Caithness Car Club Hill Climb

Rumster, 30 May 1982

Notes on the cars:

1. March 782/79B [26] (Norrie Galbraith): To Stephen South for F2 mid-1978 and fitted with a Hart 420R, but South was under-financed and only appeared occasionally. Took pole position at the Brands Hatch Aurora race in late-August. Sold to Adrian Russell (Thornton Heath, Surrey) for 1979 and used in F2, libre and Aurora until August when sold to Scot Jim Stevenson who ran it in libre, mainly at Ingliston, in late 1979 and early 1980. Then to Roger Philpott for hillclimbs in 1981, now with a 2.3-litre Hart engine, but again sold mid-season when Roy Lane pursuaded Philpott in August 1981 to exchange the 782 for Lane's new but underperforming March 802/812. Raced by Lane for the rest of the season, finished second in the Doune hillclimb in October. Sold to Norrie Galbraith for 1982 and upgraded to 79B specification but heavily damaged in Galbraith's fatal accident while filming for Scottish TV at Doune in September. The tub was scrapped but the remains of 782-26 went via Bobby Howlings to Willy Widar in Belgium and were at some point rebuilt on the tub from 792-20, which Galbraith had acquired shortly before the crash. This 782/792 went to Leo Schildkamp (Heerlen, Netherlands) in 1993, then to Per-Owe Soderberg (Laxå, Sweden) in 1994 and then Thomas Fridlund (Arvika, Sweden) in 2001. Then to John Bladon December 2005, and sold by him to Matthew Slinn December 2006. Slinn had plans to rebuild the car to 782 specification using a 78B tub.
2. Lotus Esprit (Chevron B40) (George Coghill): New to KWS Autotechnik for Klaus Ludwig in the BRSCC F2 Trophy at Donington Park in October 1977, where both Autosport and Sport Auto are clear that the car was using a Hart 420R engine, not a BDA-based engine. Believed to be the car raced by Willi Deutsch at the Nürburgring in April 1978, but this remains unclear. Bought from Ludwig by Iain McLaren (Broxburn, Scotland) in damaged form and "painstakingly rebuilt" for libre and Aurora racing in 1978. To Bob Leckie (Aberdeen, Scotland) for hillclimbs and libre in 1979, then Bob Milne (Aberdeen, Scotland) for libre in 1980, then Martin Dunn (Evanton, Scotland) for libre at Ingliston in 1981. Sold next to George Coghill, who fitted the Chevron-Hart with a Lotus Esprit body for Scottish GT racing in 1982 and 1983. The car returned to "unclothed" form in 1985, when Coghill fitted a 3-litre Ford V6 engine for Scottish libre racing, the Hart 420R having blown up. The car had a 1700cc BDA engine in it when Coghill sold it to someone in the north of England, and recalls taking a Vixen in trade. This must be the 1700cc Chevron B40 entered by John McCartney at Harewood in September 1987, then with a 1990cc Hart engine at Harewood in May 1988, but a month later he was running the B53 instead, with a BDG engine. Retained by McCartney until November 1996 when it was sold to Nick Crossley (Sussex). The car is said to have been restored by Foxcraft Engineering in 1995/6. At some point sold by Crossley to John Ruston and Gareth Burnett (Newmarket, Suffolk), and raced by Burnett in Euro F2 and HSCC Derek Bell Trophy races in 2006. Burnett raced it again in the DBT in 2008. Sold in 2018 to Richard George (Marsh Green, Kent), who took it to Paul Fox of Foxcraft again to be rebuilt.

Sources

Note that the identification of individual cars in these results is based on the material presented elsewhere in this site and may in some cases contradict the organisers' published results.

All comments, clarifications, corrections and additions are most welcome. Please email Allen (allen@oldracingcars.com) if you can help in any way with our research.

Individual sources for this event

AS 10 Jun 1982 p68