Image f/ford?

[acadvent]

Hi thanks for the comments.

I dont know why I havent been on this site and forum before; I must have had my head well buried in the sand!!

There is a mine of information here one way or another.

Interesting that there is reference to Image Race Cars on a different thread, it would seem sensible for the two to merge somehow as now we have two possible cars that could re-emerge into racing.

In days gone by there were a few classes for older cars.

Pre 74 has become HSCC Historic Formula Ford I think.

Then is there a Classic Formula Ford for cars up to 1982?

I have two Lola T644Es which would have been eligible a few years ago for the BRSCC Super Classic series but that has died a death now I think?

One of the dilemmas of UK Motorsport, way too many formulae and way too confusing!!

I have been in this for several decades and I can still get lost with it so what must it be like for someone just taking their ARDS test and thinking of racing??

James Beckett should have knighthood for his efforts in trying to bring all the Kent brigades together and the likes of Diz at BRSCC NW and Pete Alexander for their unfailing enthusiasm!!

Maybe I should have registered as "Confused of Norfolk"!!!

[MikeB]

I ran an Image FF2B in the 1980s. I bought it as a roller with Mk8 Hewland from a FF team near Snetterton as the Pre 74 class had just been announced, so it fitted the bill !! Got it back to Belfast and about a month later the MSA issued a release saying that the FF2B had been withdrawn from the Pre 74 list........

However, I was running it in hillclimbs and sprints, so that didn't matter too much.

Here is the car in testing at Kirkistown




However the first sprint was at Aghadowey, another airfield track with chicanes marked out with lorry tyres !! So when I misjudged my braking the nose was first to suffer.

I ran it with a makeshift alloy one on it for a while until Ian maple gave me a couple of spare nose cones he had about........which came off a Mallock. This was grafted onto the surviving end of the Image nose to produce this :-




Not necessarily the prettiest but Hey the 80s aren't known for their fashion

From what I remember about the car, they were short wheelbase and reasonably twitchy, so let's just say it taught me to be neat, especially on the Ulster hills. This is Croft about 1986.




I was getting married and the car was sold to help finance that, for about 900 quid I think.

Before I bought it I had been offerred a Crossle 30F complete and a 25F rollers for £1800 and I didn't buy them.........Ouch !

[Chris Townsend]

There's a really useful feature on Image in Autosport 15 May 1980, pages 28-30

From it we can pretty much summarize the build history of the cars

1974
FF1 prototype raced by John Morrison, then Mike Wrigley
Funnily enough, this car for sale in Autosport 15 May, 1980, p. 67 "original works car" Melton Mowbray phone number

three sold
"1" Mike Fulmar Taylor
"2" David Wigdor
"3" John Woodcock

1975
FF2 works car for Frank Bayes
10 cars sold by the end of the year

1976
FF2B works car for Bayes, debuted at Boxing Day '75 Brands meeting
Six at least sold
Mike Fulmar Taylor
David Wigdor, later sold to Barney Holland-Martin

Bayes has accident, whilst he's recovering works car loaned to Stanley Dickens in Sweden

1977-78 Break in production

1978
FF4 development chassis

1979
FF4 Works car for Tony Reid then Gary Scott
Two works rental cars
One of the works cars sold in 1980 to Martin Stone

Chassis sold to
Ian Thomas
Cliff Webb
Brian Sims
Andrew Rickman
Werner Janus [Germany]

1980
FF5
Sales to
Guy Wrench
Werner Janus [Germany] I think Janus was acting as an agent
Stephen Samengo-Turner
Robert Synge


Wonder if we can work out where they are!

Chris

[Alan Morgan]

I used to work with a guy called Chris Delaney at Gordon Spice's warehouse in Staines. Chris bought a new Image in 1976. From memory it was a similar shade of green to the Jim Russell Lotus 59 that Emerson Fittipaldi drove.

[Carlos Alberto]

Originally Posted by acadvent

I was scanning through the posts on the subject of Image Race Cars and .... When I first got involved the factory was in an old chicken farm complex at Tangmere near Chichester in Sussex.

That would have been 1974/1975... Is that you, Barry?

>>> I seem to remember the guy in the next unit was Tony Harvey...

Tony was working for a racing drivers' school based at Goodwood - I believe it was run by a guy called Peter Semus.
But Tony and Alan were friends and we used to meet him quite often when we had lunch at the Goodwood cafeteria. I hung around Tony's workshop for a few weeks and then got friendly with Alan and began to show up at Tangmere on a daily basis, trying to help out.

>>> I am still in frequent contact with Alan Langridge who was Image Race Cars...

Wow, so the old Francis Drake descendant is still alive and kicking!!! Please tell him Carlos from Brazil says hello! I "crash-tested" the original Image FF car twice in F Libre races in 1974: at Oulton Park in October and then again on November 04 at Llandow. I still carry 3 broken vertebrae from that last shunt, and that chassis was a write-off.

I was back in England from 1977 to the end of April, 1978, and Alan had moved to the Super Shell by then. The original chassis was bent like a banana and propped up against the outside wall. I used up one of my lives that rainy day at Llandow!

I'm sorry to butt in like this, but I've just found this forum and I had to register and jump right in!

[Carlos Alberto]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

There's a really useful feature on Image in Autosport 15 May 1980, pages 28-30

From it we can pretty much summarize the build history of the cars

1974
FF1 prototype raced by John Morrison, then Mike Wrigley
Funnily enough, this car for sale in Autosport 15 May, 1980, p. 67 "original works car" Melton Mowbray phone number

Hi - it's really "funny" that this car should have been for sale: I wrote this chassis off on November 04, 1974, in practice for the F Libre race at Llandow. Mike Wrigley had just qualified it for the FF race and I went out and smashed it up against the guardrail. The last time I saw this chassis (late April, 1978) it was bent like a banana and propped up against the outside wall of the Super Shell building at Goodwood, where Alan had moved his new company (Image) after wrapping up FSL Cars. The original FF1 car (tested/set up (raced?) by Morrison and raced by Mike and me) was never rebuilt after Llandow. At least as a race car!

Humm.... it reminds of the story that famous Western gunfighter Bat Masterson used to buy up cheapo guns from pawnshops in New York City and sell them to people who asked him for his original guns from sheriff days...

Just my 2 cents!

[acadvent]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your contribution to the Image thread, its really interesting and great to have a foundation of knowledge for the cars.

There were undoubtedly more cars and of course some of them were lost during their racing careers.

I wonder if Chris Alford shipped any abroad when he was doing his Formula Ford trading work back in the 80's and early 90's. I was told that he sold masses of cars to Japan I think but that may just be heresay.

I use to look after a car that we ran from the factory as a Hire Car for a South African guy called Flynn Whiting. Flynn raced the car memeorably at Oulton Park and having told him to watch the fact that the back of the car was wider than the front and to be careful going through the gate that led to the pit lane in those days he actually managed to try and rip the right rear off against the wooden post.

I seem to recall he qualified really well and said the car was brilliant through right hand corners but unfortunatley it had damaged the parallel link pick up and we couldnt let him race!

Oulton was quite a treck in those days from Sussex without the M25 and M40!

There was a potato farmer from somewhere near Henfield in Sussex who bought an FF2B, his name was Mick Hills and he did a deal that included a Jaguar E type I think to acquire a kit. That car was green too I think.

David Wigdor and Mike (Fulmar) Taylor were certainly customers and at sometime I seem to recall Geoff Hoodless having an Image. Geoff races Historic F3 now I think.

Mike Baker, latterly Menu Motorsport, started his illustrious team management career with an FF2B sponsoerd by Nashua Carbonless and a different nose and driven by Frank Bayes.

I believe that Frank has uploaded some photos of his exploits on You Tube and there are some of the Image, worth a search on Formula Ford on that site and you will find it all.

I have just spoken to Alan Langridge and suggested that he subscribes to this site and he can then add his "two penny worth" to the threads.

I wonder how we can find some of these cars? There must be some still in existence surely?

Two did crop up when I started this thread and one was being restored; I wonder if that has gone any further or if it is languishing, like my Lolas, in a garage somewhere waiting for someone to really get going with the project?

In Nick Brittan's book on Formula Ford there is only a brief mention of Image which is surprising when you think how the car took the fight to the Hawke DL17s in 1976 but there is reference to the company in the appraisal of Rob Wilson's entry to the formula and his costs for the year.

Another driver to have a car was Nick Ward whose roots were somewhere near Castle Combe I think. Nick was connected with Murray Dudgeon who established his own team and raced a Royale I think.

Somewhere in this whole group of people we had also had Robert Synge and even Marcus Pye seemed to have had some connection somewhere with the Goodwood days along the line.

Thanks for all the information, it would be good to see if we can establish a history of the cars and indeed try and track some down.

Thanks to everyone who is following this thread and contributing, the more the better!!

AC

[acadvent]

Hi Carlos,

I have spoken to Alan Langridge and told him of your contribution; he laughed heartily when I quoted the Francis Drake reference!

He also told me the circumstances of the Llandow race and the fact that Mike Wrigley was coming down from North somewhere to race only to find that his efforts to post the pole time in the FF race were slightly thwarted by the "off" in the Libre race!!

I remember Jon Morrison saying that Llandow was so bumpy in those days that he used to drive the circuit one handed as he had to hold the chassis with the other to keep himself in place.

My mind was often drawn to that fact when using Llandow as a test venue and somewhere to be able to start new drivers on their race driving careers.

Amazing to see some of the photos at the circuit and to appreciate the standing of Motorsport in South Wales at the time. Spectator banks filled to overflowing and for relatively minor events! Where has motor racing gone so badly wrong?

I have suggested that Alan subscribes to ten tenths so that he can join in the debates about his cars.

I believe that some of the original Image crew keep a watching brief as well and maybe we can encourage them to get involved as well!

Thanks for your interest.

Best regards,

AC

[acadvent]

Hi Mike,

Brilliant pictures of the car; you were not the only one to change the nose arrangements. Mike Baker created a 'chisel' nose for his car and put the radiators to the rear I think. It was all the rage at the time.

Hawke had done this and everyone was thinking along the same lines!

Formula Ford was such a great formula in those days bringing forth not just the drivers but the designers, engineers and mechanics as well.

Most importantly it was affordable and so 'inclusive' without the aspirational elements of Formula One clouding the issues.

Have you any other pictures of the car that you can share and do you know the chassis number?

Someone, somewhere, must have a log of the cars.

Nigel Thomas worked for the team and was so committed I wonder if he has some more information? His brother Ian actually raced a car later on I think.

Thanks for your interest in this thread.

best regards,

AC

[acadvent]

I found the attached photos of the Works FF2b with Frank Bayes.

Other people in the picture include acadvent, Andy Beckett who went to work for TWR on the Jaguar programme and Nigel Thomas the long suffering Works mechanic.

The picture was taken at Thruxton I believe.

The other pictures are of the Mike Baker, Nashua Carbonless, car taken at Cadwell Park and driven by Frank Bayes.

Note Griffin crash helmet - Whatever happened to those!

Best regards
AC

[Andy Clegg]

Hi, I have an entry from the Supersaloon Meeting at Oulton in 1975. David Wigdor Image FF1 sponsored by "Production Power Race Rental".

[FJB]

Hi

I suppose I had better contribute a bit to this thread as I drove for Image for a couple of exciting years.
The first Image FF2 was finished at 10pm on the Saturday night the day before a Brands championship race, having never been tested. We pushed it, in the dark, under the barrier onto the old Tangmere Aerodrome, past the MOD security man reading his paper who never saw us. We fitted a silencer and I charged round for a bit amongst the old ladies walking their dogs etc on the perimeter track, the steering wheel pulling off the rack at one stage, as in the rush the security bolt had been omitted!
We pushed it back past the security man, the gearbox now cracking loudly as it cooled, but still we were not seen.
After a few laps of practice against the best drivers, we found ourselves in pole position for the main champioship round. On the first lap. works Royale driver Geoff Lees put his wheel in front of my back wheel at Druids and braked, allowing me to ride over the wheel and go up at 45 degrees but fortunately not right over, but damaging the suspension. Caused a bit of a sensation I think.
We had some development problems in the next few months, one memorable occasion when being on the front row at Lydden with the front brakes siezed on unable to pull away but with the rear wheels spinning, and another at Oulton park when the steering column clamp, overtightened, stripped the threads and the steering failed coming out of Knickerbrook. Stopped OK. Gave the works Hawks a wake up call as we were very competitive against them in 1976.
I have all sorts of memories some unpublishable of course, some good soem bad. I will try to attach some photos.
A video here which I ams sure you have found. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2eG4SDEw4A
We won loads of competitive races, and I was leading the BARC championship in 1977 when I was involved in a massive shunt at Silverstone, so I am told, as I lost the memory of that week!

Cheers
FJB

[uj kid]

Hi, when was it that you did a bit of running arround for Alan ? I worked for Image from June 1976 at Tangmere and then carried on when we moved up to the 'Super Shell Building' at Goodwood. After the last of the ff's Alan designed the Navajo, this was a slightly larger version of the Mini moke and was based arround the Austin/Morris 11/1300. It did not go into full production though, I think about 6 were made. I made the 'plug' and mould for the all in one bonnet and the produced the first bonnet from that mould. I know that my reply is a couple of years late, but anyone reading this and who knows Alan and any of the workforce,,, It would be good to hear from. Brian.

[Andersxx11]

Would like to add some info about me owning a Image FF4 car.
I have chassie nr 002 and would really like to get info about initial owner.
Im in the process of making a complete refurbishing of the car and also need all info and input possible.
Would be nice to get some photo showing details of chassie etc.
Recently found one photo of a FF4 in germany.
Attaching that photo!
Best regards and hoping for more inputs.
Anders Öberg
Sweden

[Andy Turnock]

There are some body parts for an Image FF2/3 for sale on Ebay at the moment.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Formula-Ford-Image-FF2b-and-FF3-Cockpit-/271000155699?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f18de3633
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Formula-Ford-Image-FF2b-and-FF3-Nosecone-and-Mould-/271000156006?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f18de3766
Must be usefull if you've got one as spares.