Repco

Repco is an Australian engineering company. Its name is derived from 'Replacement Parts Company', referring to one of its major lines of work.

It is famous for powering Brabham to Formula One Drivers' and Constructors' Championship in the 1966 and 1967 seasons. More recently the company has operated as an engine tuner and race engine builder.

Current Operations

Repco currently runs a series of stores across Australian and New Zealand specialising in the sale of automotive parts and aftermarket accessories. Repco was started in 1922 in Collingwood, Victoria by Geoff Russell. It first traded under the name 'Automotive Grinding Company'. It currently has over 2000 employees in almost 400 stores.

Repco was briefly a publicly traded company being first listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2003, however following acquisition of all shares by CCMP Capital Asia, Repco has been delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange.

Repco Engine in F1

In 1963 the FIA announced a doubling of maximum engine capacity to three litres to start from the 1966 Formula One season. Despite calls for a "return to power" having been made, few teams were prepared as the main engine supplier Coventry Climax decided to get out of race engine building. [Setright, L.J.K. "Lotus: The Golden Mean", in Northey, Tom, ed. "World of Automobiles" (London: Orbis, 1974), Volume 11, p.1232.]

Jack Brabham exploited his existing relationship with Australian automotive components manufacturer Repco. He proposed they design and build a simple, reliable racing engine based on aluminium V8 engine blocks from the defunct American small-block Oldsmobile V8 F85 road car project, and other off the shelf parts. [Pinder, Simon (1995) "Mr Repco Brabham Frank Hallam" pp. 20-23 Pinder Publications] The Repco board agreed to his proposal. A small team developed an F1 engine, fitted with 2-valve per-cylinders SOHC heads. The first advantage of this "Repco 620" V8 was its lightness, which allowed it to be bolted into an existing 1.5 litre Formula One chassis. With no more than Auto bhp|310|0, the Repco was by far the least powerful of the new 3 litre engines, but unlike the others it was frugal, light and compact. [Fearnley, Paul (May 2006) "The powerhouse that Jack built" " [http://www.motorsportmagazine.co.uk/ Motorsport] p.36] Also unlike the others, it was reliable and, due to low weight and power, the strain on chassis, suspension, brakes, and tyres was low.

Four world titles for the single-camshaft 16-valve

In 1966, the Repco engine was good enough to score 3 poles for Jack Brabham. In his one-off BT19, it helped him get 4 consecutive wins and both titles in the 9 races long season, a unique accomplishment for a driver and constructor. This was his third title.

In 1967, the competition had made progress. Repco produced a new version of the engine, the 700 series, this time with a Repco designed block. Brabham scored 2 poles early in the year, but then the new Ford Cosworth V8 appeared in the Lotus 49, setting a new pace with its Convert|400|hp|kW|-1|abbr=on, with Jim Clark and Graham Hill taking all poles in the rest of the season. As the Lotus was still fragile, the Brabham pilots scored 2 wins each. Brabham used new parts on his cars, which was not always helpful, so Dennis Hulme collected more results and the title, followed by Brabham himself, who again won the constructors title.

The engine stats were as follows:
* 2,995 cc litre V-8 cyl Bore 3.5" stroke 2.375"
* 1966 Auto bhp|310|0 @ 7,800 rpm (230 ft·lbf torque @ 6,500 rpm)
* 1967 Auto bhp|325|0 @ 8,300 rpm

No success for the double-camshaft 32-valve

The new Ford engine, which was made available to other teams in 1968 also, made clear that more power was needed. A new version of the Repco V8, with gear driven double overhead camshafts and four valves per head, was produced for 1968 to maintain its competitiveness . The new version produced around Auto bhp|380|0, but the season was a disaster as it proved very unreliable. Jochen Rindt, who had moved to Brabham at the wrong time, managed to score two poles and two podiums that year, while Brabham himself collected only two points. The Repco project had always been hindered by the lengthy lines of communication between the UK and Australia, which made correcting problems very difficult. Repco, having spent far more money that originally envisaged and having sold very few customer versions of their engine, stopped the project.

For 1969, the works Brabham team and most of the private Brabham entries also used the ubiquitous Cosworth powerplant. A pair of older Brabham-Repcos were entered in the season opening 1969 South African Grand Prix by local drivers Sam Tingle and Peter de Klerk, but no points were scored on the engine marque's last appearance in the world championship.

Also, LDS fitted with Repcos were used in the South African Grand Prix in the late 1960s, as well as in the national F1 series there.

Other Racing

The Brabham-Repco project was initially aimed at the Tasman Series, where Coventry-Climax's obsolete FPF 4-cylinder engine was dominant in the mid-1960s. The 2.5 litre version of the Repco V8 was never very successful in this series, initially producing no more power than the FPF. It did however record one Tasman Series round win with Jack Brabham driving his Repco powered Brabham BT23A to victory in the 1967 South Pacific Trophy at the Longford road circuit in Tasmania.

Brabham-Repco's were also prepared and entered in the 1968 and 1969 Indianapolis 500. In 1969, Peter Revson finished fifth in such a car. He also won a USAC race in the same year.

Further versions of the V8 engine were produced, including a 4.3 litre variant for sports car racing and a turbo-charged version intended for United States Automobile Club races. Neither version meet with any success, the turbo in particular being labelled 'Puff the Tragic Wagon' by its development team due to its lack of horsepower ("cf" Puff the magic dragon).

Repco also prepared various Holden engines for the Australian Touring Car Championship and for the Tasman Series, in later years when this series was run under Formula 5000 technical regulations.

F1 Constructors WC results

* 1966 Brabham-Repco World Champion
* 1967 Brabham-Repco World Champion
* 1968 Brabham-Repco 8th
* 1969 Brabham-Repco 8th

F1 Drivers WC results

External links

*http://www.repco.com.au/
*http://www.repcoinc.com - source for electrical contacts, coils, and carbon brushes

Notes