Perhaps The Headline Should Read: Is Sophisticated Equipment Required To ReBuild A Classic Race Or Sports Car?
In the first instance, the major requirement for the would be race car builder would be to be a well versed and skilled engineer, and to possess detailed workshop practice “know how” as well as possessing the the ability to work with metal as well as many other modern materials. Skills would include machining and fitting, assembly skills, welding skills, not to mention a well rounded mechanical design knowledge required for all facets of building and maintaining a race car.
Back in the 1960s, one of Australia’s foremost and some would say world class race car constructor was Garrie Cooper, founder of Elfin Sports Cars, South Australia. (Located at the time on the Cnr of Conmurra Ave and South Road Edwardstown SA)
In the book;
Australia’s Elfin Sports And Racing Cars. (ISBN 0 908031 69 6)
Authored by Barry Catford. And edited by John Blanden.
Readers would be amazed at what little machinery and tools were employed to build some of Australia’s most successful racing and sports cars at the Elfin Works at Edwardstown South Australia during the 1960’s.
Typical Workshop equipment included:
- Sheet metal working machines such as a large sheet metal folder, made in house by Garrie’s mentor Ron Bloyd.
- An English wheeling machine, for forming compound curves in panels for some of the race cars.
- Sheet metal Guillotine for cutting the aluminium and steel sheets to size.
- A jenny and swaging machine, for edge forming and swaging (Grooving) panels for strength.
- There were two lathes, a large machine for machining the cast magnesium wheels.
- A smaller general-purpose machine for machining small bushings and many other small custom made parts and components that were required for the construction of the many types of race cars.
- A Lincoln 240 volt arc welder, for heavy fabricating welding jobs.
- An Oxy/Acet gas-welding outfit to bronze weld and fusion weld the fabricated race car space frames together.
- A bench grinder, and a drill press rounded out the smaller workshop machines.
- There were no CNC machining equipment in the Elfin workshop.
Of course, as in most productive workshops, a large selection of small hand tools were stored on shadow boards within easy reach. And there were work benches aplenty on which to assemble engines, gearboxes and other race car components.
One of the amazing things is that.
- Garrie Cooper never learnt a trade.
- Was never an apprentice.
- Yet through interest and determination he became highly skilled at fitting and turning.
- Was skilled at welding of all types, as well as panel beating and aluminium body forming techniques.
- The very skills required to build a quality race or sports car.
Remember, this was in the era where you learnt many skills purely by practice; perfection was gained through laborious hours spent working until you got it right.
Garrie was a product of the tried and true Australian Technical School education system, a teaching system that is sadly lacking in this day and age.
In today’s world it is difficult to find places where valuable practical skills are being taught to young people, the traditional technical school system was dismantled decades ago, and the basic trade type skills being taught today in many secondary schools hardly scratch the surface in real practical terms, there is now a whole generation or two who have missed out on the privilege of learning how to work with basic hand tools and learning the skills to work with metal.
If you can find a mentor to teach you these rare skills, then leg rope him to your workshop bench, because he will be a rare find, learn as much as you can from your mentor, because unfortunately, they are a dying breed, and in most cases the skills will die with them, for very few of these old craftsmen ever get around to writing down and documenting what they know in order to pass the special knowledge on to the next generation.
During the time that Elfin Sports And Racing Cars flourished, there were several other individual Australian race car builders and fabricators, some were around the scene for many years, while others through various reasons were very short lived, the interesting stories of those race car builders of days gone by would surely make for interesting reading, lets hope that one day someone will put pen to paper to record this rich part of Australian motor racing history before it is lost forever.
Well, we asked at the beginning of this post, do you need sophisticated workshop equipment to build a race car? To generalise, perhaps the answer is no you don’t, not to build a race car for the weekend racer of today anyway, and even if one was to rebuild a race car from the 1960/70s, you could take a leaf out of the late Garrie Cooper’s book, and use your skills, basic workshop equipment and abilities to recreate or restore a historic race car to it’s former glory, it can be done with the right approach, the right skills, and the right tools, but not outrageously sophisticated tools.
Now go find your self a project.