1974 Talon MR1A Monoposto

This car was built in late 1974 and purchased by McCormack Brothers with dual livery of Norris Industries and Interscope. Its inaugural race was at Watkins Glen in July 1975. It was later leased by Chris Amon, Sam Posey, and others without much success. This car was later converted to a center-seat Can-Am configuration.

In 2002 it was purchased by Tony Roberts from New Zealand and converted back to MR1A configuration. It was purchased in 2010 by Burson and raced actively in the Tasman F5000 Revival Series in New Zealand and Australia.

There were five Talon cars built, three of them were MR1s, and the other two were MR1As. New Zealand constructor and driver Graham McRae licensed the rights of his GM2 design to American Jack McCormack.

This particular example is an MR1A Formula 5000 car with chassis number 3. It was built for Graham McRae, who drove it twice, then driven by Rocky Moran and Skip Barber in the United States. Chris Amon then drove it in Australia and New Zealand in the Tasman Championship series in 1974 / 1975. The car returned to the United States, where it was upgraded to MR1A spec, as it is now configured, for the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1975.

The car was later converted to a center-seat Can-Am configuration for Chris Amon and Gille Villeneuve in the 1977 season. The Can-Am was restored around the year 2000 and was badly crashed in 2008. The chassis was preserved and converted back to MR1A configuration in 2013 and is now raced by Martin in New Zealand.

By Daniel Vaughan | Feb 2019