1966 Janspeed Unipower GT

[graham.codling]

Thanks Pete you have probably the same ccc mag I was interested in planet as I acquired an alloy rocker cover many years ago as in pictures in mag it has planet cast in on right of oil flip cap sorry about getting off topic on your unipower

[999 ORX]

7x13 japs and those tyres of mine and your gonna be looking epic pete!

Mm.. maybe, great looking wheel those Mk2 Japs but mine needs 6's on the front and 8's on the back !

Pete, I can only see one quick way out that conundrum.. And it's getting your cheque book out and ordering 4 new ones from the new J.A Pearce.. least you would be able to order two 6's and two 8's..

or if you can maybe find two old sets!? Like a set of 6's and a set of 8's then you could have two sets so to speak each with different tyres like wets and drys. That would be pretty cool

Did you get the photos I sent you mate? I sent them off my phone and I don't know if it reached the attatchment limit?

Chris

[fricsman]

You have a PM.

[Pete]

Thanks Graham, Chris and Dave.

Here's a piece from the Baggot book :



This piece was taken from a book that was written over 16 years ago and in the first paragraph you can see that the writer isn't aware of the other two or three other works racers that survive (written in pre internet days) and makes the same assumption that mine was white that I've seen elsewhere. It's also worth pointing out that the early purpose built race cars like the Janspeed (and Gordon Allen's ) had quite different rear bodies to the "Mk2" racers that went to Le Mans with Forester over two years later.

[Pete]

More about those aerodynamics..........



So I wonder if my car was developed in that very wind tunnel seeing as it was the first with an air dam.


Going through all this material, as with any research, you do come across some puzzles like the fact that my car is referred to as 1275 at the Jarama Grand Prix in '67 :



Every other race report I've seen states under 1150cc other than the speculative press stuff published before the car was built so I wonder whether this Autosport reporter just got it wrong here or whether Janspeed fitted a 1275 for this race ? I've got a couple of people to speak to and hopefully I'll get to the bottom of it.

[Pete]

When I found this footage of Jarama on Youtube I had a good feeling about it because it shows little snippets of most races....except the sports car race. You can just make out Whizzo's dark blue and silver Mini tearing away at the start of the saloon race. His car had been repaired over night by a bunch of Mini loving local lads after Whizz stuck it through a fence in practice (suspension broke) , even raiding parts from the showroom cars at the local Morris dealer overnight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eScfKmjZPL4

[JC T ONE]

or whether Janspeed fitted a 1275 for this race ?
I've got a couple of people to speak to and hopefully I'll get to the bottom of it.

Dont forget to call JanSpeed themselwes = that Norm I told you about, have been working there since "big bang" (or close)
maybe its the Norman Clancy you want to speak to ?

There is hope, untill you get confirmation that his not.



Found the article =


So JanSpeed had 2 racers mixed in a bucket

[Tim Harber]

Who styled it?

Gospel according to Philby says an undisclosed Ford stylist

[Pete]

Found the article =

I presume by "dragging" the writer means hillclimbing and sprinting though I'm not sure Harvey even by his own admission woild have set any records with it. Janspeed did go through a lot of different race cars around this time, this one, the Marcos (hadn't heard the story of that being shunted!), the SCA race Mini (there's footage of that car at Combe on youtube) and the Jan 4 Mini. They didn't keep 'em long did they as the article suggests.

[Pete]

Who styled it?

Gospel according to Philby says an undisclosed Ford stylist

Apparently so, a moonlighting project from one of the team responsible for the GT40 I read somewhere but has always been 'undisclosed'! Incidentally, according to the 5th owner Peter Philby almost became it's owner at one point , long story...

[Tim Harber]

Looking for styling cues here

It's the bonnet catch isn't it?

[rich@minispares.com]

Looking for styling cues here

It's the bonnet catch isn't it?

used on all quality mini based cars..................

[Pete]

Looking for styling cues here

It's the bonnet catch isn't it?

Triumph Herald mate.

The story of how Brian Harvey parted with the car seems just as random as how he bought it off Jan Odor. Apparently Piers Forrester banged on his door one night and asked him to sell it (he'd only had it a few months). Harvey replied that if he came back with cash and a trailer he probably would and a few hours later that's exactly what happened. I suspect that some of the events that C&CC planned for Harvey to do in the car and listed in a previous post didn't happen though they did plan to run the car at the 1968 Brands Mini Festival. Now oddly enough Piers Forrester does appear on the entry list at that event in a Unipower GT so did he race this car at that event ? If not why did he even buy it ? More to find out on that but safe to say Forrester definitely had racing ambitions with Unipower and took over the company from UPD not long after.

[sclemow]

I've just seen this thread, what a great car. Hope to see it in the flesh at some point.

Simon

[Pandora]

Who styled it?

Gospel according to Philby says an undisclosed Ford stylist

Apparently so, a moonlighting project from one of the team responsible for the GT40 I read somewhere but has always been 'undisclosed'! Incidentally, according to the 5th owner Peter Philby almost became it's owner at one point , long story...

I often wondered if Ron Hickman may have had a hand in it. Ex Ford, went to Lotus, developed the concept Lotus put forward for the GT40, which went on to become the Europa when Lola got the GT40 contract. I doubt Lotus would want their stylist working on a competitors projects

It has the look of some of his work.

Do the hinges say 'workmate' on them????



Al

[Pete]

By the way, did you know the later cars (UWF) were trimmed by Wood and Pickett when they moved round the corner from them at Park Royal. Not that many were made and lots of customers cancelled orders for cars due to the long waiting times, the Elan and Europa being readily available.

[nippycars]

The guy to Jonathan Buncombes left is Chris Boulter and possibly his mechanic on his left,

[Pete]

Thanks Fred, the guy with the glasses leaning into the car on the other Combe shot went on to be the Unipower race team manager so I understand when they went to Le Mans in '69. Incidentally the car's looking very shiny in those shots at Combe and that's because according to Autosport my car had just recieved it's new coat of paint (referred to as scarlet) in time for this race which took place in front of a record crowd on August 28th 1967 (Bank Holiday Monday). Mabbs came 3rd overall in the special GT race and won the 1150cc class.
The car was raced a few times prior to this , at Combe on the 25th June (first race) where Mabbs finished 2nd overall and won the class, 23rd July at the F2 Spanish GP at Jarama (6th overall, brakes went off) and 20th August back at Combe where Mabbs finished 3rd in the 1150cc class after a big spin but posted fastest lap trying to make up for it. This was the first race with a 1071 engine, the first two were with 1275 S. I presume Jan decided to drop down to the tiddlers class in order to get the engine somewehere near the class limit of 1150cc to be competative. Two more races followed at Combe again plus an apparent 'no show' at Crystal Palace for some reason in August, Mabbs was supposed to be racing the Janspeed 1 litre SCA Cosworth engined Mini in tandem. The remaining races at Combe were on Sept 10th (7th o/a in larger class, Mabbs spun out again) and October 1st (not found the result yet).

So the car ran 1275 to start with, was a different colour (I suspect it was white as reported elsewhere then) and then painted "scarlet" and ran 1071 for the remainder of it's 60's racing career which finished at the end of 1968 as far as I know (1968 races listed previously). So which engine to use ??

All boring history at the minute folks but better to do the research before than after !

[mk1coopers]

1071.....you know it makes sense

[Jack of all trades]

According to this Janspeed Catalog http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161206333879 they couldn't sort the suspension on the Unipower (even called impossible!) and they reffer to it as 1293cc.

Is that why they stopped using it so soon?