The ex-Jack Brabham, Team Rosebud/Trevor Taylor, Duncan Dayton, Bobby Rahal
1964 Brabham-BRM BT8 Sports-racing Prototype
Chassis no. SC-5-64

Brabham occupies a unique place in motor racing history, being the only constructor to win the Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship with a car bearing the driver's own name. The company started out as Motor Racing Developments (MRD), which had been founded in 1960 by driver Jack Brabham and designer Ron Tauranac, Australians both, and began manufacturing racing cars for sale to customers in 1961. MRD operated from premises in Surbiton, Surrey from whence its first car – a mid-engined Formula Junior designed by Tauranac – emerged in the summer of 1961. The MRD name was dropped almost immediately in favour of Brabham, with type numbers prefixed 'BT' for 'Brabham Tauranac'.

Having secured the second of his Formula 1 World Championships with Cooper in 1960, Brabham parted company with them at the end of the 1961 season but it was not until the summer of 1962 that the first Brabham Formula 1 car – the BT3 – was ready. Dan Gurney brought the fledgling marque its first Championship Grand Prix win in 1964 but there would be no World Championships for Brabham during the 1½-litre Formula 1 era.

While many manufacturers were caught flat-footed by the change to the 3-litre Formula for 1966, Brabham was ready with a simple, lightweight car which, although nowhere near as powerful as some of its rivals, was nevertheless fast enough and, even more importantly, more reliable. Jack took four mid-season wins on the trot and the Driver's Championship at the year's end by a margin of 14 points from John Surtees. His team-mate, New Zealander Denny Hulme, finished 4th and would go on to bring Brabham back-to-back Drivers' and Manufacturers' World Championships the following year.

However, by then the 'Cosworth Era' had begun and although Brabham would eventually switch to the Northampton-made engines, forsaking the Australian Repco, there would no more World Drivers' Championships until Nelson Picquet's two successes in the early 1980s. Picquet took the team's last ever Formula 1 win in 1985. By this time neither Jack Brabham nor Ron Tauranac had any connections with company.

The Brabham BT8 sports-racing prototype offered here is one of nine built for the 1964 season, a year in which MRD made a total of 53 cars for Formulas 1, 2, and 3, sports car racing, the Tasman series and Indycar. A further three BT8s were constructed during 1965/66. By the decade's end, Brabham had become the world's largest manufacturer of open-wheel formula racing monopostos and had sold around 500 cars of all types. Throughout the 1960s, production Brabhams dominated virtually every class for which they were eligible, thanks to a winning combination of sound engineering, basic strength, ease of use and inter-changeability of spare parts. Tauranac's designs were somewhat conservative, retaining spaceframe chassis and outboard suspension, but this made them easy for the privateer to repair and maintain, important factors when budgets were tight. They also worked on any circuit.

The BT8 was a development of Brabham's first sports-racer – the BT5 of 1963 – and by far its most successful two-seater design; the successor BT17 was a flop and thereafter the company would concentrate on single-seaters.
The fifth of the series, 'SC-5-64' was built to the special order of Texan Tom O'Connor's famed Team Rosebud and made its debut in 1964 at the Goodwood Easter Monday meeting, driven by none other than 'Black Jack' himself in the Lavant Cup race, it won its class and finished 3rd overall. This car was constructed for O'Connor with virtually the ultimate spec available for a 2-litre sports-racing car of the period, powered by a 1,880cc BRM V8 engine, this being an early 'stretched' version of the Bourne firm's Formula 1 World Championship Winning 1½-litre Formula 1 unit, and also used BRM's coveted own designed and manufactured six-speed gearbox.

Having won first time out with Brabham in Europe, 'SC-5-64' was shipped out to Team Rosebud in Texas and driven by Ex-Works Team Lotus Grand Prix driver Trevor Taylor, mostly in the USA, scored frequent victories. Around 1967 the car in the illustrious company of the Rosebud Team Ferrari 250GTO passed to the Victoria, Texas Technical School under whose auspices it was driven by Boyd Grice and Paul Scott. Scott was the car's next owner, followed by Darryl Johnson (1973) and Dee Johnson (1974).
At around this time the Brabham was fitted with a Lotus Twin-Cam engine. It continued to be campaigned regularly in the USA until 1982 and subsequently went to Australia in the ownership of
Steve Pike (1989).

In the mid-1990s, 'SC-5-64' returned to the USA in the ownership of Steve Tillack. Next owner leading historic racer Duncan Dayton had the car completely overhauled by the UK-based specialist Sid Hoole in 2002, including the installation of a new 2.0-litre BRM V8 supplied by marque specialists Hall & Hall (bills on file). Duncan Dayton was the driver at the 2004 Goodwood Revival meeting when the BT8 diced for the lead ferociously with Willie Green's Ford GT40. The Brabham was subsequently sold to three-time Indycar Champion, Bobby Rahal, who continued to race it, and thence to the current owner. Freshly presented by Hall & Hall in immaculate, ready-to-race condition, this historic, technically fascinating and potentially very competitive Brabham sports-racer is offered with current FIA Historic Technical Passport.