Group A BMW 635 CSi - a popular, solid performer

[KA]

Originally Posted by chunterer

KA i'm certain the BMW GB cars had nothing to do with Grace but I think you and I (and probably ian!!) covered early in the thread that the Cheylesmore '84 car was the same one originally prep'd by Ted Grace & Malcolm Gartlan in Pershore (but supplied by BMW works) for Hans Stuck's handful of outings in the 1983 BTCC? That might help you to rule that particular car out of the equation?

If I remember correctly, the Cheylesmore car has a pretty continuous race history through the 1983-8 period-

• 1983 BS/Cheylesmore for Stuck, Palmer, Hobbs etc
• 1984 BS/Chyelsmore for Kennedy
• 1985 occasional BTCC outings with Brian Chatfield, replacing his Capris from mid-season onwards
• 1986- a DNS at the Donington ETCC for Barry Barnes under the Mann's Racing banner, then the TT with Barry Robinson in TW Robinson demolition colours
• 1987- not raced AFAIK
• 1988- Peter Buxtorf

I can't see an obvious window of opportunity for it to become part of the Sytner 635 story, (unless of course it passed through Frank's hands early-ish in 85 and he sold it on to Chatfield....), so, as you said,, hopefully that one can stay out of the equation....

[GBRM]

I thought I was helping clarify matters but now it seems to have got more complicated!!
I'm glad John Clark was able to help, he's a really nice guy.
Hopefully Barrie will be able to help Gerry with some info and if I'm asked nicely I might be able to pass on Frank's details, but they weren't from me.
Anyway his Penske money might have erased all his BMW memories by now!!

[Gerard Hodges]

HI guys,
The waters are getting muddier.... I have phoned Barrie Williams & spoke to him today. What a nice guy. His version of events is RA2-46 was a brand new car owned by frank Sytner, prepared by Ted Grace. Barrie drove it in the Tourist Trophy Race, he crashed it when there was a sudden downpour & was joined by about 12-15 other cars. He said the rear of the car was badly damaged. The car was then taken to Ted's workshop, stripped & repaired & sat there as a spare shell.
Another bloke (he can't recall his name at the moment) bought the shell & had Ted build it as a Grp N car & Barrie was contracted to drive it. He did the Prod Car Champ in it, crashed it into the side of a Monza at Oulton Park, after which it had to have another rebuild. At the end of the '85 season it was sold to John Morton in NZ along with the other Sytner Grp A cars.
Had quite a long conversation with Barrie (thanks Gregor for the contact). He is going to sit down & try to recall & document the history of my car. He told me that he had been with frank Sytner just this afternoon as they are racing the Historics at the BGP this weekend. He said he would talk to Frank & try & piece this jigsaw together some more.
Rgs, Gerry

[GBRM]

Originally Posted by Gerard Hodges

He did the Prod Car Champ in it, crashed it into the side of a Monza at Oulton Park, after which it had to have another rebuild. At the end of the '85 season it was sold to John Morton in NZ along with the other Sytner Grp A cars.
Had quite a long conversation with Barrie (thanks Gregor for the contact). He is going to sit down & try to recall & document the history of my car. He told me that he had been with frank Sytner just this afternoon as they are racing the Historics at the BGP this weekend. He said he would talk to Frank & try & piece this jigsaw together some more.
Rgs, Gerry

That's great Gerry, glad Squeaker could help, he is a great guy to talk to and I hope your phone bill isn't going to be too high!!
They will defintiely both be at the GP this weekend but as posted earlier, Frank is a very "focussed" person, he might open up but if he doesn't I would not be surprised.
As I said in an earlier post, there seems to be a lot of fishing around for info; when in reality the people who know are still around; just ask them, and if you can't let me know, I'll have details somewhere!!
Maybe I have a differant stance on it (Dad would never let me get autographs of anyone....was too common!!), but I am more than happy to try and help where possible; I'm trying to sort this 3.0 CS BMW that was on ebay at the moment. bloody nightmare!!

[blinkybm]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ian beckett
A group N(Production class) car was built by Ted grace for Barrie Williams(the car looked like a replica of the Sytner Group A version).This was for sale in Autosport 14/4/88 at £10,000 from Ted Grace.
and from KA: "Enter RA2/46, apparently rebuilt from a damaged Group A shell in Ted Grace's workshop- but when, and where did it come from....?"
I guess the clue to where RA2/046 came from is that it is RHD, and according to John Clark, the only RHD cars were built by CC Motorsport.
Gerry, it's great that you have spoken to Barrie Williams, and I have sent an email to Frank, so hopefully they can get together and fill in the gaps. I've also sent an email to Chris Willows at BMW GB for some more info. I spoke to David Sutherland last night, he confirmed that the car he drove with John Clark was LHD, but he couldn't remember much else - he was just a hired driver. I'm trying to track down James Weaver, as he might be able to tell us about the RHD car crashed ? at Donington and then re shelled - CC30/31.
Ian, you were certainly right, it's easier talking to the people involved - even from the wrong side of the world...
Cheers folks
Bill

[KA]

Originally Posted by Gerard Hodges

HI guys,
The waters are getting muddier.... I have phoned Barrie Williams & spoke to him today. What a nice guy. His version of events is RA2-46 was a brand new car owned by frank Sytner, prepared by Ted Grace. Barrie drove it in the Tourist Trophy Race, he crashed it when there was a sudden downpour & was joined by about 12-15 other cars. He said the rear of the car was badly damaged. The car was then taken to Ted's workshop, stripped & repaired & sat there as a spare shell.
Another bloke (he can't recall his name at the moment) bought the shell & had Ted build it as a Grp N car & Barrie was contracted to drive it. He did the Prod Car Champ in it, crashed it into the side of a Monza at Oulton Park, after which it had to have another rebuild. At the end of the '85 season it was sold to John Morton in NZ along with the other Sytner Grp A cars.
Had quite a long conversation with Barrie (thanks Gregor for the contact). He is going to sit down & try to recall & document the history of my car. He told me that he had been with frank Sytner just this afternoon as they are racing the Historics at the BGP this weekend. He said he would talk to Frank & try & piece this jigsaw together some more.
Rgs, Gerry

Now that changes things a little.... So, if RA2/46 is the new car built around August 84, debuted and crashed at the TT (from Barrie's description, he was one of the collection of cars which went off at Woodcote, by the end of the afternoon it was like a car park there...), then repaired and used to build up the Prodsaloon car for Williams, there's one question.

Where does Dougal McGibben's RA1/22 in NZ fit into the story?

Several pages back, you'd confirmed that one as the car Sytner took down to NZ to race at Wellington and then sold to Johnstone BMW. We'd originally assumed that one to be Sytner's second 1984 car, but if it's 2/46 debuting at the TT, then how does 1/22 enter the story, if Sytner's regular 1983/4 mount was his original RA1/17?

One thing that's just occured to me, RA1/22's chassis number puts it in sequence with known 1983 cars (eg, the replacement chassis for the original BS/Chelyesmore car was RA1/29), which with hindsight makes it an unlikely candidate for the new Sytner car built in mid-84, and you'd suggested it might have started life with BMW France.

Could Frank have bought a car from BMW France specifically to take to NZ, rather than selling on one of his own cars? If 2/46 had been intended as a replacement for the original Sytner RA1/17, he may have intended to take 1/17 to NZ, but with 2/46 badly damaged, he may have needed to source an alternative car if the deal to sell a car on to Johnstone BMW was already done...

Sytner/Williams, 1984 TT- now presumably RA2/46. Was this possibly it's only race outing as a Group A car....?

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-09-015.jpg

[KA]

Sytner's original car at the 83 TT

http://www.racingsportscars.com/etcc...-09-11-029.jpg

To complete the story, anyone got pics of the Sytner entries at the 85 Donington ETCC and TT? There's still something that's puzzling me.....

[VIVA GT]

Morning folks!
Sorry, but I've nothing constructive to add at the moment, but I just want to say what a fascinating and well investigated thread this is. It's bringing back many memories of the cars of the BTCC and ETCC from a period when I was an avid spectator. It'll unfortunately be a few weeks until I can do this, but I took 1000's of photographs at the BTCC meetings, Silverstone TT and Donington 500 K's during that time. The slides are all in my Mum's loft at the moment but I'll extract them ASAP. If there's anything in there (in focus) I'll scan & post them.
Keep up the good work.

[KA]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Morning folks!
Sorry, but I've nothing constructive to add at the moment, but I just want to say what a fascinating and well investigated thread this is. It's bringing back many memories of the cars of the BTCC and ETCC from a period when I was an avid spectator. It'll unfortunately be a few weeks until I can do this, but I took 1000's of photographs at the BTCC meetings, Silverstone TT and Donington 500 K's during that time. The slides are all in my Mum's loft at the moment but I'll extract them ASAP. If there's anything in there (in focus) I'll scan & post them.
Keep up the good work.

That would be a great help- Given the current line of discussion, I'd be particularly interested in shots of the Sytner cars at the 84 & 85 TT and Donington ETCC in 85 if you have them..... I didn't really start taking photos at race meetings regularly until about 1988/9, so have very little from the years we're talking about, some 85/6 TT stuff, but that's about it.

[Gerard Hodges]

Originally Posted by KA

That would be a great help- Given the current line of discussion, I'd be particularly interested in shots of the Sytner cars at the 84 & 85 TT and Donington ETCC in 85 if you have them..... I didn't really start taking photos at race meetings regularly until about 1988/9, so have very little from the years we're talking about, some 85/6 TT stuff, but that's about it.

It is starting to make more sense, is it possible that Sytner / Grace ran 3 cars at the tt ? chassis #17, #22, #46, i am trying to track down the owner of RA1- 17, that car lives here in NZ as well but we never see it any more, apparently it is in storage.one more question does anyone know how we can contact Malcom Gartlan? he was the the other half of Gartlan Grace raceing and might be able to shed some light.
Gerry.

[chunterer]

Well here is a Sytner BTCC entry for 1983. I believe this is the original car built by Ted Grace (RA1 17?)

[chunterer]

And here is a Sytner entered car at an early 1985 BTCC round. I suspect it's the International Trophy meeting in March. So which one is it? (RA1 22?)

It can't be any of the 2 main ex CC cars because they stayed in the silver/black/white livery with the possible exception of the ex Eggenberger car that was the very first 635 shell (RA1 001?)

I find interesting the darker (deeper) looking front grill which the earlier 635'S all seemed to have (may simply have been because some teams painted theirs or something?) The other Grace car mentioned (the Cheylesmore one) also had what appeared to be a deeper front grill. The CC cars however, certainly the 2 main race cars didn't appear to share this feature. Don't know if there's anything in that.

[chunterer]

3rd picture and I have to say it's not brilliant quality is one I took at what I believe to be the 1984 BRDC Finals meeting. It's Whizzo in a white 635 leading Pete Halls' Vitesse in the Uniroyals.

This might well be the shell transplant car referred to earlier (if you can make anything out that is!) or 46?

[GBRM]

Originally Posted by chunterer

3rd picture and I have to say it's not brilliant quality is one I took at what I believe to be the 1984 BRDC Finals meeting. It's Whizzo in a white 635 leading Pete Halls' Vitesse in the Uniroyals.

This might well be the shell transplant car referred to earlier (if you can make anything out that is!) or 46?

With the wonders of modern technology, well using Explorer 8 as my internet browser, I have blown up that picture to 400% and it seems to be the same colour scheme (no GSI sponsorship though) as the second picture you posted, could be the same car.

[chunterer]

He he, good on you, I fiddled with it for ages and all I could get was a big blur!!

No I reckon the cars in shots 2 and 3 are different cars and the Whizzo car in my 3rd pic stayed in standard spec once built up from new or the bought shell etc.

[GBRM]

Originally Posted by chunterer

He he, good on you, I fiddled with it for ages and all I could get was a big blur!!

No I reckon the cars in shots 2 and 3 are different cars and the Whizzo car in my 3rd pic stayed in standard spec once built up from new or the bought shell etc.

I have my moments!!

It's just strange that the number is in the same position as is the Britax (championship sponsors myabe??) stickers are in the same position.

I'm sure we'll get the answers one day!!

[VIVA GT]

One additional thing which may muddy the waters regarding the Sytner cars is that at one time (I think 1985 or 1986) there was a complete mock-up copy of his race car fixed to an advertising hoarding in Nottingham! It was very cleverly done with the white background cut-out around the car, and straight on, just looked like a complete poster, carrying the BMW writing on the background. Once you moved away from straight on however, you realised it was three dimensional! Obviously there's been lots of water flowing under many bridges since then, but I'm sure the car looked complete, with roll cage etc, and was stickered up exactly as his race car of the time. I wonder if this was based on the 'spare' shell that turned into Whizzo's production saloon? That would explain why they look so familiar.
Alternatively, apart from muddying the waters, it could just help clear them...
(Apologies as I think I did mention this advert much earlier on in this thread, but couldn't trawl through 300+ entries to find it!)

[ian beckett]

A couple of queries from me...1)why is chassis RA1/022 assumed to have come from BMW France? I have no mention of this in my notes and certainly it is not mentioned in the letter I had from Frank in which he outlines the histories of all the 635's he had.2) Where did the chassis numbers attributed to Sytners cars come from? In response to an earlier question there were definitely only two cars entered at the British ETCC races.During the time that the cars were raced in Britain,there were two distinct styles,one was conventional with black grilles as a normal road car had,the other had white grilles and bumper rubbers as well as usually having thin white pinstriping over the front indicators and often headlights.It was this car which ran at Spa in '84 and the one driven by Clark/Sutherland at Silverstone in '84. I cannot believe they would go to the trouble of switching these items from car to car!! The BMW GB/CC cars had a different style of mirrors than the Sytner cars being probably standard road car items and these are the type clearly seen on the ''Scope/South African'' car from Silverstone '85which again confirms that the Sytner team did use one of those cars he acquired at the end of '84. In one of those strange quirks in life I am going to Sytners Nottingham dealership in the morning to pick up a new car and although he no longer owns the group I think he still maintains some contact with them.I know he will be at Silverstone over this weekend but I will try to get a contact number for him

[ian beckett]

My understanding of the car used in Nottingham on the advertising hoarding was that it was very accurate but nevertheless simply a replica!! What we could do with is contact with John Morton in NZ and Charlie O'Brien in OZ.Any ideas anyone in that neck of the woods?

[KA]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

One additional thing which may muddy the waters regarding the Sytner cars is that at one time (I think 1985 or 1986) there was a complete mock-up copy of his race car fixed to an advertising hoarding in Nottingham! It was very cleverly done with the white background cut-out around the car, and straight on, just looked like a complete poster, carrying the BMW writing on the background. Once you moved away from straight on however, you realised it was three dimensional! Obviously there's been lots of water flowing under many bridges since then, but I'm sure the car looked complete, with roll cage etc, and was stickered up exactly as his race car of the time. I wonder if this was based on the 'spare' shell that turned into Whizzo's production saloon? That would explain why they look so familiar.
Alternatively, apart from muddying the waters, it could just help clear them...
(Apologies as I think I did mention this advert much earlier on in this thread, but couldn't trawl through 300+ entries to find it!)

I'd forgotten about that! I grew up near Leicester, and remember seeing the Sytner hoarding in Nottingham- think there was a photo of it in Autosport, comparing it with a pic of the Juma/Bastos car that had finished up stuck in a trackside hoarding after a big off at one of the ETCC rounds in 84...

[KA]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

A couple of queries from me...1)why is chassis RA1/022 assumed to have come from BMW France? I have no mention of this in my notes and certainly it is not mentioned in the letter I had from Frank in which he outlines the histories of all the 635's he had.2) Where did the chassis numbers attributed to Sytners cars come from?

Hi Ian- I think the chassis numbers and the BMW France reference came earlier in the thread from the recent/current NZ owners of the cars- this is one of the posts, I'd have to search further back to find the other
http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...05#post1838505

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

A couple of queries from me...1)why is chassis RA1/022 assumed to have come from BMW France? I have no mention of this in my notes and certainly it is not mentioned in the letter I had from Frank in which he outlines the histories of all the 635's he had.2) Where did the chassis numbers attributed to Sytners cars come from?

ian, there's always the chance somebody may know about info you weren't able to establish?

I don't know if you've ever volunteered the detail of such letters. If not, know's the time to do so for the good of the cause!!

[ian beckett]

I have given all the information to the forum about the Sytner cars that I have with no cherry picking for effect.My query about the chassis numbers of his cars comes not from the fact that I know it all regarding the 635,(apologies to one and all if that is how it sounds!)but I would have thought that a letter written by the man himself within weeks of ending his career with the cars would have mentioned the BMW France connection.France had no Group A activity in '83, so where had the car been,what was it doing and why was it sold to Sytner?We are now discussing events which happened nearly 25 years ago and I always take supposedly cast iron facts with a pinch of salt.All the information I have given on this thread has come from either race reports or magazine articles of the day or letters from the teams/owners concerned,none from memory.To the best of my knowledge,Sytner had 5 cars pass through his hands,two built by Ted Grace and three coming from BMW GB/CC,none with a French connection.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

I have given all the information to the forum about the Sytner cars that I have with no cherry picking for effect.My query about the chassis numbers of his cars comes not from the fact that I know it all regarding the 635,(apologies to one and all if that is how it sounds!).

I doubt anyone thinks anything of the sort ian, you're input has been essential to this thread and I hope you can continue!!!

What I think I meant to say was with such a massive thread (as with the Vitesse one!!) it's difficult to correlate all the info and others/new members may come on to the thread and pick up from the last post without having been able to see the 'threads' developing re certain cars.

Or additional info (like me with the piccies earlier) might turn up that wasn't readily to hand when the thread started or until now?

In short they might have extra info that will help us out.

That reminds me, i've got a pic of a 'Bavaria Automobiles' 635 parked at the '84 TT which looks remarkably like the '85 Sytner car I posted earlier, well, except it's red!! But something looks familar about it. I'll scan it over weekend.

[KA]

Originally Posted by ian beckett

I have given all the information to the forum about the Sytner cars that I have with no cherry picking for effect.My query about the chassis numbers of his cars comes not from the fact that I know it all regarding the 635,(apologies to one and all if that is how it sounds!)but I would have thought that a letter written by the man himself within weeks of ending his career with the cars would have mentioned the BMW France connection.France had no Group A activity in '83, so where had the car been,what was it doing and why was it sold to Sytner?We are now discussing events which happened nearly 25 years ago and I always take supposedly cast iron facts with a pinch of salt.All the information I have given on this thread has come from either race reports or magazine articles of the day or letters from the teams/owners concerned,none from memory.To the best of my knowledge,Sytner had 5 cars pass through his hands,two built by Ted Grace and three coming from BMW GB/CC,none with a French connection.

Thanks Ian- I have to confess, I was getting thoroughly confused. When you asked about the chassis numbers and the BMW France reference, I knew it was on my list, but had no idea where it came from and had to search back through the whole thread to find it... As you said, we're discussing events of nearly 25 years ago, and the history is very difficult to piece together.
I'll edit out the BMW France references. Are the chassis numbers correct, or do I need to return the two Sytner cars to the chassis number unknown' part of the list??