Keith Barber
Founder of Brisca Heritage
BriSCA HERITAGE and the art of restoring old stock cars
The first stock car that I
restored for display at a stock car meeting belonged to the once famous Harold
‘Bozzy’ Bosworth. The year was 1971, I had just completed my first book tracing
the history of the sport, and with time to kill while waiting for the printers
to print and finish ‘Wildbill to Wildcat’ I called up Harold to see if he would
mind me putting back on track the last Ford Model B that he had raced in 1961.
Bozzy’s
era was the fifties. The first three meetings I ever saw were won by Harold, and
the most memorable were the two at Whip Chicken Farm in October 1955 when his
dilapidated Ford saloon proved to be the car to beat despite looking like it was
falling apart as it bounced its way to victory.
He promoted Long Eaton for a couple of years in the fifties before being detained at her majesty’s pleasure for a couple of years. Once back in circulation he built his last Model B, but after just a couple of meetings he blew up the Dodge Red Ram Hemi engine and figured he ought to find a real job, which is when he parked up the car, less engine. After laying dormant for a decade, and with the great mans help, we located an ex army flathead Ford V8, and got the restored car running well enough to demonstrate it when the book was launched at Brafield in July.
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It was when I started promoting at Long Eaton in 1974 that we were offered a Model 48 Ford saloon that former racer Nev Hughes had found in a railway siding in Nottingham. Numbered E691, which was Nev’s original racing number, the two cars were occasionally demonstrated as part of special events, and during the late seventies and early eighties two other cars were parked in the stadium with a view to eventual restoration. These were the Aubrey Leighton ‘Pink Un’, winner of the 1963 National Points Championship, and Trevor Frost’s 1964 World Final winner.
The Frost car was eventually given to Dick Woodward who restored it in the late nineties, and I eventually found time to restore the Leighton car after I had retired to Cornwall in 2000.
As for the original two, Roy Clarke now has E691, while the rusting remains of the Bozzy car are still awaiting a second rebuild, hopefully in the not too distant future.
There was one other restoration activity worth mentioning, and that one centred on the Stuart Smith Testimonial at Belle Vue in 1986. Stuart’s original 1969 World Final winner had been found and rebuilt by Ken Hopes for the occasion, and I ‘borrowed’ Stuart’s first famous racer, the former Albert Griffin car, from its owner Ron Skinner and with help from Frankie Wainman Senior got that one running for the special day.
‘The Griffin car’ went back to Ron Skinner in 1987, and gently rusted in Ron’s Pershore yard until 2001 when I did a deal with the Pershore Giant and brought it back to Cornwall for restoration. That car was totally rebuilt by Richard Hart, and remains in immaculate condition, awaiting a suitable occasion to be brought back into the public arena.
With the Golden Jubilee year of the sport getting ever nearer, and with a couple of F.2 recreations also having been put together for demonstration at the 1998 Formula Two World Final, there was a sudden growth of interest in the history of the sport, and it was at this point that Roy Clarke gave up Truck Racing to rediscover his teenage love of stock cars.
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Roy’s first replica was a Ford Pilot copy of a car that he had built to race at Staines in 1960. He followed this up with a second numbered 161 in memory of Staines superstar Ken Freeman, his brother Tony built a fifties replica based on a Pontiac Saloon, and Roy then built a couple of Formula Two cars, one a Ford Model Y replica of the car he raced in 1962.
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By the time of the Golden Jubilee Ron Harney showed up with a huge Cadillac, and we had helped Duncan Bell to construct a replica of a Ford Model 40 he raced in late fifties, Stuart Bamforth’s widow Lucy had Stuarts 1976 World Final winner restored by professional restorer Ian Kellett, and two Stuart Smith cars, the 1969 and 72 finals winner, and the 1983-4-5 World Finals winner, were returned to the track by owner Peter Gleve.The rest of the story is recent and recorded history.
Due largely to the ease with which they can be built, and the availability of Ford Pop doner cars, the F.2 Heritage movement has grown fastest, but it now looks as if the F.1 scene is catching up. At the end of the 2009 season there are fifteen seventies and eighties cars racing regularly, and looking forward to 2010, it is hoped that a similar number of fifties and sixties cars will be mobilised ready for a BriSCA Heritage spectacular at the 2010 F.1 World Final at Coventry.
In the interests of safety, the future of F.1 heritage racing will be best served if these two groups race separately, while it might be decreed by the H and S lobby that events featuring the earlier era are restricted to ‘Demonstration events’.
My current workshop project is a reconstruction of the notorious Packard that Aubrey Leighton built for the Brafield Badgers team. Built at end of 1955, the original Ford flathead engine car, and a sister car powered by a straight eight Chrysler terrorised the raceways in 1956, and were eventually banned for being too destructive! A present day stock car usually has a wheelbase of 100 inches. The Packard chassis is 132 inches. When I first saw the car on my way to Brafield for the first time in 1956 my dad asked me what I thought it was. This twelve year old didn’t want to admit defeat, and said ‘I think it’s a Bugatti..’ Referred to in the Brafield programme as ‘scientifically designed for the purpose of stock car racing’ this was the point when my interest in the ‘science’ of stock car construction was first nurtured. The interest became an obsession, and the obsession has now lasted over fifty years. Projects in the pipeline include the reconstruction of the ‘Bozzy’ Model B Ford, and the construction of a replica of the car that Johnny Brise used to win World Finals in 1959 and 1960.
I just hope I don’t run out of time!
Keith Barber
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