Remembering an F1 designer with a legacy of greatness

Ron Tauranac, who passed away last week aged 95, will be remembered fondly as a doughty competitor with a brilliant technical mind, and the master designer of production racing cars.

He was a brilliant and unassuming engineer whose superlative chassis beat allcomers contemporarily from the early 1960s to the late 1980s and are now revered in historic arenas worldwide.

The perfect business partner and foil to Jack Brabham, whose ability as a mechanic were possibly equal to his driving skills, the pragmatic Tauranac created a long line of masterpieces at Motor Racing Developments, alongside those that carried his mate to his third Formula 1 World Championship in 1966.

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Tauranac's supremely elegant Repco Brabham-branded single-seaters (Black Jack was not interested in sports-racers, yet there were a few) were gorgeous to behold and competitive. All his BT-prefixed customer cars were of spaceframe construction, beautifully made, strong and eminently repairable in the field.

While Tauranac's designs more than satisfied pro racers' aspirations, they also flattered the talents of amateur wannabes - the majority of the marketplace's clientele - across the formulae. Proper service support also led to a lot of repeat business, half the battle in a fickle sport.

More than 500 Brabhams emerged from the Weybridge factory inside a decade, from the BT2 Formula Juniors (following the prototype MRD) of 1962 to stunning F2 BT30s (below) and derivatives. That they continued to perform in Formule Libre, or filtered down the food chain to Monoposto and F4 club events, sustained the sport.

Tauranac's brainchildren also excelled in speed events, Brabham's former Cooper team-mate Michael MacDowel (who surrendered his car to Jack during the 1957 French Grand Prix) winning Royal Automobile Club British Hillclimb Championships in 1973 and 1974 in a BT36X powered by a mighty five-litre Repco V8 engine.

When his Brabham days were over, and Bernie Ecclestone took over the reins completely, Tauranac's McLaren M21 F2-derived Trojan T101 F5000 proved a wieldy weapon, winning races in the hands of Keith Holland, Bob Evans and, in the US, Jody Scheckter against tough Lola opposition in 1973.

Back under his own steam, his subsequent Ralt Cars enterprise started boldly in 1975, Aussie Larry Perkins underlining its credentials by winning the European F3 Championship with humble Ford twin-cam power rather than the heavier, torquier and costlier newfangled Toyota from Novamotor in Italy.

Past 90, down from Sydney's oceanside to which he'd long retired, he was gratifyingly sharp and spry, enjoying watching the Brabhams and Ralts he'd designed being driven hard by later generations

Updated with semi-elliptic fibreglass cockpit mouldings, the ubiquitous Ralt RT1 series of cars - which also served in Formula 2, Atlantic and Super Vee with aplomb - ran until 1979, keeping veteran fabricator Maurice Gomm's neighbouring concern busy, and progressed many an international career.

Like so many, I always loved Tauranac's cars, and have driven quite a few. While there are too few Brabhams on my CV (but a run in an F2 BT30 is hopefully still on offer), the Ralt club race roster includes F3 RT1 and my own RT30, in which Rene Arnoux had contested the Macau GP. Ron also kindly let me have a session in his Formula Renault Ronta to complete the set.

Memories of track-testing David Leslie's Atlantic RT4 at Ingliston (courtesy of its owner, Hope Scott Garage's John Laidley), Graham de Zille's Pegasus RT30/85 and Bowman Racing's RT31 at Silverstone remain vivid. I don't think I've felt more like a racing driver than in the F3 RT31 (Damon Hill's 1987 example below), in which I set competitive times to everybody's astonishment.

I've also driven two of the six Trojan T101s and, having marshalled in 1975 when the V8 category was in its final year, was stunned by the opportunity to make my Historic F5000 race debut in Simon Hadfield's Hexagon car - a surprisingly benign all-rounder - on Silverstone's GP circuit in 2001.

I met Ron numerous times and, while the reputation of being brusque preceded him, found him engaging and genial. Explaining his racing-school car concept for Japan - a folded aluminium honeycomb chassis, to be supplied flat-packed and bolted together in situ without specialist tools - he referred to it as "my MFI car", referencing a cheap furniture store chain that did likewise, inferring the acronym meant 'made for idiots'.

The last time I met the great man was at the annual Victorian Historic Racing Register Phillip Island Classic event in Australia in March of 2015. Past 90, down from Sydney's oceanside to which he'd long retired, he was gratifyingly sharp and spry, enjoying watching the Brabhams and Ralts he'd designed being driven hard by later generations.

I was amused that as Tauranac chatted animatedly beside Peter Lucas's stunning Pye Audio-liveried RT4, he asked whether its period sponsor and I were related. Had it been my family firm, I told him, I'd have been in the cockpit! I wish I could find the photo taken of us together that day. RIP Ron.