Life Cycle The AMC Javelin that was turned into a Group 2 car as soon as it landed in the UK – and was recently pulled out of a four-decade slumber
Built from a stripped bodyshell, raced against F1 stars, locked away for decades and resurrected for a second lease of track life – ‘The Beast’ is back
My AMC Javelin was the only one ever to race outside of the United States,’ says retired car dealer and racing driver David Howes. ‘I’d had plenty of experience racing American cars – I had an ex-alan Mann Ford Falcon Sprint, heavily modified for Group 5 competition, which I raced successfully for 18 months. But then Group 5 finished, the focus of the British Saloon Car Championship switched to Group 2, and I wanted to run something a bit different from the obvious Mustang or Camaro.’
This was late 1970, and Howes was ideally placed to source the most unusual of American pony cars. ‘My dealership, Howes Motors of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire, was the main agent for Rambler-amc, then AMC-JEEP. As you can imagine, most of our sales were of Jeeps – but we did sell more converted righthand-drive AMC Gremlins than you might think. In 1970 AMC had just won the Trans-am championship in the US with Roger Penske’s factory team, and we figured with our Group 5 experience we could build one too, with AMC’S help, and run it in the BSCC – it’d fit in nicely with the business.
‘Unfortunately we needed the car in a hurry and the factory couldn’t supply one in time, so instead we got an American serviceman stationed in Pinner to ship one over for us. The Javelin arrived on 25 February 1971, and cost us £800.’
1971 – The Javelin lands in the UK
‘I wanted to strip and rebuild the car from scratch rather than buy a ready-made Trans-am race car. I had an excellent race mechanic, Alan Jakeman, who had been involved in racing for many years, and he and I built the car heavily modified from the start.
‘When you start with a bare shell, you can build the roll cage into it like a rally car, so it becomes an integral part of the structure and has the effect of stiffening it. We put on trailing-arm rear suspension with a Watt linkage, and the brakes were Can-am specification designed for us by Lockheed and built bespoke by AP.
‘The first engine we used was built by Ian Richardson, featured four two-choke Weber IDA carburettors like a GT40 and put out 490bhp. We ran with that for our first year and a half before replacing it with a 550bhp unit from Woods Brothers in California – they took on the running of the AMC factory Trans-am cars after Penske. I remember that engine arriving ahead of a big race meeting at Silverstone, and we were still building the car the night before!’
The car was meant to have been ready to race at the 1971 Brands Hatch Motor Show 200 – the final race of the BSCC season – and was listed in the programme but never made the startline. The delay resulted in a flurry of press fascination in the unique AMC, which was only sated with the arrival of the 1972 season, in which the British Saloon Car Championship was prefixed Wiggins Teape Paperchase in honour of its paper-producing headline sponsor.
‘It was the first year of Group 2,’ says Howes of the Championship. ‘I was up against drivers like Frank Gardner and Brian Muir, and the grid included everything from the big heavy American muscle cars right down to Lotus Cortina Mk2s. It was a nine-race season, the first being Brands Hatch. The car was repainted white from its original yellow.’ The press was eager to see it too – in a pre-season article in Cars
& Car Conversions Gerry Marshall commented that it would be “interesting predicting David Howes’s Javelin, who will be doing selective clubbies just to blow us all off. We wish him every success”.
Howes remembers the season with a tinge of disappointment while leafing through period literature, including the season-review Motor
Racing Champions annual in which the Javelin was misidentified by a picture editor as Frank Gardner’s Chevrolet Camaro SS – a sore point given that the photo was taken at Silverstone, the Javelin’s best result in an otherwise difficult year.
‘It was brilliant to drive in the wet. It won many wet races over its career not because I was a great driver, but because of the heavy engine. It added traction, weighing 650lb compared to the all-alloy Chevrolet blocks. It meant the Javelin suffered from understeer in the dry, but provided you could get through the wall of spray on the startline straight, it had enough power to boot the back end into oversteer to corner yet stay planted on the straights. I finished first at Silverstone in June 1972, and took the fastest lap of the weekend too at one minute 24 seconds. And the car was still running on narrow, undersized Minilites. It didn’t feel like a particularly great win as there wasn’t much opposition – just six other cars in my class, and only the Minis provided competition in corners.
‘By July’s race at Oulton Park it was clear we had oil surge problems,’ Howes recalls. ‘We fitted a dry sump later, but the problem was so bad that Motoring News noted it specifically. It was the only time I went to Oulton Park. It was bloody wet and I span, but came sixth with only good drivers in front of me, like Frank Gardner, Dave Matthews, Terry Sanger and Brian Muir. I could even have beaten some of them had I not lost time autocrossing after a wee moment at Old Hall.’
The only other top ten finish of the season had been at Thruxton’s Easter Monday meeting. ‘I came eighth, but I was beaten by Escorts and even Jonathan Buncombe’s Mini as well as the Camaros and Dennis Leech’s Mustang,’ says Howes.
1973 – The Javelin dons a familiar coat of arms
The following year would prove much more fun, although it began disappointingly. ‘I wrote to the AMC factory to ask for official support in the 1973 BSCC – it’d just won two back-to-back Trans-am Championships in the US and had a sporty reputation as a result. Although it was very helpful, putting me in touch with Penske and Woods, it chose not to offer us factory backing. We painted our car to look like its official Trans-am entries, though.’
‘It was brilliant to drive in the wet – the heavy engine added traction’
Although the Javelin was a much more resolved car to drive in 1973, with its new Woods engine and wider wheels, the season was marred by a dreadful accident at the British Grand Prix Support Race at Silverstone in July. ‘There was a terrible crash coming out of Abbey,’ Howes recalls. ‘I was up against a works Alpina BMW, running seventh and pulling away from Jonathan Buncombe’s Ford Capri when a huge multi-car accident involving Dave Matthews’ Capri took place right in front of me. I was bloody lucky to finish that race alive – I went straight underneath Dave Brodie’s flying Ford Escort, which was on fire, as was Gary Booth’s Mini. It was terrible because they were taken to hospital badly injured, but in the chaos I took over second place from Frank Gardner. I was the happiest boy ever! In the end I finished second to him, but he was such a gent. We really were just boys back then, but he always had time for you, and a very dry Australian sense of humour too. When we came back to Silverstone in October I won both races.
‘But this was July 14th, and I remember talking about the accident with Roger Williamson who was there racing in his first Grand Prix.’ In only his second Grand Prix, at Zandvoort 15 days later, Williamson was killed in a horrifyingly similar inferno. ‘So much potential,’ muses Howes. ‘They were bad days back then.
‘On August 23 I had a coming together with Alec Poole’s quick little Datsun, when he took me on the inside and spun. It was pouring with rain and Ingliston
‘I took over second place from Frank Gardner – I was the happiest boy ever!’
was like a go-kart track. It was messy, but it was all part of the championship. The Javelin wasn’t too damaged to keep going, but it was just too difficult to drive that car on that tight track in the wet. It just didn’t work.’
Despite ongoing battles in the BSCC, on September 1 the Javelin competed against a Formula One A-lister. ‘Ronnie Peterson brought a few of us, including Bob Torrie with his Escort RS, over to Sweden for an invitation race,’ says Howes. ‘It was at Ring-knutstorp, which is a very tiny circuit. I finished 12th, and it was a great weekend. Peterson was first, of course.’
1974 – Rule change put the Javelin in the ’Loonie bin
The Javelin’s crusade in the BSCC was short-lived because the regulations changed for 1974, switching to production-based Group 1 rules to save money. The AMC found itself obsolete, but there was a way out in the form of so-called ‘Superloons’ – the Super Saloons – with scope for even more modifications.
‘Group 2 regulations said you had to keep the original suspension – we had coil springs and fitted
plastic replica leaf springs that did nothing. But it was the Watt linkage that properly located the rear axle and that transformed the handling.’ However, the Javelin struggled against more radical opposition.
‘We were making 545bhp by this point, but we were up against hybrid supersaloons like the SkodaChevrolets. That said, in August at Silverstone I practised out of session, started from the back of the grid and finished second.’
1975 – Gerry gets marshalled aside
‘By 1975 it was racing in Tricentrol Supersaloons, and I beat Gerry Marshall in the Formula Atlantic support race. He said in his defence that he was “only in his Firenza” but that car was bloody quick. The Javelin’s last race was in August, when I had a big road accident that stopped me racing for good. Various people approached me, and I was tempted to sell it but didn’t. It’s stayed here in a dry barn so it didn’t deteriorate.
‘I took it to Silverstone once for a track day in 1977 – the last day I drove it. It was just a day out for a bit of fun. I let a pal of mine drive it. The seat was built for me and was non-adjustable. He was taller than me, got his feet tangled in the pedals, over-revved it, broke a conrod and destroyed the engine! It was returned to the barn and stored without its engine for 39 years. I toyed with the idea of rebuilding it myself but I have too many other cars, so in February 2016 I decided to sell it to Marc Devis instead.’
2016 – The Beast awakens from its 41-year slumber
‘I sold it to Marc because he said specifically that he didn’t want to change anything on the outside of the car,’ says Howes. ‘It still looks great – all the period livery and hand-painted adverts on it are original.’
‘I’ve collected classic competition cars for 35 years, but didn’t have a Group 2 touring car,’ says Belgian owner Devis. ‘They don’t often come up for sale, especially in their original state, so when I got word of an AMC Javelin that raced in the Seventies still sitting in the garage of its first owner, I had to act. Simon Turner, who looks after my race cars at WDK Motorsport, went along and struck a deal with David.
‘It was the history that swung it for me. I read up on this car that the other BSCC drivers nicknamed “The Beast”. Since then I’ve compiled its full history. David has been invaluable – he’s very passionate about it.
‘WDK’S restoration was very careful – it was really important not to touch the cosmetics at all, so the scratches and patina picked up during its original racing career remain. We rebuilt the blown-up race engine, and also built a new Fia-legal V8. Its first historic race meeting was at the 2016 Silverstone Classic. It’s only done one other race since, the Spa Six Hours, and it finished fourth overall behind the kind of Group 2 Capris it raced against when new.
‘David Howes watched it race from the grandstand, and saw the flames from the exhaust on the downshift.
‘It was a very emotional day – it’s still The Beast.’