[edholly]

Late last month this query was posted by Alan Brown

Other hill climbing BT15s include the supercharged 1100 cc versions of Doc R A Willoughby and Jimmy Johnstone (later to Chris Dowson) - I assume these were different cars. Does anyone know their identities?

Yes they are one in the same and the identity is F3-25-65

This car started life as the Radio London car driven primarily by Keith St John, but also by Tony Lanfranchi. I am not entirely sure who owned it at this time, but suspect that it was Ken Sheppard of Customised Sportscars, Shenley. The car did 11 meetings in 65, 14 in 66 and 2 in 67. After Keith started to race a BT18, the car was driven a twice by his fiancee, Liane Engeman and lastly by Sheppard, (these are included in above). I think I worked it out, the car had 15 top 6 finishes in its first 23 events.

It was sold by David Hepworth Racing as a roller to Jim Johnstone Oct 67. Jim still had the original receipt for this transaction, and has given me a copy of it. Jim then fitted the supercharged 1100cc Ford engine and Mk5 Hewland from his Lotus 18 to the car. The gearbox is still in it today. Jim then used the car 15 times between March and September 1968 for 7 class wins and 8 top ten finishes. It then went to Chris Tipping who used it briefly on the track with a Ford twin-cam in 1969 before selling it to Roger "Doc" Willoughby back in supercharged 1100cc form.

Roger competed with it 1970 through 73 when it was sold to 3 mates, Chris Dowson, David Lee and Keith Holbrow. In 1976 it was sold to Pat Keogh who has a nasty accident with it at Prescott and the car was badly damaged against a tree and Pat receiving critical injuries. The wreck passed to Charles Adrian's hands and was patched up and a pushrod crossflow installed. In 1984 it was bought by David Hill and brought to Australia. In the early 1990s David obtained an MAE for it and got an Historic logbook, and I purchased it in this form in 2003, and immediately commenced a full rebuild.

I drove the car 3 times as an MAE F3 screamer, but after doing research into the car, and finding it ran with a twin-cam, I decided to put it to this form. It has now had around 6 meetings in its 1969 Chris Tipping form, and the car is a joy to drive.

Ed Holly