The Basic Sports activities Automotive Membership Mick Hill Trophy races at Silverstone earlier this month turned the clocks again 50 years to the beginning of Britain’s Tremendous Saloon motion he and Tony Hazlewood masterminded in 1974. Hill and Hazlewood beloved brawny American V8 engines, and have become fan favourites for wrestling mighty automobiles constructed round them of their spare time.
Each discovered the exhausting manner, saddling ‘bargains’ susceptible to breakages. Hill’s ex-Richard Scantlebury ‘Janglia’ – a Jaguar-engined Ford Anglia 105E – had a voracious urge for food for diffs till he put a Jag rear finish in it, earlier than making an evo model. Hazlewood’s apprenticeship was served within the ex-Doc Merfield ‘Fraud’ Cortina Mk1, with 4.7-litre V8 energy.
Derbyshire GPO engineer Hill and Dave Steeples then constructed a Lola-suspended 4.7-litre Ford Capri, whereas Excessive Wycombe agricultural gear designer Hazlewood and Ray Kilminster took an progressive method. Beginning with a brand new DAF 55 coupe shell and March System 2 suspension, they exploited prevailing Particular Saloon rules by putting in a 4.3-litre aluminium Oldsmobile V8 up entrance and a Hewland FT200 transaxle within the rear. Pleasant dust-ups ensued in 1972, when Hill racked up wins and Hazlewood spins!
An RAC regulation change enabled Hazlewood to go from 10in to 16in-wide rear wheels for 1973, which remodeled the short-wheelbase DAF. He lapped Thruxton at over 100mph – a tin-top first – in October, whereas combating with Gerry Marshall’s Supplier Crew Vauxhall Firenza. Hill added massively to his win tally, in the meantime, and was plotting a brand new six-litre Chevrolet-powered Capri at sponsor Tricentrol’s behest.
As British Racing & Sports activities Automotive Membership, British Racing Drivers’ Membership and British Car Racing Membership Particular Saloon championships have been divided by engine capability, from below 850cc up, Hazlewood and Hill aimed to unite the V8 ‘hybrids’ in opposition to their quickest rivals.
Introduced in August 1973, October’s Westwood Cup race backed by Hazlewood’s brother Gerry’s lawnmower-manufacturing concern whetted appetites on the BRDC’s Silverstone Grand Prix circuit finale. Whereas mechanical dramas and an earlier Esso Uniflo championship race pressured withdrawals, David Howes gained in his AMC Javelin. Marshall’s DTV Firenza and Hazlewood’s DAF chased exhausting. Colin Hawker’s wailing Cosworth DFV-engined Toleman’s Supply Service Capri delighted amongst them.
CSCC occasion earlier this month was for the Mick Hill Trophy
Picture by: Mick Walker
The Tremendous Saloon Drivers’ Affiliation was duly shaped and by November a six-round 1974 collection – as extra championships weren’t being sanctioned – was unveiled. Hill and Hazlewood would steer it, with BRSCC chief Peter Browning and Brian Mayes of Tricentrol key allies.
However the timing was dangerous. The miners’ strike-enforced vitality disaster had resulted in a three-day manufacturing week being launched and introduced down Edward Heath’s Conservative authorities by the spring. Motorsport, like every thing, was in limbo.
Brighter days loomed, however company purse strings have been minimize, so title sponsorship didn’t occur. And dates and venues modified dramatically. John Participant cigarettes branded the openers, at Snetterton and Mallory Park on Easter Sunday and Monday – formidable given the automobiles’ extremely strung nature. Nothing modifications…
In the end, Superloons’ decline was most likely hastened by Marshall’s imperious dominance in Child Bertha, exacerbated by a uninteresting 1975 British GP help race
Hill gained at Snett, from Tony Strawson in his earlier Capri and Nick Whiting’s immaculate Escort-FVC, ready by future F1 technical chief brother Charlie. Having wrecked his BRM V8-engined Escort at Silverstone six months beforehand, Dorset timber service provider John Turner withdrew its sensational trying and beautifully constructed Skoda-Chevrolet S110R successor – F5000 Leda-based – within the preliminaries. Halfshaft failure sidelined Hazlewood’s DAF, now owned by Corbeau Equipe’s Colin Folwell.
Hotfoot from an Ingliston double in his Escort-Chevrolet, Scot Doug Niven – Jim Clark’s cousin and a fellow borders farmer – raided Mallory, beating Whiting, Tony Sugden (Escort-BDE) and Scot Invoice Dryden’s SMT Firenza. Niven was chasing chief Hill and needed to go ploughing when a puncture pitched the Capri into the Satan’s Elbow barrier. Hill was then unbeatable at Mondello Park in June and Ingliston in July, the place Ian Richardson’s 7.6-litre Chevrolet Corvair stuffed the Edinburgh showground circuit.
A deluge swamped Silverstone’s high quality entry in August. Australian previous grasp Frank Gardner’s 7.4-litre Chevrolet Camaro beat Howes, from the again, their Group 2 monsters adopted by Hill and Turner’s more and more wieldy Skoda. However brake failure destroyed Marshall’s F5000 Holden/Repco-engined Vauxhall Ventora ‘Huge Bertha’ 4 months after Frank Costin’s creation debuted. Marshall escaped critical harm, however from its stays emerged the ominous Firenza-esque ‘Child Bertha’, that featured on the Silverstone podium with Joe Ward up.
Hill notched wins 5 and 6 at Citadel Combe and Thruxton, whereas Richardson succeeded in October’s Westwood Cup race. The BARC’s November Thruxton TV assembly featured the Tremendous Saloon showdown of the season as Hill and Turner traded the lead repeatedly at document tempo. Mick gained by 0.2 seconds however, maddeningly, their titanic scrap was not broadcast!
Marshall pushes on in his Firenza often known as Child Bertha at Silverstone in 1975
Picture by: LAT
Rising prices and little remuneration meant Hill and Turner tried F5000 in 1975, John having offered the Skoda to Irishman Arthur Collier. Hill would return, constructing the F5000 Trojan T102-based VW Beetle – later campaigned by Niven and Jeff Wilson, now with interval F1 Iso Marlboro-underpinned Cortina-Chevrolet Mk3 ‘superloonatic’ Dave Taylor.
Hazlewood additionally made a comeback after Demon Tweeks founder Alan Minshaw purchased the charismatic DAF, now Andy Wilson’s. Hazlewood’s subsequent Jaguar XJ8 – its 7.6-litre Surtees Chevrolet V8 within the passenger area – gained a Silverstone clubbie in Gordon Mayers’s arms.
Hill took it on earlier than it was fireplace broken, however the Skoda V8 was destroyed in a transporter blaze in George ‘Welly’ Potter’s possession. In the meantime, Hazlewood’s Templar Tillers enterprise supported Hawker’s magnificent DFVW, Alain de Cadenet’s Gordon Murray-designed Duckhams Particular Le Mans contender that hardly ever fulfilled its potential cloaked in an excellent 1600 fastback shell.
In the end, Superloons’ decline was most likely hastened by Marshall’s imperious dominance in Child Bertha, exacerbated by a uninteresting 1975 British GP help race. The large-buck works-backed monster toppled the ingenuity of indomitable males in sheds, underdogs whose self-funded bolides have been usually hamstrung by unreliability.
Alec Poole might beat Marshall in Derek McMahon’s F2 Rondel-based Skoda-BDX, however the ‘Chimp’ – a Chevron-chassised Hillman Imp caricature during which Jonathan Buncombe impressed – was outlawed. The class soldiered by means of 1976 earlier than the Donington GT championship introduced recent pleasure and wilder automobiles to entertain followers, and thus an thrilling however transient period was over.
The Tremendous Saloons period was transient, however remains to be celebrated in the present day within the Particular Saloons & Modsports collection
Picture by: Mick Walker