March 712M

[allenbrown]

Ian Barrowman entered a March 712M for in UK Atlantics for Mike Campbell-Cole through 1972 but it never appeared. Anyone with the time to chase this up will be interested to know that Campbell-Cole's contacts details are here.

[Chris Townsend]

Allen

I had an email from Mike some time ago after enquiring about this car.
He was going to talk to Ian Barrowman, but never got back to me...

Chris

[allenbrown]

Did MIke ever see the car? Did it actually exist?

BTW - and OT - here's Warren 'Bud' Pauge of BT38 fame. Already spoken to him too?

[Alan Brown]

Seen at the Historic F2 meeting over Easter at Thruxton were:
712-5 (F2 class) Paul Bason;
712M-6 (F2 class) Sid Hoole;
712-24 (F2 class) James King;
712M-11 (F At class) David Wild and Neil Fowler.

[Chris Townsend]

Interesting:
If the Wild and Fowler car is a 712M rather than a 71BM it's one of the links in the bizarre plate switching exercise that went on at March between Lauda's car and the two Shell Arnold chassis at the end of 1971. That's to say it's almost certainly 9 or 10 rather than 11, but we know 11 [ex Jaussaud] wore 9 [ex Lauda] in 1972, and 10 [ex Jarier] was sold to Joliat and may have surfaced recently.
In fact, looking at my notes, Robert Simac had chassis 11 in 2001 and I think that this probably had the second iteration of the ex Lauda chassis 9 under it.

I like James King a lot so I'll be careful how I say this, but I don't think that 24 is the right plate for that car, either as a 71BM [for which it has FIA papers] or as a 712M. I'm sure it's a genuine 71BM but the provenance of the plate may be a little more suspect. The build records for 712M stops at 21 and 71BM at 17

Chris

[allenbrown]

This is interesting: Freddy Link's 712M was converted (at the factory) from FVA spec to F3 spec with a Renault engine for the Silverstone F3 race (MN 22 Jul 1971 p11). So I wonder what Korda had in it in 1972.

[Chris Townsend]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

This is interesting: Freddy Link's 712M was converted (at the factory) from FVA spec to F3 spec with a Renault engine for the Silverstone F3 race (MN 22 Jul 1971 p11). So I wonder what Korda had in it in 1972.

Would you believe an FVA? Link ran Renaults in a pair of Lotus 69s in 1972 F3

Chris

[allenbrown]

Was an FVA legal in 1972 F2? Wasn't there a 1000 production threshold for the new formula?

BTW, I'm sure you already have this Chris but just in case; "Ronnie Peterson's Smog-March 712M ... has been bought by Sonny Rajah" (MN 30 Dec 1971 p13)

[Simon Hadfield]

Now again this is interesting, Ronnie's old car was updated several times by Sonny and finally well crashed and the remains tipped into a land fill, this told to me by an old Macau atlantic hand and then reiterated when I asked around when we raced there at the 50th anniversary - I believe it is now being spoken of as being still around......

[Andrew Fellowes]

the irrepressible Sonny at the recent Tasman Revival, he still has the Peterson March along with a number of other cars. Its interesting how these stories get around but land fill is very much not the case! By the way he's looking for an FT200, can you help?


Andrew
(& I'll ring you next week!)

[Chris Townsend]

Might be a certain degree of confusion as to which of Sonny's cars, if any, went into landfill..
He bought the ex Peterson 712M in early 1972 but when he raced in Britain in 1973 I think it was with a different car, a 73B, that he subsequently took home

Re FVAs in 1972 season, yes there was a production limit but the FVA was used on certain occasions, either by a driver at the back - eg Korda - where no one much cared and he made up the numbers, or because, early on in the season there was a degree of confusion over homologation.
I have the following using FVAs in 1972
Ikuzawa GRD 272 at Mallory [DNQ] Autosprint gives engine details
Korda March 712M and Terbeck BT36 at first Hockenheim [not sure what engine Korda has in by second Hockenheim]
Stalder Pygmee MDB 17 at Nurburgring, runs BDA thereafter

Chris

[allenbrown]

What about FVCs Chris? I saw an 'FVD' somewhere which I presumed to be a 1900-2000cc version of the 1790/1860cc FVC.

[allenbrown]

FVAs: "the final regulations admitted them as an interim measure" MN 16 Mar 1972 p9

[Bryan Miller]

Chris,

Re 712M of Sonny Rajah , this car was raced by Sonny in the Van Heusen Series for Australian F2 cars and in Barry Lake's notes of cars competing in period race reports this car described as ''kitted'' by March to 73B spec. which you have already acknowledged previously.

[allenbrown]

We have the 712M and 73B as separate cars don't we Chris?

[Chris Townsend]

We should do... Rajah's car in UK in 1973 is described simply as a 732B

[Bryan Miller]

Chris/Alan, please refer to post # 7 in the March 73B / 74B / 75B etc. thread.

[HayesCages]

Hi all,
I've got a line on a couple of 712's in the northwest US: one which the owner says is numbered 36. Is this possible?
The other chassis number he didn't know off hand but I'll try to get it from him at some point.
I believe he ran the 36 chassis in CanAm with a Mazda 12A although I haven't found any race results with his car or name appearing.

Lawrence

[Chris Townsend]

Originally Posted by fv55inSpokane

Hi all,
I've got a line on a couple of 712's in the northwest US: one which the owner says is numbered 36. Is this possible?
The other chassis number he didn't know off hand but I'll try to get it from him at some point.
I believe he ran the 36 chassis in CanAm with a Mazda 12A although I haven't found any race results with his car or name appearing.

Lawrence

Lawrence, I think that "36" would be a very ambitious chassis number for a March 712M
- the build stopped at 21 - or a 71BM - stops around 15 - or even a 713M, even fewer...
Other than 722s I can't think of a March model that runs that high

Is he talking about the race number he ran?

Photos of plates would be very helpful, perhaps accompanied by photos of cars.

Chris

[HayesCages]

Chris,
That was my feeling too but I don't have access to the car so just have to take the guy's word for it at this point. The chassis is about 300 miles away on the other side of the state so I don't know when I'll have a chance to take a look either.
I'll attach some pics he sent of it but don't know what help they'll be.

This may help though:

"Actually the Banana Crate was the original monocoque F2 car to come into the states from March. However, Ron Dykes was the original driver and the original crasher so the monocoque is the first replacement, a March 712. It is the only March 712 chassis to gain points in Can Am racing (I ended up around 200th overall in Can Am points, tied with Jo Bonnier. Sort of Ironic, when at WSU I took an art class and did a charchol drawing of Innes Ireland and Jo Bonnier.) I never bought the Cosworth engine and we converted it to the Mazda 12A rotary. Later converted to the 13B, but always did better with the 12A. At 9000 rpm, sounds just like a Cosworth FA engine...... sounds like a 2 cycle (which it is) at idle.


The Fox brothers were Tom Sneva's original car builders when he got into Indy car racing. They developed the body shape in a hydraulics lap in England (water gives a truer reading for under the car airflow) Their shop was a block away from Doug Moe's in Bremerton and told Doug of their experiment..... but no car to put it on. Doug made a couple of copies of it....... with some distortion. I copied their drawings exactly and my 12A was always faster than the other designs with the 13B's. Using the same redline as my Cosworth powered FA Brabham BT29, I could run 3 steps higher. The gear charts showed 155 and 170 at redline for the two.


I followed an oil spewer at Sears Point and after the race checked out the aerodynamics. The lower angle of the front shoved the air and tumbled it in front of the car..... which in affect, lifted the air in front of the car....... and the lower panel was full of oil dots. The second panel which provides the down thrust, was covered with oil streaks at least 7" long. There is a short 2" panel between the second and the flat part of the body. The flat part of the body had three oil drops laying on it. The engine cover had to lift 4", angle was not important. It was also covered with oil streaks like the second panel in front. The wing was covered with streaks equally across the leading edge, even behind the head rest. Whenever the car would start to spin, I'd just steer with it and the flat sides catching air would snap me back to going straight. Only 2 spins I can remember. One at Sears, under full throttle going over the hump just after turn 2. I did a 360 so fast I had no recollection of being backwards. After I stopped, discovered that if you have 9 out of 10 hose clamps tight, it does not keep 9/10 of the water in the car. The other time was in a Can Am race in a downpour in St. Louis and the spin was out of character for the car. On the way to the race, the trailer came off the P/U In the Rockies and the car had bounced 2' sideways when the trailer went up an embankment. A trucker helped me get it back into the right place.... but during the winter overhaul, discovered that the mounting points between the engine tube chassis and the monocoque had been badly bent..... sort of a camel hump chassis. After I straightened it out, handled just fine, until the brakes disappeared at Olympia.


One year in the first race in Olympia, we had 4 practice sessions and by the 4th session, was in such pain going through the last extremely rough corner, tears were coming to my eyes. The monocoque held my hips, the body held my shoulders and the parts in between flopped back and forth. At a Can Am race at Sears, Fangio and I were talking and he looked into the car and asked how could I sit in there with no seat. Never thought of it before, so got a plastic bag, dumped in the filler, and let it expand. I could not believe how much more comfortable it was to drive after that."
Bill Hill

Lawrence

[rngholt]

Hi There,
I just found this website forum and was intrigued to find this thread on the March 712M and the list on chassis numbers.
Graham Coaker was my uncle and I've followed motor racing and F1 all my life having the connection to it via Graham. When his wife Carol died a few years ago, she left me the remaining collection of book, papers and objects she had kept, including a steering wheel. I never found the list of car numbers so I didn't know which of the 712M's hed had been given when he let March.
The list in this thread from Adam F indicates he was given the 712M-12
He crashed the car and I'd be very interested to know if anyone knows if it was recovered and if it still in existence?
Do any of you know?