Hello

Saw this completely by accident. Sorry if it has been covered elsewhere

http://www.sothebysaustralia.com.au/lot_de...amp;auction=365

Good fun at Goodwood?

Regards
Glenn

I thought it would be worth more than 15/20 AUD, anyone know what it brought ?

Is that estimate of 15-20k $AUS correct?

That's 9-12k £GBP

seems cheap, depite the obvious costs in getting an engine and then getting it running.

When did this car go to Oz from Donington and why? Or are there two of them?

It passed-in at around A$10k....no bids.

I was told there were 2 of them, this particular chassis never raced or tested.

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...t&p=2668978

See #45 (& quote) & #46.

Asking price has come down too.........

http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?show...t&p=3504076

But if ever a car fell out of the ugly tree, hitting every branch on the way down, this is it!

I could not agree more! And when you stop and consider the people involved - Herd, Duckworth, Costin, etc. - it doesn't make any sense really.

A complete oddity.

Which is probably why they gave it to Nigel Roebuck to test drive, IIRC........

For some reason they also bulit a second chassis but I always thought that it was a test-bed for 4-w-d.

I also agree that it is somewhat ugly. Having said that it still has its place in motor sport history & deserves to be preserved although I can only think of the Goodwood Festival of Speed where it would fit in.

Particularily when they had the 'Wacky Races' parade!

But there is something memorable about it, it is one of the cars that stood out to me from my earliest visits to the Donington collection - probably because all the other cars looked pretty similar and it was very bright & shiny (e.g. I was very young).

If it wasn't such a pain to ship the thing back from Aus it has to be a reasonable project at this kind of money - not a sensible project but almost a viable one (as long as you don't bother with the original magnesium engine!)!
There are the issues that it never ran and will you be able to run it anywhere, but event organisers would be happy to have such an unusual looking device so you only have to sort out the Swiss gnomes.
Such logic of course explains some of the projects I've had over the years!!

FW07/4 would be a more sensible proposition but the price is presumably still far too high?

I'm confused! The "blurb" says it's the only surviving one of two built, but is being sold without the engine. Now Tom's one was run from time to time, and had the one off magnesium DFV I believe, so what is this one? It claims it left Tom, via Buxted to Oz, but I can't believe that Tom would have seperated it from it's engine, that just doesn't sit right, or did Tom have both of the monocoques???

But yes, ugly!

It doesn't say if it's got the gearbox which I would say was more important than the engine if one wanted to make it into a runner (after all, any DFV would make it a runner). When I saw it at York it wasn't obvious whether it had or had not any mechanisms.
The blurb says that, because there was a differential, the driven front wheels caused problems. By implication they thought a differential means it has to be 50/50 which (a) is not the case and (b) I would have thought unlikely given the knowledge and understanding that Herd and Duckworth would have had.

Hi Steve!

Just rechecked my pics from my visit to the Donington Collection last month. I didn't photograph the Cosworh but it shows up next to the Lotus 63 that I did photograph. The Cosworth and the Lotus 63 are displayed together. So, it looks like the McLaren M9A has moved on. I believe that this has been covered elsewhere but, as I understand it, the purchase by Tom Wheatcroft included the complete and running chassis No. 1 and enough spares including the tub of chassis No. 2. It was this second car that was later built up, though incomplete as noted, and subsequently purchased by the York Motor Museum (although I cannot imagine why). The 1969 British GP saw all that season's 4WD cars race at the same time except, of course, for the Cosworth.



Lotus 63 with Cosworth behind at Donington 15th February 2010 (and a bit of the F2 McLaren M21 front wing on the right!)

As this post originally identified the M9A incorrectly I shall send a memo to myself: Please write out a hundred times that a McLaren M21 doesn't look anything like the M9A.

Yes he did:


The quote comes from this thread:

Pete Briggs' Australian York Motor Museum

and here's another thread on the car:

Cosworth 4wd for sale?

Edit: You beat me to it, Ian!

There is a facility with in Appendix K for development cars such as the original. Quite how the Swiss Gnomes would look upon a ''replica'' development car is I believe an untested scenario. Certainly don't think I would bother and without an HTP it would struggle to find places to race.

So I can assume that there's a 4WD Cosworth F1 car, with a magnesium blocked DFV in it near Derby then??

Yep (e.g. it's still there and no reason it should have lost the mag block engine).
I suspect anyone daft enough to buy the Aussie one could do a deal for that one as well.

As long as it tested at the time there is no real problem. Of course this one was never completed in period so it wasn't tested - but it is the same as the one that was tested...
Surely Goodwood hill-climb and any non-FIA event would welcome it anyway (America plus FORCE demos for example), the Ferrari snow-shovel is pretty much the only other car like it.

Then of course there are Shelsley Walsh and Prescott where it would also be welcome!

Calm down chaps - there WERE two 4WD Cosbodges built - the completed running car preserved at Donington and a second tub and running gear set, minimum necessary really to be described - just - as a 'rolling chassis', a frame taking the place of the intended DFV engine. Pete Briggs of the York Motor Museum has owned the bitsa for donkey's years. he entered it for auction with Bonhams over the Monterey Classics weekend last August - no sale. This time with Sotheby's Oz - who used to be Bonhams-Goodmans until Tim Goodman felt that taking on the Sotheby's franchise instead might be a good idea - the bitsa still failed to sell, it would seem.

DCN

Here is a postcard I purchased from the York museum pre - 1992 ( The 4WD Cosworth is just sneaking into shot )


PAR

Donington on the 11th April this year.




The info sheet

"aerodynamic sponsors"?

I've heard of those. Aren't they the sponsors whose promise of financial support turns out to be so much hot air?
Tom

If that's still the original info board I wrote for Wheatie c.1974 I meant 'sponsons'...

DCN

I take it my plan to get it going, by putting a Rover V8 in it, topped with a nice Holley carb and some chrome rocker covers, would not then meet with universal approval?

Regards
Glenn

As it never raced in period, you could say that was the idea all along, and although it was originally tried with a different engine,you are completing the car to its original planned spec

I'm happy knowing my confusion was created by the incorrect sales blurb, as blatantly, it is not the only surviving example of two, how do they get away with that??

It looks as though the 4WD McLaren has gone.

Where on that car were placed central and front differential and driveshafts?
I expect they were somewhat offset to one side, and the pilot feet probalbly were aft the front suspension, contrarily to what usually happened in these days.
Yet I'd like to see a scheme...

I can't help thinking the cutaway I have seen of the Cosworth must have appeared in the cutaway drawing thread, hopefully!!

It is indeed. Page 64

Image 4 of the original link shows how the drive train runs on the right hand side both forwards and aft from the centre diff.
Here it is (I think it's the Hatton drawing referred to above)

Now why couldn't I find that!!?