BRABHAM ANECDOTES - Part II

In early 1980 Jack Brabham and I met at his hangar/office at Bankstown airport to ask him if he wanted participate in the TR7 series, and to my surprise he agreed.
We had a package of payments comprising starting money and prizemoney, which wasn’t huge, but substantial enough to get agreement from all the drivers we approached.

Jack said the money wasn’t important, he thought it would be great fun.

Just after the first practice session Ron Gillard got a taste of Brabham's well-known dry humour. Jack told Ron: "No wonder you can't sell these things, the instruments aren't very reliable."

Ron said: "What do you mean?"

With a smile Jack replied: "I kept checking the oil pressure, but it never moved off a quarter-to-three."

The first round at Amaroo Park (NW of Sydney) happened in March 1980 and if it was a taste of things to come, this was going to be a hell of a series. All the drivers got along well, and each of them told me how good it was that we had snagged Jack Brabham.

The guys were ready to rip, and I think everyone was surprised by how tight the racing was, the overtaking, the late-braking, and occasional forays off the circuit. It was cut and thrust racing at its finest.

The starting grid for the very first round of the Barclays TR7 ProCar Series

Mike Raymond, the Channel 7 commentator, was going off his face with excitement!

First round action, Brabham's out of sight because of his one-minute penalty!

Although I never competed in racing I did have experience as a motor racing commentator, so the Australian Racing Drivers Club invited me to be the track announcer for all the rounds. This was great, as I knew all the drivers well, and I could ‘personalize’ the commentary with tidbits from practice, and various facets of the drivers’ personalities.

The first round kept me very busy calling the race, because the changes were many, as were the ‘racing incidents’!

Jim Richards won the round, but we had to penalise Jack Brabham one minute, for jumping the start!

Immediately after the race ended I received a deputation in my motorhome from four of the drivers, with frowns and very serious faces.

The spokesman said in a low voice: “JC, you’ve got to give Black Jack a talking to. Did you see him out there? He was banging into anyone in front of him, practically pushing them off the track.”

Now, I said there were quite a few ‘racing incidents’ (which is code for “somebody gave me a nudge”), and as I was calling the race from the top of the control tower I certainly witnessed lots of incidents!

One of the Pro drivers, Colin Bond, was a close personal friend, so I sought counsel before talking to Jack. Colin said: “Yeah, that’s pretty much the case, but you know, regardless of the event Jack’s a pretty serious racer. He’s out there to win, whatever it takes. Look, we're all big boys, the blokes need to get real, Jack’s not going to change, they’d better get used to it.”

I asked Jack to come and see me, and after we had discussed it I decided I would do nothing. It certainly brought added interest to the event; having a world champion in the field, and especially one with a ‘colourful’ driving style.

However, the other racers wouldn’t give up, they urged me to ‘fire’ the three times world champion!

I was rescued by fate. In 1980 one of Jack’s three sons, Gary, was just getting into serious racing in Europe, and Jack’s now wife Lady Margaret Brabham called me and said that Jack was keen to see Gary race. When I asked how long Jack would be away, she said that unfortunately Gary’s season coincided with the TR7 series.

Father and son - Gary & Jack

So for the cost of a couple of First Class airfares to London, I was able to help Jack see Gary race, and keep the guys quiet about Black Jack’s racing tactics. All was well with the world, and the Barclay’s TR7 Pro-Car Series went on to do the job!

 

Sir Jack and Lady Margaret Brabham

*Cartoon courtesy of John (Stonie) Stoneham originally published in Chequered Flag magazine 1980

The TR7 Pro-Car Series - Tales from the Crypt

·     * The idea of our TR7 one-make race series originally sprouted from a US magazine article about a BMW series run in conjunction with Formula One races, and our thanks go to Bill Nolan of our ad agency.

·      *The great thing about a one-make series is that you win every race!

·      *In one round an exuberant ‘Pete’ Geoghagen rolled several times and totaled a TR7 and as they were dragging the wreck off the circuit he returned to find me in the Paddock, and hand over the ignition key with the disarming line: “Here you are JC, it’s the only thing f……g straight on the car!”

·      *Our car whiz, Ron Gillard, held a ballot every race for the cars, so each driver got a different car for every round. Bob Morris did ‘flat changes’ every gearshift (no clutch), which put enormous pressure on the mass-produced transmission. He was warned by Gillard to stop it, but when he wouldn’t, Ron simply made sure that whatever car Bob drew in the ballot, the much-thrashed gearbox would be fitted to that car.

·      *John Goss prevailed upon Leyland Australia to provide him with a TR7 loan car at the end of 1980, however in early 1981 he departed Australia for Europe, without a word to us and spent the 1981 northern summer assisting his brother Michael, a ship's master, sailing around the Mediterranean. We never saw the car again for 12 months!

·      *Despite the intense competition in each of the 1980 races, the chequered flag went each time to only TWO drivers, Jim Richards or Bob Morris.

·      *Before the TR7 series began, Phil Moore, Leyland Australia’s head of marketing, suggested we go rallying, using a turbocharged TR7, in lieu of a V8, as BL did in the UK. The rally program costs were paid by a budget handed to us by BL so we could convert all our TR7 stock into turbocharged cars, to make them more saleable. However, the rally idea soaked up all the budget, and the car only entered one rally, and failed to finish – so that was the end of the costly rally campaign.

·      *Barclays Bank made an auspicious start in new car financing thanks to the Series, which became a profitable revenue stream for it. The bank confirmed that all of the visibility it achieved, stemmed purely from the race series, plus inviting lots of car dealers to attend the races in the Barclay's hospitality tent. Barclays happily returned in 1981.

·      *Gillard rehabilitated all the original 1980 race cars for the 1981 Pro-Am series, and sold two of those cars to aspiring amateur racers. There we 22 spots on the Amaroo Park starting grid, and we sold enough TR7s to amateurs to fill the grid in the last few rounds of 1981.

·     * The leading amateur Gary Walden got his start by ‘winning’ his race car in a promotional go-kart support series run by Village Grand Prix. He used his start in the Barclays TR7 Pro-Am to go on and develop a promising racing career, including joining the Alan Moffat Mazda team one year at Bathurst.

THE TR7 SALES SOLUTION

So here we are, 1980 and the Triumph TR7 had a slow sales start in Australia. Everything about the car was a conundrum, and potential buyers didn’t ‘know’ what the car was. Was it a two-seat sedan car? Was it a sports car? Was it a Grand Touring coupe?

 

It didn’t really ‘look’ like a sports car, and with a closed cabin the true sports car buyers, and more importantly buyers of previous Triumph TR sports cars thought it was a bit ‘soft’. In short, it didn’t have any credentials.

In 1977 Leyland Australia’s marketing department became convinced the company should 'acquire' a TR7 which Group 44 had been racing in the USA, and put it on the race track in Australia to give the car some cred.

Unfortunately the team which campaigned the car didn’t have a lot of resources, and although the race car was sponsored by Playboy magazine, it was all advertising contra rather than cash. To top it all off the team was inexperienced, and both the car and driver were unreliable. I think it only finished two of the races it was entered in, and nowhere near a podium place.

This was turning out to be an expensive promotional tool, so we had to come up with a better idea. The marketing and public relations departments got their heads together and conceived the idea of a one-make race series, featuring a field of TR7s.

It was up to me and my PR team to put the details in place, and better still, find a sponsor to offset the cost of campaigning a number of cars, and paying ‘star’ drivers to participate.

At this point in the Blog post, I must point out that my friend Russell Turnham, Leyland Australia's Marketing Manager, says that so far I have been entirely too kind to the TR7.

 

 

He reminds me that we had to ‘strong-arm’ the Triumph Owners Club to accept buyers of TR7s, The Club did eventually acquiesce, but only accepted TR7 owners as associate members! Russell also reminded me that the quality of the cars coming out of Speke was atrocious.

In his own words: “The plant was manned by a workforce of unemployed longshoremen who built cars like they loaded ships, badly, and with complete disinterest.  To say BL was conned into building cars in Liverpool by a British Labor government blackmailing a penurious company, with financial subsidies, seems to sum up the business case?”

Back to Australia, and the grand plan to run a one-make race series to sell this car that was neither fish-nor-fowl.

 

Barclays Bank willingly became our sponsor, because it was keen to get into new car financing, and saw the promotional opportunity as a gift. Thus, the campaign was called the “Barclays TR7 Pro-Car Series” – and would feature seven TR7s, driven by seven top-flight professional drivers, over seven laps, at seven race meetings, and televised by (who else?) Channel 7.

 

For anyone familiar with Australian motor racing, you’ll recognize we really did have a top-flight list of drivers. Led by Jack Brabham, we also signed up Colin Bond, Jim Richards, John Goss, Kevin Bartlett, Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan, and Bob Morris.

 

In the course of the series we had ‘casual’ drivers like Dick Johnson, John Harvey and Ron Dickson, who filled in when others were racing elsewhere.

 

The racing was close, exciting, thrill a minute and very good spectator viewing, either at the track or on television. Many people said it was the most fun they had seen, despite the fact that the cars were virtually standard, and ‘slow’ by racing standards.

 

The series was a huge success and we sold every TR7 coming into the country in 1980. In 1981 we followed up with the TR7 Pro-Am Series, where we had five pro drivers racing against amateurs who had bought TR7s just to compete in the Pro-Am series.

 

The first round of the 1981 Barclays TR7 Pro-Am Series

The sour grapes came in June of 1981 when the feisty chairman of British Leyland, Sir Michael Edwardes, threatened the union at the Speke plant in Liverpool, that if they did not end industrial action, he would close the plant.

BL Chairman Sir Michael Edwardes

 

The workforce didn’t stop industrial action, so Edwardes closed the plant, and that meant no more TR7s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So we had this great sales machine running at full speed, and NO TR7s to sell! In fact, much like the XJ-S was for Jaguar, the TR7 was a (surprisingly) commercially-successful model, eventually selling more than 115,000 cars in just six years.

AS the PR department was responsible for putting the whole package together, I must highlight and praise my PR Manager at the time, Michael Breen (who is now PR Manager for Toyota Australia), and mechanical engineer and tuner Ron Gillard, who ‘fettled’ all the cars and put seven perfect, race-ready TR7s on the starting grid for every round. Ron proudly says that there was not a single DNF due to mechanical issues.

Ron Gillard (Left) with John Goss, Colin Bond, Pete Geoghegan and Bob Morris

 Mike managed all the administrative loose ends, and Ron put in hours testing the cars and fine-tuning them for racing.

Ron Gillard racing at Oran Park

Without those two guys the Series would never have been the success it was!

What’s the major lesson from this exercise? We had a healthy budget, we didn’t cut corners, either in the race car preparation, the promotion, or the follow-up publicity and PR. Which bears out my lifelong operating maxim:

 “Pay peanuts, get monkeys.”

 

Photos courtesy of Chevron Publishing, Ron Gillard and John Crawford

TRIUMPH TR7 - A Wedge-shaped Problem

Ahh! The mystery of the markets, and the minds of car buyers.

Over the years various car companies have produced either cars for which no market existed; or their profile, model type and personality were so obscure that regardless of how good it was, the car struggled to find a market.

Such a car was the Triumph TR7, extending a long line of great British sportscars beginning with the Triumph TR2.



Launched in parallel to the  MG sportscars from BMC, Triumphs found their own band of loyal owners and enthusiasts.

Along the way some were more successful than others, but I remember that the TR4a, styled in Italy by Michelotti, set new standards for ride and roadholding with its independent rear suspension.

Triumph TR4a

I remember road-testing one, and whilst I wouldn’t personally describe the handling as sharp and scintillating, it was quite controllable, and certainly comfortable.

Triumph TR6

When the Karmann-styled TR6 came along, Triumph sports cars were getting ‘softer’ in an effort to appeal more to the fast-growing US appetite for British sports cars. What with wind-up glass windows, more comfortable seats, softer ride quality and big-bore performance the TR6 was paving the way for a completely new take on Triumph’s sporting models to come.

 

So the TR7 concept was born from the need to conform with proposed US legislation, as North America offered the biggest market.

British Leyland was convinced there would be legislation to ban convertibles, and also there was a need for front bumpers which could withstand a 5mph impact, and a new rule governing the height of headlamps.

A young Harris Mann

All these factors were included in the design brief given to the leader of the design studio, Harris Mann. Harris, an affable, innovative designer was responsible for the Austin Princess,

Austin Princess

and later one of BL’s most successful cars, the Metro.

Mann's first Metro concept

Austin Metro in final production form

Thus, the wedge-shaped TR7 came off the drawing board and into production at BL’s Speke plant, near Liverpool.

Original ARO Design Studio sketches by Harris Mann
Most of his initial ideas went into the production car

Naturally, Sod’s Law ensured that all the initial concerns were never a reality. The USA did not ban convertibles; the 5mph bumper standard was dropped to 2.5mph by the US Congress to help out General Motors, which lobbied for the change, and the headlight height rule in the USA remained un-altered.

The ad slogan “The Shape of Things To Come” was enlisted to help ‘sell’ the TR7 coupe to potential buyers, but it was never successful enough to sell the car in the numbers needed for a profitable return on investment.

The confusion over the US legislation, lack of investment funds from BL and a lot of industrial trouble inside the various BL factories meant that the convertible version was delayed by two years, which also pushed back production of the TR8, which featured Rover’s excellent V8 engine from the Range Rover, in both coupe and convertible models.

TR7 convertible with the top off

In 1976, as Editor of Modern Motor magazine, I was invited to the UK to test drive the Triumph TR7, Rover 3500 and the Jaguar XJ-S.

Road-testing 'The Wedge' in the Cotswolds 1976

I quite liked the TR7. It had great balance, it was comfortable and although its single overhead cam 2-litre four cylinder engine from the Triumph Dolomite was a mite underpowered, the car could be whipped along nicely over the winding and undulating Cotswold roads thanks to an excellent set of ratios in the five-speed manual.

The striking interior - it was a winner!

My convoluted connection with the TR7 continued, when in 1977 I was hired by Leyland Australia to compete in the Singapore Airlines LONDON TO SYDNEY car rally as navigator for the ‘Coke Moke’ a Leyland Australia Mini Moke with a 1275cc Mini Cooper S engine.

Homeward-bound, the l-o-n-g way from London!

Just before flying out to London for the Rally start, I was offered the job as Head of Public Relations for Leyland Australia on my return.

Then, two years later, Leyland Australia was finally preparing to launch the Triumph TR7 onto an unsuspecting Australian public.

 

Who would be the potential buyers? What was the buyer profile? How important would price be? What sort of supply could we count on, given the industrial turmoil in the UK?

A beautifully-restored Australian-spec TR7, now with body-coloured bumpers

All these issues whirled around in heads of Leyland Australia’s Board Members, the company’s advertising agency (Forbes, Macfie, Hanson), the Marketing and PR departments – all trying to make sense of the problem of the car’s identity, and how to sell it!

Thanks to Harris Mann's quirky styling the TR7 was controversial; so selling it was going to be a challenge!

Harris Mann returning from Tescos in his own TR7

(TR7 story to be continued, plus another Brabham Anecdote, Part II)