[Clive Brown]

I travelled to Ireland to assist David in finishing the car for its debut , which was at Phoenix Park . I drove the car into scrutineering , and well recall people's looks of amazement . The car did not have a rear low-visibility red warning light ; it wouldn't have needed one at the time in the the UK .

" Where's your red light ? " , said the scrutineer . " It's a racing car , not a f**king knocking shop ! " , came my witty response . Nevertheless , we got the ticket ....

It ****ed with rain all weekend , everyone got very drunk , and I spent the Saturday night sleeping with the car in a beer tent in the Phoenix Park paddock . If Stiletto driver Richard Baird is still out there , for a suitable sum of money I promise not to disclose why he didn't take part in the first GT race on the Sunday !

The car did swap ends very quickly , but certainly not " for no reason " . Although the car was basically a copy of my design to the rear of the half-monocoque , it was largely built by a stupid little mutant who used to work for Rob Mason at the time . Whereas my car was built from 18g L72 , using solid rivets wherever possible , David's car was built from 16g NS4 , pop rivetted together . Crucially , whereas the engine frame on my car was carefully designed to provide a rigid frame using the RT1 engine bearers only as a basis , but with the Imp engine as a completely unstressed component , the car built for David Hall was totally deficient in this respect . The rear suspension must have moved about like a wet copy of the ' Sporting Life ' in a high wind .

I remember being called by a Welshman called Owen Jones , who had previously raced raced a 1 litre Special Saloon Anglia , who was considering buying the car , but I don't know what happened to it thereafter .

Clive

P.S. : I think the donor RT1 might have been ex-Trevor Templeton . Mine was ex-Arie Lyenduyk .