QUICK NEWS: Brabham BT62R – Sir Jack’s legacy finally hits the road
Here’s a car with some interesting shoes to fill. World champion Jack Brabham left Cooper to start his own F1 team in 1962 and in ’66, Sir Jack became the only ever driver to win the championship in a car he built. Denny Hulme backed that up the following year and in the early ‘70s, Brabham quit F1 and one BC Ecclestone acquired the team.
Bernie had Durbanite Gordon Murray design his Brabhams and Nelson Piquet took two more titles for the team. Ecclestone sold the team and it folded. The Brabham name more recently returned in a pair of racing and trackday BT62s, the BTbit being the traditional Brabham model nomenclature, the T for Jack’s friend and original designer, Ron Tauranac.
Now Brabham Automotive has revealed its first-ever road car. The R22-million 520kW 670Nm 5.4-litre V8 BT62R version of its hypercar ‘retains the incredible dynamics of a race car and adds the manners and comfort of a road car, with an emphasis on everyday drivability’. The R even gets contrast stitched Alcantara-finished carbonfibre seats, and climate control.