The year is 1967, no spec engines here! Ferrari, Gurney, Matra, and Honda all had V12 engines. BRM had an H16. Brabham had a V8, as did McLaren and Lotus, the last year before wings, then ground effects took over and changed automotive racing forever. It is considered by many, that the late ’60s was the era when Formula 1 was the purest of racing and is often referred to as the time when racing was at its “most beautiful”. It certainly was the era when the design was paramount, both reliability and safety were somewhat a second thought. Lotus’s Colin Chapman has been often quoted that the ideal car would fall apart at the finish line.
Meet Robert and Phillip Island Race Cars, the company formed to recreate that time in history when famous names like Dan Gurney, Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme, and Jim Clark ruled the tracks around the world. As an engineer, Robert looked at the possible ownership of an F5000 but realized that he could not justify the cost of owning such a racecar and more importantly, had major concerns regarding the safety of such cars. So he built this own.
It was set in stone that these three factors, safety, reliability and cost would be the corner stones of my new racecar build.