Brabham B.T.35 David Morgan

[Bryan Miller]

This is my first time on this fabulous site , and with such a wealth of knowledge out there I am wondering if anybody can advise if David Morgan and/or Ed. Reeves are about??
Reason for asking is I own the B.T. 35 Dave used to win the 1st. rd. of the F2 Championships at Mallory Park in March 1972.
Also I obtained from L.A.T. photos from that meeting and have an Autosport with Ed Reeves in the car in 1971,but wondered if anybody has or knows of other photo's.
For interest sake the car was sold just after the Mallory Park meeting and came to Australia less engine and was fitted with a Ford twin cam but did not race again till 1976 and then only did 12 meetings and then went into storage untill I purchased it April 1999.
It will be out in Historic's in Oz in a few months in the exact same form in which it ran at Mallory .

[Roger H]

Hello Bryan,
Ed Reeves quit the racing scene after a string of engine failures in his BT38 F2, successor to your BT35 . If you contact me privately ( racers@btinternet.com )I can give you his 70's address in London, whether he's still there I can't tell. He was a Barrister (hence his involvement in the infamous Hunt/Morgan case) so the Law Society might help. By the way I still have the mould for the full width nose that was run on the Brabham, it was different to the factory Brabham one.

[Andrew Kitson]

This is the one - a famous victory by Dave to beat the works and graded F1 drivers of the day.
This is the front cover of Autosport. I have always kept this as I am in the crowd as a 13 year old with my Dad!

[Bryan Miller]

Andrew and Roger , thank you both , this photo and others from the same meeting are the one's I purchased from L.A.T.
The car was sold less engine a few weeks after this meeting after Reeves / Morgan had rec,d their slow in being delivered B.T.38 into which the 1800 B.D.E. was installed.
The car came to Australia for John and Chrystal Millard via one Alan Jones , rec,d a ford twink and did 12 races only ,and after 3 minor accidents Chrystal pulled the pin on her husbands motor racing carreer , the car was sold less engine and dismanteled and stored for 22 years and after 10 years of trying I finally managed to purchasethe car in 1999.

[Andrew Kitson]

I recall that Dave won that race because he had the best choice of tyres. It was a BITTERLY cold day! I can still remember my feet being like blocks of ice. Just look how we are all wrapped up despite the early spring sunshine.The other runners could not generate enough heat into their tyres.

[PaulSands]

Andrew...do you have any furniture in your house or is it just piles and piles and piles of old Autosport, Motoring News, Motor Sport and programmes?
You know it's only cos I'm soooooo jealous

I would've been at that meeting too

[Bryan Miller]

Andrew , yes reading the race reports it certainly appears to have been down to tyre choice , it appears that he fitted older spec. narrower tyres on 9,s and 12,s as opposed to everybody else on 10,s and 14,s. Doesn,t matter does it he won the day.

[Andrew Kitson]

I occasionally get a glimpse of some furniture under all the books etc! Well,I just have to keep/collect this reference material for my job. Thats my excuse anyway.I believe TimD has even more!

[PaulSands]

You should hermit yourself away and scan everyone page of every one so you can share them over the interweb thingy

[davemorganfan]

Dave undoubtedly had the right tyres on his car on that day, but it wasn't mere flash in the pan stuff. Don't forget he was driving an obsolete converted F3 car, and was up against the might of people such as Lauda and Peterson. He hadn't actually done much racing in 1971 and could be considered as being out of practice. When I saw his name on the entry list for Mallory, I honestly didn't think he had a prayer. Imagine my reaction when I found out he had won the race! He went on to achieve other good results that year, and in 1973, so it wasn't just a one-off flukey kind of drive. This man was my big hero at the time. I remember watching testing at Goodwood early in 1973; Dave was there with Ed Reeve's Chevron. So was a bloke called Hunt with the Hesketh Surtees F2. I felt no qualms about having a chat with Mr Hunt when the opportunity arose, but was too shy to speak to Dave Morgan! By the way, he had pie and chips for lunch in the Goodwood restaurant that day.

Ian Senior

[Bryan Miller]

davemorganfan,yes I became very interested in what else he achieved and interestingly I am involved slightly again with dave morgan as I also own the ex Bev Bond/Alan Jones 74b March which Alan used to win the support race at the British G.P. in 1974 who had a teammate who came 2nd. on the day in his Chevron B25 , both being run under Harry Stiller racing/Rob Walker /Custom Made. The teammate was of course Dave Walker.
Just a correction if I may ,my B.T.35 is not a converted F3 ,but one of the 3 Atlantic Brabhams built and was then re-engined with the 1800cc B.D.E. when their new B.T.38 was not delivered in time . They had the new car for the next round at Thruxton.

[Chris Townsend]

Bryan

I think that there may have been more than 3 BT35s built to run BDAs in Atlantic. There's 6 [Nick Cook] 8 [Yours] 9 [Nick Craw] but in the US alongside Craw there were also cars for Alan Lader, Michael Hall and Mike Hansen in 1971.

You have an enviable pair of cars. Anything else in the garage?

[Flagman]

It was a BITTERLY cold day! I can still remember my feet being like blocks of ice. Just look how we are all wrapped up despite the early spring sunshine

I can confirm the cold - I was a very novice fire/course marshal on Stebbe Straight - the wind was blowing across the lake towards us. Between races we all huddled together underneath the flag point to try to get out of the wind.

It was even colder at night - sleeping in the back of an A35 van.

I have never understood why it didn't point me off marshalling.

Thats all for now - the nurse is bringing round the medication...

[glyn parham]

Cold at Mallory!, that wasn't the word for it, although I was freezing before I even got to the track.
Reason was the mode of transport, a 250cc motor bike as pillion passenger to a similarly motor racing mad friend.
I think it took me a good couple of days to defrost from that one.
Wasn't this the day that Ronnie P tried to gain unauthorised entry into the spectator area as a result of big accident.
Another memory comes to mind, was David Morgan also to be found driving a Group 2 Mini Cooper S in 1971/2/3 as well or was that another driver of the same name? davidmorganfan can surely answer that one.

[Andrew Kitson]

That was a year earlier in '71 when Ronnie went off at the esses. I was standing only a few feet from where his car landed against the spectator fence.A different Dave Morgan I think. But yes, perhaps davemorganfan can put us straight.

[Ted Walker]

Bryan. I have that race covered by 3 or 4 photographers in my archive send me an e mail on www.ferret1.co.uk

[DaveM]

Glyn...

Don't know if it's the same Dave Morgan but here is one of them in a mini at Oulton in 67. I've posted it before on one of the threads. (But have had to rename it to get it past the Anti-Duplicate Post Police)

[DaveM]

And to back up what Andrew says about where Ronnie P finished up at Mallory...

[DaveM]

He was lucky, and wasn't the only one.

[glyn parham]

Ooops. Memory is definitely playing tricks re Ronnie P's big one at Mallory, 1971 was the year of the epic bike ride and frozen assets, for 1972 we decided not to bother as no one had a car able to travel so far north with guaranteed reliability and another dose of frostbite was nott wanted. Andrew K, you must have been thinking about changing underwear after being so close to that one, we were approximately one hundred yards further on.
Dave M, thanks for the reminder of the other Dave Morgan, looks as if he used a similar style to John Rhodes if it is a different one.

[Bryan Miller]

Thank you to all for assisting , anybody know anything about the 3 U.S.A. cars of Alan Lader , Michael Hall , Mike Hansen. Where they are now. To Ted Walker will contact re. other photo,s of Mallory Park thanks.

[davemorganfan]

As far as I know (and my memory is not what it used to be) THE Dave Morgan started his racing career in Minis in the late 60s, so I guess that is a picture of him at work. Almost everyone started in Minis in those days, now they race karts as soon as they leave the womb. I've never heard of an alternative Morgan in Gp 2 saloons in the early 70s, so clearly some research is needed here.

[glyn parham]

davidmorganfan, I will look through my old race programmes and try to work out whether this is the same Dave Morgan. The Mini I'm thinking of was white, helps a lot doesn't it!

[JP]

Don't know if this really helps, but David Morgan's Cooper S was entered in the Group 2 race at Crystal Palace in '71. The same day the "other" Dave Morgan was running in Formula Atlantic at Snetterton. Unfortunately my programme shows the Mini was a non-starter (can't recall whether it practiced) and Autosport shows Dave Morgan's March as retiring after practice at Snetterton, having won at Brands the previous day. I'd always assumed there was no connection between the two - it's not exactly an uncommon name.

[JMillard]

Bryan - you seem to have most of the history correct - how on earth did you manage to pry it from Lupton's grasp?