J.A.W. wrote:You surely cannot be serious.. ..keeping some kind of superstitious qualms about previous owners..
Would you reject a suitable potential wife if she was a widow? ( I don't mean a risky femme fatale 'black widow').
I have owned operated & enjoyed machines that previous owners have died doing the same with,
& indeed one former 'widow-maker' has had over 30 years to kill me too, but maybe I've just been lucky ( as if)..
Mind you, I did inherit a car from a suicide ( gassed himself in the car)..
& after cleaning it out & using it - I sold it on to a mate ( who knew of its circumstances, but wanted it),
although, oddly enough, he later drove the car to a high sea-cliff & then vanished mysteriously, leaving the car..
..a bit like a spooky 'Christine' case maybe? Who knows?
Dunno, but I had no worries with it.. ( & it was a cool Mopar - too)..
IMO, the more operational worthy historic F1/race cars - the better, regardless of morbid death-based fantasies..
Well unless the guy died while in said widow it's apples and oranges.
If someone gave it to me would I take it, yes. Then I would promptly sell it. I personally wouldn't go looking for it or buy it. That's just me. I've had a couple spooky experiences in my life, more than for me enough as far as I'm concerned. Again, I know I sound crazy and foolish, but that's just me.
Who knows maybe ol Jochen will be pleased someone is restoring it and ride along keeping them safe. You never know!
I did just find this interesting bit while I was looking for info on his Monza 72.
"Dusk was falling when the BE Trident Flight 062 touched down at Milan's Linate on Thursday 3 September 1970. It was humid and airless, as it always seemed to be in Italy. I glanced back. In the eerie cockpit lighting the captain and his co-pilot were filling in their logs. They'd be home for a late supper - lucky people.
Jochen was on a high. He was blitzing the world championship. His confidence was at a peak. He'd scored a succession of fantastic wins, beginning at the Monaco GP in a Lotus 49C, after which his new 72 started to fly. He won at Zandvoort, Clermont-Ferrand, Brands Hatch and Hockenheim. From the outside, Jochen Rindt appeared indestructible.
But appearances can be deceptive. I felt there had been too many breakages. Constant modifications and updates - plus we were now running a third car for Emerson Fittipaldi - meant there had been too much frantic activity, not enough rest for the mechanics. To me, Formula 1 didn't seem like this elsewhere. Intuition said that maybe things weren't going to go too well this weekend.
The 72 started out with three basic design faults: excessive anti-dive, which led to instantaneous brake locking; equally excessive anti-squat, which resulted in very poor traction due to rear suspension 'jacking effects'; and Paxolin spacers, which were supposed to keep the heat generated by the inboard brakes from frying the inner CV joints. Once the 'antis' were removed and another material had been found to replace the melting Paxolin, the car really started to work - because so much else about it was right.
But boy, was it fragile. We seemed to be forever stitching things back together or making stronger bits. On top of that I was frustrated because I couldn't seem to keep an engine together (it later transpired that there was a fault in the oil system). And two weeks before Monza, at the Österreichring, a brake shaft had broken on my car, nearly sending me into the trees to meet my maker. A horrendous vibration from the front end early in the race had made me back off a bit for the corners. Without warning, when I braked, the car shot across the road to the right. I scraped round the corner - guardian angel in attendance. This was getting to me. Nearly every time I got into 72/1, the engine blew up or something fell off.
I'd asked the wonderful Trish at Team Lotus to try and book a quiet room at the rear of the Hotel de Ville. As expected, I ended up overlooking the traffic lights and those all-night moped races. Already it had been a tragic season. That night I couldn't stop thinking about Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and Paul Hawkins. Piers had just passed me at Zandvoort when he crashed. And now I was at Monza: scene of titanic struggles and the baying tifosi. I didn't like the place. Was this a motor race or a scene from Ben Hur? What was the difference? There should be a difference.
Friday morning. The Hotel de Ville had a nice chandelier in the dining room and a lot of wood panelling. I didn't see Jochen at breakfast so I made my way to the circuit alone though the lanes of Monza Park to the paddock gates. The tifosi were already out in force trying to clamber over the fences. One had blood on his hands, such was the imperative. They say that most flying accidents start long before the plane leaves the ground; there was no Gold Leaf Team Lotus truck to be seen. No chief mechanic Gordon Huckle, no Dave 'Beaky' Sims, no Eddie Dennis. Everybody else looked ready to go. Graham Hill had been testing with Rob Walker's private Lotus 72 earlier in the week. I noticed his aero set-up: front wings flat, the centre section of the three-piece rear wing removed, and the top and bottom aerofoils running almost flat.
The Team Lotus truck pulled into the paddock not long before the first timed practice. The guys had been working or driving for 48 hours, almost non-stop. They looked shattered. There had been a mass of updates after Austria - and a third 72 to build for Emerson. Our guys were scrabbling about fitting mirrors, sorting out Emerson's seat and fuelling the cars. "Funny way to win a world championship," said Phil Kerr, the McLaren team manager, as he walked past. Me? I was summoned to the medical centre. Typical Italian nonsense: drivers had to stand on one leg, arms outstretched, eyes closed, and stay upright. Never found out why. Quite potty.
Jochen seemed in good spirits. He knew the championship was his. Nina, his wife, was there, as usual. There was always an air of urgency about Jochen. He was always very fast straight off. He hated testing. I loved it. The more 'stick time' the better. As far as I was concerned, heaven was flogging round Silverstone making the car go faster. A well-tested race car is fast without so much risk. Jochen and I were late getting out and only in the 1m 28s, right at the back, after the first timed practice. Jacky Ickx's Ferrari had recorded a 1m 24.6s, with team-mate Clay Regazzoni, and Jackie Stewart - first time out in the Tyrrell 001 - in the 25s. It was in the second Friday practice session that things started to get really hairy.
Like Jochen, I had been working away at finding some straight-line speed, and had come to more or less the same downforce set-up as Graham: front and rear wings flat, middle aerofoil of the rear wing removed. There was about half an hour left. Ferrari had the test mileage: Ickx and Regazzoni were both now in the 1m 24s. We were two seconds down on that. Back in the pits, Jochen was clamouring for more straight-line speed, a big step. The previous year he'd nearly won the race in a Lotus 49 without wings. Now Jochen called, urgently, for the wings to be removed. "For sure," said Rindt to Eddie Dennis, his mechanic, "this would be the only way of going fast in the slipstreaming tail-chase at Monza."
I was losing a lot of time in the second Lesmo because the exit is unsighted. The exit speed here controls the build-up of momentum on the run to, and through, the flat-out Ascari Curve (now a chicane), and onto the long, long straight towards the Parabolica. It was here, in the last half-hour of practice, that I saw Jochen in the mirrors. There was something different about his car. I eased slightly. He got by after the Pista de Alta Velocita bridge. As the car passed there was the usual blast of noise, fumes, and helmet-shuddering turbulence. Blimey, no wings! Through Ascari, his car looked dreadful - back end floating, using all the road, including the Tarmac where the Monza Junior circuit swaged into the grand prix track. He pulled away a bit, but I rushed up to him in the braking area - not something I was used to doing. On this lap, or the next, Jochen extracted a 1m 25.7s from the car and we both pitted - with me on a 1m 26.5s. Jochen was 600-700rpm faster on the straight without the wings. He would now need a 200mph fifth gear to make best use of the 10,500rpm limit on one of the special super-fast DFVs to be installed for Saturday's practice.
The mere sight of Jochen's car in action encouraged me to keep some wing on my car. There ensued an unforgettable conversation. Before I could comment on my car, the instruction "Get the wings off John's car!" came. "Tell Colin I don't want to do that yet." Back came, "Just get the wings off!" In this situation I have always reverted to instinct - "The slowest way is the quickest way," JYS used to say.
I had an idea of what to expect because, even with some downforce, my car was getting nervous in the first corner, the right-handed sweep of Curva Grande. I did one lap. For me, the car was undriveable without downforce. The rear end felt very nervous, skating out from under me in the middle of Curva Grande and the Lesmos. There seemed to be no grip at all. For the first time in my life I was frightened in a racing car. Practice was over now. Jochen and I were sixth and 11th respectively. Emerson was on a 1m 28s, but had failed to stop at the end of the straight and lobbed his new 72 over the bank. More drama.
In those days, the total headcount at Team Lotus was about 12. Nobody had heard of hospitality units; the debrief was held in the back of the truck. "The only way you are going to do any good is to take the wings off your car," said Colin. I wanted none of it. Colin continued: "We sorted cars out before wings." "Right, but I need time to do that." "You're to run without wings tomorrow." "I don't want to." "Well, you've got to."
And with that the conversation ended.
I felt slightly sick. Disagreement with the man who had helped inspire me to achieve so much in motor racing would get me nowhere. Somehow I knew my days at Team Lotus were numbered. Jochen was happy. He must have felt confident about sorting the car out in an hour without wings, or so confident that he knew he could drive round any instability. I thought the risk too great. We didn't have the faintest idea of the aero behaviour without wings. I didn't like what seemed to be such a rash approach.
I left Dave with the job list - seat mods, gear ratios and so on. I told him I wanted to keep the wings, but expected the worst. I fought my way out of the paddock, had another fitful night's sleep and, at breakfast, sat with Jochen and Peter Gethin. We talked wings. Stewart was fast from the word go without wings. I'm sure he'd been testing there earlier in the week. All the other runners were using some downforce. "You'll be all right, John," said Jochen. In one practice session? I doubted it. I wanted to do things my way.
Back at the circuit on Saturday, Team Lotus were better organised. Sure enough, though, there were no wings on my car. "Sorry John, but that's what the Old Man told me to do." I had lost control of my risk. It was a beautiful sunny morning and Jochen got out to practice on the dot. Dave was still fuelling my car and tinkering with the fuel system valve. He had done a great job modifying the seat. In 10 minutes I was snugly tied in, unhappy about accepting my fate, but burbling towards the paddock exit.
Those DFVs were so tractable. Before I got very far I was aware that there were no cars screaming past the pits. There were just lightly-loaded, blipping DFVs coming into the pits - nothing else. Unusually, a quiet was descending upon Monza. Suddenly Colin, his chief designer Maurice Phillippe, and Team Lotus' Dick Scammell materialised from out of the paddock crowd in front of me. Colin spoke first: "Jochen's had an accident. See if you can drive round and see what's happened."
Christ! This is bloody stupid. What can I do? I don't want to be here anymore. I was relieved when the marshals wouldn't let me out. Meanwhile, Bernie Ecclestone (Rindt's manager at the time) was running flat out towards the Parabolica, followed by Eddie Dennis. By the time they got there Jochen had been lifted from the car. One of the marshals made a sign to indicate the worst. It seemed his spirit had been sent for - direct. Eddie picked up a piece of scalding hot disc - and dropped it. He picked up one shoe and Jochen's helmet. The front end of the car was virtually gone. The car had turned left, struck the barrier and slid down it. Jochen absolutely would not wear crutch straps.
He submarined so far in the car that the seat-belt buckle rode up to his neck. The rest of us waited. Even the tifosi fell silent. Another catastrophe for Lotus at Monza, the place where they impound cars and pursue people through the courts. Graham and Rob Walker were hanging around as they brought the car back into the garage. Along with myself and Dick Scammell, they slid under the up-and-over garage door, leaving it open just enough to let a shaft of light in.
The car's front end was a complete mess - nothing left. "Let's face it, he's dead," said Dick. Actually, he already knew because he had seen Jochen in the ambulance. I felt shocked but slightly high, as if I'd played Russian roulette and survived. From time to time, Graham had been very helpful to me. I think we liked each other's painstaking approach to motor racing. But there, in the dusty half light, he seemed somewhat inured to it all, asking Rob when practice was going to restart.
For Team Lotus, of course, there would be no restart at Monza. At about five o'clock we all knew for sure that Rindt was dead, and all four 72s were withdrawn from the race. I drove back to the hotel and saw a distressed Nina Rindt being comforted by her father Kurt Lincoln and Helen Stewart. I should have said something but couldn't. That evening, at a different hotel, I had dinner with Emerson and his family. I phoned Chris, my wife, and went to bed.
Piers Courage, Bruce McLaren - and now Jochen. And there had been several other less famous drivers killed around that time. Their lives were no less important to me. This was the sport, as a kid, I had dreamed about wanting to do, yet now it felt like a love affair gone wrong.
We shall never know for sure what went wrong. The car's right-hand brake shaft was broken. A bending failure would suggest it broke in collision with a guard-rail support. A torsional failure would indicate a failure while braking, which would certainly have made the car pull uncontrollably left as mine had pulled uncontrollably right in Austria. Denny Hulme reported that Jochen's car had weaved slightly before it turned left. The initial shock of something breaking may have made Jochen do something with the steering and brake pedal pressure in the fraction of a second before having to brake hard whatever the consequences. Jochen had gone out with unscrubbed tyres. He was also bedding in new brake pads. There is evidence, too, that suggests the brake balance had not been changed to account for the much-reduced rear grip - so maybe he just got into a tank-slapper under braking. There was even a story going around Team Lotus that Jochen had been advised not to drive his 72 without wings because I had reported it was so unstable in this condition.
Things fail on racing cars. Personally, I think something broke. I could never imagine Jochen losing control with such violence however bad the aerodynamics. Come race day I trundled to the airport by bus with Bernie Ecclestone. He was very upset and angry. He seemed to want to make somebody answerable. About a week later, a party including team manager Peter Warr and designer Maurice Phillippe (who was disguised as a mechanic) took the engine out of Rindt's car as this did not affect the inquiry into the accident. This DFV went into Emerson's Lotus 72 and won the US Grand Prix just four weeks later.
I met Colin about this time. He was very downcast, of course, and told me that Team Lotus were planning to miss the Canadian Grand Prix, to give them time to regroup. I had permission to go to Le Mans to do some filming. Two weeks later Peter Warr called me to say that I was being replaced by Reine Wisell. I was heartbroken at the time, but, in retrospect, Colin was probably right. The team needed fresh faces, not somebody whose confidence was at a low. At Watkins Glen, Emerson and Reine did a fantastic job to come home first and third. The 72 had begun to hit pay dirt.
One of my better decisions was to decline a drive that same weekend in the works Formula 5000 Lotus 70 at Brands. Allan Rollinson drove it instead. It broke in half after grounding out at the end of the straight on the approach to Hawthorns! As to R2, Jochen's 72, rumour has it that it's in private hands in Switzerland. Personally, I hope what's left of it has gone where it belongs - in the crusher."
From an article written by John Miles in 1999
