8 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

A nice Nissan promo video on the "flying shoebox" Datsun 510 racers fielded by Pete Brock's BRE company in the Trans-Am 2.5 Challenge series.

 

[Jocke P]

Very nice, very soft spoken...

 

I borrowed the film link for our slot car club. Hope you are OK with that, Greg.

[Cheater]

Jocke,

 

No problem at all.

 

Any video on YouTube is fair game for anyone, so have no concerns. I was pointed to it by someone else as well.

[MG Brown]

Revell-Monogram will be re-releasing their excellent John Morton BRE Datsun 510 1/25 plastic model kit in Q2 of 2014 as stock number 85-1445.
 

 
The kit builds #46 but these other scale versions are possible by using aftermarket decals:
 

 
Bobby Allison - 1972
 

 
Bob Sharp / Peter Gregg - 1972

(Photos from BRE)
 
If there is interest after the kit is released, I'd be happy to do a review.

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Thanks, Greg... This was my fav back then!

[Cheater]

I dropped a short email to Pete Brock pointing to this thread. Perhaps he'll respond in some way.

[Dr. Gamma]

I used to pull for Harry Theodoracopulos in his Alfa 1750 GTA back then.
 
Can't imagine how long it took to paint that name on the car!!!
 
What a way to lose the championship, a oversize fuel tank in the Alfa.
 
I heard through the grapevine back then that BRE used the old Smokey Yunick method of getting more fuel in the car.
 
A super long and a way oversize fuel line in the 510 instead of a oversize fuel tank. Which by the "rules" back then was legal!!!
 
That's back when racing was fun.

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Racers reap what they sow......

 

I used to auto cross back then (71 Mazda RX-2 in C sedan) and in our sports car club C sedan was most days the fastest class beating Vettes and Mustangs because of the small parking lots we used most of the time....We made modified cars run the next class higher but....  Then another club came up to run an event at a larger parking lot. (We ran at the local Air force base.) They allowed 3 BRE clones to run the the C sedan class and these were very low big sway bar cars with sticky Dunlop race tires.

 

I ran as hard as I could and came very close to 2nd place but got 3rd. The guy that won the class could drive and I was not even close but the other 2 did not understand how to drive auto cross. That season I raced 9 nine races and finished with 2 firsts, 6 seconds and this one dang 3rd!

 

I still was a BRE fan because they were the underdog when they started. I will say the GTV's were beautiful cars!

 

Of note: They could run open headers at events...... till I started racing there.... the Mazda Rotary was LOUD opened up and the base commander came to the first event I ran and stopped it for everyone.... That did not make me many friends.

[Cheater]

Pete Brock did reply to the email I mentioned sending to him in post #6, but due to a typo in the reply-to address I didn't receive it until today.

 

Here's Pete's response:

 

Hi Greg...

 

This 2.5 racing never seems to fade away....even the "real guys" in their full-size racers are growing the series, building up old cars and some new ones, too!

 

Revell's decision to re-release the BRE 510 racers proves that the demand is still strong even though some of these new fans weren't even alive when the BRE 510s were racing. Not only is Revell re issuing the 510s... Sunrich is doing the cars in 1/18 scale and they look fantastic! We just saw the proof models last week. The best we've ever seen...

 

And have you seen the latest BRE 510s in the Classic Hot Wheels series? They sold out within a couple of hours!

 

One of the two BRE 510 racers we built for out-of-country privateers has been found and is going through a complete bare metal start rebuild! Look for it to reappear sometime later this year.

 

Never Lift!

 

Peter Brock