On Sunday, July 7, 2002 I visited the innovative and wacky Swiss car designer and builder, Franco Sbarro, at Grandson next to Lake Neuchatel, about 100 km north of Geneva.
Franco is now 63 years old and since the late 1960s he has designed and built 167 vehicles many of them totally way out. At Grandson he has a large factory, a small workshop where he started his business and a large and beautiful mansion up a slope, overlooking the lake where he displays several of his cars. Beautiful setting!
In the 1ate 1960s he became the European Lola distributor and in 1969 built a road going T70.
At Pontalier, across the border in France, he has his museum. He also has an automotive design school with about 30 students per year. He does design and styling work for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Alfa-Romeo, Lancia and some others. With regard to Lancia there is some unusual Sbarro feature coming for 2005.
Surprisingly, few of Franco's cars have gone into production, remaining as prototypes on display. After all this time he is now keen to have some his creations built on an under licence basis and that's why I went to snoop around. With a mountain of moulds in the back yard I felt like a kid let loose in a candy store!
Franco has built two GT40 replicas, one conventional and the other with an unusual rear end design. (See pic).
Franco also built a massive dragster powered by a 27 litre Spitfire engine he bought from the Swiss Air Force. Six seats are right at the back of this wacky creation. In his delightful French accent Franco said, 'When I open ze throttle, it does a wheelie and they ze passengers zey get a little nervous!' You bet! (See pic).
Believe it or not Franco designed a motor cycle with no wheel centres at all - only fresh air! The front wheel is controlled by a gripper steering device which runs on bearings and houses the brake system. The rear wheel is controlled by a similar gripper and the chain runs round the perimeter. Unfortunately I did not see the bikes as Franco had sold the project to Honda. Perhaps a sign of things to come.
(See pic).
In May last year I phoned Gordon Murray, McLaren Technical Director, to conduct a telephone interview with him about his memories of Kyalami. His main involvement with Kyalami was as Chief Designer for Brabham. This was for my book on the history of the circuit.
At the end of the interview Gordon asked me if I could find him either a GSM Dart or GSM Flamingo. Surprised I asked why as McLaren F1 designer (the three seater sports car) and the new Mercedes-Benz 300SLR-McLaren, two of the world's most sophisticated sports cars, would he want and old 1960s South African sports car. He said that as a student at the Durban Technical College ( about 1 000 miles from Cape Town along the east coast) he had always admired the GSM Darts and Flamingos and now wanted one for his collection. I tracked down a yellow 1964 Flamingo which I sent to Gordon.
The Darts and Flamingos have an interesting history. In 1956, Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner met up at the University of Stellenbosch (30 miles form Cape Town) where they were studying mechanical engineering. They spoke of building a South African sports car and Willie set sail for England, the capital of specialist sports car manufacture, to see what he could learn.
Not long after, Willie wrote to Bob about this wonderful new material, fibreglass. Bob also set sail for the UK and the two rented an apartment in Earls Court in London. They attended a course on fibreglass application. They then met up with fellow South African, Verster de Wit, who was working with the Rootes Group in Coventry as a stylist. The deal was that Bob and Willie would start on a quarter scale model in the apartment and Verster would come down at week ends to check out the styling. After 13 alterations Verster gave the green light and thereafter became involved with the design of the Sunbeam Alpine.
Near the apartment was the famous (infamous!!) Overseas Visitors Club (OVC) where the Colonials would hang out, ie Australians, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders. During one booze up session Bob and Willie met up with fellow countryman, Ron Hickman, who eventually went on to design the Lotus Elan and Black & Decker Workmate. The trio then staggered to the apartment where Ron was asked to pass comment on the new model. He liked what he saw and gave the thumbs up. At the time Ron was a stylist for Ford of Great of Britain and was working on a British Ford sports car project destined mainly for the American market. Eventually the Ford marketing men came to the conclusion that the Austin-Healeys, MGs and Triumphs were so far ahead in the race that they canned the idea. The proposed Ford sports car actually had a Targa type top, years before Porsche.
A full size buck (plug) was then made for the Dart in South London and this Bob took back with him, as personal luggage, on the boat to Cape Town. The Glassport Motor Company (Pty) Ltd (GSM) was formed with Bob, Willie and Verster as equal partners. Work commenced on the prototype Dart which was powered by an 1172 cc Ford side valve engine. .Gearbox was Ford three speed and much else was from the Ford parts bin.
On January 1, 1958 Bob and Willie entered two Darts in a Cape Town race (don't forget it's summer then down the bottom end of Africa!) and walked away from the rest of the field. I was a junior crash marshal at that race.
Production commenced but Bob felt that the car had marketing potential in the UK. Leaving Willie behind to look after the Cape Town shop Bob returned to the UK with a body/chassis kit. There he was introduced to one John Scott who owned a Ford dealership in West Malling in Kent, Winsor Garage (not Windsor - reminds me of the joke about the American tourist who after a guided tour of Windsor Castle said he couldn't understand why they built it so close to Heathrow Airport! HeHe!)
Bob clearly needed an investor and John Scott said he was interested and then gave Bob a seemingly impossible challenge. Bob had arrived in Southampton on a Thursday and he was to build the car and enter it in a race at Brands Hatch the following Saturday and win. If he succeeded he would build him a new factory. Bob bought a 105E OHV engine and all the parts required and working round the clock, with help from John Passini of Willment, he built the car in nine days and was ready for race day. He found himself in the middle of the grid on a strange circuit and worked himself up to second pace behind an Austin-Healey Sprite. On the last lap the Healey rolled and Bob took the chequered flag.
John Scott was true to his word and a new factory was built close to the Ford garage. As name Dart was registered in the UK the car was re-named the Delta.
Winsor Motors had a dynamometer which Eric Broadley used. One day Eric arrived with a 105E engine for testing and Bob noticed that he was rigging up a 15ft long throttle cable. Why so long asked Bob, to which Eric replied that he was going to do an experiment that might not work. The little engine was revved to 6000 rpm,, then to 7000 and at 8100 it blew up big time, with Eric far from the firing line! Broadley survived to design and build the Lola MK 6, which history will tell us, politics aside, was the forerunner to the GT40
Bob then campaigned his Dart all over the UK and Europe. He set up a lap record on the Brands Hatch short circuit which stood for seven years. On the Jabbeke Highway in Belgium the car was timed at 133 mph. In a Six Hour race at Clermont- Ferrand in France Bob came 14th out of 56 entrants, driving alone. In a three hour race at Silverstone Bob committed and unpardonable sin. He was so far in the lead that when he pulled into the pits he lit a cigarette and drove round the circuit puffing away! Flags were waving and the marshals were going bananas but ol Bob just went on puffing away at high speed. He must be the only man in the history of the sport to have smoked at the wheel.
It was at this race that Colin Chapman said he couldn't understand why the Dart was quicker than his Lotus Sevens. Bob said that the Lotus had a blunt stubby nose and the Dart a pointed streamlined nose. Little was known at the time about streamlining not even by the clever and innovative Chapman.
A Delta was sent to the 1960 New York Motor Show where in a Gallup Poll it was voted the second most interesting car after the Jaguar E-Type. Sadly after 76 Deltas were built, some of which went to the US and Canada, Scott's auditors ruled that the company wasn't making money and a brave venture came to an end.
Bob returned to South Africa and work commenced on the coupe version of the Dart, the Flamingo. In the meantime the Dart had built up an impressive race record back home and the new coupe was a logical progression.
In 1963 the expanding GSM company required additional capital and sold a 51% equity to a large finance group.
In October, 1964 in yet another trip to the UK, Bob and the president of the finance company took over a white Flamingo coupe on a marketing drive for GSM. I was working for the Stirling Moss Paint-a-Car company at the time and arranged for Stirling to test drive the Flamingo early one Saturday morning. We duly arrived at 46 Shepherd St, behind the Hilton Hotel, off Park Lane and Stirling appeared in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers and set off to thrash the Flamingo round Hyde Park. With bated breath we waited and upon his return he said that the car was good looking and had great road holding but as a car from the 'Colonies' how would it stand up against AC, Diva, Elva, Ginetta, Lotus, Marcos, TVR, etc. Good question! Stirling Moss (now Sir Stirling) has lived in that same house since 1958 I think. That has to be some sort of record given the number of times the rest of us have moved house!
Sadly in 1965 the hard nosed finance boys couldn't see a future in a South African sports car and as in England the shutters came down. End of GSM.
A total of 150 Flamingos and 116 Darts was built and today these cars have become much sought after collector's items.
A sad Bob turned his back on cars and went into speed boat and hull design specialising in catamarans. Since then and until today, aged 75, Bob has designed some amazing boats.
BIG NEWS! Recently Jimmy Price contacted Bob and suggested a new 1963 Dart. This car is now being developed by Hi-Tech Automotive and I don't think old Bob can quite get over the fact his beloved Dart is ABOUT TO BE RE-BORN 47 YEARS LATER!
On the Monday after my visit to Franco Sbarro I called on Gordon Murray at McLaren HQ in Woking, Surrey, to see if the Flamingo arrived safely and to discuss one or two outstanding parts. I noticed a silver McLaren F1 parked in front of the building. Gordon said that he normally commutes to work in a Smart but that he brought the McLaren specially for me and that he would like to invite me to lunch to his favourite Italian restaurant in nearby Chobham.
The F1 is something else and clearly from another planet. It's a strange feeling sitting offset and slightly behind the driver in central position. When we pulled into the car park Gordon said with a grin that this Italian restaurant is probably the only one in the world with McLaren posters on the wall! How's that Rory!
After a fantastic lunch we set off for Woking on a damp road. At about 30 mph Gordon said hold tight. That is the fastest I've ever gone from 30 mph to XYZ mph (classified info). Way in the distance was a green Ford Transit van and all I could see was this van reversing towards us at an incredible speed! Anyway, that is what it felt like.
Back at the factory Gordon pushed a Confidentiality Agreement in front of me and said if I signed it he would show me the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR-McLaren prototypes. These amazing cars just have to be the ultimate in high tech auto engineering. Some of the circuit boards boggled my simple old mind. Officially launched at Frankfurt in September the road launch took place in Cape Town in November/December. Seven cars were brought out for 170 motoring journos from all over the world to test drive. Believe it or not some idiot in a VW Golf went through a red light in central Cape Town and went smack into one the 300SLRs. Wasn't his lucky day! The cars will be built by McLaren in a beautiful new factory next to a lake and it'll be the first time that a Mercedes-Benz product will be built outside one of its own factories.
There was yet another treat in store. Gordon gave me an autographed copy of the book on the build of the F1, entitled,'Driving Ambition'. This 272 page coffee table book is one of the finest car books I've ever seen and holds pole position in my book shelf.
On the flight back to Cape Town I couldn't wipe the grin off my face - Sbarro on Sunday, Murray on Monday - two very special days in my life! Imagine these two wacky guys in partnership. What would we see, a ten wheeled dragster with centre seat and no wheel centres heading for Mars at 1000 mph!
The pics are as follows in the next postings:
Sbarro GT40 with unusual rear end; Dragster; Motor Cycle; GSM Dart; Gordon Murray;s GSM Flamingo; F1 in car park; Gordon Murray in F1; F1 steering wheel shot; F1 me in car.
This post has been kinda long but I hope you've enjoyed a bit of history!
Protect and value motoring history!.
I know Henry Ford said, 'History is bunk'. Not sure that I agree!
Andre 40
Franco is now 63 years old and since the late 1960s he has designed and built 167 vehicles many of them totally way out. At Grandson he has a large factory, a small workshop where he started his business and a large and beautiful mansion up a slope, overlooking the lake where he displays several of his cars. Beautiful setting!
In the 1ate 1960s he became the European Lola distributor and in 1969 built a road going T70.
At Pontalier, across the border in France, he has his museum. He also has an automotive design school with about 30 students per year. He does design and styling work for Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Alfa-Romeo, Lancia and some others. With regard to Lancia there is some unusual Sbarro feature coming for 2005.
Surprisingly, few of Franco's cars have gone into production, remaining as prototypes on display. After all this time he is now keen to have some his creations built on an under licence basis and that's why I went to snoop around. With a mountain of moulds in the back yard I felt like a kid let loose in a candy store!
Franco has built two GT40 replicas, one conventional and the other with an unusual rear end design. (See pic).
Franco also built a massive dragster powered by a 27 litre Spitfire engine he bought from the Swiss Air Force. Six seats are right at the back of this wacky creation. In his delightful French accent Franco said, 'When I open ze throttle, it does a wheelie and they ze passengers zey get a little nervous!' You bet! (See pic).
Believe it or not Franco designed a motor cycle with no wheel centres at all - only fresh air! The front wheel is controlled by a gripper steering device which runs on bearings and houses the brake system. The rear wheel is controlled by a similar gripper and the chain runs round the perimeter. Unfortunately I did not see the bikes as Franco had sold the project to Honda. Perhaps a sign of things to come.
(See pic).
In May last year I phoned Gordon Murray, McLaren Technical Director, to conduct a telephone interview with him about his memories of Kyalami. His main involvement with Kyalami was as Chief Designer for Brabham. This was for my book on the history of the circuit.
At the end of the interview Gordon asked me if I could find him either a GSM Dart or GSM Flamingo. Surprised I asked why as McLaren F1 designer (the three seater sports car) and the new Mercedes-Benz 300SLR-McLaren, two of the world's most sophisticated sports cars, would he want and old 1960s South African sports car. He said that as a student at the Durban Technical College ( about 1 000 miles from Cape Town along the east coast) he had always admired the GSM Darts and Flamingos and now wanted one for his collection. I tracked down a yellow 1964 Flamingo which I sent to Gordon.
The Darts and Flamingos have an interesting history. In 1956, Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner met up at the University of Stellenbosch (30 miles form Cape Town) where they were studying mechanical engineering. They spoke of building a South African sports car and Willie set sail for England, the capital of specialist sports car manufacture, to see what he could learn.
Not long after, Willie wrote to Bob about this wonderful new material, fibreglass. Bob also set sail for the UK and the two rented an apartment in Earls Court in London. They attended a course on fibreglass application. They then met up with fellow South African, Verster de Wit, who was working with the Rootes Group in Coventry as a stylist. The deal was that Bob and Willie would start on a quarter scale model in the apartment and Verster would come down at week ends to check out the styling. After 13 alterations Verster gave the green light and thereafter became involved with the design of the Sunbeam Alpine.
Near the apartment was the famous (infamous!!) Overseas Visitors Club (OVC) where the Colonials would hang out, ie Australians, Canadians, South Africans and New Zealanders. During one booze up session Bob and Willie met up with fellow countryman, Ron Hickman, who eventually went on to design the Lotus Elan and Black & Decker Workmate. The trio then staggered to the apartment where Ron was asked to pass comment on the new model. He liked what he saw and gave the thumbs up. At the time Ron was a stylist for Ford of Great of Britain and was working on a British Ford sports car project destined mainly for the American market. Eventually the Ford marketing men came to the conclusion that the Austin-Healeys, MGs and Triumphs were so far ahead in the race that they canned the idea. The proposed Ford sports car actually had a Targa type top, years before Porsche.
A full size buck (plug) was then made for the Dart in South London and this Bob took back with him, as personal luggage, on the boat to Cape Town. The Glassport Motor Company (Pty) Ltd (GSM) was formed with Bob, Willie and Verster as equal partners. Work commenced on the prototype Dart which was powered by an 1172 cc Ford side valve engine. .Gearbox was Ford three speed and much else was from the Ford parts bin.
On January 1, 1958 Bob and Willie entered two Darts in a Cape Town race (don't forget it's summer then down the bottom end of Africa!) and walked away from the rest of the field. I was a junior crash marshal at that race.
Production commenced but Bob felt that the car had marketing potential in the UK. Leaving Willie behind to look after the Cape Town shop Bob returned to the UK with a body/chassis kit. There he was introduced to one John Scott who owned a Ford dealership in West Malling in Kent, Winsor Garage (not Windsor - reminds me of the joke about the American tourist who after a guided tour of Windsor Castle said he couldn't understand why they built it so close to Heathrow Airport! HeHe!)
Bob clearly needed an investor and John Scott said he was interested and then gave Bob a seemingly impossible challenge. Bob had arrived in Southampton on a Thursday and he was to build the car and enter it in a race at Brands Hatch the following Saturday and win. If he succeeded he would build him a new factory. Bob bought a 105E OHV engine and all the parts required and working round the clock, with help from John Passini of Willment, he built the car in nine days and was ready for race day. He found himself in the middle of the grid on a strange circuit and worked himself up to second pace behind an Austin-Healey Sprite. On the last lap the Healey rolled and Bob took the chequered flag.
John Scott was true to his word and a new factory was built close to the Ford garage. As name Dart was registered in the UK the car was re-named the Delta.
Winsor Motors had a dynamometer which Eric Broadley used. One day Eric arrived with a 105E engine for testing and Bob noticed that he was rigging up a 15ft long throttle cable. Why so long asked Bob, to which Eric replied that he was going to do an experiment that might not work. The little engine was revved to 6000 rpm,, then to 7000 and at 8100 it blew up big time, with Eric far from the firing line! Broadley survived to design and build the Lola MK 6, which history will tell us, politics aside, was the forerunner to the GT40
Bob then campaigned his Dart all over the UK and Europe. He set up a lap record on the Brands Hatch short circuit which stood for seven years. On the Jabbeke Highway in Belgium the car was timed at 133 mph. In a Six Hour race at Clermont- Ferrand in France Bob came 14th out of 56 entrants, driving alone. In a three hour race at Silverstone Bob committed and unpardonable sin. He was so far in the lead that when he pulled into the pits he lit a cigarette and drove round the circuit puffing away! Flags were waving and the marshals were going bananas but ol Bob just went on puffing away at high speed. He must be the only man in the history of the sport to have smoked at the wheel.
It was at this race that Colin Chapman said he couldn't understand why the Dart was quicker than his Lotus Sevens. Bob said that the Lotus had a blunt stubby nose and the Dart a pointed streamlined nose. Little was known at the time about streamlining not even by the clever and innovative Chapman.
A Delta was sent to the 1960 New York Motor Show where in a Gallup Poll it was voted the second most interesting car after the Jaguar E-Type. Sadly after 76 Deltas were built, some of which went to the US and Canada, Scott's auditors ruled that the company wasn't making money and a brave venture came to an end.
Bob returned to South Africa and work commenced on the coupe version of the Dart, the Flamingo. In the meantime the Dart had built up an impressive race record back home and the new coupe was a logical progression.
In 1963 the expanding GSM company required additional capital and sold a 51% equity to a large finance group.
In October, 1964 in yet another trip to the UK, Bob and the president of the finance company took over a white Flamingo coupe on a marketing drive for GSM. I was working for the Stirling Moss Paint-a-Car company at the time and arranged for Stirling to test drive the Flamingo early one Saturday morning. We duly arrived at 46 Shepherd St, behind the Hilton Hotel, off Park Lane and Stirling appeared in pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers and set off to thrash the Flamingo round Hyde Park. With bated breath we waited and upon his return he said that the car was good looking and had great road holding but as a car from the 'Colonies' how would it stand up against AC, Diva, Elva, Ginetta, Lotus, Marcos, TVR, etc. Good question! Stirling Moss (now Sir Stirling) has lived in that same house since 1958 I think. That has to be some sort of record given the number of times the rest of us have moved house!
Sadly in 1965 the hard nosed finance boys couldn't see a future in a South African sports car and as in England the shutters came down. End of GSM.
A total of 150 Flamingos and 116 Darts was built and today these cars have become much sought after collector's items.
A sad Bob turned his back on cars and went into speed boat and hull design specialising in catamarans. Since then and until today, aged 75, Bob has designed some amazing boats.
BIG NEWS! Recently Jimmy Price contacted Bob and suggested a new 1963 Dart. This car is now being developed by Hi-Tech Automotive and I don't think old Bob can quite get over the fact his beloved Dart is ABOUT TO BE RE-BORN 47 YEARS LATER!
On the Monday after my visit to Franco Sbarro I called on Gordon Murray at McLaren HQ in Woking, Surrey, to see if the Flamingo arrived safely and to discuss one or two outstanding parts. I noticed a silver McLaren F1 parked in front of the building. Gordon said that he normally commutes to work in a Smart but that he brought the McLaren specially for me and that he would like to invite me to lunch to his favourite Italian restaurant in nearby Chobham.
The F1 is something else and clearly from another planet. It's a strange feeling sitting offset and slightly behind the driver in central position. When we pulled into the car park Gordon said with a grin that this Italian restaurant is probably the only one in the world with McLaren posters on the wall! How's that Rory!
After a fantastic lunch we set off for Woking on a damp road. At about 30 mph Gordon said hold tight. That is the fastest I've ever gone from 30 mph to XYZ mph (classified info). Way in the distance was a green Ford Transit van and all I could see was this van reversing towards us at an incredible speed! Anyway, that is what it felt like.
Back at the factory Gordon pushed a Confidentiality Agreement in front of me and said if I signed it he would show me the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR-McLaren prototypes. These amazing cars just have to be the ultimate in high tech auto engineering. Some of the circuit boards boggled my simple old mind. Officially launched at Frankfurt in September the road launch took place in Cape Town in November/December. Seven cars were brought out for 170 motoring journos from all over the world to test drive. Believe it or not some idiot in a VW Golf went through a red light in central Cape Town and went smack into one the 300SLRs. Wasn't his lucky day! The cars will be built by McLaren in a beautiful new factory next to a lake and it'll be the first time that a Mercedes-Benz product will be built outside one of its own factories.
There was yet another treat in store. Gordon gave me an autographed copy of the book on the build of the F1, entitled,'Driving Ambition'. This 272 page coffee table book is one of the finest car books I've ever seen and holds pole position in my book shelf.
On the flight back to Cape Town I couldn't wipe the grin off my face - Sbarro on Sunday, Murray on Monday - two very special days in my life! Imagine these two wacky guys in partnership. What would we see, a ten wheeled dragster with centre seat and no wheel centres heading for Mars at 1000 mph!
The pics are as follows in the next postings:
Sbarro GT40 with unusual rear end; Dragster; Motor Cycle; GSM Dart; Gordon Murray;s GSM Flamingo; F1 in car park; Gordon Murray in F1; F1 steering wheel shot; F1 me in car.
This post has been kinda long but I hope you've enjoyed a bit of history!
Protect and value motoring history!.
I know Henry Ford said, 'History is bunk'. Not sure that I agree!
Andre 40