11.1 Elfin, Bluebird and Norman – Australian Land Speed Records

Elfin Sports Cars Pty Ltd is the oldest continuous Australian racing car manufacturing company,founded by Garrie Cooper and manufacturing sports and racing cars since 1957. The original factorywas located at Edwardstown in suburban Adelaide and is currently located at Braeside, Melbourne.Elfin is currently owned by Tom Walkinshaw, who also owns Holden Special Vehicles. Elfins havewon 29 championships and major Grand Prix titles, including two Australian Driver's Championships,five Australian Sports Car Championships, four Australian Tourist Trophies and three Formula Fordtitles. World Formula One Champion James Hunt raced an Elfin, as did French Formula One driver,Didier Pironi. Elfin also took out the Singapore Grand Prix, twice won the Malaysian Grand Prix andalso won the Australian Formula Two Championship in 1972 with Larry Perkins in an Elfin 600B.

Between 1961 and 1964 Elfin made twenty open-wheeled single-seater Formula Junior and Catalinavehicles. The two models differed only in minor specifications with the majority built as FormulaJuniors. International Formula Junior class rule require production-based engines with a either1000cc/360kg car or 1100cc/400kg car, using production gearbox cases and brakes. I understandthat the Elfin Formula Juniors were originally fitted with Cosworth Ford Anglia (105E) 1100c engines,though the Catalinas were fitted with a larger 1475cc Ford engine to meet Australian class rules.

Elfin Catalina Chassis Number 6313 was built for Dunlop Tyres for use on the Lake Eyre salt todetermine certain characteristics for the tyres that were fitted to Donald Campbell's Bluebird landspeed record attempts during 1963. The Elfin was fitted with 'miniature Bluebird tyres" and driven overthe salt to determine factors such as co-efficient of friction and adhesion using a Tapley meter. TheTapley Brake Test Meter is a scientific instrument of very high accuracy, still used today. It consists ofa finely balanced pendulum free to respond to any changes in speed or angle, working through aquadrant gear train to rotate a needle round a dial. The vehicle is then driven along a level road atabout 20 miles per hour, and the brakes fully applied. When the vehicle has stopped the brakeefficiency reading can be taken from the figure shown by the recording needle on the inner brakescale, whilst stopping distance readings are taken from the outer scale figures.

It is believed that the Elfin was running a (relatively) normal pushrod 1500cc Cortina engine with A3cam and Weber DCOE carburettors for the Bluebird support runs. The photo below was taken onLake Eyre and shows Donald Campbell alongside the red Elfin holding aloft a wind speed meter, withthe 3,320kW Bluebird-Proteus CN7 to the right

Bluebird went on to set the world land speed record at Lake Eyre at403.10 mph (648.73 km/h) on July 17 1964. Campbell has been quoted as saying “We've made it – we got the bastard at last”.

Some nice history, but I guess you are wondering where the Normans are, right? When the Bluebird record attempts were completed, the Bluebird Tyre designer Mr Andrew Mustard (of North Brighton, Adelaide) bought the Elfin f rom Dunlop. The Elfin was in  quite poor condition as a  result of its work onthe Lake Eyre Salt, with the magnesium based suspension struts quite corroded. A restoration tookplace over the end of 1963 and into 1964, and a single Norman supercharger fitted (see, told you this story had Normans). The vehicle was then used at Mallala Race Circuit, and for record attempts for1500cc vehicles in 1964 using the access road alongside the main hangars at Edinburgh Airfield(Weapons Research Establishment) at Salisbury, South Australia. The northern gates of the airfieldwere opened by the Australian Federal Police to give extra stopping time. At this time the Normansupercharged Elfin had

• a single air-cooled Norman supercharger, driven by v-belts and developing around 14psi. The v-belts were short lived, burning out in around thirty seconds,
• four exhaust stubs, with the middle two siamesed
• twin Amal carburettors,
• a heavily modified head by Alexander Rowe (a Speedway legend and co-founder of the Ramsay-Rowe Special midget) running around 5:1 compression and a solid copper head gasket/decompression plate. The head had been worked within an inch of it’s life, and shone like amirror. The head gasket on the other hand was a weak spot, lasting only twenty seconds beforefailing. As runs had to be performed back-to-back within an hour, the team became very good atremoving the head, annealing the copper gasket with an oxy torch and buttoning it all up again...inside thirty minutes.

The Norman supercharged Elfin, operated by Mustard and Michael McInerney set the following Australian national records from it Salisbury runs on October 11th, 1964:

• the flying start kilometre record (16.21s, 138mph),
• the flying start mile record (26.32s, 137mph), and
• the standing start mile record (34.03s, 106mph).

The Australian national records are established (or broken) in conformity with the rules established by the Confederation of Australian Motorsport (CAMS). A national record is said to be a class record if it is the best result obtained in one of the classes into which the types of cars eligible for the attempt are subdivided, or ‘absolute record’ if it is the best result, not taking the classes into account. The Norman supercharged Elfin falls into Category A Group I class 6. This class is based on the FédérationInternationale de l'Automobile (FIA) category system, and consists of automobiles (not necessarily production) with reciprocating two- or four-stroke supercharged engines of 1100-1500cc capacity, withfree fuel. For the curious, our grey motored Norman blown early Holden is eligible for Category A Group I class 8 (2,000-3000cc).

In 1983 CAMS made a decision to fully align the Australian national land speed records with the FIArequirements. The pre-1983 records were not fully compliant with all the FIA requirements, and hencehave been set in stone they can no longer be challenged. This means the Mustard/McInerney records above are still standing. However, the decision meant that all available records were declared vacant and able to be filled under the newly adopted FIA requirements for a speed record attempt.Two of the Mustard/McInerney type records have since been set as follows:

• the flying start kilometre record (set by S Brooke in a Daihatsu Charade Turbo, 26.76s in 1985),and
• the flying start mile record(again set by S Brooke’s Daihatsu Charade Turbo, 40.03s in 1985).

The third Mustard/McInerney type record (for the standing start mile) does not have an Australianrecord holder. This is the case for many of the new (post 1983) classes, where no national recordshave been set (since 1983). Before you get too excited about going out and claiming all thoserecords, there is a catch. A typical national record attempt is likely to cost between $5000 and$10,000... plus the vehicle costs.

This was not the Elfin’s only association with Norman superchargers.

The Elfin was later modified to have:

• dual air-cooled Norman superchargers (identical to the single Norman used earlier), mounted overthe gearbox. The superchargers were run in parallel, with a chain drive. The chain drive was drivenby a sprocket on the crank, running up to a slave shaft that ran across to the back of the gearboxto drive the first supercharger, the down to drive the second. The boost pressure in thisconfiguration had risen to 29psi,
• two 2"SU carburettors (with four fuel bowls) jetted for methanol by Peter Dodd (another AustralianSpeedway legend and owner of Auto Carburettor Services),
• a straight cut 1st gear in a VW gearbox. The clutch struggled to keep up with the torque being putout by the Norman blown Elfin, and was replaced with a 9” grinding disk, splined in the centre and fitted with brass buttons... it was either all in, or all out.

In the twin Norman supercharged guise the vehicle was driven by McInerney to pursue the standing ¼ mile, standing 400m and flying kilometre records in October 1965. Sadly, the twin-Norman supercharged Elfin no longer holds those records, as the ¼ mile and flying kilometre (together with a few more records) were set at this time by Alex Smith in a Valano Special. The Valano Special is a Valiant 225 slant-six powered car with a fibreglass Milano body made by JWF Fibreglass. The pictures below show Smith in the Valano at Templestowe Hill Climb (once Australia’s steepest paved road at a gradient of 1:2½ or 22º) in Victoria, a year later in 1966.

The day following the 1965 speed record trials (Labour Day October 1965), McInerney raced the twin-Norman supercharged Elfincar at Mallala as a "Formule Libre" as there was insufficient time to revert the engine back to Formula II specifications.

The car was used for training the South Australian Police Force driving instructors in advanced handling techniques, and regularly used at Mallala and other venues (closed meetings for the Austin 7 club, etc). It was sold by Mustard to Dean Rainsford of South Australia in 1966, though sadly without the Norman supercharger (by then it was running the mildly tuned Cortina engine again). The vehicle continued adding to it’s racing history, with Rainsford droving it to a win in the 1966 Australian 1½ Litre Championship Round 4 (the Victorian Trophy, Sandown, Victoria on the 16th of October 1966).

In the ensuing twenty six years it passed through nine more owners before Rainsford re-acquired it in 1993. After many years of fossicking, Rainsford has located the original Mustard/McInerney supercharged engine used in the 1965 record attempts. The engine is located in Gawler, South Australia (not far from the record track at Salisbury) ... sadly without it’s Norman supercharger – see photo below.

Source: Land Speed Record Norman Superchargers by Andrew Harve