Brabham: The Grand Prix Cars

by Alan Henry

WHEN Jack Brabham left Cooper at the in of the 1961 season the practical down to earth Australian had in mind to start his Grand Prix team In 1966 Jack made history by becoming the first man ever to a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0905138368
• ISBN13: 9780905138367
• Release Date: January 1985
• Publisher: Hazleton
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.86 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent detailed look at the Brabham team

Brabham- The Grand Prix Cars is from the Hazelton series of formula one marque books that they put out from the mid to late 80's. It is also one of Alan Henry's better works, much better than the more recent team and driver biographies which tend to be very superficial. With a foreword by former Brabham driver John Watson, the book is divided into 2 sections. Section one covers the Jack Brabham years in 3 chapters from the teams formation in 1962 through to the transition phase which began in 1970, as Black Jack was beginning to wind down his Grand Prix activities. Naturally there is a chapter devoted to the Brabham Repco years. Section 2 covers the Ecclestone era in 5 chapters, beginning with the brief period that Ron Tuaranac spent in charge before Bernie Ecclestone took over, up to the Brabham BMW years with Nelson Piquet as the number one. Photographs are scattered throughout the text, including a couple of interesting ones of Gordon Murray's racing days, before he became the reknown F1 designer for Brabham and McLaren. There are two sections of full colour images in addition to the black and white images. I note that there is an errata notice on the inside back cover, which displays a photograph omitted from page 226, which has an incorrect photograph - I don't know if this is true for all copies of this book. There is also a small appendix for all the Grand Prix results for Brabham cars, including the privateers. This appendix lists the results up to and including 1984. The writing is much more substanial than Henry's later efforts, and he has interviewed a number of key former or current (at the time) Brabham personnell. A number of interesting issues are discussed - the Repco developments, the Alfa era, the trick hydro-pneumatic suspension and the brief introduction of fuelling midrace to mention just a few. Brabham: The Grand Prix cars is highly recommended for those more interested in the golden age of Grand Prix racing, when Bernie was just a mere team owner rather the kingpin he is today. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately some may say) the book hasn't been updated to take into account the sad demise of this once great Formula One racing team.