Reflecting on the 77th Members’ Meeting and the CTA‑Arsenal

While around the time of the Normandy Landings the townspeople of Chichester reputedly complained hotly about the din caused by three squadrons of 6.25-ton, 2,200 horsepower Hawker Typhoons taking off en masse, contemporary racing enthusiasts (1950-55) will remember the keening wail of the two-stage, centrifugally-supercharged BRM V16s racing around the course. I have been told – or have heard – that the BRMs’ wail was audible as far away as Midhurst, Portsmouth and Littlehampton…

The BRM V16 had itself begun life as a supposedly national Grand Prix racing car, to be backed by a consortium of British industry and – its creator Raymond Mays hoped – by HM Government too. Well as it happened the politicians opted out entirely and the BRM project received no State aid whatsoever, beyond a few nods of approval – or periods spent looking in the other direction - from the hide-bound bureaucrats running the Ministry of Supply 1945-1951. Instead, the wise and far-sighted politicians poured precious lashings of our forefathers’ tax money into such ill-fated lunacies as the East African ground nut scheme and the vast eight-engined Bristol Brabazon trans-Atlantic airliner programme, designed to carry around 100 passengers each luxuriating in approximately the same space as the cabin of a Morris Minor.

I was thinking about the BRM V16s as I gawped at Josef Otto Rettenmaier’s wonderful restoration of the French counterpart to that all-British wonder, the 1947 CTA-Arsenal. There it was, sitting in its paddock stall, this French national Grand Prix car into which the contemporary French Government poured millions of Francs as part of its enduring postwar politesse de la gloire – the politics of glory, or of vainglorious prestige-seeking. Does some of this sound familiar?

Now back in the 1930s France and French manufacturers had fallen off the competitive tightrope in Grand Prix racing. Bugatti’s once dominant designs had been overtaken and far outstripped by Alfa Romeo and from 1934 moreso by the State-supported German factory teams of Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. Private owners despaired of finding a good French GP car to race competitively. To put matters right they organized construction of a radically new design to redress the balance. Ex-Salmson designer Emile Petit was recruited and a group was formed named the Societe d’Etude et de Fabrication de l’Automobile de Course – ‘SEFAC’ for short. Petit laid out a most unusual engine for their proposed car, a parallel-eight with two vertical banks of four cylinders each, arranged side by side with their individual crankshafts geared together and rotating in opposite directions to counter torque reaction. This engine went into a hefty chassis designed by Edmond Vareille.  The car was announced in 1934 but did not appear until practice for the 1935 Grand Prix de l’ACF at Montlhéry, driven by French-Algerian Marcel Lehoux. The peculiar engine – announced as 2,600cc – emerged as 2,760cc, but that race was run under the 750-kilogramme maximum-weight Formula. At scrutineering, to the horror of French fans, the SEFAC reputedly scaled 925kg and its entry was scratched pre-race.

The French national press was unamused. When Mercedes-Benz cars finished 1-2 in that French Grand Prix their headlines screamed ‘Never Again!’.  France had been made an international laughing stock, partly by Bugatti’s failure, moreso by the SEFAC’s abject withdrawal. The media demanded a growing National fund be used to build a really first-class Grand Prix car – or that International regulations should be changed, and the French Grand Prix itself scrapped. The French dummy had been well and truly spat… And for 1936-37 the Grand Prix de l’ACF was, indeed, run for sports cars – which saw Bugatti and Talbot victories. In 1938 at Reims the Grand Prix was revived, the SEFAC was entered – driven by Eugene Chaboud – and it blew-up after three slow race laps. Mercedes GP cars finished 1-2-3. Early in 1939 Jean Tremoulet drove the unloved SEFAC in the Pau GP, again failing to finish.  When it was entered for the 1939 Grand Prix at Reims even the ACF added a note in their race programme predicting dolefully “Depart Improbable”…

Some people have very thick skin, and postwar – in 1948 – the 14-year-old SEFAC re-emerged, rebodied, as the Dommartin GP car – now with its parallel-eight engine enlarged to 3,619cc. It did not appear. But while the SEFAC became a laughing stock, the French still maintained an interest in producing a successful national racing car.

In 1946 the Centre d’Etudes Techniques de l’Automobile et du Cycle (CTA for short) initiated design studies into what was described as “a high-speed research vehicle”. A Government budget was provided for the work and the project was given facilities in the State arsenal at Chatillon to construct the car.

CTA employed ex-Delage superstar designer Albert Lory – the man responsible for the magnificent straight-eight supercharged Delage GP cars of the 1920s. He conceived another roller-bearing engine, but this time a compact 90-degree V8 with twin-overhead camshafts per cylinder bank driven by spur gears from the crankshaft.  This unit displaced 1.5-litres and used two-stage supercharging, from two same-size Roots compressors at the front of the engine running at different speeds. They provided around 24lbs psi of boost. Lory mounted his engine inclined rearwards in a simple welded chrome-steel tubular chassis frame. The driver sat astride the propeller-shaft which dived under his seat to a double-reduction back axle. The suspension was independent all round with torsion bar springs parallel to the chassis side members at the front, and transverse at the rear. The wheel hub-carriers fitted on slides in railway-style axle boxes – something of an eye opener – and Lockheed drum brakes were fitted. The whole assembly was clad in a very pretty body.

Raymond Sommer – the wealthy French racing driver who had been one of the early backers of the pre-war SEFAC programme (before opting out in disgust) was to drive this new CTA-Arsenal national GP car. In tests at Montlhéry early in 1947 he found it far from raceworthy. He initially thought it hopeless as a Grand Prix car and in need of much development. Sadly, CTA were under Government pressure to make a showing in the GP de l’ACF at the Lyons-Parilly street circuit – and again it became a case of an untried, undeveloped, and complex racing car being forced to appear before it was ready.

During practice at Lyons the CTA-Arsenal was in all kinds of trouble.  One observer wrote “more bits seemed to be off the CTA on the Friday before the race than most people would regard as reasonable…”.  It was still being bolted together.

Out on circuit Sommer found it weaving badly on the straight, and freely predicted it would finish the long race only by a miracle. On the line for that 34^th GP de l’ACF Sommer watched the French tricolor raised, hesitate, and fall. Clutches slammed home, wheels spun, tyres burned away from the startline – clouds of acrid blue smoke enveloping the grid. And as it wafted away on the gentle breeze, the CTA-Arsenal’s pert shape could be seen dribbling to a halt. Sommer climbed out. Crestfallen mechanics inspected a snapped half-shaft, and the small crowd jeered France’s latest national racing failure.

No more entries were made that year, although in November a CTA-Arsenal V8 engine was displayed at the Grand Palais during the Paris Motor Show. A second car was completed at Chatillon, and both CTA-Arsenals were entered in the 1948 French Grand Prix at Reims, only to be withdrawn formally on the first day of practice as “unready”. CTA was reorganized to become the Union Technique de l’Automobile et du Cycle, occupying itself with more mundane matters – and the Grand Prix car was quietly forgotten. 

Talbot-Lago eventually bought the remains of the project and the cars and parts lay in the company’s Suresnes factory, before in later years being consigned to dusty storage in the famous lock-ups beneath the Montlhéry speedbowl bankings.

In Great Britain the cooperative private-industry BRM ‘national’ Grand Prix car project initially fared little better. Indeed, Raymond Mays recruited the unfailing enthusiastic Raymond Sommer to drive the V16 in its debut race – the August BRDC International Trophy - at Silverstone in 1950. Preceded by wall-to-wall media promotion, enormous hoop-la and razzmatazz, the prototype BRM V16 sat on the starting grid with Sommer on board. The Union flag fell, clutches slammed home, tyre smoke obscured the grid and – as it cleared – this time it was the BRM dribbling to a stop – a half-shaft coupling having snapped as Sommer ‘blasted’ off – poor fellow.

So to examine the Rettenmaier restoration of the CTA-Arsenal at Goodwood last week was a truly fascinating opportunity. Looking long and hard at it I thought “Just how big a heart does one need to take on such a project?”. I was – and remain – highly impressed, and I was delighted to see the German collector finish 77MM’s Parnell Cup race. After taking a few photographs I moved on – to study the all-British BRM V16 predecessor – The Challenger, ex-Reg Parnell, restored by another big-hearted enthusiast, Duncan Ricketts through the best of that wonderful race meeting. If you have another idle minute, do look at some of the photos which resulted, in the accompanying gallery…

Photos courtesy of The GP Library, Peter Summers, James Lynch and Jochen Van Cauwenberge.