Historic Formula Ford 2000 Association

I have probably the only FF2000 in South Africa, a Pilbeam MP52, 1983, technically too young for your forum at only 31 years. Any historians among you know how I could find some details on the car? It is currently being put back to original spec in my workshop in Botswana after periods with BDA and Zetec motors.

Hi,


I have had a little contact with Mike Pilbeam.


He is a nice chap and is likely to be a good place to start for "Historical info" and parts.



Good luck!

http://www.pilbeamracing.co.uk/

I spoke to Mike who regrets not having kept better records. He confirmed that the car had been built as a FF2000 for Swallow Racing, who no longer exist, and that Rob Wilson may have driven it. The car was imported to South Africa about 3 years ago as a rolling chassis, having had a BDA removed, it had apparently been used for Hillclimbs. I have downloaded the regs and intend restoring it to original to race in South Africa.

Hi

I've currently got one of the other MP52s and running it in URS FF2000 (though I'm not this year unfortunently). Is yours the white and green one that was being sold by Alan Cornock a year or two ago?

I've not got a vast amount of information on the car and would to be interested to know a little more history on them myself but please feel free to ask any questions if you have any.

Andy

Hi Andy, It is Green and White and was sold to a South African called Greg Mills, who bought it in as a roller, maybe in 2011. I found the add on the internet but no date or seller, only a price, just over GBP6k. It was brought back to SA and had a Zetec fitted and has been used in WaS racing (anything pre-85 with wings and slicks) It is also eligible for Monoposto where anything goes. I have taken out the Zetec and all the complicated peripherals and am busy with a Pinto to the correct spec and am fabricating a baffled wet sump. I have taken off the huge wheels and replaced them with 6" and 8" slicks on Revolution alloys and also removed the monsterous rear bookshelf and added something more appropriate. The rear engine cover is wrong and is the only body panel partially made from fibreglass. In the mid 80's South Africa copied FF2000 but ran 2 litre 8 valve Golf motors, called Formula Gti using Swifts, Rays etc. I can send you some pics of the ongoing rebuild Botswana-Style if you want. There is another MP52 in Cape Town belonging a a guy called Roddy Mills but it has a different nose and sidepods to mine, according to Pilbeam all the MP52's were evolutions of the previous one.
If you have any pics of your engine cover that would really help as mine has been doctored and I want to get it back to original.

Sorry for the delayed reply. I will try and dig out some pictures shortly - I haven't got access to the desktop with most of the pics on but there are a few scattered about the net! I should have one which shows the engine cover reasonably well. I do actually have a mold for the top section and nose.

I'd be interested to see pictures of your re-build. I did a fairly substantial re-build of ours over the winter before the 2013 season as it had been a good 6-7 years since the previous one as far as I could tell.

Few pictures as requested.

Semi rebuild state last year:

I will send some photos once I have the engine in, hopefully later this week, just have some clutch issues to resolve. What chassis number is yours, mine is 4, and do you know of the whereabouts of any others?

Gents Geek alert! The cars were known in period as Pilbeam SP1s, not MP52s. 'SP' was for, I think, 'Swallow Pilbeam'. The MP52 was a 1982 F3 car, based on the previous years MP51 F3/Hillclimb car. As far as I know, the SP1 FF2K design never had the usual Pilbeam 'MP' title.

That's really useful. Explains SP1-83-04, Got any more such info tucked up your anorak sleeve?