My Time At Trojan Works, London. By Ken Hyndman

[Grant Sprague]

Ken is that your morris minor in the back ground ?? beaut piks thanks mate ...re the weekly wages & the price of Trojan= law of relativity

[khyndart in CA]

Yes Grant, that is my 4 door Morris Minor. Bought it for 80 quid and sold it a year later for 90 Pound. I should have been a salesman for you ! As our gearbox department was about half a mile from the race shop the Morrie was like a shuttle and people would pile in to go to lunch at the cafeteria. There was always interesting people in there along with lots of stories. I enjoyed the older craftsmen who lived there in Croydon during the war and their stories of German V-1 bomber strikes and a lot of bombs were dropped on Croydon so the Luftwaffe could make it back to Germany plus Biggen Hill airfield was nearby. Many drivers such as Denis Hulme, Jody Scheckter,Barry Sheene etc would also come in and sit at the tables. I remember A Scotch driver, Gerry Birrell lunching with us on a
Tuesday and on the Saturday he was killed in a Formula 2 race in Rouen, France.
I was surprised at how few of the Trojan staff went to race meetings as building a race car was just a job !
I enjoyed going to as many meetings as I could. Being with Hewland gearboxes, I could get in and hang out with winning teams !

( Ken Hyndman )

[khyndart in CA]

By mid 1973 the Trojan T 101 was proving to be quite a successful race car in Formula 5000 in both the Rothman Series in Europe and the L&M Continental Series in the United States.
( I do not know if any made it out to NZ )
It was well suited to handle the aggressive driving styles of drivers such as Keith Holland and Jody Scheckter.
The Trojan designer, Ron Tauranac, had now been joined by a young man just starting out, Patrick Head.

( I have provided some 1973 information clippings from my album )

Trojan T 101 specs.


1973 race results up to August,



Scheckter driving Trojan T 101 / 3 in the United States.
No mistaking that it was JODY at the wheel !





(Ken Hyndman )

[khyndart in CA]

July 1973. Silverstone. British Grand Prix.
You may remember my first thread started here as I delivered transmission parts to Sid Taylor for Scheckter's Trojan F 5000 that was in the States.
In the first photo, not shown before, who can name some of the people here other than Denis Hulme.
( Peter Bruin, a mechanic that Hulme trusted, Greeta Hulme, time keeping,Francois Cevert, Derek Gardner..Tyrrell designer, Ken Tyrrell, team owner. Joe Bugner, boxer. Just visible is the back of Jackie Stewart
(note how crowded the pit lane was ! )



( Ken Hyndman photo )
__________________________________________________________________________________

In this photo from the 1974 Motor Racing Year book.
Note how the spectators feet were just above Scheckter's head as he scraped along the wall and also note spectators hanging out over the railing in the top photo.
Just imagine the disaster if the fuel tanks had exploded or wheels or debris gone into the crowd !
Thank all those involved for making the track safer before another 1955 Le Mans type accident had taken place.



(Ken Hyndman )

[Michael Clark]

I'm enjoying this...

Re the Trojan T101 - none were ever raced here in period. In reality their shelf life was extraordinarily short but nevertheless successful.

By the time the 74 Tasman rolled around, the T101 had been usurped by the Lola T330 and the development of the Chevron B24. Has a Trojan raced here as a 5000 in Historics? I'm uncertain about that but I do recall one was being advertised a couple of years ago - perhaps from the northern part of the South Island??

[Howard Wood]

A young Peter Bruin in the orange shirt/ blue cap.

[khyndart in CA]

August 6th 1973. Silverstone.
This was the Rothmans F5000 race that never took place due to rain.
In practice Keith Holland in the Trojan T 101, qualified in 2nd place and we were looking forward to a good race.
Steve Thompson won pole position driving a Chevron B 24, then Holland and third on the grid was Peter Gethin also in a Chevron B24.
Fifth on the grid was Kiwi, David Oxton driving a Begg FM5. I was hoping this small team would do well here.
Alas it rained too hard right after the start and the race was abandoned.
After my previous comments about the lack of safety at Silverstone, here I am a month later, hanging over the railing as the race started !

Steve Thompson on the left, Keith Holland in the centre and Gethin on the right. Oxton is well positioned right behind Holland's T101. # 25



David Oxton in the Begg FM 5 coming back to the pit area followed by his mechanic, Joe Wright and ?



A disappointed Keith Holland, in his Trojan T 101,being pushed to shelter as the rains came down.
He felt he had a good car that day.




( Ken Hyndman photos )

[khyndart in CA]

1973 Trojan production. The first time without McLaren on the emblem.




( Ken Hyndman )

[Murray Maunder]

Obviously Greeta Hulme on stopwatches in foreground but who's the guy next to her on timing???

[khyndart in CA]

My friend Patrick.
"Head then went to work for Ron Tauranac, who had sold the Brabham F1 team to Bernie Ecclestone and was building Trojan Formula 5000 cars. Head designed these and even the Trojan F1 car, which was run in six GPs in 1974, with Tim Schenken driving. Dispirited, Head gave up racing. He spent 1975 and 1976 building his own boat but then Frank Williams convinced him to return to the sport, offering him the job of chief engineer of Frank Williams (Racing Cars) Ltd. A few weeks later the team was bought by Walter Wolf, who appointed Harvey Postlethwaite as chief designer. Head stayed on for that year but, at the end of 1977, he and Williams left the team and established Williams Grand Prix Engineering. Williams took 70% of the company and Head 30%."
When I read this article in GrandPrix.com it brought back my memories of meeting up with Patrick in June 1973. We met at the aforementioned cafeteria at Trojan. He was alone and I needed someone to discuss the recent mayhem at the 1973 Indy 500. I liked his friendly attitude toward me and we decided we needed to live closer to work and started to check out accommodations (and pubs ) around Croydon but as neither of us had any money (then) our plans altered. I think he ended up living at home and I moved into a house in the Crystal Palace area with 6 Kiwis and Aussies which kept the rent down but not much else ! I would often go around to the race shop after hours and "hang out " with Patrick as he worked at putting the next Trojan design together. Little did I realize that he would go onto to being one of the best race car designers ever. When I left at the end of 1973 he was planning to go off to design and build boats !
I stopped in to see him in 1996 in the midst of one of Team Williams best F 1 seasons. He was still the same as I remembered him. He showed my son and I around the facility. Sean was more interested in getting to the Tower of London and also seeing where Jack the Ripper operated. Looking at race cars was much more exciting for me than it was for him back then !


1996. Visiting with an old mate.


(Ken Hyndman photos )

You can read more about Patrick at this site.

http://www.williamsf1.com/Team/About.../Patrick-Head/

[Grant Sprague]

Ken that was a very cool read....Thank you .....soon I would like to tell you about a connection about Frank Williams & Roly Levis...but before I do I will do a bit of research to get the story right ,,,,,,,, also a wee bit about Roly ,,,,,, on the odd trips [him & I] did to manfield etc when we re built a mustang that became a front runner [pre 65] some times just us two talking very in depth about life etc .....[ thanks to him & Tim Prentice]..........

[GD66]

Wasn't Roly's BT23C ex-Frank Williams ?

[khyndart in CA]

Baypark, December 1968.

Roly Levis talking with Leo Geoghegan.
Standing in front of Roly's Team Lexington Brabham BT 23 C / 7
This car was first owned by Frank Williams for Piers Courage to drive.



(Ken Hyndman photo )

[SPman]

And a lovely little car it was, too.

[khyndart in CA]

Oct 1973.Brands Hatch.
This shows why I am not a racing photographer, but it does show Brands Hatch at Druids corner as autumn approaches.
Keith Holland in the Trojan T 101 hurtles into the corner followed closely by Ian Ashley in his Lola 330 and Steve Thompson in his Chevron B 24.
This was the final European F5000 race for 1973. It was a wonderful season for F 5000 racing and the Trojan was very competitive. But due to the approaching oil crisis and rising expenses I do not think F 5000 was ever as good as this again in England.



Keith Holland in Trojan T101 /1 at the same corner on a practice day.




( Ken Hyndman photos )

[khyndart in CA]

Oct. 7th 1973. Snetterton race track. England.
I once again had the tough job of taking Hewland components to a race team. As I knew Graham Donaldson, who was originally from Rotorua, and was a mechanic for the VDS team from Belgium, I went to their area.
It was a somber day as the news came through that Francois Cevert had died at the practice for the US F1 race at Watkins Glen and many of teams here knew Francois well.
I took this photo and just recently noted it has the complete 1973 VDS team in it.
Count Rudi Van der Straten (VDS) is on the left, then driver, Chris Craft, mechanic Graham Donaldson, just appearing at the rear is driver, Teddy Pilette and carrying the tool is the Count's son Herve,who was the team manager and mechanic also.
All the attention is on Craft's Chevron B24, which did not have a good day and dropped out of the race due to a drop in oil pressure.
This team was a good bunch and Graham rates the Count as one of the best owners he ever worked for.



( Ken Hyndman photo )

[khyndart in CA]

June 1973 at Trojan Racing. ( Hyndman & Donaldson outside the workshop )
I know this has been on another thread but this shows the last time VDS Racing was at Trojan after using Trojan vehicles over several years. About to load up the mighty powerful but very unreliable M8F Turbo. Teddy Pilette was a brave driver who said that when driving this car "On a fast corner it always felt like the back is going to overtake the front, while at the end of the straight the brakes have to stop almost a ton travelling at 170 mph " ..A brave driver indeed while trying to control 1300 BHP !
Teddy Pilette went on to be the Rothmans European F5000 driving a Chevron B24.
I was pleased to hear that he and Graham Donaldson are still in contact with each other even to this day.




(Ken Hyndman photo taken by Bill Meace )


Teddy Pilette at speed

(VDS file photo)

(Ken Hyndman )

[John McKechnie]

Motorman, Jan-1974- Eoin S. Young writes-
Ron Tauranac has been nursing a "secret" formula 1 design ever since he left the Brabham organisation after it had been taken over by Bernie Ecclestone. Ron had told me from time to time that this design, a culmination of his best ideas, was waiting for the right opportunity to be transformed into a car.The right moment came with an offer from Trojan to design them a F5000 car and this has just been completed for testing at Goodwood by Keith Holland. Fuel problems slowed times on the first day out with the new T102, but Tauranac is obviously looking on this car in 5-litre form as a rolling testbed for a Tauranac F1 car, and apparently his deal with Trojan includes a reciprocal arrangement on hardware.
So this means that Ron could really come up with a 3-litre car using most of the bits made for the F5000 Trojan.
He says he is pressing along with the project and hoping that a sponsor will come along to back him before it is ready to race.The Trojan features the familiar lobster claws radiators from the BT34, but these are faired in with the nose more than they first appeared on the Brabham.
Interesting to see that Ron didnt follow the trend to radiators either side of the cockpit...but then wasnt it Tauranac who said way back in the days when Brabhams were staunchly space-framers,that the fastest thing about the monocoque Lotus was Jimmy Clark

[khyndart in CA]

John,
That is good input and you beat me to it !. I am still going to write some stuff and have photos regarding the Trojan T102.
Again I do not want to bore people with repetition.

( Ken Hyndman )

[Marty]

"Again I do not want to bore people with repetition."

Ken, please keep it up, I'm enjoying this thread.
Marty