Look back in history Sunday: Ron Tauranac’s Ralt

The late Ron Tauranac founded Ralt ( Ron and Austin Lewis Tauranac) along with his brother Austin well before he met a young future F1 world champion Jack Brabham in Australia. Tauranac eventually moved to the UK in 1960 to join Brabham, where they both established Motor Racing Developments (MRD) and began producing Brabham BT (Brabham Tauranac) race cars and finding success.

With Brabham’s retirement from racing in 1970, Tauranac bought and owned the company before he sold it to a young Bernie Ecclestone.

Tauranac was also to retire back to Australia in the early seventies, only to return to England to revive and establish the Ralt marque, which was also to have an impact on single seater racing in NZ.

The Ralt RT1 was the first modern chassis to race in F3, F2 and Formula Atlantic. Fellow Aussie Larry Perkins won the 1975 European Formula 3 Championship in a RT1 with Jan Lammers also winning the same championship in 1978.

The RT1 was followed very quickly by the RT4 chassis (see main picture – Steve Millen at Pukekohe in 1982). Both were to dominate the Formula Pacific categoryin NZ, particularly between the 1978-1989 years.

Lady Wigram Trophy winners 1978-1987

New Zealand Grand Prix winners 1980-88

NZ Formula Pacific /Mondial title winners 1980-1989

See also: Look back in history Sunday: Ron Tauranac – The ‘T’ in Brabham and Ralt (Part 1)