Playing a part
Repco is back in motor racing this year with a vengeance with its backing of Supercars – which is tting as the company played a big part in the sport’s early years
Repco’s emergence from the racing shadows into sponsorship of the Bathurst 1000 and the Supercars Championship in 2021 takes the company back onto the centre-stage which it commanded for nearly 40 years. It’s fitting to see Repco back in racing with such a vengeance, as this is a company whose motorsport heritage is rich and deep.
Repco is almost 100 years old. In its early years it was a retailer of automotive products – just as it is today. But in its middle-age Repco was an ASX-listed manufacturing colossus. It began as Geoffrey Russell’s Collingwoodbased ‘Automotive Grinding Co.’ By 1930 the company had expanded into the manufacture of pistons, and it took on a new name: Replacement Parts Pty Ltd.
The company oated as Repco Ltd in 1937. Repco went on to have a ‘good war,’ and off the back of that became an original-equipment supplier to General Motors-Holdens from 1948.
By the mid-‘50s, the company’s managing director Sir John Storey presided over a decentralised automotive conglomerate which comprised Patons Brake Replacements, Warren & Brown (tool maker), Replex electrics, Precision Metal Stampings, Repco Cycles, Specialised Engineering Co, Repco Bearing Co, PJ Bearings, Hardy Spicer (joints), Brico (pistons) and Repco Research.
Charles ‘Dave’ McGrath was director/ managing director/chairman of Repco from 1948 right up till 1981. In the early years at Repco his ‘racing sidekick’ was Charlie Dean. When Storey acquired Dean’s electrical business, Charlie was already racing the famous Maybach 1. This 1946 special (powered by a Maybach 3.8-litre, SOHC six-cylinder engine extracted from a German ‘Demag’ armoured personnel carrier) would facilitate Repco’s involvement in racing.
Spotting Charlie Dean’s talent, McGrath created Repco Research (RR) and gave Dean a broad, groupwide remit including development of new products and research/ testing responsibilities.
Repco supported Dean’s Maybach race program as a means of testing rings, bearings, pistons, gudgeon pins, driveshafts, brakes and other items. Repco literature described the car as a Repco-Maybach.
Not that this was actually the company’s rst foray into motor racing. In fact, it had been involved almost from the start. Repco proudly proclaimed Les Murphy’s use of its piston rings in his 1935 AGP-winning MG. The fact that the ‘Mad Men’ of the day had not yet mastered the art of the tag-line is shown by Repco’s catchy slogan, ‘There’s life in the old car yet if you t Repco products.’..
Repco-Maybach
Stan Jones (father of future F1 World Champ Alan Jones) bought the Maybach from Dean in 1951. Part of the deal was that RR prepared and developed it. Jones’ first Maybach race was at Gawler, South Australia, where Doug Whiteford’s 4.5-litre Talbot-Lago T26C got the better of him the ignite a rivalry that would last over a decade.
Seventy years ago Mount Panorama had the same mystique as now. At Bathurst for the 1952
AGP, Jones was equal favourite with Whiteford, but struggled all weekend on road tyres after his racing Pirellis didn’t arrive on time. So it was that Whiteford added another AGP win to the first he took with legendary ‘Black Bess,’ his Ford V8 Ute-based special, at Nuriootpa in 1950 (24 years later Whiteford, then 59, would finish the ’74 Bathurst 1000 seventh outright and second in class in a Datsun 240K. During the wettest period of the race, the wily Whiteford in the uncompetitive six-cylinder Datsun was quicker than many of the V8s).
Later in ’52 Jones took wins at Leyburn in Queensland and at Parramatta Park four. All the while the Maybach 1 was being continually developed by Dean, and then later RR engineers.
There were three distinct evolutions of the car: the first was a 100bhp (75kW) weakling (not that 100bhp at the time was to be sneezed at) in 1946. Then came a 4.2-litre Rootessupercharged fire-breather from 1949-1951, and finally a naturally-aspirated engine in time for the 1952 AGP. Fed by three 1 ¾-inch SUs, in this trim the engine produced 190kW at 5,200rpm. Over time the chassis was lightened and modified, including the amputation of three feet at its rear.
The first AGP at Albert Park in 1953 eluded Jones. He and Whiteford lapped the field but stops for fuel and a water pump drivebelt, followed by clutch failure, put paid to Jones’ chances, Whiteford won again in the Talbot-Lago.
The Kiwis invited Jones and Jack Brabham to race at the NZ GP at Ardmore in 1954. Jack’s mount was his ‘RedeX Special’ Cooper Bristol.
The Repco Maybach boys suffered a big prerace setback when a conrod punched through a cylinder-sleeve during practice. Overnight Dean and the crew adapted, machined and balanced Bedford truck parts to achieve a makeshift repair – while Stan was off getting drunk!
Jones unsurprisingly had figured his chances of racing that weekend were shot. But Dean got him sorted. Driving to a 4,500rpm rev limit, Stan won a gruelling, almost-three-hour, race thanks to sticking to the team plan combined with the mechanical carnage that took place around him. This was a significant win in the history of Australian motor racing as it was the first international grand prix victory by an Australian driver. It was also a great engineering recovery feat ‘in the field’ by the Repco Research crew.
It was clear, though, that a more-competitive car was needed. Dean designed a new openwheeler, utilising key elements of Maybach 1, including the 190kW-spec six. Other key aspects were a speedway-type Halibrand rear axle, which lowered the driveshaft, and Peugeot 203 rack-and-pinion steering.
Maybach 2 won the prestigious Victorian Trophy on debut at Fishermans Bend, before winning two short races at Easter Bathurst – where the gorgeous silver machine was timed at 132.6mph (213km/h) on Conrod.
A long tow to the Gold Coast followed. The 1954 AGP was held on a 9.7km rough, sandy, undulating road course amongst the dairy farms inland of Southport – just a kilometre or so west from today’s Gold Coast Supercars street circuit.
Jones led early, pressing on hard in front of Lex Davison’s HWM Jaguar and Brabham. The race didn’t end well, Jones destroying Maybach 2 in a huge shunt (above). Chassis welds had failed on a high-speed corner, causing the car to leave the road at 160km/h and spin backwards through the trees. The plucky driver survived ‘shaken and stirred’ but OK.
Stan took the ‘driver error’ rap for the crash to save Repco’s face. That emotion
charged evening, crew member Brian Burnett challenged Jones at the pub about his speed, whereupon Stan felled him with a mighty blow which almost landed the mechanic’s head in the Tweed River…
Dean and his team took some design cues from the contemporary Formula 1 MercedesBenz W196 for the new Maybach 3. Like the Merc, the Maybach’s engine would be canted on its side at 60-degrees to lower the bonnet and aid airflow. The chassis was again based on two four-inch diameter steel tubes. By now Repco was running out of Maybach engine bits, so the capacity was reduced to 3.8-litres. As two of the trick SU carbs were hors-de-Southport-combat, a battery of six motorcycle Amal carbs were fitted to the new car.
Maybach 3 did 233km/h down Conrod on its Easter Bathurst debut – although it was withdrawn before the race due to handling maladies. It was also suffering from huge flatspots in the engine, but this was remedied with a new fuel injection system cobbled together by Phil Irving.
The competition went up a gear in 1955 when Melbourne motor dealer Reg Hunt imported a Maserati A6GCM 2.5-litre GP car. Hunt started the 1955 Port Wakefield AGP as favourite. He had the race won but a rocker slowed him, Stan was looking good but clutch failure slowed him which left Jack Brabham to take a lucky win aboard his self-built Cooper T40 Bristol. Brabham contested the 1955 British GP with it, his world championship debut.
The ‘South Pacific Championship’ at Gnoo Blas opened the 1956 season. Hunt led in his new
Maserati 250F with Stan back in a distant second. Trying hard to bridge the gap, on lap 23 the sonorous German-six broke a rod, carved the block in half and spun Stan on a wild high-speed ride along the delightfully politically incorrect ‘Mental Straight.’ An institution for those so afflicted was located close-by…
Jones had lived the Maybach program for so long. His career was built on it, but the writing was on the wall: it was time to go the big-red-car route. He imported a Maserati 250F and in it won the 1958 Gold Star and 1959 AGP.
There was life left in the old Maybach yet, though. Jones handed the car to his engineer/ racer mate Ern Seeliger, who fitted it with a Chev 283 V8 – one of the first small-block Chevs to appear on Australian race tracks. Seelinger was an accomplished racer but he was not in the Jones league. His best finish was second in the 1958 AGP at Bathurst behind Lex Davison’s Ferrari 500/625.
But Seeliger had a great afternoon at that ’58 Bathurst meeting. He had converted Tom Hawkes’ Cooper T23 from Bristol to RepcoHolden power, and in so doing he created the most successful of the Repco-Holden engined racing and sportscars. Hawkes was third in the AGP. In 1958 that was by the far the greatest competition achievement up till that point for a car with Holden power.
As for Jones, he wasn’t quite finished with Maybach. He grabbed the now Chevpowered Maybach from Seelinger to win the 1959 Gold Star round at Port Wakefield. There was something poetic in Maybach 4’s contribution to Jones’ Gold Star tally. This magnificent silver series of Dean-inspired, Jonesdriven, ‘Repco works racing and test cars’ were darlings of the Australian public for a golden post-war decade.