Форум истории автоспорта > История
"Коннот" (Connaught)
Кристобаль Хунта:
Хочу вот спросить одну вещь: я вот болельщик ирландской команды Джордан, и как большой любитель этой страны пытаюсь доказать ирландские корни команды Connaught (Коннахт). Никому не попадались намёки на её происхождение?
Спасибо.
Владимир Коваленко:
Зачем же доказывать что-то конкретное? Достаточно попытаться найти правду. Автомобили "Коннот" строились недалеко от Лондона. Основатель фирмы "Континентал отомобайлз" Родни Кларк (Rodney Clarke), может, и был ирландцем, но, в частности, Даг Най об этом ничего не пишет.
Алексей Рогачев:
--- Цитата: Кристобаль Хунта ---...команды Connaught (Коннахт).
--- Конец цитаты ---
Кристобаль Хозевич, мне кажется, что читается все-таки "Коннот" Sourceress38698,9744791667
Кристобаль Хунта:
Все дело в том что в одних источниках название фирмы Continental Cars Ltd Connaught, в других Connaught Engineering, а Континентал Отомобайлз это лишь предположение. В этом случае название писалось бы Conaut. А куда же делись лишние буквы?
Connaught (Коннахт)-местность в Ирландии (ну типа как у нас Сибирь или в Германии Бавария). Так вот дело в том что другой основатель фирмы Kennet MacAlpine. Вы заметили что его фамилия пишется через Mac? Mac по ирландски сын, а Alpine происходит от искаженного ирландского слова Alba, Albina, и т.д. Все это Шотландия. Получается что его фамилия - сын шотландца. Имя Кеннет тоже кельтское, а не английское.
Теперь перехожу к Кларку. Как известно, Джим Кларк шотландец, но все дело в том что фамилия начинающаяся на Cl явно свидетельствует о её кельтском (читай ирландском) происхождении. Она вполне могла быть и MacClarky, просто по причинам, которые рассказывать долго утерять артикль.
Надо просто найти биографии этих двух людей и отыскать их ирландские корни. А то англичане уже присвоили команду себе.
Джордан кстати тоже базируется в Сильверстоуне, но от этого она не стала менее ирландской. А Тойота если не ошибаюсь базировалась в Кёльне в Германии. Вот из-за такой путаницы и возникают ошибки.
А в Формуле 1 была ещё одна команда с ирландским названием: Shannon - это река в Ирландии. Типа нашей Волги. Но история Шэннона-дело совсем тёмное.
Ладно, не буду больше грузить, а то вы подумаете: "Вот зануда ирландский"
Владимир Коваленко:
Приставка "мак-" характерна для шотландских фамилий.
У тебя есть перевод ирландского названия "Connaught" в справочнике или атласе, а также достоверное утверждение, что именно в честь этой местности получили своё название обсуждаемые автомобили?
Вот полный текст статьи про "Коннот" из книги Дага Най "История автомобилей гран-при 1945-1965".
Connaught
1950-53 Formula 2 and 1954-57 Formula 1 cars
Drive from London out along the A3 south-west towards Guildford in Surrey and just short of the cathedral city you pass the villages of Ripley and Send. On the outskirts of the latter the old arterial road passed a large garage business on the left, which in the late 1940s became famous as Continental Automobiles Ltd, home of the Connaught racing cars. This chronically under-financed British team was one of wonderful achievement, the creation of Rodney Clarke who, in his unsung manner, proved himself a genuinely outstanding design engineer.
Clarke's Connaught cars were exquisitely well made, but while he always approached the problems of competition car design in a formal, carefully calculated and well-thought-out manner, this was something with which the more instinctive enthusiast constructors such as the Coopers, or John Heath of HWM - Clarke's one-time fellow student at the Chelsea College of Automobile and Aircraft Engineering - would never trouble themselves. While they cut and shut and generally mended and made do, often with heavy reliance upon scrap or war-surplus parts, Rodney Clarke's approach was far more mainstream, perfectionist - and his company built 'proper' production-style motor cars which would last for decades.
This made them slow to appear, slow to develop and somewhat heavy, and they were always beset by the perennial problem of all pre-1957 British racing cars, which was that of ever finding an engine of adequate power output. Con-naught cars never had the horsepower to match their undoubtedly high-quality characteristics of handling, braking and cornering power. While they did so many things very well, they were never quite capable of simply going fast enough to combat the best the Continental opposition could throw at them . . .
During his design career in charge of Connaught, Rodney Clarke conceived a rear-engined GT car as early as 1950, a rear-engined monocoque Formula 1 car as early as 1955, plus such systems as anti-lock braking and self-levelling suspension, yet not one of these innovatory designs ever reached the startline.
Clarke had served as a regular-officer pilot in the RAF until sinus problems invalided him out in the middle of the war. He established Continental Cars Ltd beside the A3 at Send in 1943 and immediately post-war it became a mecca for enthusiasts looking for Bugattis in particular, or Alfas and almost any other high-performance cars.
A brother RAF officer and former customer, Mike Oliver, joined Clarke in the business postwar. He was also a good engineer, and maintained strong flying links, eventually becoming test pilot for Folland Aircraft.
At Send, business was poor. There were no new cars to sell and the Bugatti concession which Clarke had coveted proved a phantom as Le Patron had died, his amoral life-style had left a morass in his wake and, with the French home market for such costly cars in any case devastated, the Molsheim factory would never resume full production.
As racing resumed in Britain, owners of genuine single-seater racing cars formed a fairly exclusive club. Those capable of adequate preparation of their cars were even harder to find, and Rodney Clarke found a wonderful customer, and future backer, when he was approached by building company heir Kenneth McAlpine, who wanted the Send outfit to race-prepare his ex-Whitney Straight Maserati 8CM. He was thoroughly impressed by the way Clarke and Oliver approached the job, and when Clarke confided his ambitions to build a sports car to his own design McAlpine placed a first order, his deposit effectively underwriting its design and manufacture.
To found this new line of Connaught sports cars, Rodney Clarke decided it was prudent to take some short cuts. He began by buying in complete Lea-Francis chassis which were then bodied to his own design, while Mike Oliver thoughtfully developed and tuned their high-camshaft four-cylinder engines. The end result was a small series of nicely made, good-handling and quite rapid sports cars by the standards of the time, which offered the prospect of high-performance use on both road and track. Ken McAlpine, Clarke and Oliver all raced them with minor success, attracting still wider custom, and the little works behind the Send garage would ultimately produce no fewer than 14 of these Leaf-based sports cars.
Even before his prototype sports car had been completed, McAlpine had been discussing the possibility of entering international Formula 2 racing with Clarke and had commissioned Con-naught Cars Ltd - Clarke's company's new trading title - to create for him a suitable single-seater.
Rodney conceived a twin-tube chassis with its parallel longerons united by three cross-members, all in 33A in. round-section stock, with the foremost cross-member doubling as a S'A-gallon oil tank. Suspension was by double wishbones and torsion bars both front and rear and the designer even went to the trouble of having dedicated-design magnesium-alloy wheels cast which promised to be both stiffer and lighter than contemporary wire-spoked alternatives. They attached via bolt-on fixings.
This robust and relatively lightweight chassis platform was to be powered by yet another Oliver-tuned version of the trusty Lea-Francis high-camshaft ohv four-cylinder engine, the specific block earmarked being one of a specially cast aluminium batch, and with its original chain-drive to the camshaft replaced by geartrain. Oliver's attention converted the unit to dry-sump lubrication and introduced new valves, crankshaft, camshafts, valve springs, pistons and even rocker covers. Four Amal carburettors were adopted, jetted to flow methanol fuel brews, and in this form the still 1767 cc unit developed some 130 bhp.
Some heart-searching enveloped gearbox choice, Mike Oliver eventually proving to his and Clarke's satisfaction that the well-understood and reliable Wilson-type four-speed preselector unit did not absorb excessive horsepower if well set up.
This prototype emerged with a neat, rather jelly mould-shaped aluminium bodyshell, and it was numbered 'Al' as the first Connaught 'A-Type'. Ken McAlpine's business commitments were such that his racing was to be confined solely to home events within Britain, for which the restricted fuel capacity of only 19 gallons would be sufficient. Typical of Rodney Clarke's penetrating conceptual thinking in 'Al's design was that the fuel load was to be divided between two pannier tanks, concentrating mass within the wheelbase and thereby obviating undue handling change as the fuel was burned off. He also appreciated the need for suspension-setting adjustability to tailor the new car to different circuits. Initially such a facility was deemed impracticable, for the kind of multi-race British meeting which McAlpine intended to contest presented only restricted practice opportunities and a tight schedule, leaving little time for adequate tinkering and testing of the results.
This first F2 Connaught then made its race debut in McAlpine's capable hands at Castle Combe in October 1950, where in a ten-lap race it finished second behind Moss's well-established HWM.
With the 1951 season now stretching ahead of them, Connaught 'Al' was remodelled over the winter to accommodate a de Dion rear axle with the hub-linking tube arching over the top of the chassis-mounted final-drive unit, instead of passing either in front of or behind it as in most applications. This de Dion tube was then located laterally by a linkage running from the nearside hub to the chassis frame and longitudinally by a short radius arm mounted through rubber blocks onto the top of the diff casing.
During 1951 'Al' ran nine times and suffered only two minor failures. It proved itself no ball of fire, but it was effective - a fine beginning, and it showed considerable promise. Above all, it attracted private-customer orders for a further eight A-Type F2 cars, and for them Mike Oliver at last enlarged the Leaf-based engine to 1960 cc by boring it out to 79 mm. Unfortunately, this enlargement rendered head sealing somewhat marginal, and this would pose persistent problems thereafter.
Since engine installation in 'Al' had been a tight shoe-horn business, wheelbase of these standard production A-Types was lengthened an inch to 7 ft 1 in. - just enough to facilitate engine removal and replacement.
Attention was also paid to the engines' breathing. A four-branch exhaust manifold replaced the separate pipes used on 'Al' and in combination with spectacular 10 in. ram-pipes attached to the Amal carburettors provided a considerable increase in power. The lengthy new ram-pipes protruded through the bodywork, demanding a shaped airbox to be wrapped over them which became a classically distinctive feature of the definitive Connaught A-Type cars.
Ken Downing, an existing client who had already bought one of the original Connaught L3 sports cars, took delivery of the first production F2 car - chassis 'A3' since no 'A2' was ever issued - and he and McAlpine test-drove it at Goodwood where both 'Al' and the new car lost oil pressure and seized their engines, sidelining both from the 1952 Easter Monday Goodwood meeting. After this embarrassing failure, Downing finished fifth in Heat One of the International Trophy race at Silverstone and two weeks later won a couple of club races at the Northampton circuit.
He then took his car to the GP des Frontieres at Chimay in Belgium where, in the absence of major works opposition (at Monaco), he led until the final lap when he backed off too much and was caught and passed in a great flurry by Paul Frere's HWM.
Four A-Types were available in time for the British GP and by another hike in compression ratio Oliver had extracted some 145 bhp from the enlarged Leaf-based engines. Downing qualified fifth behind the works Ferraris and Manzon's Gordini but in the race it was Dennis Poore in 'A4' who held third place for many laps, finally finishing fourth only due to a fumbled fuel stop. Eric Thompson finished fifth in the latest works car - chassis 'A5' - Downing was ninth in 'A3' and McAlpine 16th in 'Al'.
This essentially wealthy-gentlemen Con-naught clientele continued to run the A-Types mainly in British events, while Downing retired from the Dutch GP, before a serious team assault was mounted upon the Italian GP at Monza, closing the European season, in which this new British marque could attempt to beard the dominant Italians on their home ground.
Poore and McAlpine were joined in the team by professional young star Stirling Moss, who qualified ninth and finished in that position after a pushrod broke. Poore finished 12th and McAlpine's car broke its rear suspension.
Six A-Types had been completed by the end of that 1952 season and had accumulated six first places, five seconds and two sixths for the youthful marque. Meanwhile, the really ambitious dirty-fingernailed racers were buying Cooper-Bristols instead, at least 100 Ib lighter, light years removed in their relatively primitive finish and general engineering quality, but demonstrably more nimble and often faster . . .
During that year, Rodney Clarke had conceived a spaceframe-chassised lightweight car with two 998 cc JAP V-twin engines mounted behind the cockpit, a model frame being built but the scheme progressing no further. Lea-Francis also designed a twin-overhead-camshaft cylinder head for Connaught's F2 use, but Clarke began to seek an alternative when somebody at Leafs apparently copied the drawings and sold them elsewhere . . .
Stuart Tresilian, ex-Rolls-Royce and BRM team V16 development engineer, was a truly brilliant designer, then operating as a freelance consultant, and he offered a four-cylinder, four-valves-per-cylinder power unit concept to Con-naught which Clarke liked immensely but had to turn down as no funds were available to take it on. Tresilian offered the design to his former employers at BRM and it would emerge in 1955 as their two-valves-per-cylinder 2'A-litre P25.
Meanwhile, Ken McAlpine had dabbled with 500 cc F3 racing and felt that a multi-cylinder 500 might beat the dominant single-pot Nor-tons. Rodney Clarke - one feels in a not altogether serious mood - sketched an X32-cylinder unit comprising multiple model aeroplane engines on a common crankshaft, perhaps on the basis of 'There you are, Ken, is that sufficiently multi-cylinder for you?'. He then laid out a marginally more practical (!) four-cam V12. A single-cylinder test engine was produced by a sub-contractor, but interest had waned — perhaps McAlpine had been shown the bill...
For 1953 Clarke and Oliver then adopted American Hilborn-Travers fuel injection and higher-energy nitromethane fuel brews for cars 'A8' and the new long-wheelbase 'AL10'. In short-distance British sprint races Connaught ran as high as a 30 per cent nitro mix while 15 per cent brews sufficed for serious events. Leslie Hawthorn had used nitro additives in the fuel burned by Bob Chase's Cooper-Bristol in which Leslie's son Mike had rocketed to prominence the previous season. Clarke and Oliver had immediately taken note . . .
The PI system on 'A8' worked quite well with nitro brews, enabling Roy Salvadori to qualify on pole for the Easter Monday Goodwood meeting. Seven A-Types contested the F2 Lavant Cup race there, Salvadori leading until the last lap when the throttle linkage fell apart and he could only coast across the line behind de Graf-fenried's winning Maserati. Rob Walker had bought the ex-Downing 'A3' and was running it for Tony Rolt, the Major and McAlpine in 'Al' finishing 3-4 behind Salvadori - the strongest significant-level Connaught showing yet.
Two new cars had been produced with the lengthened 7 ft 6 in. wheelbase - chassis 'AL9' and 'AL10', the latter featuring a driver-adjustable rear anti-roll bar, but it did not make its debut until August '53. By the end of the season the A-Types had amassed no fewer than 21 firsts, 12 seconds and ten thirds, three fourths, six fifths and two sixth places with Tony Rolt in the Scots-blue and white Walker 'A3' easily the most successful with ten home wins to their credit.
Best performance had been Peter Walker running fifth in the British GP, while Moss had driven a Connaught again in a European GP, finishing ninth in 'A8'. Pilette placed llth in 'A4' in the Belgian GP.
The Formula 1 B-Type cars, 1954-57
Now the international motor racing circus was gearing up for the introduction of the new 2'/2-litre Formula 1 in 1954. Where Connaught was concerned, Kenneth McAlpine was still supporting the company financially and in design terms Clarke toyed briefly with Laurie Bond's ideas for an air-cooled V8 engine before tackling an in-house rotary-valve power unit design which again would never be built. Pilot long-lead-time parts were then cast for an experimental twin-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder unit but this risky in-house investment was quickly shelved. Rodney Clarke was one of several specialist British chassis constructors who approached both BRM and the Coventry Climax company for racing engine supply, researching the possibilities of using the forthcoming new BRM P25 from company owner Alfred Owen, and the Climax Godiva V8 from Leonard Lee. The Brooke-Weston V8 (see Engine Directory, page 169) was also researched and assessed. As late as April 1957 there was still a mock-up of the Godiva V8 gathering dust in Connaught's Send works and Rodney Clarke had even considered possibilities for buying up the remains of the Brooke-Weston when that project had, predictably, foundered.
The tragedy of all this was that - as described in Chapter 7 - Lee's engineers at Coventry Climax had greatly over-rated Continental power output claims from the likes of Ferrari and Maserati, and had they proceeded with their promising V8 it could well have proved highly competitive against all but Mercedes-Benz. As it was, Lee pulled the plug on the V8 project, by which time Clarke had already virtually completed design around the engine of what could easily (with certain self-evident reservations) have proved itself a major masterpiece - the Connaught 'J5' or D-Type.
This magnificent concept would have featured a stressed-skin monocoque centre-section, built up around a geodetic latticed internal frame similar to the Barnes Wallis-originated structure of the R100 airship and Vickers Wellesley and Wellington bombers of the 1930s. This 'midship monocoque would have supported a separate rear subframe attached via tapered and therefore self-centring bolts, in which would be cradled the Godiva engine, purpose-designed Connaught transaxle gearbox and de Dion rear suspension with inboard-mounted disc brakes. The transaxle was to be a five-speed epicyclic affair with its actual gearbox section overhung beyond the back axle line. One of these transaxles was actually completed, plus parts for a further five, and was used in Paul Emery's Cooper-Connaught (see entry for Emeryson, page 208).
The J5 proposal for a front beam axle on torsion bar springs located by radius rods and a lateral Panhard rod, also featuring inboard-mounted disc brakes, sounded rather more suspect.
The prototype was being built late in 1954 but as Coventry Climax's proposed Godiva V8 was then shelved so further work at Send was abandoned, and the incomplete hull was eventually junked . . .
While A-Type cars continued to race in club events and five appeared at the 1954 British GP, Clarke arranged exclusive supply of 2Va-litre Alta twin-cam four-cylinder racing engines from Geoffrey Taylor. At Send, Mike Oliver then began serious investigation, seeking as great a development gain as he had achieved with the 2-litre Formula 2 Leaf units.
He eventually coaxed some 240 bhp out of the Alta at 6400 rpm but the engines were reluctant to sustain high-power running anything like reliably. Clarke and his loyal chief draughtsman 'Johnny' Johnson had meanwhile begun work on a more conventional Formula 1 chassis design than the J5 as early as July 1953, intended purely as a stop-gap pending J5 and V8, and the first of these B-Type chassis -built like lightning - was ready by September that year.
It featured another simple twin-tube frame with coil-spring-and-double-wishbone IFS and a de Dion rear end located by long single radius rods each side, a compound lateral linkage and torsion-bar springs. Clarke retained the trusty four-speed pre-selector gearbox and specified Dunlop disc brakes mounted outboard all round.
Clarke's and Connaught's stunning far sightedness is demonstrated by their possession of a wind tunnel in 1953-54. Although Mercedes-Benz were using the Sindelfingen University tunnel, Connaught's Ford V8-powered facility was the first to be owned by an Fl team. Aero-dynamicist Eric Hall advised Clarke and model tests led to production of the B-Type's new fully enveloping body unveiled in August 1954.
Oliver's painstaking Alta engine development delayed the B-Type Connaught 'streamliner's debut until Easter Monday Goodwood, 1955, when Tony Rolt drove 'Bl'. The original Bor-rani wire wheels had been replaced by Dunlop perforated disc type and the tricky old SU fuel injection had been replaced by Connaught's own, which proved equally troublesome, two twin-choke Webers replacing it come mid-season. Rolt finished fourth in the Libre race but had the throttle linkage part in the Fl Richmond Trophy.
A second streamliner, 'B2', then emerged for Fairman at the International Trophy where he and McAlpine in 'Bl' ran 3-4 until the throttle parted again on Fairman's car and a fuel union on McAlpine's.
Leslie Marr bought 'B3' and Rob Walker 'B4' but he insisted on open-wheeler bodywork, since the one-piece upper panel of the streamliners was both unwieldy to handle in pit and paddock and was always terribly vulnerable. All four B-Types contested the 1955 British GP at Aintree, Rolt 12th fastest, but Fairman did not start and the others retired.
Connaught intended to enter only British events for the remainder of that year. Reg Par-nell in 'B2' led Moss's private Maserati 250F in a minor event at Aintree, only to run a bearing after Moss had already retired.
Sadly, backer McAlpine's enthusiasm was waning fast; he no longer drove himself so had little remaining incentive to enable others to do so while he was still losing money .
Then the organisers of the far-away Syracuse GP in Sicily offered £1000 start money per car for Connaught entries in their October '55 event, to offer a flotilla of works and private Maseratis a foreign challenge. Clarke despatched a young dental student named Tony Brooks and 500 cc F3 runner Les Leston to drive two new open-wheeled slipper-bodied works cars - effectively to play Christians before Maserati's lions. Brooks in 'Bl' was allowed only 15 practice laps and had to observe a strict rev limit, yet his natural driving skills were sufficient for him to qualify amazingly - and amazed - on the front row. On race day he then shattered the Italian home team, beating all the works 250Fs of Musso, Schell and Villoresi!
This was the first all-British victory in a Continental GP-standard race since Segrave's Sunbeam had triumphed at San Sebastian in 1924. Suddenly, Tony Brooks and the works B-Type Connaught from Send were sensational frontpage news . . .
At Boxing Day Brands Hatch, 'Bl' - the 'Syracuse Connaught' - won again, driven by Archie Scott-Brown, and in the 1956 Richmond Trophy at Goodwood little Archie with his withered right arm led not only Moss's now fuel-injected Maserati 250F but also both works BRM Type 25s of Hawthorn and Brooks until his brakes began to fade, and then the Alta engine broke a piston.
Back at Syracuse - early in the '56 season now - Desmond Titterington retired 'Bl' while Piero Scotti's new 'B6' also failed. Scott-Brown then led the Aintree '200' in 'B2' until another piston broke, and at Silverstone he finished second behind Moss's new teardrop Vanwall, Titterington third in 'Bl'. Nine Connaughts started that event.
But while the slipper-bodied 'Syracuse' B-Type Connaughts were now proving competitive, money was a fast-dwindling resource. Connaught concentrated upon non-Championship events, for which decent start money accompanied better prospects of prize money. Scotti retired his car from the Belgian GP, and when following payment instalments failed to reach Send Clarke repossessed 'B6', which sits today in London's Science Museum, one of the most original historic racing cars one could hope to see.
Scott-Brown qualified on pole for the Aintree '100' but retired again while leading. In the British GP his 'B7' lost a wheel and was in any case uncompetitive. In 'B2' Titterington broke a con-rod, but Fairman finished fourth in 'B5'. Scott-Brown later led a sparse Vanwall Trophy field at Snetterton in 'B7' until an oil pipe parted .. .
Connaught's stock stood high in Italy after the Syracuse victory, and the Italian GP organisers offered good money for Connaught's converted coach transporters to make the long trip to Monza. Sadly, Scott-Brown's physical impairment led to his rejection by the Milan club, so Clarke instead ran Leston in 'Bl', Fairman in 'B5' and Ron Flockhart in 'B7'. Leston retired early with a sheared torsion bar, but intelligent driving saw Flockhart and Fairman preserving their engines to finish reliably, 3-5.
At Brands Hatch, Scott-Brown then used 'B7' to beat newcomer Stuart Lewis-Evans on his Fl debut in 'B5', Leston's 'B6' and Fairman's 'Bl' coming home 4-5 behind Salvadori's 250F.
It was now accepted that the Climax Godiva V8 was a busted flush. McAlpine was ever more chary about financial support, and against this most uncertain background Clarke designed a lightweight B-Type variant to keep the Alta engine competitive, employing a multi-tubular spaceframe chassis.
For 1957, two two-car Connaught teams were fielded to live hand-to-mouth on starting money. At Syracuse, 'B5' was driven by Ivor Bueb and old 'Bl' by Les Leston, but the historic 1955 winning car was destroyed by fire when a broken half-shaft ruptured its fuel tank. Bueb was fifth, outclassed.
At Pau both B-Types qualified well and finished 3-5. At Goodwood Lewis-Evans drove 'B3' rebodied in wedge form and nicknamed 'The Toothpaste Tube'. Scott-Brown retired 'B7' (as usual), BRM and Vanwall all struck trouble, and Lewis-Evans won in the unpainted car, with Fairman second in 'B4' - a Connaught Formula 1 1-2 ...
Lewis-Evans then drove 'B5' at Naples, breaking a hub, and at Monaco Connaught fielded Lewis-Evans in 'B3' and Bueb in 'B2'; while Ivor retired, Stuart finished fourth, three laps behind Fangio's winning works 'Lightweight' 250F.
Upon the team's return from Monaco, Rodney Clarke regretfully concluded that Connaught could not continue. Kenneth McAlpine had no interest in continuing to support a racing programme from which he saw no return whatsoever, and in the absence of alternative backers emerging this was the end. Connaught's hardware was finally sold by auction in October 1957, only the prototype spaceframe car 'C8' failing to sell and passing to Paul Emery who ran it for Bob Said in the 1959 United States GP at Sebring.
The cars offered for sale at Send on 17 September 1957 were chassis 'B2', '3, '5, '6 and '7, all offered after 'a standard pre-race rebuild . . . run up and tested . . .', while B.C. 'Bernie' Ecclestone of later Formula 1 Constructors' Association fame bought 'B3' and 'B7', Geoff Richardson of RRA fame (q.v.) 'B5' and Ken Flint 'B6'. The Ecclestone cars were run in the New Zealand summer series at the beginning of 1958, driven by Stuart Lewis-Evans and Roy Salvador!, and Connaught returned to the Formula 1 fray - in Ecclestone privatised form - in the Glover Trophy at Goodwood on Easter Monday that year. Rodney Clarke went back into the motor trade, dying - widely mourned - in 1979. Mike Oliver became chief test pilot for Folland, and Connaught's staff dispersed among the motor trade and industry, taking with them the peerless standards, high ideals and innovative ingenuity with which this always under-financed marque had graced British motor racing.
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