1960 BRM P48

I took this photograph on a visit to the Donington Park Museum in May 1989.

It's a BRM P48 that was campaigned by the BRM team in 1960 - the last year of the 2½ litre Formula One era. In 1959 it had become clear with the ascendancy of the rear-engined Cooper Climax in F1 that the days of front-engined GP cars was coming to a close and BRM tried to do a 'quick fix' with the P48 which was basically the existing P25 with the engine moved from the front to the rear. The car was a bit of a disaster, the three team drivers (Joakim Bonnier, Graham Hill and Dan Gurney) only managing eight World Championship points all season with a third place for Hill and two fifth places for Bonnier whilst Gurney's best was a single tenth place. Things weren't much better the next season with the P48/57, but in 1962 Graham Hill won the World Championship with the BRM P57.

BRM P48

Here's another of the old photographs, this time from the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in September 1960.

It's Graham Hill in the paddock in his BRM P48, the unsuccessful rear-engine version of the P25. Graham Hill finished in third position in the race which was won by Stirling Moss in a Lotus 18. This was the last season for the 2½ litre cars and BRM competed in the 1961 season with the P48/57, a car that was basically a P48 fitted with a 1½ litre engine, which was no more successful than the P48. The next season, however, a new car, the P57 with a new 1½ litre V8 engine was built and with this car Graham Hill won the 1962 World Championship.

BRM P48

The first BRM was introduced to the public in December 1949, and to mark the 50th anniversary of this there was a special tribute to BRM at the Coys International Historic Festival at Silverstone in July 1999. It featured a display of various BRM models, one of which was the largely unsuccessful P48.

In 1959 it had become clear with the ascendancy of the rear-engined Cooper Climax in F1 that the days of front-engined GP cars was coming to a close and BRM tried to do a 'quick fix' with the P48 which was basically the existing P25 with the engine moved from the front to the rear. The car was a bit of a disaster, the three team drivers (Joakim Bonnier, Graham Hill and Dan Gurney) only managing eight World Championship points all season with a third place for Hill and two fifth places for Bonnier whilst Gurney's best was a single tenth place. Things weren't much better the next season with the P48/57, but in 1962 Graham Hill won the World Championship with the BRM P57.

One of the team's better races with this car was the 1960 Gold Cup at Oulton Park where the three P48s finished in third, fifth and sixth places. The photograph below is one I took of Graham Hill's third-place car in the paddock being driven by, I think, the BRM designer Tony Rudd.