Ensign LNF3

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Allen
I believe that Wilds's 1972 car was LN8. I have a programme from 1973 annotated with chassis numbers by AF which gives this. The car debuted at Cadwell 16.7.72
Including Littler's LN7 I can find 6 cars that debut before this in the 1972 F3 run: Gambs; Tyrrell; the two works cars of Walker and von Opel; Vandervell and Littler. If the works team had a spare car - not unlikely - that works ok.
Debuting immediately after [23.7 and 31.7] are the cars of Brendan McInerney and Cavan Riley.
The only other Ensign chassis numbers I can trace are LN17 and LN20 the Team Modus cars in 1973, one of which goes to Ivor Goodwin in 1974.

What might complicate the Wilds situation is that in 1973 he may well have had a new car and kept LN8 as a spare. Press reports say he is getting a new car early in the season, and then there is a piece in A/S by Ian Phillips bemoaning the rising cost of F3 and commenting on people like Wilds who can afford to run a spare car.
This suggests to me that the David Franklin, ex Wilds, Ensign in hillclimbs in 1974 might not be LN8. [Though as Wilds is running LN8 late in 73, given the date of this programme, it begs the question as to what became of the newer car]

Chris

Wilds started 1973 with an Ensign - possibly a new chassis? He had a big shunt at Monaco however he was again in an Ensign for the July Paul Ricard French GP support race. Just two weeks later at the British Grand Prix and Wilds was in a March 733.

If Dempster had a new chassis for 1973 (i.e. not LN8) then it was this chassis that bit the dust at Monaco. He may then have raced the 1972 chassis at Paul Ricard and as he was way off the pace may well have gone for a MARCH as they were definately the chassis to have in 1973.

So as far as Fyrth's car is concerned it could well be the 1972 chassis whilst I believe the badly damaged 1973 chassis ended up with John Page in Bristol.

[fyrth]

Chris and Steve

That is all very interesting. Whilst knowing John used to have an Ensign I did not realise the connection might be so close. He lives quite close to me in Bristol so I will endeavour to get in touch. If you have his telephone number Steve, please could you email to me?

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by fyrth

Chris and Steve

That is all very interesting. Whilst knowing John used to have an Ensign I did not realise the connection might be so close. He lives quite close to me in Bristol so I will endeavour to get in touch. If you have his telephone number Steve, please could you email to me?

Sorry Fyrth, don't have a phone number for John. I did have an email address but it went WEST when my PC collapsed earlier this year! I spotted some posts on this site by John's son and that is how I made contact.

All John could tell me was that the car was ex-Dempster/Wilds and that it had been HEAVILY shunted. He had no record of the CHASSIS NUMBER.

[fyrth]

Having talked to John Page, the story unfolds. According to him the new 1973 Dempster/Wilds chassis was mangled at Monaco, eventually going to Arch Motors, virtually a new chassis eventually appearing. This bare chassis found its way to the Morris Brothers in Hereford as a spare - they were runnng the ex-Tyrell car on the hills with an FVA (?).

At this time John was sprinting an Ensign, history unknown, with a tatty chassis. Bill Morris passed this spare chassis to him and he rebuilt his car on this 'as new' chassis, the old one scrapped. John sold this car in the 80's and the new owner won the Classic F3 title in 1990? John now runs a Reynard mainly in French speed events.

So Steve, this confirms your suggestions and it might therefore appear that mine is the original 1972 chassis. As an aside, the number was stamped very faintly on a rail right at the front of the car. I will now look again although I am sure it is not visible, if for no other reason than the chassis had a lovely powder coat finish during a Ray Rowan rebuild in the 90's, and I'm not inclined to scrape that off just yet!

[fyrth]

Moving on to Ensign F3 in 1972 can some kind soul suggest from whom Ken Mackintosh bought his Ensign, Thompson or Purley? I seem to have too much time on my hands and too many Autosports, although it is now on excel for posterity!

[Jeremy Jackson]

Mackintosh's was the ex Steve Thompson chassis

[fyrth]

Jeremy

Thank you! Where did that go at the end of 1972? And where did the David Purleys 1971 F3 Ensign move to in 1972? I'm sure the answer is out there somewhere!

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

Allen
I believe that Wilds's 1972 car was LN8. I have a programme from 1973 annotated with chassis numbers by AF which gives this. The car debuted at Cadwell 16.7.72
Including Littler's LN7 I can find 6 cars that debut before this in the 1972 F3 run: Gambs; Tyrrell; the two works cars of Walker and von Opel; Vandervell and Littler. If the works team had a spare car - not unlikely - that works ok.
Debuting immediately after [23.7 and 31.7] are the cars of Brendan McInerney and Cavan Riley.
The only other Ensign chassis numbers I can trace are LN17 and LN20 the Team Modus cars in 1973, one of which goes to Ivor Goodwin in 1974...

Hi Chris

I don't know how many Ensign's were built in 1973 but Gerald's site only mentions 10 drivers. So if you have note of chassis LN17 and LN20 in 1973, that implies the cars were numbered continuously through the 1971 range to the 1973 cars. If that's right, those five cars mentioned at the end of 1971 are effectively LN1 to LN5 with Littler's car being just two cars later and thus LN8 is a quite early 1972 car. If there were, as a rough estimate, 10 1972 cars, I'd expect to see the 1973 cars then starting at about LN14 or LN15.

Mo's F1 cars also numbered continuously.

Allen

[Chris Townsend]

Allen
These are my notes on Ensigns. I haven't made much of an effort with these as there were only a few in Atlantic

LN1 1971 Howlings Racing: Bev Bond 1972 Ken Sedgley 1973 Richard Parsons [Smiths] 1978 Hugh Price [F4] AS 7.9.78 p. 67 'the first Ensign ever made'
LN2 1971 Brinton Engineering: Steve Thompson 1972 Ken Mackintosh 1973 Rölf Wunderink [MN 8.2.73]
LN3 1971 David Purley 1972 David Purley [early season]
LN7 Not known before 1985 with Vegantune t.c but clearly car with 1971/2 front suspension

LNF3 [1972 production] 1972 LN2 chassis number noted AF Jeremy Gambs
Mike Tyrrell
works spare?
Iberia: Mike Walker An Iberia car to Ole Vejlund [MN 8.2.73]
Iberia: Ricky von Opel
Colin Vandervell
LN7 John Littler
LN8 Mike Wilds [new 16.7 Cadwell] 1973 Mike Wilds [spare]
Cavan Riley [new Thruxton 31.7]
Brendan McInerney [23.7 Brands] 1973 Frank Scurria [USA]
Stan Matthews [new Thruxton 27.8]
Brian Henton 1978: David Ward [FL] AS 23.2.78 p. 65
1973 production
Mike Wilds
March delivery Carlo Giorgio
March devlivery Roberto Marazzi
LN17 Modus: Mo Harness Ivor Goodwin [or LN20]
LN20 Team Modus: Spare

[Steve Wilkinson]

Following the Wilds Ensign problem I had an electronic exchange of messages with Fyrth and when asked John Page, who had the rebuilt 1973 Ensign, said his old car had won the Classic F3 Championship in 1990. Fyrth checked on their website and came up with Peter Gilham.

So the question is what is the chassis number of the car Peter Gilham drove?

[allenbrown]

Originally Posted by Chris Townsend

LNF3 [1972 production] 1972 LN2 chassis number noted AF Jeremy Gambs

At which point my theory lies down and dies. Probably...

[Chris Townsend]

Sorry Allen, based on AF's note on Gambs's car it does look as though the 1971 production is numbered separately from 72-73. [Based on numbers of drivers in
73 with Ensigns I can't see that series starting at LN1].
And where do the Atlantics and the F2 fit into all this?

Chris

[fyrth]

Interested when and which Ensign F3's Ginn, Evans, Greenwood and Trimmer drove in 1972?

[RTH]

Top picture was my Ensign I owned it from 1983 to 1985 bought it in Liverpool and sold it to Paris

http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/1599/brg3ii.jpg

[fyrth]

Richard

Thank you for that pic. May I ask a question - is the strut into which the rear wing is mounted bolted directly to the rear of the gearbox? Did you drive the car much, and what were your impressions?

[RTH]

Yes it was, that's very well spotted as that was the non-original part of the car.

You will remember the original was 2 rear wings located either side of the high engine cover.

Although I had the car for 2 years other pressures meant I only did 3 races in it , in one it dropped a valve in one it had chronic fuel surge in fast corners and some very old tyres so I didn't really give the project enough time to get the best out of it . It had good suspension geometry with its very wide based wishbones and was low drag through the air compared with other cars of the time. No question they were a competitive car in their hayday.

[Steve Wilkinson]

David Franklin in the ex-Wilds Ensign that Fyrth Crosse now owns.

[Steve Wilkinson]

Originally Posted by fyrth

Having talked to John Page, the story unfolds. According to him the new 1973 Dempster/Wilds chassis was mangled at Monaco, eventually going to Arch Motors, virtually a new chassis eventually appearing. This bare chassis found its way to the Morris Brothers in Hereford as a spare - they were runnng the ex-Tyrell car on the hills with an FVA (?).

Above: Bill Morris campaigning his Ensign at Prescott in 1974

[fyrth]

Out of interest here is the Wilds/Franklin LNF3 as it appears today on the hills with original rear bodywork and wing. The oil tank is modern as the old tank beneath the seat is now a fuel tank, the bag tanks removed.

http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/...crosse%203.jpg

[Derek Lees]

His name was actually Bernard Lewis and he lived in Sutton Coldfield. He went into partnership with Mo to run the Lewis-Nunn F3 racing team. This later consisted of The Lotus 41 for Mo Nunn and his old Lotus 22 which was driven by Bernard Lewis's son.
I am Mo Nunns ex brother in-law and spent many hours working in his garage on his F3 cars from the age of 14, eventually working fulltime building the Ensign F3, F2 and Atlantic cars, finishing off building the F1 cars before getting out of racing in 1975.

[allenbrown]

Welcome Derek

Do you have any idea who might have any records of the cars Ensign built before getting into F1? There seem to have been at least a couple of dozen of them and it would be a huge help if we could uncover any records of original customers.

Allen

[Derek Lees]

Originally Posted by allenbrown

Welcome Derek

Do you have any idea who might have any records of the cars Ensign built before getting into F1? There seem to have been at least a couple of dozen of them and it would be a huge help if we could uncover any records of original customers.

Allen

Allen,
All of the chassis records and owners were recorded in a book held by Mo Nunn at the factory where we used to build the cars. Unfortunately don't know what happened to this after I left the team. Can't remember the chassis numbers myself.
There were 3 Iberia works cars in use, one race car each for Mike Walker (Mechanic - Simon Arkless) and Rikki von Opel (Mechanic - me) and a test development car (Mechanic - Brian Day) used by Rikki. The test car was used for 1 race after Rikki badly crashed his race car.
If my memory serves me well, I think the 2 Modus cars were the last F3 cars we built, before we concentrated on the the F1 project.
Looking at the chassis number data you have so far, reminded me of a funny thing that happened when the American Mike Tyrell came to pick up his car. We opened the door and there stood this "Man Mountain", about 6' 3" and 16 stone and caused an immediate panick in how we were going to fit him in a car. After a few days mods we finally managed it. Sadly, he was later killed in a road crash in the States.

Derek

[fyrth]

Derek

How good that you have become involved with this thread. Please can I ask a couple of questions if you can remember?
1. What changes were made to the chassis as the cars were deveoped - I have the impression it was just the slight lowering the chassis mount of the front rear radius arm?
2. Was the chassis rail beneath the o/s engine mount always removable?
3. Were the chassis all numbered, and where?

I continue to enjoy the Mike Wilds car, its refreshed twin cam to be collected this weekend!

[Derek Lees]

Originally Posted by fyrth

Derek

How good that you have become involved with this thread. Please can I ask a couple of questions if you can remember?
1. What changes were made to the chassis as the cars were deveoped - I have the impression it was just the slight lowering the chassis mount of the front rear radius arm?
2. Was the chassis rail beneath the o/s engine mount always removable?
3. Were the chassis all numbered, and where?

I continue to enjoy the Mike Wilds car, its refreshed twin cam to be collected this weekend!

The nose cone underbody panel was dispensed with during 1972.

The removable o/s chassis rail was introduced during 1972 I think, to reduce time when changing engines, which we did quite frequently.

The chassis numbers were letter stamped onto the the rear LH side of chassis frame at the rear of the cockpit chassis cross member in front of the engine section, if I remember correctly.

I seem to remember the top link on the rear of the front suspension was moved slighlty to change the anti-dive characteristics.

As a basic suspension set-up, cambers were 1/4 degrees negative and toe-in 1/16" front and rear. Minor adjustment was then made according to tyre temperatures at each track. I think castor was set around 3-4 degrees.
Ride height was 2 1/2" front and 2 3/4" rear.

Two sizes of front wings were used depending on the downforce required. The small wings were 1/2 the length of the full wings.

The Iberia works cars were fitted with Bilstein gas shocks in 1972, rather than the Armstrong adjustable standard units supplied to customer cars, a definate improvement in handling. They also had special machined wheels with reduced thickness to reduce unsprung weight.

In normal race condition the works cars were below the minimum weight and required lead ballast to be added.

The Mike Wilds chassis that I think you have would be using a replaced chassis frame still using the original chassis no., built by Arch Motors. Mike's car was one of the most crashed of all the Ensign F3 cars. The car was prepared by mechanic Colin Bennet.

I hope this information helps you, as the memory is going these days.

If I can help you any further please contact me.

Good luck with your racing.

Regards,
Derek

[fyrth]

Derek

Thank you, interesting and useful, particularly the chassis setup not 1000 miles from what it is now. History suggests that the cars has been well used and broken on occasions, not least when later owner Kevitt Payne had a serious at Werrington Hill Climb near Launceston and removed all the corners, happily walking away. The car was there this year without harm but someone else managed this at the same spot, car damage but minimal personal damage thankfully.

I had the impression that several cars were sold with a spare bare chassis, would that be correct? And were the wheels normally supplied as OE from Astralli, just down the road from you? Did Bernard Lewis have local business interests in Walsall - Brineton Engineering comes to mind, who are of couse still trading engineering Bugatti parts amongst other things.

Please excuse the further questions, all helping to build a picture and will be duly logged with the cars's history.