At the end of 1975, Titan stopped building racing cars, but forty years on these old cars are still bringing many of us a lot of pleasure. I know quite a few of you couldn't imagine driving another marque. The goal of this portion of the website is to share those stories. Over the coming months, I will add articles and letters that appeared in the motoring press and in the Titan Registry Newsletter that I published for almost 10 years. I'm sure many of you have some great stories to share. Please feel free to send them to me and I will post them on the site.
Grant
has recently acquired the actual car he won
the Championship in back in 1974/75 and he
has done a fantastic full restoration on the
car. Nice story of the car's full
history.
Howden Ganley was a VIP
guest at the 2015
Thunderhill Reunion III.
This reprint of his regular
"Musings" column in the NZ
magazine, Classic Driver will give the
reader nice insight into Howden racing history and
the neat circles he travels in these
days. In this month's column, among his many other travels
this winter, he mentions the
Titan/Winkelmann Reunion. Here's
the link to Classic Driver's
website) P.S. Howden has
published a wonderful biographical book, The
Road To Monoco, about his life-long
racing pursuits and
accomplishments. After
leaving NZ as a youth to seriously pursue
racing, he worked for Bruce
McLaren, raced one liter F3 with the
likes of Emerson Fittipaldi, Ronnie Peterson, and many others.
Went on to race for BRM and Frank Williams in Formula 1, and then
started TIGA Racing Cars with Tim Schenken. A great read
about "the days" climbing the
ladder to F1. The book can be purchased
at these
USA, UK, and New Zealand outlets.
 Chris was a career sailor on the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Ark Royal, but when the time came to retire and enter civilian life, Chris was able to pursue his passion for racing. First he
raced a modified Ford Anglia. A short time later moved up to Formula Ford, then Super Ford (FF2000), and later club Formula 3 with a carbon tubbed Reynard. Chris converted an Alexis formula junior to formula ford, which he damaged beyond repair at one point. Chris also helped Derek Lawrence and Ken Bailey race their Mk6s and he wanted one of his own. Chris worked out a deal with Roy Thomas for a Mk6 chassis and some damaged parts, which he massaged into the car shown in the attached article. Chris also spent some time working in the engine department at the Titan works.
 I met Todd back in 1999 at Buttownwill Raceway near Bakersfield, California. I was a rookie race car restorer and driver with only a handful of events in my wayward Mk9 Titan, and for some reason I decided to attend Cal-Club's 30 anniversary of FF event. We chatted a few times during that weekend and for some reason we quickly became close friends! I was able to convince
Todd to restore and race a Mk9, which he has developed into a great handling car. Todd sent me a copy of this article and I think it does a great job of illustrating his passion for the sport.
 When I started down this club racing path, I had no idea I would become the Titan registrar. When I first made contact with old Tom (Roy Thomas) I had never heard of one liter Formula 3. Though I was always asking about formula fords, Tom would patiently steer the conversation to the one liter era. On my trips to England, I would go to a couple of specialist motoring bookshops and look for anything related to one liter F3. I learned what a fantastic time it was to be an up and coming racing in F3. When the opportunity to buy the one off Mk3a presented itself, I moved heaven and earth to make it happen and I have no regrets. I'm so
privileged to have that car parked in my garage. The sound of that MAE at 10,000 rpm has been worth the effort!
As only B.S. Levy can, he
provides a great narrative on the very first Titan Reunion. (More
detailed coverage of this elsewhere on this site.)
 During the early 1970s, Jim Harrell and Gordon Smiley were SCCA Formula Ford heroes. In the following article, David Hutson interviewed Jim and Gordon and got their take on the status of Formula Ford in the States, and it's importance in developing American racing drivers.
 An
article written about getting to test drive a Titan Mk-6 from the Fred
Opert Racing School (who knew Fred had a Racing School?) at
Bridgehampton.
As noted in the title, this
article, written by Andy Antipas, is a very nice short history of
the Titan racecars.
NOTE: You'll need Acrobat Reader to download and use the
above Articles If you don't have Acrobat Reader, you can
download it free from their site.
Click here to download Acrobat Reader
Top of Page
HOME
|
