BRJ1, indicating it was built at Bromley and is a F. Junior, has now taken up residence in New Zealand with its new owner Roger Herrick. The Mk2 was the first of Eric Broadley's single-seater designs and was a competitive proposition when it made its debut in 1960, unfortunately as far as Britain was concerned the main competition was Jim Clark in the new rear-engined Lotus 18 with its works Ford-Cosworth engines so wins weren't easy to come by.
BRJ1 was one of the three cars, together with BRJ2 and BRJ3, that were purchased by the Fitzwilliam Racing Team and raced in Europe in 1960. A number of different drivers were used by the team including such notables as John Love, John Whitmore, Graham Whitehead, Tony Maggs, Juan Manuel Bordeu and Peter Ashdown. The three team cars were all painted a dark BRG with either a red, blue or yellow band on the nose.
The Fitzwilliam cars had their first race on the full Monza circuit on the 25th April 1960 for the Vigorelli Trophy but engine problems saw all the cars have early retirements. On returning to England the engines were fitted with Cosworth camshafts and for the rest of the season the cars showed commendable reliability. BRJ1 was "borrowed" by Ferrari in mid 1960 for "development" purposes and had a Fiat engine fitted by Stanguellini. It ran in this guise as a Lola Fiat at Monza, Reims and Nürburgring as Ferrari wanted to find out whether it was the Ford motor or the Lola chassis that made the car superior to the Italian Formula Juniors (it was both).
John Love was the most successful of the Fitzwilliam drivers taking seconds at the Nürburgring and Roskilde and thirds at Rheims and Albi. The history of BRJ1 between 1961 and about 1975 isn't known although there was apparently an uncompleted attempt to convert it to F3 spec. Roger located the car in the loft of a small German museum and it has now been returned to its former glory. As can be seen from the photographs there was a lot of work to be done but it is evident from the pictures at the top of the page of the completed restoration it was well worth all the effort.
It ran for the first time in over 40 years at the Formula Junior International meeting at Taupo, New Zealand at the start of 2008. It is finished in the same colour scheme and number etc. as it ran at Monza in May 1960 as a Team Fitzwilliam car (Sir John Whitmore driving).
