Category Archives: Blog Stories

The graphics on the BRE Datsuns are legendary, and often copied as Nissan has with their new 50th anniversary 370Z that uses the BRE stripes and contrasting top and side colors. How did you come up with the design?

Blog Stories

First, I knew I wanted to make the cars patriotic to America.  In the ‘60s it had only been 20 years since WWII ended and there was still some sensitivity to the Japanese, especially on the West coast. I wanted to make sure the cars came across as loyal to America so went with the red, white and blue paint scheme.

Next, I wanted to make the graphics bold.  Keep in mind a race car will only be seen for a few seconds at a time and spectators are a distance away so you want major impact. I would stripe off a car with tape and walk across the street to see if the size of the stripes, overhang of the color over the sides and numbers were easy to identify.

Then I wanted to make the cars look more streamline.  I did this by bringing the top color over the sides of the car a couple of inches and painting the rocker panels at the bottom of the cars black.  A person looking at the cars would see the “sides” of the car as the white painted portion and these techniques made the car look more sleek.

BRE 240Z #3

BRE 510 #85I also wanted the cars to look fast and that’s where the angled side stripes came in. They not only gave the cars the impression of speed, but being the reverse angle of the windscreen they gave the impression of an arrow from a distance.  A person doesn’t consciously notice any of these details but the overall impression is impactful.

yellow tail pipe Being a factory-based team, marketing coverage was important. Every aspect of the car needed to photograph well. That’s why I had the entire exhaust system, which was a work of art, painted bright yellow and the inside of the engine compartment painted white so all details of these great cars the BRE team built could be clearly seen and appreciated.

Speaking of the car photographing well, the cars needed to stand out from the track so I had a rim of white painted along the outside edge of the front spoilers. This made the front spoiler pop out from the black asphalt of a track. spook with white outline

 

If someone doesn’t want to copy the BRE graphics, what guidelines would you offer them?

 

•  Decide on the purpose of the graphics. Is it to enhance the design of the car (as it was with BRE as we were promoting the cars for Datsun/Nissan) or is it to be a signboard (e.g. promoting a sponsor) where the graphics are unrelated to the car. Decide which and stick to it.

•  No matter what the purpose, you want the car to photograph well for social media, articles, etc. Don’t make the common mistake of designing the graphics standing next to the car. I’ve seen graphics that are really beautiful when you’re three feet from the car (e.g. waving flag) that spectators, tv cameras, etc can’t identify as the car races by on the track.  Mock-up your design on the car and look at it at least 50 feet back.

•  Avoid major contrasting colors like black and white. A camera will either shutout light so details in the white show but that will cause the black areas to have no definition or the camera will open-up to get as much light in to see details in the black and the white areas of the car will flare out.

•  The colors you use will be dictated by purpose. Again, do you just want the car to be striking and attention getting or is it to tell a story, advertise a sponsor, promote a country, etc. If the latter, the colors you use are probably dictated by a sponsor’s colors, the colors of a flag and so on.  If you have total freedom on colors my recommendation is go to a tropical fish store. Nature knows what goes together best and you’ll be knocked out by color combinations you’ll find on fish.

•  If you do decide you want to make a BRE Tribute car, contact us to become a member of our BRE Tribute Car program. We provide paint colors, sponsor decals, numbers (even custom numbers I create myself to make sure the shapes and perspectives are correct).

Back in the day of Can-Am, the McLarens ran full length aerodynamic fences nose to tail. After that time, it didn’t seem that designers used full length fences. I have always wondered why. It seems like a good way to keep the airflow on the top of the car and not spilling off. Was it a rules thing why designers stopped using them or was there an aerodynamic or stability issue?

Blog Stories
McLaren M8F with driver Denny Hulme

The Can-Am era was a transitional point in race car design. The term “aerodynamics” as applied to racing car design can be divided into two periods: 1) low drag and 2) downforce.  Prior to the adoption of big American V8s for racing in the early Can-Am era, increases in speed were accomplished by the reduction of aerodynamic drag. The Daytona Cobra Coupe was a perfect example as the increase in top speed of a Cobra roadster from 165 mph to 200 mph was accomplished by the simple adaption of changing the body to a slippery form. 

However, higher speeds began creating unwanted lift so the designer’s next goal was to counteract lift by creating “downforce” with simple aerodynamic devices like spoilers and front air dams to reduce attached airflow that contributed to lift.  The only detriment to such devices was they caused an increase in aerodynamic drag! So… the only way to solve that problem was to increase horsepower to overcome the drag. The Can-Am era essentially ended when horsepower became so expensive (e.g. turbo-charged Porsche 917s) that the privateer racers couldn’t compete. With no field to effectively compete with the “big money” required to win, the series died.  It sure was fun while it lasted though!  Probably the most exciting motor racing ever devised. 

- Peter Brock

1971 Edmonton Can-Am

My thoughts on Nissan’s 50th Anniversary 370Z

Blog Stories
Q: At the NY Auto Show this week Nissan unveiled a 50th Anniversary 370Z that paid tribute to your BRE Datsun race cars. What do you think of that?

 

A: I was over the moon when Nissan contacted us last year saying they wanted to pay tribute to the legacy of the BRE Datsun 240Z’s racing successes with a special limited edition 50th Anniversary Z.  We have wanted Nissan to leverage our racing history for years as it adds long-term credibility to their engineering prowess.  This special run of 50th anniversary Z cars with BRE inspired livery, is the highest honor Nissan could make to BRE.

Nissan 370z

Peter with Z timelineZ timeline

Q: There has been some criticism online about the 50th Anniversary 370Z saying this design is getting outdated and there should have been a brand new design for 2020 to honor their 50th and that the livery homage to BRE is too minimal with just partial stripes and a red top with white sides.

 

A: Nissan doesn’t have a new generation Z for 2020 and they could have decided not to do something special for their 50th Anniversary, but that would have been a real disappointment to anyone who has owned any iteration of the Z car in this past fifty years. Not to recognize this milestone with BRE simply because they didn’t have a new Z car would ignore the value of their accomplishments and the fact that the current 370Z has been a solid car with good sales encouraging the car’s retention. Even though I have to agree the 370Z may have been around longer than anyone expected I’m still extremely happy they didn’t go that way and wait. Instead, Nissan embraced their winning heritage using BRE’s success with the first Z car as the focal point of their 50th anniversary.

When I first saw the draft images of the special edition livery I must admit I thought the design wasn’t quite bold enough to echo the BRE “look”. But those of us who focus on racing have to realize we sometimes don’t think about the considerations car manufacturers have to work within. If the car is intended to be driven on the street, it can’t be a full-on recreation of the BRE livery. That would just be too bold. I made that same decision when we created our own BRE Tribute 240Z. Instead of the red, white and blue BRE livery we made it a more subtle, street friendly, silver and white. Nissan’s design achieves the same purpose.

Q: What was it like being in NY for the unveiling of this car?

 

A: It was an amazing week. Nissan really rolled out the red carpet for us and they included special people like Johnnie Gable (Mr. K's longtime secretary). Other special attendees were Mad Mike, John Oates (a big GTR fan), and Tony Walker. There were special events every evening and they paid special attention to every logistic from first thing in the morning ‘till they limo’d us back to the hotel in the evening.

Nissan decided to offer a special poster marking the event and then embraced my idea of using illustrative art like I did originally at BRE for the 240Z when we won the SCCA National Championships in ’70 and ’71.  I chose to use the Austrian automotive artist Klaus Wagger as I especially like his work and only had to provide minimum art direction as he seemed to know exactly what I wanted from a couple of telephone conversations. He did a spectacular job for us.  Gayle did the final layout positioning the 50th anniversary text prominently to frame the art.   It’s a real collector’s item!

Then, what an honor to be invited to speak at Nissan's opening press event at the show. Hundreds of media people attended and amazingly hundreds remained to get a signed poster (thereby missing other manufacturers’ press events by doing so!).

The special edition 50th Anniversary 370Z is a special honor for BRE and the week where it was presented in New York I will always remember fondly.

first shelby cobra

Who built the first Cobra, and where?

Blog Stories
AK Miller in Cobra
Ak Miller

No question that Carroll Shelby “invented” the Cobra sports car with the idea of installing a V8 Ford engine in an English AC Chassis, but he wasn’t the first to actually do it!  If we forget the name Cobra, which defines this question, we have to acknowledge the first man to put a Ford V8 in an AC chassis to go racing.  Famed California “Hot Rodder” Ak Miller had completed the project with an AC-Bristol sports car (same chassis that would be delivered to Shelby months later) he’d acquired to run on the dry lakes east of Los Angeles well over a year before Shelby put his deal together with Ford and AC to build his cars in limited production.

Ed Hugus
Ed Hugus

What’s even more interesting is that Shelby didn’t actually do the first Ford V8 installation in an AC supplied chassis. At the beginning, Shelby had no facilities or even a talented fabricator/mechanic to do the job. Instead, Shelby made a deal with well experienced eastern foreign car importer Ed Hugus to be his partner in the Cobra project. Shelby offered Hugus the distribution for his cars in the Eastern US (Shelby had not yet “invented the name Cobra”) in exchange for doing the initial installation and sales.

CSX 001, the first Cobra sold by Ed Hugus.

Hugus completed the job on chassis number CSX 001. This chassis was sent to Ed Hugus, purely by chance, as no one was looking at chassis numbers on AC’s first shipment of two cars to America. Hugus had “built” and sold CSX 001, the first “Shelby” weeks before Shelby had received his first chassis, CSX 000, when we moved into Dean Moon’s small shop in California.

Cobra in Dean's shop
CSX 000 in Dean Moon’s shop.

Once Shelby had completed this first car (and come up with the Cobra name) he painted it bright yellow and sent it to the NY auto-show to be displayed on the Ford stand. He got enough orders from that initial showing to take up all of AC’s initial production. At that point there simply “weren’t enough cars to fill Hugus’ orders” so the handshake “partnership” was dissolved and Shelby continued on by himself.

DeTomaso P70

Why wasn’t the Shelby – DeTomaso P70 ever finished?

Blog Stories

In my book on this car, I stated I never knew why De Tomaso didn’t finish the 7-litre engine he had promised Shelby for the P70. Wonderfully, someone who read my book sent me the answer. He is absolutely correct and I thought I’d share his GREAT letter with you!

Dear Mr. Brock:

I just read "The Road to Modena." What an incredible book about an incredible car! Thank you for writing it and including all the other biographical and historical information. It now occupies a treasured place on my bookshelf. I do believe that I can unravel a mystery for you.

You refer, several times, as to being mystified at why DeTomaso never completed, or even initiated, the 7 liter version of the 289 Ford. The reason is simple - it can't be done. There's no way to get 427 cubic inches into the 260/289/302 block. There's not room for an overbore (max is 4.030) or the long stroke that would be needed, due to its low deck height of 8.2". Today, there are small-block Fords built at 427 cubic inches, but they are based on (normally) the 351 Windsor block (9.5" deck height) or, less commonly, the 351 Cleveland block (9.2" deck height). Neither of these designs existed in 1964, and that extra inch or more of deck height, and its attendant relocated camshaft, makes all the difference in the world. Those 427s have a 4" bore (stock, all of these are thin wall castings and can't take more) with a 4.125" stroke. That stroke wouldn't even begin to fit in a 289 block; the connecting rods and crank throws would hit the camshaft - and those rods would have to be so short that the pistons would hit the crankshaft counterweights. To this day, even with modern metallurgy, the biggest low-deck (289 block) Ford stroker combination that has been run with any practicality comes out at 363 cubic inches, and this requires very high dollar billet parts of the type that would have been nearly impossible to manufacture in 1964.

Whether DeTomaso knew at the start that he was selling Shelby on an impossible dream, I can't say - but if he didn't, he knew about 10 minutes after taking a 289 apart and doing some rudimentary measurements. Since the entire project was based on the 7 liter engine, your car was doomed from the start, unfortunately. And it's a damn shame, because the car was beautiful and no doubt would have been extremely effective. History shows that the big-block McLarens, Chaparrals, and Lolas didn't take center stage in CanAm until 1966, so had the car been completed, you might have had a good season in 1965 in the USRRC. We'll never know. As you noted, DeTomaso was the better of the two con men.

In any case, this is but a minor nitpick in a tour de force of a wonderful book, documenting a great career and a great car. My compliments as well on the high production qualities. I hope my email wasn't offensive; I have the utmost respect for you. Heck, mine might be the 2,000th email telling you this!”

This is a GREAT letter!  And he is absolutely correct in defining why the P70 was never completed...It simply could not be done!  As he says, DeTomaso probably understood this from the moment he did a thorough analysis of what was possible with the 289 block, but never mentioned it to Shel’ as that would have prevented the money stream from continuing! :0)  Having only the cursory experience of being around the later Windsor blocks and making the assumption that these were still  “small block” Fords rather than an entirely new architecture I missed the obvious. I had experience with both the original 289s and later engines (in replica Cobras with 427 “small blocks) but honestly had never gone “inside” the later engine to look and measure.  This reader really clarified this and I wish I’d had his fine explanation in hand when writing the book.

I agree, the P70 might have had a chance in ’65, but by ’66 and beyond the DeTomaso chassis would have been obsolete. That whole era was changing so fast you had to be able to create “improvements” from race to race….a really fun, innovative era. Many thanks to this reader for taking the time to clue me in!  And if you’d like to read the book yourself, you can get it from us here.