BrabhamBT7A.
Jack Brabham’s Australian Grand Prix-winning Tasman racer, preserved by a friend who understood its place in motorsport history.
A world champion’s number one. A car built to be raced, returned home to be remembered.
The racer that wore number one.
In February 1964, Jack Brabham won the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown in this BT7A. The green and gold bodywork still carries his racing number.
FUEL pump on. Hit the starter button...chirr…chirr…chirr… chirr…and now the engine stut..stut…stutt…stutters to life with fuel-blown bark. Belches exhaust flame. Settles down to a deep menace of mechanical rhythms. Little wonder Australia’s Black Jack Brabham ended up with hearing issues, laid back just ahead of the likes of this racer’s motor through a storied career.
From speedway cars to Formula One, Sir Jack Brabham was a talented driver and intuitive engineer, claiming three F1 driver’s titles 1959, 1960 and 1966 - plus two F1 Constructors’ championships with partner Ron Tauranac in 1966 and 1967.
This gleaming race car idling here, this green and gold open wheeler, is a rare BT7A; the seventh design from that Brabham-Tauranac collaboration. Built in England, this particular 2.5 litre formula car raced in the feted Tasman Series from 1964 and with this car Jack Brabham won the Australian Grand Prix at Sandown in February, 1964; hence number one adorns the fibreglass bodywork.
Jack and the Repco-Brabham won again at Warwick Farm in Sydney and Queensland’s Lakeside that year before he returned to England and the car was sold. But it kept racing here under succeeding owners - in 1967 Denny Hulme drove it in the New Zealand Grand Prix, running third until a stub axle failed - before the Brabham made its way to England where race results are sketchy.
Ten years ago the BT7A’s current custodian Peter Harburg brought it back to Australia. “For a good bag of gold,” says Peter, a businessman and part-time racer who’s long understood the attraction of classics with a pedigree - and was also mates with the late Sir Jack.
Since then the car has been given a full restoration. It is today a svelte, sweet-looking machine, a credit to Adam Harris who worked part-time on rebuilding this Brabham for close to two years.
“We need to preserve the heritage. That’s important for me and for all those people interested in motorsport.”PETER HARBURG
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