Brian Redman - Two Days with a Racing Legend at the Simeone Museum - Part One

The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum offers a series of unique events to its members. One such event was last weekend’s “Jaguar Racing Legends” event, honoring Brian Redman along with a toast to the 50th anniversary of the E-Type.

To celebrate the E-Type, on display was the Group 44 championship-winning Series III V-12 E-Type and two E-Type vehicles on loan from Jaguar Clubs of North American members Wayne Phears (metallic gray 1961 Convertible) and Dick Maury (Red 1963 Roadster.)

 The event was sponsored by Jaguar Cars, and local dealers Jaguar Main Line of Wayne, Pa. and The Great Britains of Willow Grove, Pa., who brought an array of 2011 Jaguar vehicles to further dazzle the crowd.

The two part event began Friday night with an Evening with Brian Redman. Brian regaled a packed house with stories of his racing career. It was followed the next day with a question and answer session with Brian hosted by Dr. Simeone himself, and a demonstration of the C-Type and D-Type models from the Simeone Museum’s collection.
 

Located in a former engine re-manufacturing plant, sitting discretely behind a row of auto dealerships near Philadelphia International Airport, The Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum is the creation of Dr. Frederick A. Simeone, a noted neurosurgeon who started putting together his collection while still a teenager.

 His first car, a unique Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 with a faded yellow body and a mysterious history, was used as his daily transportation when he went to college. Despite its rather pedestrian origins, it sits in the museum along with priceless cars like the 1938 Alfa 8C 2900B MM that won the Mille Miglia in 1938.

As opposed to many of today’s car collectors who buy and sell with great frequency and, in some cases rapidity, using vintage cars as one would baseball cards, Dr. Simeone believes in holding on tightly to his cars.

“Fred never sells anything,” says the museum’s spokesman, Harry Hurst. “His father’s 1937 Cord convertible is there, as well as his Mercedes-Benz 300SL, but they are among the few cars that are never driven — out of respect for his father, who had always kept them off limits to young Frederick.”

Dr. Simeone is also not a big fan of those “better-than-new” cars often seen these days at classic auctions and Concours d’Elegance, preferring “preservation over restoration.” Many of the 65 cars at the museum have a well-earned “patina acquired through honest accomplishment,” as one journalist put it.

While Redman’s name is more closely aligned with a particular German brand of sports car, Brian’s roots in racing have a strong and unmistakably “Jaguar” streak running through them.

Brian Redman was born on March 9, 1937. In the early 1960s he worked for his father who owned a small chain of grocery stores. There he made and then delivered mop heads. “The things that are at the end of mops with all the string-things attached,” Brian explained. As he made his deliveries in a Morris Minor “Woody” Clubman, he found himself driving faster and faster around the Lancastrian countryside.

And with that, he decided to start racing. “But after the Morris Minor I stepped up to my first Jaguar. It was a XK 120 Roadster that had run in the Alpine Rally. It was well used, but stood me well. I delivered mop heads with it during the week and ran hillclimbs all around the UK on the weekends. That’s when I first started to get noticed.”

After the Jaguar XK 120 Roadster he purchased a Morgan + 4. “Back then, drivers drove whatever they could get their hands on,” Redman said.

Brian's big break came in 1962 when he was offered a ride in the ex-Graham Hill Lightweight E-Type run by Red Rose Racing. “I drove that car in 15 races. We won 14 and finished 2nd once to a Ferrari 250 LM, a car that would later go on to win Le Mans. After that Jaguar experience, my career really took off.”

Redman then went on to describe various aspects of his long and storied career, including his days in Formula One, Formula 5000, and sports car racing. While known for his stellar career in endurance racing with such teams as John Wyer Automotive in Ford GT-40s and most famously in Porsches, BMW sedans, Chevrons, Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Lola and the Group 44 Jaguar XJR-5 and XJR-7s. He also had several flings with Formula One with McLaren, BRM, DeTomaso/Williams and nearly fatal ones with Cooper and Shadow.

“It was at Spa-Francourchamps in Belgium. I was driving a Cooper T86B. I was going into Les Combs, one of the fastest corners on the circuit, when the front suspension collapsed, jerking the car hard right, first into and then over a concrete wall. I then rolled over two parked cars that belonged to the corner marshals. I lost three of four wheels, one of which hit one of the marshals almost killing him. The car ended right side up and I with a twin compound fracture of my right arm. I could smell petrol. Then the Cooper caught fire. One of the Marshals finally put the fire out and started to try and pull me out of the car. I looked up at him and saw that he had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth! At that point the car caught fire again! This incident was followed shortly by my first retirement from racing!”

That didn’t last long. “I was back behind the wheel of a race car the next January at the Daytona 24 hour, despite the fact that the arm still had not healed.”

Log back to interactivejaguar.com tomorrow for Part 2 with Brian Redman.