In Wheel Time Podcast

Driving Through the Legacy of Tyrrell Racing and 'This Week In Auto History'

• In Wheel Time Car Talk • Season 2023 • Episode 236

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Cruise down memory lane as we rev the engines with Richard Jenkins, the author of a riveting book on the Tyrrell Racing Organization. Richard gives us a peek under the hood of his meticulously researched tome, shedding light on the enigmatic Ken Tyrrell, an assertive timber merchant who transformed his passion for racing into a championship-winning legacy. Buckle up for an exciting ride as we unpack Tyrrell's trailblazing innovations, including the six-wheeled car, the fan car, and the high nose concept, all of which left indelible tire marks on the race tracks.

But that's not all. We also take a detour into the electrifying world of Formula One, with heart-thumping discussions about the race in Las Vegas and the 100 millionth Ford Fairmont. We then switch gears to explore the story of General Motors' electric car, the EV1, and pay tribute to the enduring legacy of the legendary designer Larry Shinoda. 

We also get a look at the popular feature 'This Week In Auto History' presented by Konra DeLong.

So, gear up for a turbocharged conversation every Saturday morning, and make sure you don't miss any pit stops in the latest car news with us. The green flag drops at 8 am central on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch, and our In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show also gets a full tank on Apple Podcasts.

Be sure to subscribe for more In Wheel Time Car Talk!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another in wheel time podcast, a 30 minute mini version of the in wheel time car show that airs live every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am, central. Welcome to the in wheel time car talk show coming up. The hardest man to get a hold of in jolly old England, richard Jenkins, and the. Is it Terrell or Terrell? He'll tell us I know, but so that you, while we do the rest of this.

Speaker 3:

I think it's terrible. You think it's terrible. Is it Richard or Richard? Okay, you can hear us, I can tell that, but I know I think he's left.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, conrad has this week in auto history and we'll get you caught up on the stories making Auto news headlines this week. Howdy, along with Mike out of this world, mars King, conrad, along, we always need more Jeff Zekin. I'm Don Armstrong. Glad you could join us on this Saturday for our live show to listening on a podcast later on in the week. Well, thank you for listening and welcome to this portion of the car show. All right, so before we even intro him, we're going to get the pronunciation right. Is it Terrell or is it Terrell?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's, it's terrible terrible.

Speaker 1:

Yeah sure, ladies and gentlemen from, are you in London?

Speaker 2:

Not quite Hatfield, where they made the old, the haveling comet Many, many years ago.

Speaker 1:

Okay, All right. Well, his name is Richard Jenkins and he has the story of the Terrell racing organization book that is out, and I know that folks are kind of starting to think about Christmas. Well, first off is Thanksgiving here in the US, obviously, but we have Christmas up, and for any car guy I think that this would be an interesting read, because it's about formula one back in the day and the Terrell racing group. And so, richard, what, what got you going on this? Why would you want to write a book about this?

Speaker 2:

Well, I've been very fortunate. To be honest, I've right, if you. Let me rewind just a little bit. About three years ago I wrote book on Somebody that might be more familiar to American racing audiences, a guy called Richard Guimba Used to race for Ferrari and Honda what the Mexican Grand Prix. But sadly it was my first book.

Speaker 2:

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity and it did rather well. It won multiple awards, all of which is unreal because, you know, all I did was just do my best and go from there, and the company published this book to every other, got in touch and said well, what would you like to do? And one of the key things that I wanted to bring was something that hasn't been done before. So I was the first to do the Richard Gimper book, and no one, believe it or not, has ever done a book on Tyrrell from the start to the finish. It's mainly been the Jackie Stewart era, obviously, because it was extremely successful. But no one's really covered the other guys you know, and they had Danny Sullivan, eddie Chiba, derek Daly, michele Aberretto, martin Brundle, john Alazy, very, very famous names, and their time at Tyrrell was just a tiny fraction of what's been in literature before. So that was the genesis of it.

Speaker 2:

Who is Ken Tyrrell? Well, ken is no longer with us, but Ken Tyrrell was a timber merchant. That was his gay job and racing was just a bit of fun. And he from a little wood shed in. I mean just think of the forests, the lumberjacks and think of their sheds. He ran a championship winning organisation from the shed. Extremely argumentative guy, but in a good way he liked an argument. He was very forthright but extremely passionate about his sport, extremely passionate about the people that work with him.

Speaker 3:

And very inventive. You know he had an advanced mind as far as the race car goes and my view of the world was so far advanced. A lot of his innovations that he brought to his cars were shortly outlawed. You know, the most famous to me, the most famous Tyrrell car is the six wheeled car, the four front tires on an F1 car. I don't know that it was overly successful, but it sure was memorable to see that car on track and then not to get support from Goodyear by building the tires for him to do what he wanted to do. But then then that kind of chassis, that six wheel chassis, ended up getting outlawed by Formula one as well.

Speaker 3:

So a lot of things Terrell did ended up being outlawed in the next year or two. And you know a little bit of history of. Do I call it cheating or super innovation of refilling the car with lead shot so it would pass spec at the end of? I think they call that cheating. He would pass spec at the end of the race.

Speaker 2:

I think bending the rows is the yeah bending the rows.

Speaker 3:

The gray area, we'll go with that.

Speaker 1:

The gray area, like the T.

Speaker 3:

If you're racing and you're successful, you're cheating somewhere. You just haven't got caught yet.

Speaker 1:

Yes, so I assume that you cover all this in the book.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, I mean what you just said about the innovation. I mean, though, ken himself wasn't that mechanically minded. There are so many things, but the fan car in the book. A lot of people think the first fan car was from Brabham and Gordon Murray and that got outlawed after one race. But in fact Terrell were the first people with the fan car, the one thing that didn't get outlawed, and, just bear with me, I don't know how well you can see it if I put it in front of me, but on the front cover of the book, on the bottom, we have John Alazzy with the high nose and a chap called Harvey Posseswaite who you may have heard of used to be a Ferrari designer. Him and French chap called John Claude Mijoux came up with the high nose concept and for the next probably 30 years, at least 20 years every single Formula One car had that high nose. So, yes, so extremely in it a bit, but that one actually was within the rules and stayed. But yeah, the P34, which he mentioned, sits wheeler. It did win one race, but, yes, very quickly.

Speaker 2:

Good year, this was James Hunt, nicky Lauda, 1976, the Rush season. So a good year. Had a choice of focusing between the P34 for one car, one team and the other 10 teams. So easy decision really for a good year to make.

Speaker 1:

How long did it take you to write this book? Put all this stuff together.

Speaker 2:

About three years all in all. I was lucky. I probably couldn't do it now in three years, but this was started during COVID, and COVID, for an author, is actually somewhat of a dream, because you have people that cannot escape and they're only recourse a Zoom or a phone call or so You're actually making their day by getting in contact with them. But then, thankfully, everything went back into the wild and trying to track down people was a bit more difficult after that. Yeah, it's just been a consistent two to three years of hard work Trying to get hold of as many people as I can.

Speaker 3:

And did you talk to a lot of the characters you have in the book? You know, as far as the designers and some of the drivers, the list of people Terrell had surrounding him on the team was amazing. You know, even if you just talk about the drivers, you've named a few of them. You know Jackie Stewart, john Surty, jackie Ix, jody Schechter, patrick Tapallier. You know some of the great F1 drivers have driven a Terrell through the years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think we've got 32 of the what was then 40 drivers alive. We've lost a couple since, but 32, yeah, including Martin. Brundle has got massive, maybe not so much in America, but certainly in Britain. He's got a very high profile Sky F1 now.

Speaker 3:

Right Until he does the grid walk and people have no idea who he is. He sticks a microphone in their face and they walk away from them.

Speaker 2:

We might get this at Vegas as well, I don't know. But yeah so, jackie Stewart, everybody like that. There are only seven, eight drivers out of the entire living drivers who didn't or couldn't help. The Terrell family Ken's sons are still alive, bob and Kenneth and the designers there's not many designers still alive, unfortunately, but Mijo but also the mechanics, because what I wanted to do is not just get the stories to be completely fair to Jackie Stewart. He deserves everything and he deserves to be listened to, but he does get repetitive after 40, 50 years of seeing the same stories. Sometimes it was nice to go to the mechanics and the fabricators the guys but were at the front of the car or the back and hear their stories, because they've never had their chance as well. So I think it was about 100, 110 people associated to on you.

Speaker 1:

All I can think of is you know 110 guys that he's got to get a hold of track down to talk to them. I don't know how you were able to do that. Talk about perseverance and patience. That would be your story. How did you get Jackie Stewart to write the forward in the book?

Speaker 2:

We're to go back one step, mike. I wrote a second book about a guy called Mike Spence who, again, if you know history, used to the rest of Lotus died in Indianapolis, 500 qualifying in 1968. His widow, who sadly has died since, was quite close to Jackie because Mike and Jackie were very good friends and it's sometimes not what you know, but it's who you know and who you know and who they know. She was a very, very forthright South African, like a lot of South African people are, and she just got in touch with Jackie and said Jackie, she wouldn't call him, said Jackie, she got straight to the point Jackie just writes forward, just saw it out, and so he did. So I've got Mike Spencer's widow to work for that.

Speaker 1:

So oh, cool, and that's kind of thing that I was alluding to is the fact that it's you got to go to this person who knows that person, who might know somebody else. That will get you into the door, jackie Stewart, to say, hey, would you write a forward to know a guy that knows a guy? Yeah, exactly, let's see, let's. The first outlet for his work was the website old racing cars. Tell me about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been doing that for 20, 20, 21 years now. We, the service, I concentrate, or did concentrate, on the drivers and where they are, you know, from the successful world champions to the guys, but just race one race. Then I've expanded it a bit to the designers, the team personnel, team principals, people like that. I've covered Indy car now, so I cover everybody that's ever started or qualified for the Indianapolis 500. The Indy car series, aos and all that sort of thing. My colleague Alan. He concentrates on the cars, again, majority single seater, but where those cars are now, you know, have they ended up in a scrap yard? Are they being raced? Are they being raced in historic racing? Are they owned by either secret or very public personnel? So basically, it's a free service, it's a website. We don't have adverts, we don't have logins and special passwords. You can just Google and, yeah, you know, a lot of people find us that way.

Speaker 1:

Richard, where did you get your passion for racing?

Speaker 2:

Back in probably 86, 87. We had a chapter of Nigel Mansour who was doing quite well in Britain, nearly won the 1988 six world championship, and whatever you think of Mansour, he has a persona and he has a character around him and that whips up the media and you know, when I was about eight or nine, this kind of thing was very intoxicating and I've ended not not being particularly a Mansour fan, but seeing these fast cars. I mean, this was a time when you'd had the turbos are still there. She had the sparks. Anybody could win because the cars weren't reliable. It was just. It was just intoxicating and, as I say, it's really gone from there.

Speaker 1:

Did you? Did you go to the Saturday night races in the local area there?

Speaker 2:

There weren't too many in my local area. It's something I've gone to a bit more. Probably about early 90s started going to the Grand Parade. I don't live too far from Silverstone so I've gone to quite a few Silverstone events and more recently I tend to go to the historic stuff. But I still go to the Grand Parade every year the British Grand Parade so I still I still watch comment racing.

Speaker 3:

You get to Goodwood and watch some of the nostalgic cars run up the hill, or what they call a hill I don't know how much.

Speaker 2:

No no, no, it is. And there's another one, perhaps not so well known in America, but there's a place called Shersley Wash which is in Worcestershire. It's been there since about the early 20s and again it's the same thing. You see the cars going up the hill, which is a fantastic spectacle. Went to Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago and it's not the same as it was 100 years ago, but you get a feeling for it. So, yeah, very much interested and passionate in it.

Speaker 1:

Are you going to watch the Formula One race from Las Vegas this weekend?

Speaker 2:

I will, I will. I think it's six o'clock our time, so it's an early start, but I have three children and a dog, so I'll be up early anyway. So yeah, no, it should be good. It's not quite the same for me as it was in the 80s and 90s, but I still watch every race. Still hope that somebody added in the shopping wins. Nothing against him personally, I just like to see variation of drivers.

Speaker 3:

But well, you know another thing about Terrell as an organization that evolved into I believe was it Braun that ended up evolving into the current Mercedes team. Is that correct? Yes, so the same.

Speaker 2:

If you go into a thing called Companies House in the UK which registers all companies or businesses Mercedes right now out there in Vegas, lewis Hamilton, george Russell, all the latest technology. They have the same company ID as the Tiro Racing Organization set up in 1964. So it's the very same company in theory.

Speaker 1:

So fascinating, richard. It is a pleasure and an honor to talk to you, sir, and thank you for hanging in there with us and glad we got our clocks together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And I posted a link on our social media to Amazon of your book, as well as a link to oldracingcarscom. I'm gonna be, a fan of that page as well.

Speaker 1:

Very cool page. Well, richard, again it's the story of the Tiro Racing Organization and it's available through your favorite bookseller. Richard, great to talk to you.

Speaker 2:

And a Merry.

Speaker 1:

Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, sir you too, and happy Thanksgiving as well. Thank you, sir, appreciate you Fascinating. I like to hear that stuff.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, when he talked to a good group of you know, 103 people to interview to create the book. You know he's got a good view from the drivers to the family, to the people that were building the cars and stuff. Pretty cool.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, very cool. All right time now for this week in Auto History. Conrad has it. Where are we gonna go to today?

Speaker 3:

Well, this week in Auto History, in 1914, the first Dodge car leaves the factory. After finding massive success as a parts maker in Detroit's auto industry in the early 1900s, the Dodge brothers, john and Horace, signed a deal to build parts exclusively for Henry Ford. So Dodge actually the Dodge brothers worked for Henry Ford and then in 1914 built their own car. Henry didn't pay them well, not no surprise. Henry didn't pay anybody well. But what he did was he gave them stock in Ford Motor Company, and that stock in Ford Motor Company blossomed into a significant amount of money and it was enough for them to start the Dodge Motor Company. In 1977, the 100 millionth Ford was built. It was a 1978 Ford Fairmont oh my.

Speaker 3:

God. And as the car rolled off the assembly line in Mawa, new Jersey, mawa, mawa, mawa, is they like wow, wow, no, that's code for tub it out. It spent many of its early years traveling the country as the hundred millions Ford built. You know funny thing about that car those things to have the hundred millionth.

Speaker 1:

You know they could fix that. It could have made it a 150 or something. Mustang or anything but not a Ford.

Speaker 3:

Fairmont. The chassis of that Fairmont is the same Fox body chassis of the Mustang. So it could have been a Mustang, but it wasn't In 1996. This week GM releases the EV1, their first electric car. General Motors released it. Manufactured in Lansing, michigan. It had a range of 70 to 90 miles. So you talk about range anxiety.

Speaker 1:

I will never forget when I first saw that. You know our Lieutenant Governor, dan Patrick. For some reason or another he was on radio at the time, but I met him for lunch and he had one of these. He had one of these things that I thought ugly, ugly, god, that thing is so ugly. And he looked at me and says you think?

Speaker 3:

Well, the other thing you got to remember and this is the genius of General Motors, and I won't go down that rabbit trail the original name of this car was the impact. Oh great, what a great name for a car. Well, gm had so much confidence in it that they only made it available through a lease program with an MSRP of $33,995. After the lease had concluded, gm collected as many of them as they could and scrapped them and stacked them up as scrapped. They crushed them and scrapped all of them, except a few that were in museums I think Jay Leno has one in his garage still but generally they were all destroyed. And then, in 1998, larry Shinoda passed away. Oh yeah, larry Shinoda.

Speaker 1:

Now Larry.

Speaker 3:

Shinoda, very famous designer, was integral in the design of the 63 Corvette the new, and he was a fan of the split window, though there was reasons for the split window because they couldn't lay the glass correctly in 63.

Speaker 1:

And most people don't know that. But the split window they had to make it because the original design was 64 and beyond with one solid piece of glass, but they couldn't do it.

Speaker 3:

And a number of people, once the rear glass was released for the 64, went in and cut the split out of it and put the 64 rear glass in it, really destroyed the value of them. But if you think of Larry Shinoda, he was not only a great car designer, he was involved, in my opinion, some of the most iconic cars ever produced the 63 Corvette along, you know, he and Bill Mitchell, but also with the 69, 70, 71, 72 Mustang. You know he was a designer of that. And then finally, the Grand Cherokee. He was the designer of the Grand Cherokee. And then there's one more and you know, and you think that was the start of the small SUV world, was the Grand Cherokee. So you know, larry Shinoda, very, very famous designer. But his passing was a loss to the auto industry. That was this week in auto, that's good, that's good.

Speaker 1:

Larry Shinoda, I remember him very well Back in the day. He was a big deal. Oh, yeah, yeah. Time now for some of the stories making headlines this week. Well, the GM deal was saved by the company's component plants, parts depots and battery plants. For workers who stand to get the largest raises canceled out. Opposition from assembly plant employees already getting top wages. The headline three UAW deals ratified, but GM it's a tight vote. The Detroit three say they're nearly ratified. Contracts with the UAW make working in the factories pay better than 70% of other US jobs in all fields, not just manufacturing. The deals give immediate $5,000 bonuses and push top wages above $40 an hour in 2028. More than 35,000 of the automakers hourly workers still voted no. While the contracts passed by wide margins at Ford and Stalantis, there was widespread opposition at GM. Gm's contract passed by fewer than 3,300 votes less than half. The margin for a far less lucrative deal in 2019.

Speaker 1:

And a move to take online vehicle shopping to a new level. This is earth shattering. Here. Hyundai and Amazon will partner on a digital storefront to sell the South Korean automakers vehicles to consumers. Hyundai will be the first auto manufacturer to use Amazon's digital retailing tool to conduct a full end to end transaction. Buyers will be able to tap Amazon's digital shopping platform to select and finance a vehicle. The sales will be channeled through local dealerships. What do you think that the other dealerships are going to say about that? The announcement immediately raised questions among some retailers and industry investors. Lithia, the nation's largest auto retail dealership group, saw its stock fall 5.1 percent. In response this week the stock price for number two auto group, autonation, slid 6 percent. Online auto sales referral service, truecar, stock dropped 7 percent. The digital retail giant is starting with the Hyundai brand. Amazon executives told automotive news, but they expect to partner with other automakers.

Speaker 3:

So Amazon's going to show up and fix your recalls, because Hyundai is notorious to the dealer.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, that's just the avenue to get it no, and you have to go to the dealership to get your vehicle.

Speaker 3:

You still got to do all the paperwork at the dealer, so it's basically a third party retailer. They did not say how much Amazon stock went up. If all the others are going down, oh, they probably did.

Speaker 1:

I just didn't read it. That's right. You know we can't read the whole story, it's just boring to death. Got some recalls to tell you about a bunch of Mercedes-Benz A220, amg, a35, amg, cla 35, cla 45, cla 250, gla 250, glb 250 and that's for missing brake inspection gauge, sunroof may close unexpectedly and the Mercedes-Benz GLS 580. So you've got your girlfriend going down the street hanging out at the top of the car and all of a sudden, oh my kid's closing. Loss of steering control on the Honda pilot for 23 and 24.

Speaker 2:

That's not a good thing.

Speaker 1:

Improperty secured windows may detach on the Mercedes-Benz GLC 300. You see the pattern here with the Mercedes-Benz. Doesn't your wife have a?

Speaker 3:

Mercedes-Benz yes, she does. I check it for recalls every month.

Speaker 1:

You should check it every week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, incorrect. Front driver airbag in the Tesla Model S and Model X for 21 through 23. An American, honda, is recalling nearly 249,000 vehicles in the US for a manufacturing error that could cause engine damage. Listen to this. Recall covers certain 2016 and 2018 to 19 Honda pilot. 2017 and 2019 Ridgeline. In 2018 to 19 Odyssey vehicles. It also covers two models from Acura. The connecting rod bearing in the engine of those vehicles could wear and seize because of improper equipment settings used during production of the crankshaft. But it only happens once. So far this year, honda has issued 16 recalls affecting nearly 3.3 million vehicles in the US, according to NHTSA data.

Speaker 3:

Wow, it's got going on down there.

Speaker 1:

Mars, with all the headset messing with.

Speaker 3:

I'm trying to get Steve Green to talk to me, but he didn't want to talk to me.

Speaker 1:

How nobody wants to talk to you.

Speaker 3:

That's the problem. All right Well he's laughing at you, I know.

Speaker 1:

So apparently he can hear you Well he's out. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

If you can hear us, give us a thumbs up. Oh, for God's sake. Well, he can hear us All right, yeah, we're going to hear you about here. Two minutes, two minutes.

Speaker 1:

Let me go ahead and take care of all the headset rumbling around in here.

Speaker 3:

Everybody was recalled.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and also let me just say this, that David Ainslie has said we need to get rid of these headsets.

Speaker 3:

I agree.

Speaker 1:

That is not going to happen, because none of the people that I work with have ever been in radio and they don't know how to work a microphone. And clearly they still don't know how to work a microphone, but at least it's kind of in front of their mouth. Thank you, I'm feeling much better now. Tell us how you really feel. Time for a quick break? We'll be right back. You're on the Inwheel Time Car Talk Show.

Speaker 1:

Houston's finest cars are invited to another Gulf Coast Auto Shield Car Social, saturday December 2nd, and you're invited too. Show off your personal pride and joy or just stop in to see the likes of Lucid Lamborghini, porsche, ferrari and more. Gulf Coast Auto Shield is your one-stop shop for paint detailing, coatings, window tint, clear bras and wheel repair. The Car Social is your opportunity to get a tour of this state-of-the-art facility, located at 11275 South Sam Houston Parkway, just south of the Southwest Freeway. It all takes place Saturday, december 2nd, 9 to noon. This is the perfect opportunity to connect with other car enthusiasts, from BMWs to mentally, corvette's to McLaren's. The Car Social is a different kind of show. Talk to the owners. See Gulf Coast Auto Shield's facility. You'll be amazed. Put it on your calendar now the Gulf Coast Auto Shield Car Social.

Speaker 1:

Saturday, december 2nd, 9 to noon at 11275 South Sam Houston Parkway, just south of the Southwest Freeway. The In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show will be there too. We'll see you then. That's it for this podcast episode of the In-Wheel Time Car Show. I'm Don Armstrong, inviting you to join us for our live show every Saturday morning 8 to 11 am, central on Facebook, youtube, twitch and our In-WheelTimecom website. Podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts.

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Don Armstrong

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Jeff Dziekan

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Michael Marrs

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