Brabham supercar's Aussie racing roots

The $2 million Brabham supercar that is being pitched against Ferrari and McLaren has surprisingly humble roots in Queensland. And a Ford V8 engine.

The prototype for the gorgeous BT62 also survived one of the biggest crashes in recent Australian motorsport history.

The back-story to the car’s creation has emerged as David Brabham cranks up the sales push for the $2 million racer, including hillclimb runs at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed in a tribute livery based on the controversial Brabham ‘fan car’ that raced only once but won the 1978 Swedish Grand Prix with Niki Lauda driving.

The BT62 was originally revealed at the Australian Embassy in London wearing the historic gold-over-green colours worn by Sir Jack’s cars during the 1960s. The plan is to paint the first 35 cars (in a scheduled production run of 70 from a factory in South Australia) in the liveries of Brabham’s GP winning racers.

But while the car is being touted as a high-tech supercar that’s capable of rivalling classic supercar brands including Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren, some of the story under the skin is not as dramatic as the high-tech carbon fibre bodywork and swoopy styling suggests.

Indeed, the BT62 has a tube-frame chassis that has more in common with Australian Virgin Australia Supercar Championship racers than a carbon fibre McLaren and its 5.4-litre V8 engine is rooted in the humble Ford Coyote -- even if it’s been tweaked to release 522kW and 667Nm for the Brabham.

No-one inside the Brabham project is prepared to talk about the BT62’s roots, although David Brabham was contacted in the UK for comment.

But www.carsales.com.au has discovered that Pace Innovations on the Gold Coast had a pivotal role in the project, and that a Brabham prototype was destroyed in testing at Phillip Island.

Engineering ace Paul Ceprnich, who founded Pace in 2006, was one of the key personnel in the creation of the Brabham’s chassis and packaging of the running gear.

He has many years of motorsport experience, most recently doing engineering work on the Carrera Cup Asia series in Thailand.

Ceprnich was responsible for the building of a number of Supercars racers, working closely with Paul Morris to design and develop a series of Commodores on the Gold Coast, and was also the engineering brains for the creation of the V8-powered MARC racing cars that have competed successfully in many of the world’s major long-distance races.

The latest MARC car uses a Mustang body over a tube-frame chassis with a Ford Coyote V8 and made its debut earlier this year at the Bathurst 12 Hour race.

The BT62 has a mid-engined layout that puts the engine behind the cabin, the polar opposite to the front-engined Supercars and MARC designs.

But some of the tube-frame Pace work is similar to the Brabham thinking and the Queensland company fits its touring car racers with a Coyote V8, a MoTec engine management system and a Holinger transaxle gearbox that are similar to the specification and packaging of the BT62.

The biggest difference is in the quality and cost of the Brabham components, as the car is intended for much quicker cornering and higher top speeds than either a Supercars or MARC racer.

Industry gossip on the Brabham highlights the much higher costs of the car’s parts, including the price-tag for a BT62 front suspension upright that is more than ten times higher than the piece on a MARC car.

Despite the pointers to Pace Innovations, Ceprnich refuses to discuss the Brabham project, or even confirm any involvement.

“Unfortunately I can’t talk to you about that project at all,” is his only comment.

The Brabham prototype’s crash last year made a big impact at the time, although no-one knew then that it was a BT62.

Touring car driver Ash Walsh was driving when the BT62 left the road at Turn One at Phillip Island while travelling at around 280km/h, rolling four times and destroying the prototype.

He was air-lifted to Royal Melbourne Hospital but, despite extensive bruising, suffered no broken bones.

The BT62 has now featured in a number of testing pictures and videos from Phillip Island, but most show David Brabham driving and there is no mention of the of Ash Walsh – or the crash.