NOTICE OF DEATH - MALCOLM GARTLAN (1939 - 2024)
It is with great sadness that we have to inform Members of the death of Malcolm Gartlan on Monday last week 11 November after contracting pneumonia. He was 85 years old and had been an Associate Member of the BRDC since 1972 when his team, Malcolm Gartlan Racing, was enjoying considerable success in both the European Touring Car Championship and the British Saloon Car Championship.
A builder and property developer from Pershore, Malcolm agreed with his family that he would not participate in circuit racing as a driver although he did compete in rallies, sprints and other speed events. At the end of 1965 he bought the Lotus Elan 26R with which fellow West Midlander John Harris had won his class in the 1965 Autosport Championship. During the 1966 season, the Elans were increasingly uncompetitive against the new mid-engined breed of racing sports car such as the Chevron GT (B3, B4 etc) and Lotus’s own Type 47. For 1967, therefore, Malcolm acquired a Ford GT40 #1023 from Autosport’s then Formula 1 reporter Paddy McNally with which John Harris finished fourth in class, fifth overall in the opening round of the RAC British Sports Car Championship. The GT40 proved troublesome, obliging the Team to skip many of the remaining rounds of the Championship although Malcolm did use it to finish as runner up in a Sprint at Long Marston.
For the 1968 season Malcolm ran a Ford Falcon Futura Rallye Sprint for David Hobbs in the British Saloon Car Championship. ‘Hobbo’ had to miss four of the 11 rounds because of his commitments with the JW Gulf team in the World Sports Car Championship, which cost him any chance of taking the title despite some good results, usually including a place in the top three overall. At Brands Hatch in the race supporting the British Grand Prix, Malcolm’s car was driven by BMW star Hubert Hahne who started from pole position and finished second to the Alan Mann team Ford Escort Twin Cam of Frank Gardner.
By now the Lola T70 had become the car for a privateer to have to be competitive in Sports Car racing. The T70 SL76 Mark 3B was Lola’s latest offering but for 1969 Malcolm’s resources only stretched as far as a little-raced ex-works T70 #SL73-101 which was run for Jim Beach and Piers Weld-Forester, the former winning a club race at Castle Combe and the latter taking fifth overall in the Sports Car race supporting the Oulton Park Gold Cup.
At the opening round of the 1969 British Saloon Car Championship Malcolm ran the Falcon for Australian to Europe Brian ‘Yogi’ Muir, who was to spend the year driving a Gold Leaf Team Lotus 62 with John Miles in various sports car races in the UK and Europe. With a change in the BSCC regulations for 1970 to FIA Group 2, Malcolm acquired a Chevrolet Camaro Z28 and good sponsorship from Wiggins Teape with ‘Yogi’ signed up for the full season. Highlight of a year dominated by Frank Gardner and his Alan Mann Ford Boss Mustang 302, was victory in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Silverstone, a round of the European Touring Car Championship. The race was run in two parts, ‘Yogi’ winning both against strong opposition from mainland Europe. In the BSCC ‘Yogi’ won eight races overall but this was not enough to overcome the 1000 cc class-dominating pace and reliability of Bill McGovern’s Sunbeam Rallye Imp.
This was the start of a very successful relationship between Malcolm and ‘Yogi’ which yielded 22 race wins over their time together. Another notable achievement was victory in the 6 Hours of Paul Ricard, also a round of the ETC, with F1 driver John Miles as team mate in a Cologne Capri RS2600, ‘Yogi’ and John beating the works Capri of Jackie Stewart and Francois Cevert into second place. In the previous round at Zandvoort ‘Yogi’ and John finished second to the works Capri of Dieter Glemser, Alex Soler-Roig and Jochen Mass. After finishing fifth overall in 1973 with a BMW 3.0CSL Alpina, Malcolm was unable to secure the backing needed to continue with the high standards set by himself and by his highly regarded chief mechanic Ted Grace so he closed the team down although he retained a close interest in the sport and was a regular visitor to the Clubhouse and its predecessor, the Suite, at Silverstone.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, before Group 1 came along, at a time when the BSCC was split into classes, there was never a large number of the charismatic V8 and V6-engined Camaros, Capris and BMWs but Malcolm was one of the few private entrants who took on the challenge of running such cars as an independent and did so with considerable success against the best that BMW and Ford had to offer. The BSCC of the time benefitted greatly from the cars which Malcolm entered, always prepared to the highest standards and invariably driven by top class drivers. The BRDC offers its most sincere condolences to Malcolm’s wife Wendy, daughters Jane and Ann and their family. A funeral for Malcolm will be held at 12.00pm on Friday 6 December at the Vale Crematorium, Evesham Road, Fladbury, Pershore, Worcestershire WR10 2QR.
