'Suzuki SC100' Special Saloon - help with history please!!

[col rooney]

True ,i will try and get pictures and send them to pat it may jog his mind and will let you know what he says

col

[Clive Brown]

I have a feeling that the mid-engined car that Pat had that didn't work had a lift-off body , slab sided , with just the doors being separate panels . As a race engineer , I hated this configuration , because if something ever went wrong after the car had set off on its warm-up lap , you were pretty well banjaxed trying to do anything about it because of the difficulty in betting the damn body off !

This looks to be much more like the later Ray Stiletto ; if you have a front 3/4 view with the body on I could probably tell straight off . Top of the front wheel arches virtually level with the top of the bonnet !

Regards

Clive

P.S. : Generally , a stop watch will tell you if a car works or not !

[col rooney]

Yes the car in picture has the wheel flat with the top of bonnet it laps lydden quick and looks like its on rails will ask my mate what times he has done in it,the car is up for sale if anyone is interested contact me and i will put you intouch with the owner

col

[big andy]

[stealth1]

Originally Posted by Clive Brown

When the Irish GT rules got changed , the powers-that-be were only too aware of what would happen if ex-Atlantic BDAs were unleashed upon the series . Unfortunately , they didn't think quite hard enough , because by that time , the venerable Lotus Twin Cam of either 1558 or 1594 cc was already on its way to becoming a valuable Historical Artefact , and thus the white trash of the English Historic Racing jet set was already inflating the price of the few good ones that were still about in order to put them in their Chevron B6/B8s , and other period sportscars .

I am aware that Supervee was not a native Irish formula , but in Europe ( take the ferry to to Holyhead , and then drive in a broadly east south-easterly direction ) , it used the SOHC 8v 1600cc water-cooled in-line four , and was at that time dying the death , so that good motors were both cheaply and freely available . Even better , as the contemporary motor of choice in F3 then was the 2.0 SOHC VW , there were loads of good serviceable race parts available.

Spot on about the BDA, though the Twin Cam was'nt necessarily the engine in mind either. At that time Alan Sherwood had got the crossflow sorted and that engine had been used by many in clubmans here, so it was a known quantity. AFAIK Morgan Dempsey was the only one to use the Twink. I dont think anyone knew enough about the SuperVee engine then .. good in theory but would have been a big gamble to take in the face of the known item.

[Clive Brown]

Originally Posted by stealth1

AFAIK Morgan Dempsey was the only one to use the Twink.

I'm pretty sure that George Crozier's mid-engined Maguire-chassised Metro also used a Twin Cam .

Even the 1600 pushrod Ford posed its own set of problems . Familiar in Ireland though it was through its use in both clubman's and in hot rods , it too was by the mid-eighties an exotic and highly-developed engine in its own right . The majority of the good bits developed for use in the 1 litre F3 MAE motor could be carried across , so these motors used steel rods and cranks , forged pistons and rockers , titanium valve spring retainers , and all sorts of other special bits . Despite all this exotica , because of its high specific output for a production based 1600 two-valve pushrod lump , it was also fairly highly stressed .

That's why I liked the idea of the VW unit . Although as you say , it would have been something of an unknown quantity in Ireland , a number of reputable tuners in the UK and Europe had a good deal of experience of these units . It seems that these engines produced around 180bhp on carburettors , and nearly 200 on mechanical injection .

[peter thurston]

The ill handling dog was the imp I put the 1800 bd engine in and ran at lydden 5 yrs back.Yes it did handle badly to start with but I got it down to a 43 second lap just before I had to sell it ( divorces are so expensive)

[Clive Brown]

Peter

There's a lovely symmetry to your posting ! The other ex-Mannion mid-engined Imp that's featured on this thread recently still holds ( and presumably will hold in perpetuity the 1000cc Special Saloon lap record at Lydden in Bob Jarvis's expert hands - 43.4 ?

[peter thurston]

Clive with your memory for these old cars what can you tell me about my escort mk1 v8.I know the car was built by a barry costello and morris ryan who told me they had the shell from walter robertson(picture in racing70s site)and they were told by him it was an ex nick whiting car but which one.

[Clive Brown]

Peter

I think there may have been three Nick Whiting Special Saloon Escorts . The first of these was a steel-shelled Mk. 1 , which I think used an FVC , though whether of the original 1790cc capacity or one of the later 1930 or 1970 variations that people like Geoff Richardson and Alan Smith used to build , I can't recall . I'm pretty sure that somewhere else on the Forum is a posting about this being written off at Brands .

The final car was the GAA engined car that Nick , Andy , and Charlie Whiting built up over the winter of '76/'76 . This was a spaceframe car , of Mk. II shape , and was beautifully made and finished , with no expense spared . I well remember being in the pits during practice at a Mallory meeting in 1977 , and as Nick came through the Elbow onto the pit straight , the OSR wheel complete with half shaft came out of the axle and bounced along the track ....

Now , there may have been an intermediate car , which would have been a spaceframe car using the FVC from the first car . It might have had an RS2000 front ; the third car certainly did .

The problem with so many historic Special Saloons is that the bits got endlessly recycled , and it is thus difficult to know just which car is which . It's a bit like the Ford Falcon Sprint of circa 1964 ; I always understood that this was a real homologation special , and that Ford only ever made six of the proper lightweight cars , yet there seem to be more than that racing in Historics today !

Could it be that your car was the original ACE car bought as a wreck , and rebuilt by the people you name onto a fresh shell ? There were quite a lot of FV/BD engined Mk.Is about in the mid-70s , so the history is likely to be convoluted . I know you've had the car for some time ; how far can you trace it back with any certainty ? Is the front end fully space-framed with double wishbone suspension , or does it retain MacPherson struts ? Nick's Mk.1 certainly had the latter .

The only big banger Escort that really sticks in my mind was Doug Niven's car . Not a lot of help , I'm afraid ....

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by peter thurston

Clive with your memory for these old cars what can you tell me about my escort mk1 v8.I know the car was built by a barry costello and morris ryan who told me they had the shell from walter robertson(picture in racing70s site)and they were told by him it was an ex nick whiting car but which one.

I think at one time Walter Robertson had the 2 litre Pinto turbo engined car built by Jim Evans in the mid-70s prior to building his (Jim) Skoda/ Chevron.
I think the Escort was standard steel bodyshell with normal type suspension - no subframes. Last time I saw it (1975 0r 1976) it was painted white with blue and red stripes.

Re Clive's posting No. 55 - Nick Whiting's first Escort was a Geoff Richardson built 1970cc FVC IIRC.

[peter thurston]

Clive , I can trace its history back to 76.I know it was the walter robertson car for sure and have lots of photos from the previous owners showing it as it evolved but I don't know about it's history before then as nicks brother said he had recollections of the first car was built from his old rallycross car! But he thought he built another steel shelled car that went up north(walter I guess)Maybe if somebody knows walter he could confirm what he bought!

[big andy]

peter

ill ask tony sugden if he knows the history of your car

[driftwood]

alots happened here so im catching up
1 Ray Imps 2 cars where built off the Ff2000 car
Mike Law had the 1st car and sold it to Brian prebbles son who wrote it off at coombe his cars where blue n yellow
2nd car was built for Bob jarvis and this was later sold to Robin Harvey and his mate ( name escapes me) they shared the car after having a davrian- this car was later converted by Bert ray into a S2000 bodied Vauxhall engined Supersport car

Escort- Mick whithing had 2 cars Mk1 was written off at brands whilst lapping aback marker who moved over on him
2nd car was the ga V6 car built up north by Jophn Robinson? i recall 2 or 3 of these cars where built
Whiting sold the car to John Kirk oop norf
there was another car that was in the ACE stable that Divina Galicia drove 1 year with 1300 1600 or a 2 litre motor- it was not a bells n whistles car more something to get her out in- it was not KM livery i think shell and kelly girl gave support?
No idea where this car came from as i type i think this was Mk2 shell not Mk1
later she drove the Surtees TS16? car in ACE colours in Aurora

Re the V8 escort i can ask Jim Evans about yr car if u can provide photos or any questions dates names etc

[Dan Rear]

The Divi Escort was def a mk2 car, 1800 motor I think. Didn't Nick have 2 separate mk1 Escorts. The first from about 1972-73, the later one in around 75.

Certainly the car he had in 75, with a 1975 cc BDG (??), looked much more sophisticated than the one he used in earlier years. With the latter he was right up with Baby Bertha, in previous years he was well behind the big engined Superloons. So either he extensively modded the original car, or it was a brand new one, and if so, probably the ultimate mk1 Escort.

The GA car in 77 was a mk2 design, originally very 'square' in shape, but more 'rounded' in 78. It was sold as DW says to John Kirk in Jockland for 79. This was, again as DW says, built by John Robinson in Northants, hardly up norf drifty!