Thunder Saloon

[EUROCARS]

Many years ago I remeber going to Brands for a Thunder Saloon Race.

The car i'm looking for was sponsored by KoalandGaz, thats probably the complate wrong spelling.

Does anyone have any information on who the driver was or any pictures which would be fantastic.

[MiniMadness]

What car was this ?

[EUROCARS]

lol sorry, that would really help.

Sierra Cosworth I belive.

[EUROCARS]

Just looked up the correct spelling of the sponsor

Kohlangaz, Fire place Manafacturer

[MiniMadness]

Was this a Black Sierra with Red and Yellow flames ? If it was then I think the driver was Rob Cox.

Might even have been the ex Rod Birley Sierra.

[Tim Wilkinson]

Was that Black Thunder? Think it was the shell Rod had the Porsche engine in. Also believe it was running in Northern Saloons until recently - it might still be there, or it was recently sold on ebay.

[R59]

That was Black Thunder indeed.

And sadly, it is no longer in once piece. It has become part of many cars.

Bring back Thundersaloons I say. But then, I'm biassed (owning one)

[Tim Wilkinson]

When was the last season of ThunderSaloons? Were Stars and Stripes and the Carlton running 'til the end?

I only ever saw one race - a round at brands in either '92 or '93, but I can't remember which. Had 2 races rather than the 1 race and pitstop. Would love to find the programme so I can remind myself of what I saw. Are there any season review (or other) videos out there?

[jonbryant]

Teej,

The only one I can find after an initial search. Not sure on quality etc but hey ho,

http://www.vfsvideos.co.uk/thunder.htm

JB

[big andy]

heres whats left of it http://www.motorpix.co.uk/images78/op-10.jpg

[R59]

I was under the hallucination that Mr Blomfields "Sierra" was actually a spaceframe, clad in panels of the plastic variety - though the shell that was used to take the original moulds was supposed to be "Black Thunder".

This "Sierra" is mid-engined, running a Chevy smallblock.

On the subject of what was racing at the end... Rod Birley would probably give the best answers, as he was racing in it. Stars & Stripes disappeared sometime before the end of the series, but Pete Stevens ran the Carlton to the end, if I remember correctly.

And two races - yes, that was the BRSCC's "let's make it better" idea. By then, costs were spiralling, cars were getting more and more technical, and they were trying to attract Super Touring cars into "Class C".

Rob.

[Al Weyman]

[

This "Sierra" is mid-engined, running a Chevy smallblock

And people on this forum ask why Thundersaloons died, I think it is all in that one liner Rob! The whole thing got out of hand, full stop.

One very simple rule they could have introduced was lets have the engine/gearbox in the same half of the car as the original and the use of a production body shell.

Hey have I just laid the the basis of a revival like the old days of stuffing small blocks into the front of a Mk 1 Escort or a 4.2 Jag engine in an Anglia and even a small block in the back of a VW. I know we have been there before but they were great days.

[Tim Wilkinson]

Al, I think one of the very few regs of Thundersaloons was that the engine had to stay in roughly the same place, and had to stay steel-shelled, which would rule out that spaceframe Sierra being an ex-thundersaloonie on both counts.

T&R Class A seems a decent place for these cars to be running, and for any new ones to appear - as T&R split classes depending on the number of runners there's the oppurtunity for races full of them if there's enough entries - then maybe any new series can grow from there? I think a full-blown new series would put off some people purely for money reasons, and it getting too technical, but if you could aim it at lower levels, like those people with XE'd Mantas, 205 Mi16s etc - not strictly legal in any other series but very easy to get hold of and run. It's not the same as the old Thundersaloons, true, but might give a solid background to build on?

Now we just need someone to buy the yellow Starlet and the Starlet shell that's been floating around, and get Rod, Pete Thurston, the Vauxhall Taxi and the V8 Focus out together.....

[Al Weyman]

So Teej what was the Championship that allowed plastic bodies to be plonked on to redundant F5000 chassis? I thought that was Thundersaloons and sponsored for years by Wendy Wools I think. I really where the rot set in with cars like that mid engined Skoda thing that used to win everything, say if he was on the same race card as you you may as well cancel your entry cause you wer'nt gonna win, Now if they had made the Skoda fit the engine behind the gearbox as per the original car the thing would not have been so dominant!

[Tim Wilkinson]

Special Saloons, Al. I think that the only rule in that was vague engine location, hence the preference for Skodas as they could use the single seater chassis with a spaceframe. I think that was more popular through the 70s - early 80s, tho as I remember some stupidly fast Skodas, a Reliant Kitten (Ginger Marshall) and a Triumph Herald somewhere between 1989 and '93 it was still going in one form or another for quite a while. I think the field was quite a decent size, too, but i've misplaced the old programmes so can't check. Some of the cars still run in the K&N Saloons, I think, tho wrong end of the country for me unless they're on at a CTCRC meeting.

Tim

[Al Weyman]

Right thanks for clearing that up Tim.

[Alan Cherry]

Wasn't the original series supersaloons ? Big Bertha, Baby bertha, Daf V8, Colin Hawkers cosworth DFV powered VW fastback, Jonathan Buncombes Chevron Imp (chimp) and I seem to remember a vauxhall Viva with a twin turbo Aston Martin engine, 8track stereo under the seat, and number plates - belonged to a John Pope I believe. Will always remember the start of one of these races at Brands sitting in the startline grandstand 20 + v8's all revving their whatsits off waiting for the flag to drop, and the grandstand seemed to be jumping 3 ft out of the ground - those were the days. ......................
(mumblings of stop rambling you senile old git) well I'm off to change my bag now !

[Al Weyman]

Well apart from the ones like the Chevron Imp and the DFV VW which were probable of the plastic body on Formula car mould i would go along with that. Maybe a revival based on the original formula before it got silly would be a good idea, could be called Historic Thundersaloons or Historic Special Saloons if you like, oh and don't allow 4 wheel drive or Turbos.

[big andy]

Mr Blomfields put the engine in the back in 2003 in a attempt to beat my friend tony sugden (skoda 130 rs) up till then it was front engined .the shell is mostly f/g now with only the very front section of the roof and the windscreen surround left off "black thunder.

any one with a special ,thunder ,super,mod,saloon or modsports car may be interested to now that the ddmc are going to be runing a specialsaloon ,modsport championship next year with three class uptp 1400cc 1400cc to 2000cc and over there will be prize money as well

[Al Weyman]

Andy I have watched Tony race a few times over the years and do you not think it was the total dominance of missles like his that may have spoiled these type of saloon formula and in this I mean Super Saloons, Thunder Saloons and Formula Saloons, all of which seem to have a lot of people hankering for a return but I doubt it will happen unless total dominant cars are reeled in.

I remember watching once at Oulton and I swear he lapped the field, not good for spectators and although a competitor I do like to try to watch as well, and can't be much fun for the driver either, I mean the idea is to have a race and have good dices not annialation surely unless your only goal is amassing trophies which I am sure it is not in this case. Then you have this other fellow mounting a small block chevy engine midship in a Seirra to try to compete!

While not trying to distract from the drivers skills and the mechanical excellence of the machine is this the sort of thing that took the sport down I wonder. I have played around with a few homebuilt oddballs in the past and may have concidered building a car for a Super/Thunder Saloon type championship and do indeed have a Mk 3 Camaro that I could enter but I would take one look at the dominace of that type of machine and would not bother entertaining the idea further and I wonder how many others have done the same. Maybe the organisers are the real problem and should take steps to equalise cars more with weight penalties or whatever once one is seen to be so dominant.

[R59]

Superloons (as they became known) were more modified than Thundersaloons in some ways, but not in others.

There's a website somewhere, with lots and lots of them. A link is on one of these threads somewhere.

The only trouble with the old Thundersaloons was that money started to go mad, and the cars got pretty well crazy.

The Belmont would have set me back 87500 if I'd bought it as a rolling shell back in 1990/1991. Add to that 25-30K's worth of running gear.....

And that was cheap.

Rob

[Paul Mac]

Yes but we used to race for £10,000 per race and alot of people did not know that!

[Alan Cherry]

At the time I bought the Astra, The gent who sold it to me owned the ex Tony Hazlewood DAF V8, but I think he said it would have cost him too much to rebuild-don't know if he still has it, but could probably find out.

[R59]

Paul,

Have you still got your Peugeot?

As you say, the prize fund was large, when Auto Express sponsored the series.

And Alan, the DAF - I'd love to see it rebuilt.

Rob.

[big andy]

10 grand a race?that was a lot of money in 1990