polaroid – sorry, Kodak, who had to pay damages for patent infringement – initially was obviously automotive, for it’s a unique snapshot of a road probably long since changed, and cars long since rusted. But it’s fun to slip on the deerstalker and play detective, and with a bit of car knowledge, plus the invaluable help of two colleagues I reckon I’ve got it pinned. Firstly the cars, three of the six visible are Fiats, with black number plates, so this is Italy; a bit of local knowledge highlights the pine trees, native to Rome, and a bit of memory jogging narrows it down to the ruins of the Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus). So we’re on a tour bus in central Rome, with the sun behind us, it’s afternoon – late – and thanks to the dullest of the cars, the Mk I Fiesta, and the fading Kodak film, I believe it’s 1977 or ’78 – the little Ford was only released in ’76 and so surely not common enough to have been captured in a random snapshot until the following year at the earliest.

There’s also a Mini, probably an Innocenti, a Citroën Ami estate, two Fiat 127s and a lorry I can’t place – it looks like a Fiat, but the headlights are wrong, and after a lot of searching I’m still no closer to finding out what it is (please write in if you know). The car that really catches my eye though is the silver Fiat 128 Sport, because when was the last time you saw one of those?! Maybe yesterday, if you live in Southern Italy, but if you happen to live in Southern London the answer is probably never. According to the invaluable howmanyleft.co.uk that should come as no surprise, because there are only nine still on the roads in the UK, in fact there are only 37 Fiat 128s of any description around, and considering how many they sold, that’s quite a feat.

The 128, introduced in 1969, was a real ground-breaker for Fiat, being as it was their first transverse-engined, front-wheel drive car, it became European Car of the Year in 1970 and set the template for practically every such car manufactured since. Designer Dante Giacosa might have taken his lead from Alec Issigonis’ pioneering work on the Mini, but the result was much simplified, improved in terms of practicality, serviceability and drivability. Rack-and-pinion steering, disc brakes at the front and independent rear suspension delivered sharp handling, and road tests consistently praised the 128 as a drivers’ car, unhindered by the modest output of Aurelio Lampredi’s soon-to-be iconic 1116 cc SOHC engine. A boost to 1290 cc came in 1971 along with the Rally and Sport Coupe editions.

Such was the popularity of the car, Fiat continued to churn out 128s until 1985, the last examples, produced abroad under license, rolling off the lines in 2001, a true testament to the longevity of Giacosa’s design. Unfortunately paper-thin steel and a typically relaxed attitude towards quality control meant that the cars disintegrated at an astonishing rate, hence the paltry 37 examples left in the UK. I sincerely doubt that any of the cars captured that day on Via del Circo Massimo still exist – they simply weren’t built to last, but thanks to our unnamed amateur photographer they’ve attained some level of immortality, and happily they’ve also made me feel a little like David Hemmings in Blow-Up for the afternoon.

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The poor old Beta had trouble from the start, purists bemoaning that the first incarnation – the ‘Berlina’ Sedan, introduced at the Turin Motor Show in 1972 – was little more than a fancy Fiat, and exactly the sort of thing they expected after the takeover in ’69. And to be fair they were right, the mechanicals and mode of construction were clearly inspired by Fiat’s desire to modernise the marque and dispense with costly over-engineering, though the Sedan hardly proved the best demonstration, with its vague steering and handling issues. The 2+2 coupé appeared a year later, with styling by Pietro Castagnero – previously responsible for the Fulvia sedan and coupé – along completely different lines, and equipped with either a 1.6 or 1.8 litre engine (the latter never making it to these shores). The car rapidly established itself as a driver’s favourite, with short wheelbase and wide track making for superb roadholding and a top speed of 110 mph even in 1.6 spec.

Next up, in 1975, came the HPE (High Performance Estate), based upon the Sedan’s longer wheelbase and with elegant styling by Castagnero. The HPE was doubtless the most practical of the Betas, with plenty of luggage space and little discernable performance loss, though the Pininfarina redesigned Spyder appeared later the same year, and immediately became the most prominent model in the range. Featuring a fully-integrated roll-bar and latterly a cross-member, the car was more ‘Targa’ than convertible and, like the HPE came equipped with 1.6 or 1.8 litre engine. The 1.8 option would soon disappear, the performance differential having long been considered rather inconsequential, its place taken by a 2.0 litre unit offering improved acceleration and increased torque.

No sooner had the 2.0 litre engine appeared, in late ’75, than the range was given a facelift, the Series 2 cars appearing in March ’76 with improved trim and a variety of detail changes. All was going well for the Beta range, when the bottom almost literally fell out. By ’76 the earlier cars had begun rusting – whether the cause was low-grade Eastern-bloc steel or simply inadequate rustproofing remains a mystery – but more worryingly the rot combined with fatigue had uncovered a serious design flaw in the mounting of the rear subframe to the floorpan on the Sedans. Under stress the mounting could separate from the floorpan, tearing away a chunk in the process, its deterioration becoming apparent though erratic handling under acceleration.

Lancia reacted quickly, recalling all Series 1 Betas for free repairs or offering generous trade-ins for those too far gone, the Series 2 models meanwhile were fitted with strengthened mountings. Sadly the British press, understandably tired of reporting upon build quality issues on domestically-produced cars, seized upon the opportunity to haul Lancia over the proverbial coals, exaggerating the extent of the rust issues, and ignoring the fact that they had become the first manufacturer to offer a 6 year warranty against corrosion. Sales were understandably affected, the Beta name being dropped in 1981 at which point the cars were given a superficial overhaul, and fuel-injection offered on the 2.0 variants. Production ended in 1984, not long after the introduction of the supercharged Volumex, which has remained highly collectable.

Enthusiasts knew better than to believe the negative press surrounding the Beta, and its reputation has remained strong in such circles, which is sadly more than can be said for Lancia within the UK market. Ultimately the Beta was no more susceptible to corrosion than any of its contemporaries – and a better car than most – but the almost total absence of Lancia from the UK market in the years since its demise, has sadly proven to be its legacy.

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Of course I very much doubt that the Police force back then had much use for Matras – a few Alpines were as close as they came – but it’s a fine notion, and it left me wondering how practical the little cars were, and how they stood up to their potential adversaries in the event of a high-speed chase. So what better way to find out than by trawling through my old magazines for some period road tests.

L’Automobile was probably France’s most comprehensive motoring magazine, and each month test-driver extraordinaire J-P Thevenet put the latest machinery through its paces on the road, sometimes staging long tours to compare the strengths and weaknesses of similarly equipped cars. In the April ’67 issue there’s a brief technical overview of the new Matra M530, just about to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, but it’d be a while before the new model was ready for testing, and so in the April ‘68 edition it’s a Jet 6 (shortly to go out of production) being tested alongside its rival 1300 sports models.

Alongside the Matra this mammoth test featured the following: the Alpine 1300, Mini Cooper 1300S, Renault 8 Gordini, Lancia Fulvia HF Rallye and the Simca 1200S. By far the most expensive was the Alpine (at 29,840.40 FF), followed by the Matra (25,674.90 FF), then the Lancia (21,955.40 FF), the Mini (19,636.40 FF), the Simca (15,913.20 FF) and the Gordini (at 15,646.90 FF). So the Matra was certainly at the high end of the market, and had been since it was first introduced by René Bonnet in 1962. Bonnet had been co-founder of DB (Deutsch et Bonnet), specialists in fibreglass-bodied sports and racing cars, but when the partnership dissolved over Deutsch’s loyalty to Panhard engines, René entered a partnership with aerospace company Matra. Using their Romorantin factory and fibreglass bodies, Bonnet introduced the Djet (thus named in the belief that the French couldn’t pronounce ‘Jet’) in 1962, the world’s first mid-engined production road car, highly priced at around 20,000 FF, and equipped with only the 1,108 cc unit from a Renault 8. In spite of the car’s many advanced features – disc brakes all-round, independent suspension – the high price damaged sales, and in 1964 Matra took over Bonnet’s debts and construction of the Djet, hiring ex-Simca man Philippe Guédon for a mass-production-friendly redesign, and continuing to uprate the car’s performance until production ended in ’67.

By the time of the L’Automobile head-to-head then, the little (renamed) Jet was beginning to feel its age, certainly when placed in direct competition with a group of proven race-winners and Simca’s impressive new 1200S. Nevertheless, the car acquitted itself fairly well, setting second fastest time (with the Simca) at the Nogaro circuit, second quickest in terms of acceleration and top speed, and proving best of the bunch on roadholding. Unfortunately middling performance elsewhere left the Jet dead last in the final standings, with the costly Alpine having dominated in much the same way it would on the rally scene. In second place was the Gordini, which clearly provided excellent value for money in terms of performance, was fun to drive, and a reliable everyday car. Third came the Simca, perhaps not the best in terms of all-out sportiness, but an excellent all-rounder; fourth the Lancia which in HF spec was considered a little too “serious” for the everyday motorist; and fifth the Mini, a lot of fun for sporty driving, but again feeling its age in the face of such competition.

By July ’69 the price of L’Automobile had gone up by fifty centimes, but with 145 pages full of news, tests and racing I doubt anyone was complaining at the 3 Franc price tag. Reports on both Le Mans and Indianapolis were headlined, but the big cover feature was the seven-car Corsican road-test.

It was an odd assortment of cabriolets lined-up against the Matra M530: the debonair Peugeot 504, the quirky little Siata Spring, the Dyane-based Citroën Méhari, the exciting Fiat 124 Sport Spider, the ubiquitous little Triumph Spitfire MkIII and the unusual Simca-based C.G. 1200S. Unfortunately, the diversity of the models made direct comparisons impossible, so individual judgements were passed. The prices ranged from 23,255 FF for the C.G. down to 8,692 FF for the Méhari, with the Matra in the same bracket as the Fiat, at 18,510 FF and 16,980 FF respectively.

Development of the M530 had begun in March 1965, Matra’s aim being to create a mid-engined 2+2, combining the sportiness of the Jet with the practicality of a car for the young family, an ambitious project to be overseen by Philippe Guédon, who had joined the company to advise upon suspension and transmission issues on the single-seaters. The fourteen-strong design team was a testament to Matra’s commitment, the car taking two years to go from a clean-sheet of paper to its first road test, which appeared in the March ’67 edition of Champion magazine, when works driver Jean-Pierre Beltoise gave his honest opinions. Unsurprisingly he credited Guédon with having ensured that the necessity for a compact engine in favour of a more powerful American V8 proved no handicap, thanks to sterling work on the chassis and weight distribution. The choice of the high-compression Ford V4 1,699 cc from the Taunus 17 M allowed space for rear seats and a decent-sized boot, and was accessible for servicing through a removable rear Perspex ‘screen, which when combined with a Targa roof transformed the car into a cabriolet. Brakes were disc all-round and suspension independent.

As practical as the M530 professed to be however, the styling left no doubting its roots. While the Djet was pretty and curvaceous, it’s successor was angular and aerodynamic, drawing heavily upon lessons learned in prototype racing. Indeed the M530 was clearly from the same sketchpad as the racing M630, which was undeniably advanced – as one would expect from an aerospace company – but perilously close to the forefront of the black art of aerodynamics, as the promising Roby Weber would discover to his cost during the Le Mans test weekend in ’67. The styling was bold, and futuristic, if not universally popular, and in some quarters it would unfortunately detract from the car’s most important quality: drivability.

A month after Beltoise, L’Automobile took the M530 prototype out for a spin, praised the well-intentioned practicality of the layout, paused for thought at the modernity of the design, and once again highlighted its finest qualities: extraordinary roadholding, precise, responsive steering and firm suspension. The M530, it was said, handled like a racing car.

By the time the car arrived in Corsica much development work had of course been done, but the Matra retained a number of idiosyncrasies in addition to its avant garde styling, and though it fared well, it would unfortunately be these that remained in Thevenet’s mind. The interior – which apparently matched the outward futurism – was well-equipped, comfortable, had an excellent driving position and proved incredibly quiet at any speed. The Taunus engine was found to be slightly lacking in grunt, but this in itself was no handicap, for as Beltoise had commented, the car’s handling and roadholding offered ample compensation, and the impression was that of a refined tourer, as opposed to an all-out performance car. The synchronised Taunus gearbox was apparently well-suited to the car’s performance capabilities, but herein lay the first annoying idiosyncrasy: it was inverted, and the unusual layout took some getting used to. Another issue was found in the storage of the removable roof panels when luggage was aboard, but most disconcerting was the placement of the fuel-filler cap within the boot, with no apparent drainage for overspill. Oddly, given Guédon’s experience of suspension geometry, the ride was also found to be excessively hard, with severe vibrations being experienced on uneven surfaces.

To roughly translate Thevenet’s conclusions, “the philosophy behind the conception of this model is very interesting in its non-conformity, and this offers certain qualities and advantages when compared to the more conventional options, but regretfully this has been somewhat mistranslated in the realisation”. And so the well-meaning family-oriented little ‘voiture des copains’ – named after a ballistic missile – couldn’t quite live up to its promise, for the last thing a young family needs is to take a gamble on what might prove a troublesome sports car. But you can’t fault their efforts, for even if the M530 fell slightly wide of the mark, Matra had seen the future, and it’s just a shame they weren’t around to see it realised.

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