Description
Author: Doug Nye with Tony Rudd,
Hardbound Cased Limited GOLD EDITION (Limited / Numbered - 101 to 300),
ISBN: 9781899870653, Published: 2008
The foundation of the extraordinary Saga of the British Racing Motors — BRM — Formula 1 racing team has previously been related in exhaustive detail in the first two Volumes of Doug Nye and Tony Rudd's remarkable history of this legendary marque.
Now, in Volume 3, the intriguing story is told of the monocoque-chassised V8 Formula 1 and Tasman cars which BRM designed, manufactured and campaigned between 1963 and 1968, and which private owners continued to run at premier level for two further seasons. These were the exquisite 'Swiss watch' BRM V8s which were only narrowly defeated in the Formula 1 World Championships of 1964 and 1965 when they were driven by BRM's former World Champion Driver, Graham Hill, and his meteoric young teammate, protégé and future triple-World Champion Driver, Jackie Stewart.
Tony Rudd was the hugely gifted chief engineer and team manager of BRM from 1962 unti11969, and his input into the first three Volumes of this formidable racing history project has helped make it what leading historian Doug Nye intended it to be — the most detailed and comprehensive history of a racing marque or Qrand Prix team ever likely to be published.
The story in this third Volume takes us from the original semi-monocoque V8 BRM P61 of 1963 — through its assorted trials and tribulations — until its eventual replacement by what would become the now immortal 'P61 Mark 2' or P261 V8 full-monocoque cars of 1964 and onwards. The entire drama is related in painstaking and enormously revealing detail — warts and all — supported by contemporary internal reports, private correspondence and above all often hilarious first-person recollections and anecdotes from contemporary team members, including numerous mechanics and engineers, in addition to Tony Rudd, Graham Hill and Sir Jackie Stewart.
BRM was the racing wing of the vast Owen Organisation industrial combine, and David, John and Jim Owen, heading the modern company, have been instrumental in opening the enormous industrial archive of their late father — Sir Alfred Owen — to the authors of this remarkable Saga.
But there is much more within these pages than the impressive story of the monocoque V8-engined Formula 1 BRMs alone. During the evocative era of the 1960s, BRM V8 racing engines were.also adapted and adopted by France's fast-rising new Matra Sports company to power its endurance racing Coupe cars for Le Mans. The BRM V8 engine design also spawned a 1-litre four-cylinder derivative power unit—the P80 — for Formula 2 single-seater racing, which was adopted by Matra Sports, Cooper, Lola and Lotus for part of their European Championship challenge through 1965-66. The full story of both programmes is detailed here in Volume 3.
And still Volume 3 offers more, including the story of the British Aircraft Corporation's amazing 'Jumping Jeep' military hovercraft programme which is told for the first time — because plans were being laid for the British military to go to war with twin-engine BRM V8 power behind their backs!
Another collaborative programme, this time with the Chrysler Corporation, came close to taking BRM into the famous Indianapolis 500 race in the United States and back to Le Mans again with a formidable Ford GT-challenging Chrysler Coupe, also described in this Volume.
Today, the BRM P261s are popularly known as the 'Tasman BRMs' and the full story of the Tim Parnell-managed works team's three long tours to the Tasman Championship series in New Zealand and Australia is yet another area of history which is detailed and illustrated here in unprecedented clarity.
Jackie Stewart won the Tasman Championship in 1966 — the first of his International titles in a premier-Formula single-seater car — and here he recalls those long-gone tours 'down under', the enormous fun they created, with the social scene consuming more time than the weekend races against Jim Clark, Jack Brabham and so many other charismatic stars.
In these 368 pages are presented more than 400 photographs and factory team drawings and over 200,000 words of text and captioning to match the critically acclaimed first two Volumes of this outstanding motor racing Saga.
'BRM Volume 3' joins its predecessors in bringing the story forward through the most evocative era of 1960s motor racing at its highest International level. And perhaps above all, its publication provides an enduring memorial to that most remarkable man, and most gifted automotive engineer, Tony Rudd, who passed away during this book's lengthy and painstaking preparation.
