"Tasman" V8 (Long)

["McKeon, Mark" <Mark.McKeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Managed to catch up on reading the Digest yesterday.

In AD7-120, Graham Hilder said:
And finally, another snippet mentioned by John [Hertzman] was the
"Tasman" version of the 2.5L V8.   Ears prick up! Was this "Tasman"
anything to do with the Tasman Sea down-under.....  i.e. was it an Alfa
engine with some connection to NZ or Oz ?

to which John replied, in AD7-121:
...quoting Fusi... "In Australia the Brabham with its Alfa 33/2.5 engine
won four overall victories" which I assume answers Graham's question
about the "Tasman" name.

Sources available to me (mostly contemporary and, regrettably, not
including Fusi) indicate that the 2.5L V8 was produced by Autodelta at
the request of Alec Mildren, New South Wales (Australia) AR distributor,
to power a Brabham chassis in the 1967/68 Tasman series.

This series was held in New Zealand and Australia each (European) winter
from the mid (?) fifties to the mid seventies. Initially open to Formula
Libre (i.e. anything goes, hence Supersqualo Ferraris with 860 Monza 3
litre engines, etc), it was by the early sixties restricted to 2.5L
Formula cars (most using Climax fours pensioned off from F1 GP racing at
the end of the 1960 season). Many F1GP stars came south each year to
contest the series, including the likes of Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Phil
Hill, Jackie Stewart, Pedro Rodriguez, Jochen Rindt and, of course, Jack
Brabham, Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Chris Amon. The Australian
National Formula One series for the "Gold Star" was run during the year
to the same formula.

The engine itself was a 78 x 64.4 mm 2,462 cc iteration of the 16 valve,
16 plug 2L V8 used in the early 105.33 cars, using the same bore as the
2L version and the same stroke as the later 3L cars. It was reputed to
develop 315 bhp @ 8,800 rpm.

The engine's debut was at the final Gold Star race of 1967, installed in
a Brabham chassis piloted by Frank Gardner. The Brabham Alfa started
from pole, set a new lap record, and finished first after lapping the
field (admittedly all Climax four powered).

Competition was more serious in the 1967/68 Tasman Series, including
Clark and Graham Hill in Lotus 49s powered by the Cosworth DFW (2.5L
version of the DFV), Amon in an 18 valve 2.4L version of the Ferrari
Dino F2 car, Stewart and Rodriguez in BRMs (2.1L V8 and 2.5L V12 (!))
and Piers Courage in a McLaren Cosworth FVA (well suited to the shorter
circuits on which the series was held). Gardner and the Brabham Alfa
finished the eight race series in equal fourth with Hill, behind Clark,
Amon and Courage. Gardner took a second placing at the NZGP, and two
thirds, a fourth, three DNFs and one unplaced in the remaining races.
This was the last championship Clark won before his untimely death at
the 1968 Hockenheim F2 race.

Kevin Bartlett then used the Brabham Alfa to win the 1968 Gold Star,
with three wins, a second placing and two DNFs in the six race series.
His opposition now included a couple of Repco V8 engined cars, as well
as the older Climax cars.

For the 1968/69 Tasman, Alec Mildren had a new chassis designed by Len
Bailey of Alan Mann Racing (UK -- one of the teams which had Ford
contracts to race the GT40 in its early days, as I recall). IMHO, the
orange Mildren chassis (as it was called) was one of the prettiest ever
built, a forerunner of the Matra MS80 with mid-mounted low cg fuel
tanks. I do not have full results of this series to hand but seem to
recall that Gardner placed the Mildren Alfa on a number of occasions.
The series was won by Chris Amon in a 24 valve version of the Dino
Ferrari and is well remembered for the speed of Jochen Rindt in the
Lotus Cosworth on his only visit downunder.

Bartlett used the Mildren Alfa in three of the six races in the 1969
Gold Star for two wins and a second placing, was propelled by a 2L
Waggott 16 valve four in two (first and fourth) and was unable to start
the other due to illness. He won the series again.

I was told a couple of years ago that one of the 2.5L race engines now
lives in a timber merchant's yard somewhere in the Brisbane area...

Mean while, back in Europe...

The 2.5L V8 was installed in Vaccarella's AR 33/2 "Daytona" chassis for
the 1968 Targa Florio (when it DNFd after crashing) and Nurburgring
1000km (placed seventh after electrical problems). The engine was again
raced in a similar car in Group 6 (the 2L 33/2s were homologated in
Group 4 by now) by Autodelta in the 1969 Targa Florio (again it DNFd,
this time with engine failure). Teddy Pillette's Belgian V.D.S. team
also used 2.5L engines in its 33/2 chassis on occasion in 1969, in the
1000km races run at Monza, Spa and the Nurburgring -- the car did not
feature in the Monza results, was crashed in Germany and scored the only
WSCC point of its career with a sixth place in Belgium.

I'm sure you didn't want to know all that, but I enjoyed writing it (g).

Mark McKeon
Treasurer, AROCA Queensland
Brisbane, Australia
75 3.0 V6 (Red, of course)

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