ROVER-BRM and the 24h Le Mans
The ‘Essais Préliminaires’ at the beginning of April for the 24h Le Mans 1963 were special. Not only because all factories would run their first test of their new cars, but also because of a strange car: a Rover with a gas-turbine engine. Not entirely new as in 1962 a gas turbine-engined road-going saloon car by Rover was demonstrated at Le Mans in 1962.
1963
Now there appeared the “2S-150” Rover-BRM. BRM designer Peter Berthon cut a crashed 1961 Grand Prix BRM P57, chassis ‘571’, in half and fitted it with a two-seater width tubular centre section. A Rover 150bhp 2S/150 two-shaft gas turbine engine drove a BRM differential unit. There were just two speeds, forward and reverse; the two pedals controlled the fuel to the turbine and the Dunlop brakes, the latter wide enough to be used by either foot. The engine was placed behind the drivers, but in front of the rear axle. As the turbine was a free-running vertical constant-speed unit running at 35-40,000rpm it was essential for the drivers to keep the power on through the corners. That meant they had to keep the turbine up to working rpm with the right foot while braking for the left, so that there was no delay once the brakes were released. The turbine took time to regain peak revs if they were allowed to drop too low.
The drivers were BRM’s own Formula One pair of Graham Hill and Richie Ginther. The Rover-BRM was allowed to take part in the race, but out of the regular competition. Graham Hill did the first lap but stopped immediately again at the pits. He was not yet accustomed to the handling of the car and the noise when the engine must be going into the revs.
During practice, the tail had showed a tendency to lift at speed above 150 km/h, which meant that for the race the car was to be fitted with the rear spoiler and lower front wings. For the race changes had also be made to the windscreen.
For the race, the car had been painted a patriotic green. It also carried the number ‘00’, which seemed logical in indicating that it was in a contest of its own.
To start, the driver had to have one foot on the brake and, with the other, press a foot button to apply the power. Once this had been achieved he then had to take his foot off the brake and the car would accelerate slowly forward. This was so slow that it was flagged away from the grid last and from a position that looked straight down the track as opposed to the then traditional angle.
But during the twenty-four hours, the car performed magnificently and, had it been in the race itself, it would have finished in eighth place overall. They got a bonus-award ( in money) for averaging over 150km/h without any mechanical adjustment.
The short appearance of the Rover in 1964
It was decided to enter the race proper in 1964, competing in the 2-litre class. a way of comparing the size of a piston engine with a gas turbine having been agreed. Motor Panels (Coventry) built the new GT-style body, a closed coupe designed by Rover's William Towns. Corning Glass Works had developed an inexpensive glass-ceramic material, Pyroceram, which was capable of withstanding very high temperature. This meant that a pair of ceramic rotary regenerators, called “heat exchangers” were added to the gas turbine for more efficiency. no longer had to be made of thin, unreliable material. The rear suspension was also arranged differently to maintain the handling characteristics of the open top 1963 guise.
The car ran at the April trials. There was little time to test the new engine however, and the car was also damaged during transport back to Britain. The team withdrew from the 1964 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Last race: 24h Le Mans 1965
The car was entered again in 1965. Berthon and Noel Penny, the chief gas turbine engineer at Rover, had worked on a comparison formula to equate gas turbine and petrol engines. With a horsepower of 145bhp, the car should have been in the 1.6-litre class. The ACO disagreed and the Rover-BRM once again found itself in the 2-litre category.
BRM’s Grand Prix drivers Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill were at the wheel. The Scot did not get a chance to test the race car before the 24-hours but gained experience using the Rover T4 gas turbine prototype saloon on the public roads. He found the ‘enormous delay’ to take full revs a kind of balancing act and found the braking ‘terrible’.
The race went really good. The car was slower than it should have been and Sir Jackie recalled being overtaken by a Triumph Spitfire on the Mulsanne straight. His friend and later winner of the race, Jochen Rindt would wave two fingers at him every time he passed in his Ferrari 250LM.
Nevertheless, the car gradually worked its way up the leader board while having to make one unscheduled pit stop late on a Sunday morning. By the afternoon the engine began to overheat. It was eventually discovered that some of its compressor vanes had been damaged possibly as a result of the entry of foreign body. As a result the turbine inlet temperature has increased.
Despite this, the car finished the race on 283 laps, albeit at an average speed of 158.990 km/h. It was second in class and 10th out of the 14 cars is still running. As the highest placed all-British entry it was also the recipient of that year’s Motor Trophy.
Rover-BRM; the end
It was hoped that a developed version would appear the next year but this was never to happen and Rover ran down its gas turbine programme. The only gas turbine cars to have appeared at Le Mans since were the Howmets that ran later in the decade but heavy fuel consumption proved that they could not be competitive. The #31 Rover-BRM is to be admired in the Heritage Motor Centre in the UK.
