They drove that car?

[DoubleFart]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Colin was quickly shuffled into the motorhome after the race because Steve Neal was apparently on the warpath.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Barry Sheene tested a Surtees in 1978....

...an Arrows in 1979...

...and a Brabham in 1985.

[Vassago]

Stirling Moss in BTCC 1980 driving the Audi 80 GLE. The other pic posted few months back was from 1981. The Akai sponsorship is from the 1980 season.

[Vassago]

Martin Brundle in 1977 British Saloon Car Championship (Toyota Celica GT @ Brands Hatch). It was his first season in "senior" racing category of any kind.

Mind you, Brundle drove three full-time seasons in BSCC and five in total before switching to open-wheel Formula 3 in 1982.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Martin Brundle in 1977 British Saloon Car Championship (Toyota Celica GT @ Brands Hatch). It was his first season in "senior" racing category of any kind.

Mind you, Brundle drove three full-time seasons in BSCC and five in total before switching to open-wheel Formula 3 in 1982.

The Brundle family for decades owned a large and successful Toyota Dealership in Kings Lynne. I think Martin and his brother Robin took over from their Father who had set it up, and only closed it down in the early noughties of this millennium when Toyota reduced their number of dealerships and went with a strategy of fewer larger distributors in major cities only. Martin and Robin had expanded from the early Toyota days to more recently include Peugeot, Skoda, Honda but they all suffered the same fate. When Martin became more motor racing as a career he still remained a Director and involved but Robin ran it day to day.
After losing the other dealerships they continued with their VW dealership in the area though I think that was only sold a decade (probably longer than that) or so ago, thus ending some 4 decades of Brundle Family car retailing and body repair shops in the area..

[Everso Biggyballies]

Martin Brundle in 1977 British Saloon Car Championship (Toyota Celica GT @ Brands Hatch). It was his first season in "senior" racing category of any kind.

Mind you, Brundle drove three full-time seasons in BSCC and five in total before switching to open-wheel Formula 3 in 1982.

The Brundle family for decades owned a large and successful Toyota Dealership in Kings Lynne. I think Martin and his brother Robin took over from their Father who had set it up, and only closed it down in the early noughties of this millennium when Toyota reduced their number of dealerships and went with a strategy of fewer larger distributors in major cities only. Martin and Robin had expanded from the early Toyota days to more recently include Peugeot, Skoda, Honda but they all suffered the same fate. When Martin became more motor racing as a career he still remained a Director and involved but Robin ran it day to day.
After losing the other dealerships they continued with their VW dealership in the area though I think that was only sold a decade (probably longer than that) or so ago, thus ending some 4 decades of Brundle Family car retailing and body repair shops in the area..

I did a bit of research to see whether there was any help from Toyota or whether it was all family money that started his journey.... This is the relevant extract from a "Lunch with Martin Brundle" interview back in 2007. It turns out it was very much a self / Family business type of exercise done very much on the cheap!

I have included how he went from BTCC to F3 simply because its a great story, highlighting how things would often be done back in the day.... albeit one filled with ups and downs, tragedy and good luck..

Martin never had the funds as a child to go karting, but he scraped together an old wreck of a Ford Anglia in his pre-teen years and did banger racing on a local grass track. When he was 17 he saw an ad selling off the BTCC Toyota team – two Celicas and a transporter – and persuaded his father to HP the lot through the garage business. “We put the transporter on the books as a breakdown truck, and the two racers as demonstrators. Dad rallied one, and I raced the other – got my six signatures, and did a BTCC season for £3000.
A local building firm helped me do some FF2000, and then I wrote to Tom Walkinshaw. ‘Dear Mr Walkinshaw, I’m going to be a top driver. Please let me race one of your BMWs.’ It scares me to think what might have happened if I hadn’t written that letter.”

Walkinshaw was running the BMW County Championship, with identical 323i saloons and drivers like Derek Bell, Andy Rouse, Barrie Williams and Nigel Mansell. Martin drove the Norfolk car six times, winning twice and always finishing in the top three except once when he was slowed by a puncture. The Norfolk car won the championship. In 1981 Tom set up a two-car BTCC team for Audi, with Stirling Moss making a comeback to drive one car, and he offered the other to Martin.

“I was so stupid that year. All I wanted to do was blow Stirling’s doors off. I should have embraced the privilege of being his team-mate, stolen every bit of knowledge and experience I could from him. I thought it didn’t apply because we were from different eras. I was 21, he was 51, he didn’t know slicks or front-wheel drive – but I remember one time at Brands when it rained and there was no grip. He was simply mighty, in a class of his own. I’m immensely lucky to count Stirling and Susie as good friends now, but I still give myself a hard time over that year. It was just the arrogance of youth.”

Then BP took him into F3 with a Dave Price-run car. “I smashed the car up at Mallory, and then I smashed it up again at Dijon, on the way to Monaco. Pricey is no shrinking violet when it comes to telling his drivers off, and at Monaco he made me drive the van. My self-confidence was at an all-time low. In a hotel room outside Dijon I told my wife Liz I was giving up, but she talked me into carrying on. The next race was Oulton Park, and I just relaxed, felt I had nothing to lose. So I put it on pole and won by half a lap. I was on pole for every race for the rest of the season, and then I got the top Grovewood Award, which was £5000.

“For 1983 Pricey had nothing for me, so he sent me to see an Irishman called Eddie Jordan who was based at Silverstone. I gave Eddie my five grand, I gave him an old Citroën off Dad’s forecourt, and a friend gave him a Toyota truck which I personally sprayed, and we had an F3 team. There was some Racing for Britain money as well, but basically we were potless. Eddie hustled brilliantly, always pulling strokes. Every time I went to Silverstone I had to call in on the Allied Irish Bank in Northampton to pop in some cash we’d scraped together, or tell them there’d be some cash next time I called.

“On the way back from the Austrian GP support race, which we won, the transporter went off the side of a mountain. My mechanic Rob Bowden was killed, and the cars and equipment were all wrecked. It was a very cruel time. But with the help of a lot of people – Ron Tauranac, Tim Clowes and many others – the team was at the next round two weeks later, with everything immaculately turned out.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arch ... n-brundle/

[Vassago]

Having a debut at 19 in saloon cars at the time was highly unusual even if one had family money. Some ten years later I believe Tim Harvey was the youngest driver at 25 in his rookie season and possibly the only full-time driver below age 30 IIRC.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

In memory of Gil de Ferran....

[steveredd]

Martin Brundle in 1977 British Saloon Car Championship (Toyota Celica GT @ Brands Hatch). It was his first season in "senior" racing category of any kind.

Mind you, Brundle drove three full-time seasons in BSCC and five in total before switching to open-wheel Formula 3 in 1982.

The Brundle family for decades owned a large and successful Toyota Dealership in Kings Lynne. I think Martin and his brother Robin took over from their Father who had set it up, and only closed it down in the early noughties of this millennium when Toyota reduced their number of dealerships and went with a strategy of fewer larger distributors in major cities only. Martin and Robin had expanded from the early Toyota days to more recently include Peugeot, Skoda, Honda but they all suffered the same fate. When Martin became more motor racing as a career he still remained a Director and involved but Robin ran it day to day.
After losing the other dealerships they continued with their VW dealership in the area though I think that was only sold a decade (probably longer than that) or so ago, thus ending some 4 decades of Brundle Family car retailing and body repair shops in the area..

Martin ran a FF2000 before going into F3 with help from garage mechanic Arthur Coleman, his former hot rod mechanic, besides me, was Bob Beckett who I think may have had a hand in it too. His father John ran rally cars for several years often competing in Rallycross at Snetterton. He ran a Triumph 2.5 PI and later promoted Toyotas running Celicas with input from Toyota GB. Martin's early Celica was the one that Win Percy ran. John had a Garage at West Lynn before aquiring the one at Tottenhill so the history goes back a bit futher.

[Vassago]

Not much a question of who but the fact DHL wasn't always yellow & red livery. Georg Severich in DTM 1994 (obviously Norisring). Teammate Rudiger Schmitt drove the same white & red DHL livery.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Not much a question of who but the fact DHL wasn't always yellow & red livery. Georg Severich in DTM 1994 (obviously Norisring). Teammate Rudiger Schmitt drove the same white & red DHL livery.

Knowing you love of pink liveries (not!) I could not resist posting this Pink DHL one off livery....

Multitime world championship-winning team Kalitta Motorsports again joined those supporting breast cancer awareness throughout the month of October, (2022) along with primary sponsors DHL and CMR Construction and Roofing.

[Vassago]

One more DTM for @EversoBiggyballies as Wayne Gardner tries it on two wheels at Hockenheim in 1992 You could always pick out the Jagermeister livery out of 40 car field in the early 1990s

That's a Linder BMW, basically like a fourth team on the BMW pecking order behind Schnitzer, Bigazzi and Zakspeed (which switched to Mercedes in 1991).

[DaleJuniorFan]

AMA motorcycle racer/1975 Daytona 200 champion Gene Romero attempted (but failed) to qualify for the 1979 National 500 NASCAR Winston Cup event at Charlotte. He previously made a start at the NASCAR race in Ontario Motor Speedway in 1972.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Mark Skaife had a run in the Jordan 192 around the car park of the Colonnades shopping centre ahead of the 1992 Australian Grand Prix.

[erwin greven]

Nelson Piquet drove the Brabham BT46B "fan-car" in the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy at Donington Park in 1979.

image does not work

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Nelson Piquet drove the Brabham BT46B "fan-car" in the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial Trophy at Donington Park in 1979.

image does not work

Fingers crossed.