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THE LEGEND THAT WAS MIKE THE PIPE
Mar 15th
STEVE HOLE pays tribute to Mike the Pipe
Everyone in motorsport (from bottom to top) classic, kit and custom car scenes all knew who Mike the Pipe was.
Who was ‘Mike The Pipe’? His real name was Mike Randall and for nearly thirty years his workshop at the unassuming 12 Stanley Park Road, Carshalton Beeches (people often say it was Wallington, which is very nearby, but technically it is in Carshalton Beeches) was the UK’s exhaust hub.
Randall first came to prominence when he worked for Vic Derrington and Bill Terry at TDC Components in Kingston-on-Thames, next door to the main V.W. Derrington More >
A TRIBUTE TO JOHN PARRADINE – DELTAYN PROTEUS, PARRADINE PEGASUS & JJR 525S
Mar 9th
I was very saddened to hear of the death this week of John Parradine, aged 72.
The late John Parradine 1950-2023
To regular readers and kitcar enthusiasts, John will need no introduction as he first appeared on the kitcar radar in 1985 with his Jaguar-based roadster the Deltayn Proteus.
John was always very kind to me and my first contact with him was when I worked for Kit Cars & Specials magazine in the eighties. We sponsored the Stoneleigh show back then and I was tasked with the job of arranging ‘interesting’ cars to appear on our showcase stand in the then new cowshed foyer More >
WITHAM ANNOUNCES MOTORSPORT PLANS FOR 2023
Mar 2nd
Witham Motorsport has announced an exciting new programme to support the UK motorsport 2023 season.
The UK lubricant manufacturer will be supporting a variety of British Motorsport competitions including the Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship, British F4 Championship, 5 Nations British Rallycross, BTRDA Clubman’s Rallycross Championship, MG Championship, British Speedway, British Truck Racing Championship, BRSCC Mazda MX-5 Super cup, National Kart Racing Championship, Offshore Powerboat Racing and various Master Historic Race events.
Witham Motorsport is also one of the key partners for the Protyre Motorsport UK Asphalt Rally Championship – which consists of seven events held at various locations across the More >
UNSUNG HERO – CYRIL MALEM
Feb 23rd
The late Cyril Malem was one of those engineers, fabricators and designers, who was incredibly popular and always in demand for his skills but never got the credit he deserved, but those in the know, ‘knew’! Time to pay tribute I think.
Cyril hailed from North London and trained as a toolmaker. He was one of the first employees at Bob Robinson’s Arch Motor and Manufacturing Co Ltd in Tottenham, very close to Spurs’ White Hart Lane stadium.
He would have been involved with Colin Chapman who turned up one day enquiring about fabrication work. Arch started by making throttle pedals for More >
FROM TERRIER KIT CARS TO FORMULA ONE – THE CAREER OF BRIAN HART
Feb 16th
Words by STEVE HOLE
Brian Hart was another of those real motorsport characters that we just don’t see anymore. Born in September 1936 in Enfield, Hart got into motorsport after being hooked when visiting the British GP at Silverstone in 1949.
By 1958 he had his first crack at motor racing in a Lotus V1 in the 750 Motor Club’s 1172cc Formula before meeting the designer and maverick Len Terry and joining his Terrier team.
Rather embarrassingly for Lotus employee (at the time) Terry, Hart won the Chapman Trophy in 1960 in a Terrier Mk2 beating all the Lotus racers. It’s said that More >
FUNKY CHICKEN AND PRICELESS ASTONS – THE CAREER OF JOHN OGIER
Feb 9th
John Lionel Eardley Ogier goes under the radar these days but deserves recognition for his huge contribution to motorsport and the automotive industry in general. One thing is certain despite his importance, information is hard to come by but John Ogier sure was a fascinating man, with an amazing story.
He was born in India on October 23, 1921, but was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford. He joined the Army in 1938 when it became obvious that war with Germany was imminent and was posted to the Queen’s Own Hussars, a regiment with Sir Winston Churchill as honorary Colonel-in-Chief.
He was evacuated More >
SIR JACK BRABHAM – NOT JUST AN F1 DOUBLE WORLD CHAMPION!
Feb 2nd
STEVE HOLE looks at the career of one of his favourite F1 drivers Sir Jack Brabham outside of Formula One
The racing career of Jack Brabham has been well – and in some cases – excellently documented. What isn’t so well-known is his outside automotive business activities so we thought it was time to round them all up
Born in Australia in 1926, Jack Brabham won three F1 world championships in 1959, 1960 and 1966 and is still the only driver to win a world championship in a car bearing his own name and incidentally, the first racing driver to be knighted More >
THE ‘OTHER’ JIM CLARK
Jan 26th
We’ve all heard of Jim Clark, the late and fabled Grand Prix driver tragically killed at Hockenheim in 1968. However, there was another ‘Jim Clark’ at Lotus at the same time who later earned himself a great reputation in the kit and specialist car industry. STEVE HOLE is convinced that this Jim Clark doesn’t get the credit he deserves.
Very modest chap, Jim Clark. The ‘other’ Jim Clark as he was known at Lotus in the sixties. He’s had a hand in some of the most iconic racing cars ever built plus a good few kit and specialist cars, but even so, More >
THE STORY OF MIKE CANNON AND CANNON ENGINEERING
Jan 19th
THE MIKE CANNON STORY – words by Steve Hole pix by Carol Hardy
Michael ‘Mike’ Richard Blackburn Cannon was a very interesting and talented chap. Born in Tasmania in 1928 to a farming family, he emigrated to England and settled into sheep farming at Oxen Hoath Farm in West Peckham (near Tonbridge), Kent. They farmed 2000 acres and lived in a fifty-room mansion.
When his father died in 1952, Cannon and his brother acquired the farm but were forced to sell 1980 acres of it, living on the remaining 20 acres, where Mike built his own bungalow called Crooked Chimneys.
His great uncle More >
KING OF THE ‘DASTLE’ – GEOFFREY RUMBLE AND HIS DASTLE RACING CARS AND TRAILERS
Jan 10th
Words by STEVE HOLE
Geoffrey Dastle was a very clever engineer. He was actually trained as a heating and air conditioning engineer based around the Leatherhead area of Surrey.
He also enjoyed motorsport in general. He built his first racing car, a ‘special’ in 1959 for 500cc F3 and did a few races in it himself.
He built another car called the Mk2 under the ‘DASTLE’ name which came from ‘Geoffrey DAvid STanley RumbLE’ (obviously!) and had become interested in the then very popular GP Midget racing that was sweeping the UK at the time.
The cars looked like scaled-down F1 cars and often More >
