MONOPOSTO 1965: ONE CAR'S STORY

In an earlier historic piece about the 1965 season I referred to Allan Staniforth's Terrapin. This piece fills out the story a little.

Winning a race is a notable achievement. To do so in your first single seater race is an even greater one. But to have done it in a car of your own design, which then goes on to an outright win again, 35 years later against opposition with the latest technology, begins to challenge the available superlatives. Yet this is what Allan Staniforth did in 1965 in his self built Terrapin.

Allan's reasoning for developing the Terrapin was that he had driven Minis in hillclimbs and sprints for a few years and wished to move forward whilst retaining the same proven (and cheap) engine/gearbox package. He believed he could do so more cost effectively by designing and building his own car than by acquiring a second hand commercial racing car, and before doing so he researched structural design and suspension geometry so thoroughly that the result was a state of the art racing car. His plan was to combine hillclimbs and sprints with a Monoposto based circuit racing programme. The car was fitted with a 1098cc BMC series A, basically an overbored 997cc Mini Cooper engine. At the time (1965) the Monoposto Racing Club's rules allowed for 2 classes: the 1172cc sidevalve class which had run for a few years, and a new class for pushrods up to 1500cc. This was to allow in Formula Junior cars, as long as the chassis were no longer in production. Many would think that, say, a Lotus 18 with a fully modified Ford engine would wipe the floor with a home brewed Mini engined special, but Allan gave away 400cc and still proved such doubters wrong.

On Saturday 8 May 1965, the season opener was at Silverstone on the original Club course. Sounds familiar. Allan did a 1.20.3 in a damp practice. In the race, which was wet, Terry Hardy's front engined Project X took the lead, only to suffer a long pit stop. At this point Allan took the lead and kept it to the flag. His best lap in the rain was a 1.23.8, seeing 6900rpm from the Series A. Sadly, there were to be no more appearances for Allan in Mono races. A young family, tight money and Monday deadlines for his job as Northern crime correspondent for the Daily Mirror (when it was a respected newspaper) meant that there were good reasons for this. Allan relates how he received the foolscap Startline throughout the season and watched his name gradually drop down the points table.

This was the fourth outing for the Terrapin. On his first, (Harewood hillclimb) there were gearchange problems and he was slower than his Mini time. At Castle Howard, a sprint venue where Brideshead Revisited was later to be filmed, he was fourth. And then, at his third ever event in the car at Riccall, his diary recalls “victory at last!”, despite a misfire at 6900 due to too rich a mixture.

To develop a car from a pile of tubes to a race winner in 3 speed events is something that modern drivers/engineers/developers dream about. Were the 1960's softer times? I don't think so. That race included some serious competition. Allan well remembers a Lotus which was, at the time, virtually “state of the art”. In a future article, I will be casting an eye over the 1965 season, which had some interesting and competitive cars.

The Terrapin story in Mono didn't quite end in May 1965. Although he's never raced it in Mono, Douglas Maclay acquired Allan Staniforth's later Mk7E Terrapin, which had an enlarged Hillman Imp engine grafted onto, and driving through, a Mini gearbox. Why the “E”? It denotes the suspension medium of elastic – or Pirelli seat webbing - to give a natural rising rate. And in the 2000 Winter series a bike powered Terrapin had a convincing overall win at Brands Hatch, so it seems that the Terrapin was a good chassis.

For Allan himself, Mono's loss was speed event's gain. With an A-Series1100 engine he captured 11 World and British Class speed record at Elvington in 1968. (Yes, that's the place where Richard Hammond proved TV straight men make awful race car drivers.) Allan wrote several books: High Speed, Low Cost about the Terrapin, Race and Rally Car Source Book about chassis development, and Competition Car Suspension. All are still available from Amazon and other retailers. Plans for the Terrapin were available from Allan until he passed away in May 2009.. Race and Rally Car Source Book is widely regarded as the seminal tome for amateur constructors and chassis tuners. All of the books are readable cover to cover even if you have no interest in suspension geometry. In fact, Allans skills as a raconteur were such that he once enthralled my Mum (then aged 82) with tales of chassis rigididty of the Porsche 962. That's not easy. He inspired David Gould, constructor of today's dominant hillclimb cars, is a respected judge of the Formula Student competition, and was still competing in a Kawasaki powered Megapin (Ian Scott's grandson of Terrapin) in his 80's. In fact, he was out at a Harewood test day 4 weeks befor his untimely death at the age of 85.

Click here for part 2 of Terrapins in Mono

Tony Cotton

For more on Terrapins, try www.terrapinracing.co.uk or have a look at a forum on terrapins.

First outing for the Terrapin, 1965, Harewood Hillclimb. Lad right in black is son Darrell, now ace rally car preparer.

Droop snoot car after winning 11 records in 1968. Allan centre.

Terrapin chassis laid bare, heavily triangulated and probably better than many F1 cars of the 1960's.

The BMC Series A engine. Oil leaks came as standard, but it was a strong and much loved old thing.

All pics this column from "High Speed, Low Cost"