PERFORMANCE. DELIVERED.

About that time Ford introduced the 997cc 105E Anglia, with its large bore, short stroke, hollow cast lightweight crank, OHV with individual ports seemed heaven sent. As fitted in the Anglia it produced 39 HP, quite a bit less than the 50/60 HP the 750 cc, aluminium Climax engine was likely to produce in the road trim. However the fledgling Cosworth Company and also Ted Martin soon got to grips with the 105E engine for formula Junior and F3.
 
Ted was a brilliant engineer and other tuners used some of his components. I think he was first with many things converting to gear driven camshaft, dry sump pumps, and race quality crank and rods.
 
Nick Grace used a 1.0L Martin race engine for his many race wins during 1963, notably beating John Haynes at Goodwood. This was before John had started his publishing empire and he was still in the RAF. In one of his first publications a ‘Guide to component cars’ published in 1966 he conceded that Nick had his Lotus 7 beaten on all counts, many years later Nick taught him self to fly in the Australian out back, crop dusting, he then returned to the UK where her set about restoring his 2 seater Spitfire which is still flown today by his wife Carolyn Grace, tragically in 1988 he lost his life in a road accident.
 
Cosworth in Keith Duckworth and Mike Costin had natural flare for engine design, a favourite of ours used the A2 cam which with 40 DCOE Webbers and a 4-branch manifold would give 85 HP, from a 1.0l engine race with that sort of power but soon learned that a dry sump oil system was necessary.
Also in 1964 world champion Graham Hiil road tested Chris Webb’s G4 in Practical Mototist Magazine.
 
Events used to progress quite fast in those days, Chris Meek with his 1650 ford engine which produced around 120 HP won many races in 1964. He won overall at Snetterton in September beating a Porsche 904 into 2nd place. His lap record of 1.42.2 (91.86 mph) is still on record because the circuit changed shortly after.  So many drivers successfully cut their teeth on G4, Johnny Blades ran a 1600 T/Cam, John Absolam ran a 1100 Cosworth, both were regular race winners. I can’t list all the names in this short piece but another interesting car was that of John Burton who had an 1860cc ford based engine using Ted Martins 3 valve head, at this time the quest for more power was desperate and we settled for Lotus T/Cam.
 
Cosworth was first choice and when we collected the engine from their unit in St Albans where they started their business Keith Duckworth with a smile on his face said it would be powerful enough to tear the axle out of the little G4, I replied that was the sort of power we were hoping for, we’ll make sure the axle stays in place. The problem with the live axle G4, with its lightweight and a lot of power was traction. Within a couple of weeks however we had developed an independent rear suspension car.  We took this car fitted with a 128 HP T/Cam, not the 145 HP Cosworth, to Cadwell. When Chris Meek crashed his own car in practice, (see video) he then drove this first G4R T/Cam to victory, but unfortunately John Miles Diva was demolished in the process.
 
We still had many fun times with John in the restaurant at the Mermaid Theatre in Puddle Dock just off the Thames where his father Sir Bernard was instrumental in, by various means, the funding to rebuild the theatre and his stories of his thespian life were quite spell binding. John redressed any injustice he may have felt at Cadwell when he became a Lotus works driver a short time later.
 
My book will tell more than is possible here of course. The G4 was subsequently developed with a square tube chassis, which was more economic to make. IRS became a standard feature in 1995. Continued development produced a very sophisticated high performance car that started life with 39 HP and now can ‘control’ a DARE built 240HP 2.0l Zetec.
 
Ivor Walklett