Freddi Owen Special

[mike.jag66]

ANY info re this car.. It is in Phill Porter Book of Jags. Have been told it was featured in Classic Car.Or. Clsssic & Sports Car 87-88-89.????.
Also any old photos info from when it was raced Late 50s.. Mike

[mike.jag66]

PLEASE help any info re this car..i am now the owner.. It is in Phill Porter Book of Jags. Have been told it was featured in Classic Car.Or. Clsssic & Sports Car 87-88-89.????.
Also any old photos info from when it was raced Late 50s early 60.We think it was raced against D.types early light wait Es..etc.. Mike[/quote]

[Vitesse]

Whoah! Slow down there .....

Patience is a virtue oft rewarded here. And bear in mind a lot of people are on holiday right now ....

50s-60s Jags aren't really my thing, but I've had a quick look through the index for C&SC for the years you mentioned and there's nothing obvious in terms of a feature article. That's not to say there's not a news item about it, but certainly nothing major listed under Jaguar, Owen or Freddie Owen Special.

[Ted Walker]

Is this the XK based car or the special bodied E Type ?????

[Marcus Mussa]

Is this a big pale blue single seater with Jag engine up front? If so I do know a bit about it. Built by Rivers Fletcher when he worked at BRM on the basis of an ex-works XK120 roadster, chassis 661078, and hillclimbed by him in the 60's. The car belonged to Roland Urban in the 80's and I tested it once in about 1982. It is in his book "Les Metamorphoses du Jaguar" (under Rivers Fletcher). The Owen name either comes from BRM or from the man who built the body, F.E. Owen. The body was copied from the 2.5 litre BRM. It was still fitted with its original XK120 engine in 1982.

[mike.jag66]

Yes.. Ted... (Special Bodied E.)
The car is like a smaller 2+2 E type . Full tube + E Type
chasis. Full aloy body XK 3.4 engion ....
He built 2 the other one is racing but is mainly a XK.with a similer body but(bigger)..
This one(mine) is featured in Phillip Porters Book .. Chapter 14.

Best Mike..

Thanks Marcus. But not that one. Please keep trying..

[a35pickup]

Hello,

I found this site via Google because I was looking for info on this car - the Owen Special - myself. But that is because I have just seen it and photographed it in the collection of a danish collector and racer.
So this is my first entry on this site and I do not know how to enclose a picture.
Nevertheless, as someone wrote earlier, the car is blue. It is a huge cigarshaped racer based on Jaguar running gear and chassis.
Rivers Fletcher used it for hill-climbs.
On the nose is a plaque/sign with the words "Owen Special".
The danish collector has had it since the mid-90's and used it for hillclimb and race in Denmark.
He is interested to find out whether it has any TRACK-racing history in its earlier years? Thus making it eligble for classic race meetings.
Hope this is read by the people who wrote on this thread, since the last activity is some months ago??

[Vitesse]

Originally Posted by Marcus Mussa

Is this a big pale blue single seater with Jag engine up front? If so I do know a bit about it. Built by Rivers Fletcher when he worked at BRM on the basis of an ex-works XK120 roadster, chassis 661078, and hillclimbed by him in the 60's. The car belonged to Roland Urban in the 80's and I tested it once in about 1982. It is in his book "Les Metamorphoses du Jaguar" (under Rivers Fletcher). The Owen name either comes from BRM or from the man who built the body, F.E. Owen. The body was copied from the 2.5 litre BRM. It was still fitted with its original XK120 engine in 1982.

That doesn't tie in with Rivers' account in "More Motor Racing". According to that, the chassis was originally Tony Gaze's F2 HWM. Gaze had fitted a blown 2.5 Alta for hillclimbing but found he didn't like that branch of the sport. Rivers bought the car and sold the engine on to Frank Norris, replacing it with a 3.5 Jaguar motor which he bought from Stirling Moss.

The mechanical work was done by Leslie Ballamy and the BRM-esque body by Freddie Owen. Rivers crashed badly at Prescott, incurring serious head injuries which put him in hospital for several weeks and left him in a state of mental confusion for some months afterwards.

The car was repaired and Rivers returned to the hills but "my doctor would not give me a certificate for racing on circuits." Not sure when all this occurred, but it's either late 1960 or early 1961.

In July 1962 Rivers seems to have had some sort of mental breakdown, brought on by those injuries.

There was also a later single-seater Jaguar, but this was built by Bill Moss. Much more ungainly, with a rather bulbous bonnet featuring two power bulges.

[jamesholland]

I think you are getting slightly confused. The HWM remained exactly that, save for the Jaguar motor and was later campaigned by the Majors Chichester and Lampton, the former the owner of Wiscombe Park. After a brief period reunited with an Alta engine it passed to Kirk Rylands who reinstalled the Jaguar engine and campaigned it for many years. The car is now with Adrian Van der Kroft.

The BRM P25 look alike was the later car and was built after Rivers' bad accident. He was an employee of Alfred Owen at the time and I assume the car was intended to be a tribute to BRM.