Think of the name Brabham and at first you probably envisage Sir Jack, a three-time Formula One world champion and one of Australia’s finest ever sporting exports. Then, assimilate the name with a brand and it’s a manufacturing heavyweight of true, global regard.

The combination of man and brand stands for so many races, achievements, honours and magical moments of the past, and yet, in the fast-paced world of automotive technology and racing cars, sentimentality can quickly find itself taking a back seat, and so happened with Brabham.

Following Sir Jack’s retirement in 1971, the F1 Brabham team battled on for another 20 years with diminishing levels of success under the leadership of a number of different owners – including Bernie Ecclestone, future supremo of Formula One – but the team, an iconic force in the 1960s which readily triumphed against behemoths such as McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus, had faded into virtual obscurity by the early 1990s, when mechanical and financial challenges had been deemed too great to overcome.

Yet the brand did live on – not just in the misty-eyed memories of traditional racing aficionados, not even in the motoring museums where BT52s still sit majestically as four-wheeled powerhouses from a bygone era. Instead, so cherished and so valuable was the name that other entities began to cash in. In 2009, the BT92 appeared, a modified BMW M3 Coupe launched out of a German stable, while a year later a Brabham Grand Prix team attempted entry for the F1 season.

Neither of these had anything to do with David Brabham, the accidental overseer of his father’s intellectual property, and it would be a further three years before legal ownership of the trademark was passed back to him.

“I guess that was the start, and the whole thing came at the right time for me really,” Brabham tells Motor Trader. “My own racing career was coming to an end and suddenly there were others trying to take the family name. Really, that should have been us, and not for money’s sake; more so that the legacy of producing incredible racing machines could be taken forward and celebrated from those who had a proper claim to it.

“For a long time, I had felt that Brabham needed to be back racing again, but it took a while to realise how to achieve that.

“Wind forward, and I think what we’ve done in the past couple of years proves that the decision we took to reignite this famous brand was the correct one.”

The result, of course, is the BT62, a pure-bred racing machine, which was officially unveiled in the spring. Coming in at a cool $1.8million before tax, it has a power-to-weight ratio of 730ps (720hp) per tonne, a dry weight of just 972kg and is powered by a Brabham naturally-aspirated 5.4-litre capacity V8 engine. And best of all, it’s being built in Australia.

“I can’t say the Australia connection was an entirely emotional decision,” Brabham says, referencing his father, who was born in Hurstville, NSW. “There comes a point where you have to say – what are the capabilities, is there funding, is there expertise? None of those you take lightly, and it just so happened that the right partners were in Adelaide.
“It’s then you say, ‘Wow, how incredible is that? We are going full-circle, back to Australia where it all began with Jack in 1948.”

Technically, every element of this incredible machine is on-point. The engine offers a telling echo back to the Brabham-Repco V8 days, and that power-to-weight ratio eclipses even the McLaren Senna. There are carbon-fibre body panels, a spaceframe chassis and a protective roll cage. It boasts Michelin slicks on 18” tyres, carbon-carbon brakes and integrated air jack points so the car can be elevated during pit stops.

They’re the basics, but in terms of owner imprint, Brabham can mould that into manufacturer expertise, with multiple wheel designs, carbon packs, seat specifications and right-hand drive conversion. Yet, while its next iteration gives the BT62 – a full-performance GT racer – an option to progress into a full-performance racing vehicle, or to be moulded down into a showpiece road vehicle right up there with tarmac monsters of the like of Porsche, Maserati and more, this is essentially a blueprint designed for ‘here and now’, statement racing.
The short-term ambition appears to be getting the car up there with the Toyotas, Porsches and Audis on the starting grid for the 2020 Le Mans 24hr race. For that to be possible, Brabham Automotive will need to move quickly.

“True, we have Le Mans in in our sights,” says Brabham. “We went down there with our partner Michelin to have the car on display. We’re waiting to see what more detail is released regarding new regulations for hypercars, so we are looking at 2020, perhaps even 2021 for those to become a part of that championship.

“Like a lot of other manufacturers, we want to decide if that’s the best way for us to go, or do we create a GTE version – we’ll see, but we want to be there as soon as we can.”

Paul Birch, Brabham Automotive’s technical boss, adds: “It’s important to aim a few steps above everyone else, because while you’re marketing a current vehicle, others are developing theirs.

“Of course, when you start with a blank sheet of paper, as we did with the BT62, you don’t know where the regulations might move, but we wanted to make a big step over the current GTE competitors in terms of performance, giving us the platform then to plan the modifications into the retail element, because the market for this car in its current form is obviously very small and extremely exclusive.

“As it stands, the car already has headlights, tail-lights and you can see out of the windows, so it has all those road elements to it, and if you look at the current GT racers, there is a formula of a certain size in terms of wheelbase, engine position and two seats, so we very quickly got to that point and then had to decide what we were going to do with the distinct elements.”

David Brabham was closely involved in the design process despite not having formal architecture or engineering qualifications. “I would say I know the brand’s intentions better than anyone else, so passing that idea on was easy – intuitive, almost. The look, the feel, the build of it – everything needed to be at that point to go off in different directions. So, there was always that fight between that function for the track and the form for a road car, with a good look, but we feel we have definitely hit the nail on the head.

“And let’s be clear,” he adds, “at its very core it’s a race car – the slick tyres, the suspension, the aerodynamics.

It’s designed to be fast on a race track. It’s light, it’s powerful, it’s got good downforce and, when you drive it, it responds really well because of the nature of the way the car has been configured. Engine reliability is key, and I just can’t stop driving it every time I get in it!” Brabham laughs.

Throughout the process though, the manufacturer knows a Brabham must always feel like a Brabham, hence why David conducted the lion’s share of the testing himself. Furthermore, the preservation of a contemporary feel has been at the forefront of ideas – why else would the team choose a six-speed sequential Hollinger gearbox when rivals are increasingly moving towards turbocharged units.

“When I drove the BT62 for the first time, I hadn’t driven on track for almost two years,” Brabham continues. “I felt rusty and just wanted to take my time. Yet after a few tests I felt like I was back and enjoying it so much because there’s a real purpose to it.

“It’s a quick GT car, there’s no doubt about it, but it is very driveable. You have 1200kg of downforce, it’s light and a lot of the performance is down to that power-to-weight ratio. It rockets away from the corners and sticks pretty around them like a dream, too.”

Of course, what makes the BT62 really special is the tacit link between Australia and the UK. The production site at Fusion Capital, in northern Adelaide, is a 15,000-square-metre facility, and sits perfectly within a high-technology manufacturing park that is quickly becoming synonymous for the next wave of motoring innovation, preserving all the good, positive principles that came out of the Australian industry’s car production implosion of late 2017.

“The disappearance of the industry – in terms of building cars – has obviously been a big topic,” says Brabham. “So, when we made our announcement we shocked everyone. People grabbed onto it with a lot of love and attention because it was manufacturing – it was Brabham coming back and putting faith in that area.

“They’ve been building cars here for a long time and there are supply chains with a lot of expertise, so that had left a nice gap. And that was part of the vision with the Fusion group, because one of their businesses was a tier one supplier to Holden. Obviously, they had the need to diversify, and wanted to do a ‘halo’ project, and that’s where we all came together to make that happen.

“There is good support from the South Australian State Government too, although still a bit to go in terms of agreements and getting the cash, so to speak, but we’ve plenty to do on our side too.

“Ultimately, it all comes back to timing – sometimes you just get a feeling that things are going to go well because elements fall in line together, like the opening of The Bend, an FIA-standard race circuit about 80 miles from Brabham Automotive’s factory, and Jack’s 70-year anniversary too. Those things make a big difference – they make me feel very comfortable, like this is meant to be.

“So, we’ve got the right partners, we’ve got the right vision, and we hope this is the start of the Australia automotive industry’s fightback. What’s gone on has been difficult, but in our small way, straight away, there is a rebirth, and that feels good.”

What’s more, the Brabham team have gone about this the only way they could – no clay models, no material renders, no optimistic funding rounds in order to see a prototype. The team had their car, their plan and their launch ready to go, something that is surely befitting of such a legitimate brand.

“We had to be credible from the start,” says Brabham, who admits to taking influences from his work with the DB9 in coming to a vision for the BT62. “And the fact we were launching almost 70 years since Sir Jack made his racing debut was another nice incentive to find ourselves ready with something tangible and real from day one.

“In discussing with Fusion, we realised the only way to do this was to actually deliver a car at the show and the launch. It was so vital that we demonstrated to people what we’ve done and not what we’d like to do.”

The initial production run is for 70 vehicles, with the liveries of the first 35 echoing each of Brabham’s F1 winners, ranging from the green and gold of its earliest cars through to the blue and white of the BT54 that Nelson Piquet drove to victory in France in 1985. These ‘celebration’ cars make way for the ‘signature’ cars to follow, each customised to their new owners. Brabham also reveals that four tracks around the world will be offered exclusivity rights.

“A lot of people have identified the Middle East as a hot-spot for these types of cars, so it does make sense to have a presence around that region. Then, of course, the UK, Australia, and another location to be decided upon.”

Owners will join ‘the journey’ by having a moulded seat insert, and a tailored driver development programme to help them get the best out of the BT62 (including a Microsoft-partnered data analysis package that will help customers develop their skills).

“It’s a family and the owners will be a part of that from day one,” says Birch. “Just like Sir Jack was integral to everything, as has David been, we want our owners to feel that too.”
The sense of optimism vibrates through every element of David Brabham. It also offers a sense of closure over the flawed BT61, an F1 design that never reached a racetrack in the dark days of the 1990s. Now, the stable has a bright future that exists in physical form.

“This is 100% me and that’s what also makes it special,” says David, when asked if other members of the Brabham clan are involved. “It’s about me and Dad – Jack knew I was trying to do something and, unfortunately, he passed away before this got up and running.

“He knew the vision of what I was trying to achieve though, and he was very supportive of it, and I think that he would have been really happy to see where we have got to, and where we’re going.”

6 Jul 2018