Photos and Story by Ryan Delane
The Brabham BT5 debuted with a splash on an overly wet day at Snetterton,
taking a class win. Frank Gardner was driving the waterlogged little yellow
car, and although it was finished being built just before the race started
(quite literally), Frank managed to stave off the horde of Loti and Elvas
to take under two liter’s top laurels.
The BT5 is not known for its success in racing, although it had plenty, right out of the design shop. Nobody seems to know much about this pretty little car, Brabham’s first sports racer. There were only two built, one that races now in Australia and sometimes in Europe, and this one, owned by Bob Lee, freshly out of restoration and racing in the States.
By 1963, Black Jack had adopted the conservative design philosophy that would win him races and championships all over the world. Instead of developing ground breaking designs, the Aussie chose to use proven methods to make more consistent and reliable performers. It makes sense then that Brabham’s first ever sports car was based heavily on the successful Brabham Formula Junior BT2.
The chassis was a spaceframe, which was easier to produce, maintain, and fix, so thought Ron Tauranac (the "T" in BT, Brabham Racing Organization’s designer): "Our customers preferred spaceframes... If they had a mild shunt, they could straighten a spaceframe rather easily, but even an exchange monocoque meant days rebuilding the car."
The BT5’s frame is constructed of 18-gauge steel tubes. The suspension is almost an exact copy of the Brabham Formula Junior’s—double wishbones for the front and a reversed wishbone and single-upper-arms suspending each side of the rear. Power from 1000cc, 1100cc or 1600cc engine is transmitted through a five-speed Hewland Mk. IV.