Jim Richard’s 1973 Javelin

We recently got wind of the rumour that “Gentleman Jim Richards”, seven-time Bathurst winner and four-time Australian Touring Car Champion is having a new car built for the Touring Car Masters Series in which he has been competing in his Shannon's liveried ’64 Ford Falcon Rallye Sprint.  In following up on this rumour, we came across Jim’s email address & emailed him a request for a confirmation & some information.  By return, we received an email from Mr. Bruce Tyson the principal of TyTech Racing Services (VIC) who advised us that Jim had asked him to respond to us.  Bruce further contacted us with a letter & a “sneak peek” photo of the car’s shell & he asked for us to use his letter or part thereof – as follows;

Dear Hudson-AMC Car Club of Aust members.

My name is Bruce Tyson and I am responsible for building the ’73 AMX Javelin racecar for Jim Richards, which will be raced in The Touring Car Masters series very shortly. www.touringcarmasters.com.au

My association with Jim goes back 20 years when I was Crew Chief at Nissan Motorsport and built the Godzilla GTR’s. We won 2 Touring Car Championships working together. Then in 2007 Jim called upon me to build his current racecar which is a replica of a ’64 Ford Falcon Rallye Sprint, which won the ’64 & ’65 Monte Carlo Rally. Also the late Frank Gardner won a British Touring Car Championship in one of these specials.

Anyway Jim decided it was time to build another car so we sat there looking in the Unique Cars magazine each yelling out “What about a Pontiac Firebird……. what about a Ford Mercury…… what about a Dodge Charger……” Then all of a sudden we both yelled out “but what about an AMX”. One phone call later and within a week or so we had a complete ’72 AMX 401 sitting in the workshop, less engine/trans, virtually no rust and as straight as a die.

Stage 1:

I set about stripping it to a bare shell and sending it to Sodablast Australia who took it back to bare metal. Marty Brant at Independent Racecars (Hallam, VIC) put his skills to work and fabricated an integral roll cage into it and it’s a real “work of art”. After that it went off to be painted in primer.

Stage 2:

Design the layout of the car and all its components, maximise the suspension settings to suit racing but always keeping an eye on the rules, design a “dry-sump” oil system, produce drawings for the respective machine-shops and suppliers of racing components, and the list goes on. Test fit the components & then send the shell off to be painted in its Shannons Insurance livery.

Stage 3:

Now the vehicle is being assembled for the final time. The rear-end is a Ford 9” with fully floating hubs. The transmission is a straight-cut Nascar 4-speed box based on a Super T10 with dog engagement. The clutch is a Tilton 7.25” triple-plate assembly. The maximum engine capacity allowed in this series is 6000cc but due to the lack of AMC engine components suitable for racing, the authorities have allowed us to use an aftermarket engine block and alloy cylinder heads. It will be 360cu/ins and with a bit of luck, it should produce something around the 660 to 680 horsepower.

The cooling system is being made up at the moment, incorporating an oil/water heat exchanger to cool the 12 litres of oil.

As I said I am in the final stages of building it and our aim to debut it at The Muscle Car Masters event at Eastern Creek in Sydney on September 4th/5th in about 2 months time.

A lot of your members may look at it and see things that are not AMC or not how they were original but one must remember it is being “purpose built” to suit a racing series. Certain aspects of the car will make it stand out as a Javelin though, rest assured. Jim and I are quite taken by the amount of interest this project is having with the AMC Javelin fraternity. We don’t plan on disappointing you.

Cheers - Bruce Tyson (c/o Jim Richards)

I am sure all of our members wish Jim Richards & Bruce Tyson all the very best with this car & look forward to Jim becoming the Group 1, 2010 series Champion.  Jim currently leads this group after round 3 of 8 - Tony Atkinson