Racing into the future
It’s nearly six decades since a British collaboration stunned the world of motorsport at Le Mans. David Lynn looks back with the help of some very rare models.
Rover's innovative collaboration with BRM, remembered by David Lynn.
The golden period of gas turbines being heralded as a new technology for road vehicles was largely over when I arrived into the world, so exploring the significance of this selection of 1963-65 Rover-BRM Le Mans racers became a fascinating adventure. In simplistic terms, a gas turbine compresses air into a combustion chamber where fuel is sprayed and the mixture ignited - the resulting gases are channelled at pressure to rotate a turbine, which, when attached to a shaft, provides mechanical power. While modern gas turbine development was a spin-off (as it were) from jet engine research for aircraft use during World War II, the principles can be traced back to a patent awarded to an Englishman, John Barber, in 1791.Although his primitive turbine was too weak to operate its own components.
The first gas turbine to generate a surplus was made in 1903 by Aegidus Elling, a Norwegian engineer, and the first gas turbine car only arrived with Rover’s JET1 breakthrough in 1950. Other manufacturers dabbled with this futuristic technology and its spaceage symbolism for the post-war era, including Austin’s A125 Sheerline-based Gas Turbine Car in 1954, and the Fiat Turbina and Renault Étoile Filante streamlined speed record concepts. Meanwhile, in America, General Motors created a series of four Firebird concepts with space-rocket styling until the early 1960s and Chrysler pursued more serious proposals culminating in its 1963 Turbine Car as a luxury coupé - 55 were built and distributed through a selected user programme that accumulated over one million miles of actual road use, and is still the only example of batch production compared to individual examples.
Alongside car use, several firms investigated potential truck applications, British Railways explored a crossover into locomotive propulsion with its celebrated 1950s 18000 and 18100 engines, the 1960s GT3 (Gas Turbine Three) and the APT-E (Advanced Passenger Train Experimental) prototype of the early 1970s, and gas turbines were harnessed for ship propulsion. Several strident British and US period newsreels found online gave glimpses of the excitement and anticipation for this new technology, alongside their curious pronunciation of “gas turbin” rhyming with “win” rather than “wine”.
Rover’s involvement began through supporting Sir Frank Whittle’s early jet engine work during
World War II, which produced the world’s first straight-through combustion jet before being handed over to Rolls-Royce, in 1943, in exchange for the production contract for the Meteor tank engine.After the war ended, Rover’s survival as a car producer was threatened by meagre steel allocations, so new strategies were urgently pursued, including the aluminium-bodied Land-Rover (June 2018 issue). Wartime jet expertise opened another door into exploring gas turbine use for road vehicles, and with some silent sponsorship from Leyland - in those days a stand-alone lorry maker - produced the JET1 prototype in March 1950.This paraffin-fuelled roadster used the upright bodywork from the 75 P4 saloon with “Cyclops” grille on a mid-engined chassis with an open cockpit and aeroscreens.After an initial launch at Silverstone, the project went quiet until relaunching in June 1952 with updated P4 bodywork including a shield grille and successful speed record runs on the Belgian Jabbeke autoroute.
Next up was the front-engined T2, but it proved unworkable, so was quickly abandoned without publicity. Its successor,T2a, was similarly kept out of sight, but was rear-engined with full 75 P4 saloon bodywork and a huge exhaust funnel on the boot. Again things went quiet until 1956 when T3 was unveiled as a compact rear-engined coupé with 4WD and unique styling.This was probably the most sophisticated Rover turbine car and, according to one source, the zenith of Rover’s efforts in demonstrating real-world practicality.Another gap followed until the 1961 unveiling of T4, based on the P6 project which reached production in 1963 as the 2000 range - the P6 was designed with a large engine bay for potential front-engined turbine production, which proved a fortunate decision several years later when it readily accommodated the ex-BuickV8 to become the 3500.T4 was by all accounts a major achievement with most of the civilised practicality needed for normal road use, with only a streamlined and extended bonnet differentiating it from the regular 2000 shape.
However it marked the end of Rover’s dream of putting a turbine car into production, as there were unresolved cost issues from the exotic materials needed for the high internal temperatures, safely dealing with the hot exhaust gases, general heat-soak, turbo-lag, and fuel consumption, despite improving to 16-20 mpg from JET1’s 3.5 mpg.At this point, the story would have stopped, but for two unexpected events.The first was an invitation from the Le Mans 24 Hours organisers for Rover to present T4 in the pre-race parade at the 1962 event, and a similar exercise at the 1963 British Grand Prix including JET1 and T3 achieved massive publicity.The Le Mans organisers then announced an award for 1963 for the first turbine entrant to complete 3,600km (2,237 miles).The other surprise was a Rover board decision to launch a motorsport campaign, and the immediate response was a rallying team with the 3-Litre P5 and later 2000 P6, achieving good results without major victories. This was immortalised in Corgi’s 1960s models of the maroon 1965 Monte Carlo class winner - later revived by Vanguards.
Meanwhile, the turbine project was recast for a joint Le Mans collaboration with a racing constructor. Cooper rejected Rover’s overtures, but BRM were happy to provide the chassis from a crashed 1962 P57
F1 car and its drivers, Graham Hill and Richie Ginther. The Rover-BRM appeared on five competitive occasions, all at Le Mans for the 1963/64/65 test weekends each April and the 1963 and 1965 races in June. Despite some radical changes as its racing career evolved, this was always the same single car, with no back-up or replacement.
One model is shown from each appearance and, as far as I can tell, none were modelled in 1/43 at the time and even today when several specialist Le Mans ranges exist, the choice is very limited. Bizarre produced resin models of all five versions for distribution through Spark, and are now pretty well impossible to find.A few years back, the English online retailer Racing Models commissioned a new resin series from the Italian firm of Top Models to plug the gap, with each version in an edition of only 102.These sold out fairly quickly, giving another hens-teeth scenario.The story then gets a bit sticky, as I’ve been told that the Racing Models commission included an exclusivity clause preventing further releases; however some repeats emerged from Pinko, one of Top Models’ subsidiary brands.
At its debut for the 1963 test weekend, the RoverBRM had unpainted aluminium bodywork without race numbers, as shown by the silver Racing Models edition.As one source says “beauty was not one of its virtues” and the bodywork was not windproof so the drivers complained of cold draughts.The model is simple but neatly detailed, particularly within the cockpit. Unlike Bizarre’s version, there is no rear body lip, but the ad hoc nature of these test weekends could allow both formats to be correct.
Its race appearance two months later came in British Racing Green, with the exceptional number 00 denoting that it ran literally in a class of its own outside the normal classification and was forced to start 30 seconds after the rest of the field. It “ran like clockwork”, without any mechanical work or even a change of tyres to cover 310 laps - 29 behind the winner - to finish in what would have been 7th or 8th place according to different sources, and easily achieved the 3,600km distance for the ACO's FF25,000 turbine prize. Pinko’s version is shown, differing from the test depiction by the rear body lip, a bigger heat exchanger on the rear body, a more raked windscreen, and the removal of the spinner wheel nuts.Again, it is nicely finished, but mine had some loose bits when it arrived, including a rear light and a rubber ring which has no obvious home.There was no slipcase and the plinth has hand-painted descriptions, perhaps suggesting that Pinko were clearing leftover rejects instead of making additional batches. I have another unrelated Pinko with similar quality niggles.
It returned for the 1964 test weekend with a much
more elegant and aerodynamic body, and two small flip-up headlights, some way back on the bonnet.The cold and wet conditions did not highlight any power deficiency from the undersized air intakes and what was still the original engine, although a new engine was promised for the race. However the entry was withdrawn shortly beforehand with the claim this was not ready, but the real problem was that the car fell off its trailer on the way home and was not repairable in time. Being a unique car, there were no spares readily available. Bizarre’s matt grey depiction with #26 shows the new shape very neatly, and again, while there is not much detail, what there is has been done well.The wheels are excellent, there is a delicate screen wiper and a chromed bonnet filler cap, the flimsy driver’s window with a small porthole has come adrift on mine, so is not shown, but gives an enhanced view of the intricate cockpit, and as with all these Bizarres, the display plinth has a track finish.
The next appearance was therefore the 1965 test weekend, now resplendent in dark metallic green with silver rear panel and #35. Other differences included relocated headlights further forward behind streamlined covers, two flat vents on the rear cover, external latches behind the front wheels, and a proper sliding panel in the driver’s window.The new engine still provided about 150bhp, but with fuel consumption reduced to 13.5mpg compared to 7.5mpg in 1963.The BRM-supplied driver pairing was now Jackie Stewart alongside Graham Hill, and the weekend seems to have passed uneventfully. Bizarre’s model looks much more exciting with the new colours - this was actually my first acquisition of the five and inspired the hunt for the full set.
The race saw a largely uninterrupted run to an officially recognised 10th place, but it was slower and ran hotter than expected to cover a shorter distance than in 1963.A post-race stripdown revealed compressor damage due to the ingestion early in the race of an unknown object such as a nut or bolt and gave an unintended testimony to the turbine’s resilience. Bizarre’s model in the same green with #35 on white door panels shows many small changes - the most obvious are full intakes on the rear wings, plus the reinstatement of the 1964 flap-up lights as auxiliaries, sidelights on the wing edges, driver’s door and bootlid buttons, a black fuel filler and a RoverBRM bonnet script.As the definitive version this has become the most desirableand expensive model of the five across the brands.
Rover’s turbine activity ceased at this point and the car never raced again.There was a small sequel after the expanding Leyland empire bought Rover in 1967 and revived previous work as a potential unit for truck use, building seven prototypes for motor show displays and even issuing a publicity brochure before the project was shelved. A more tenuous footnote in 1997 was the Rover 200 BRM sporty edition of the small R3 hatchback, finished in BRG with BRM’s symbolic orange lower grille outline.The BRM link was simply a marketing device to rival Renault’s Clio Williams, but the Le Mans car was duly wheeled out for the launch and publicity razzamatazz.
Gas turbines enjoyed further racing experimentation in 1967 with the STP-Paxton Indy Cardriven by Parnelli Jones, which dominated the 200 lap race but coasted to a halt on lap 196 with just eight miles to go. This inspired Lotus to enter a team of turbine 56s in the 1968 event with Joe Leonard leading when a fuel pump shaft broke on lap 192.These near misses terrified the Indy organisers who promptly changed the rules to prevent further turbine participation, and a Lotus turbine revival as the 56B during the 1971 F1 season achieved little.The American Howmet team built two TX turbine sports car racers for the 1968 season, providing the only other Le Mans appearance for this technology but no significant placings.
Other turbine footnotes include some work by Toyota from the late 1970s culminating in the 1987 GTV concept car, and Jaguar’s 2010 C-X75 hybrid supercar concept which would have used two dieselfed micro turbines to recharge its electric motors. A limited production run was announced but then canned, and the C-X75’s subsequent appearance in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre used conventional lookalikes. With the emphasis today on reducing vehicle emissions in response to climate change and health issues, it seems that the dream of gas-turbine road vehicles has now run its course. Although perhaps a Jaguar-like approach of incorporating turbines within a different technology offers some prospects for the future. DC