MOTOR CARS | 281Brabham 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.1
Jack Brabham winning his class, Goodwood, Easter Monday, 1964
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