Repco: once a mighty empire

Repco, founded in 1922, in 1969 had a number of manufacturing companies that ranged from 25 employees to 2000. There were three major divisions – Repco Manufacturing Group, of which Repco Research and Repco Clutch Company was one, as well as PBR Brakes and a multitude of other companies; Repco Merchant Group that sold the components and Repco International, which was to target overseas expansion. All up the workforce at Repco at its peak was between 15,000 and 16,000.

Repco had a considerable international presence, and as late as the 1990s PBR was setting up a substantial manufacturing plant for brake components in the USA. There was also a Malaysian clutch operation, for the Proton which was the Malaysian government vehicle.

“Repco Research was a great talent,” Alan Warby related. “They worked with the CSIRO in the textile industry, and they were involved in the development of the Repco-Brabham Formula One engine (via the Repco Brabham Engine Company) with Jack Brabham.”

That involvement, of course, saw Repco supply the three-litre (183ci), 90 degree V8 engines that powered the Australian to the 1966 World Championship, a feat New Zealander Denny Hulme repeated the following year.

By 1969 – when Repco engineers Warby and Moore were busily working on GT-HO clutch development – Brabham’s F1 team had switched to Ford-funded Cosworth DFV engines. Interestingly, Jack’s F1 challenger would carry a Superoo logo in 1970.

Repco engines still powered Brabham’s Indianapolis 500 ride in 1969. While Jack DNF’ed in the world’s biggest race, his American

teammate Peter Revson nished a ne fth.

Back in Australia, several of the Repco V8 development team moved to the Ford racing program through employment at the Lot 6 workshop from 1969. Others stayed with the Repco Brabham Engine Company, soon to be renamed the Repco Engine Development Company, on the Formula 5000 engine program. This entity would certainly have had the expertise to blueprint the engine in the Repco development Falcon, but this possibility remains just that, a possibility.

Repco began unravelling in the 1990s, with the beginning of the sale of various arms of the business.

Today Repco is essentially a successful retail chain selling spare parts – true to the origins of the company’s acronym-based name, which stemed from the Replacement Parts

Company – and tools.