Alta

After World War 2 the newly revived Formula One used a basically pre-war formula: supercharged 1.5 litre or unsupercharged 4.5 litre engines. Engineers knew a supercharged 1500 was likely to produce far more power than a normal 4.5 litre, and the formula produced such famous (or notorious) cars as the amazing 16 cylinder 1.5 litre BRM. Geoffrey Taylor, who made a small number of cars pre-war under the Alta name, built a tiny number of Formula One cars using his own design of two-stage supercharged 1.5 litre engine. This 1948 example was an all-independent, front engined twin-cam car with enormous power, an ear-splitting, headache-inducing scream, and a good deal of unreliability.

The unreliability arose from Alta's miniscule development budget. Producing an entire Grand Prix car was straining their facilities to the limit. In any case the 1.5 litre supercharged formula was so expensive that a number of major teams dropped out. For 1952 the World Championship was switched to Formula 2, which required no more than 4 cylinders, and no supercharging. Alta then developed a 2-litre unsupercharged version of the 1.5 litre engine.After building a tiny number of F1 and F2 cars, Alta concentrated thereafter on building racing engines alone, supplied to a number of British race-car builders.

This car, Chassis No 101, was originally owned and raced in Britain and Europe by Robert Cowell, who subsequently became Roberta Cowell after a sex change operation. Cowell then competed in the Women's category at UK hillclimbs, to the indignation of perennial Womens' Champion Patsy Burt. It appears that it was never actually paid for and went back to the factory where it was partly dismantled. Re-assembled, the car came to Australia in the mid 1950s, to be raced by Gib Barrett. It came 10th in the 1956 Australian GP at Albert Park before it was bought by Sydney Anderson. Anderson raced it in WA, winning the 1957 WA Racing Car Championship. He particularly had his eye on the 1957 AGP, to be held in Perth. Unfortunately the car DNF'd with a failure of the magneto drive.

After Sydney Anderson died in December 1957 the Alta lay dormant for some time, until Jack Ayres of Superior Cars bought it from widow Anne Anderson . The nose was modified by body specialist Cliff Byfield, and the colour changed from BRG to red. Jack Ayres raced it for the first time in 1960, but by 1962 he had bought the ex-Whitehead F2 Alta with the Holden engine and distinctive mag wheels. In 1961 the 1.5 litre supercharged car was bought by Jim Ward who raced it for two or three years more.

After he retired from racing, Ward kept the car out in the open without a cover. Eventually Jim Harwood bought it and restored it, and it was sold to the Hon. John Dawson Damer in 1967. John discovered, as previous owners had discovered, that chronic unreliability and fragility were trademarks of the Alta F1, and in any case he was turning his attention to Lotus Formula One cars, which he began to collect. The car was sold to Peter Briggs in 1981. Rebuilt to the Jack Ayres configuration rather than the original Sydney Anderson configuration, it is now in the Fremantle Motor Museum.

(Sorting out the car's pre-Australian history can be difficult. Alta was a very small outfit not famous for maintaining detailed logbooks of everything that happened to their cars, and in those days of huge UK Purchase Tax on new vehicles it was quite common for a brand new car to acquire an old chassis number. Equally, engines and chassis got swapped about if it suited them. So it's not at all clear if this car, when it came to Australia, had exactly the same chassis, engine and gearbox as it did when raced by Cowell. It's likely, but not certain.)




TOP LEFT: Sydney Anderson in the Alta, Caversham (Ken Devine collection). TOP RIGHT Anderson winning 1957 Racing Car Championship (WASCC collection) MIDDLE LEFT: On the grid at Collie, Don Reimann makes a last-minute fix for driver Jim Ward (Ken Devine) . MIDDLE RIGHT: Jim Ward at Bunbury, c 1961 (Milton McCutcheon). BOTTOM ROW: The Alta in the Fremantle Motor Museum 2006 (T Walker)