Jacky Ickx GP-winning 1969 Brabham BT26A for auction!

By: Alexander Affat, Unique Cars magazine

Date: 15.01.2019

The winner of the 1969 Canada GP will headline Bonham’s Amelia Island auction in March

Bonham’s Amelia Island Auction, set to take place March 7, will see the 1969 Canadian Grand Prix-winning Brabham-Cosworth BT26A up for grabs on centre stage.

Driven to victory by legendary Formula One driver Jacky Ickx, the car (chassis #3) partook in no less than a dozen races during the 1969 season - nine of which were frontline qualifying rounds of that year’s F1 Championship.

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Ickx also piloted the car to second place on the podium in the Mexican GP, 3^rd in the French GP, 5^th in the Dutch GP and 6^th in the Spanish GP.

Jacky Ickx in the Brabham BT26A during the 1969 Canada Grand Prix.

The three non-championship races for that year notably comprised of a victory at England’s Oulton Park Gold Cup race, and fourth in the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone.

The Brabham-Cosworth BT26A would ultimately be one of the final expressions of Formula One’s 60s era of mini-tubular spaceframe chassis’ with all frontline cars from 1970 onwards utilising a stressed-skin monocoque construction.

Jacky Ickx driving the Brabham BT26A in 'High-Wing' specification during the 1969 Monaco Grand Prix.

Jacky Ixck would ultimately finish second in the 1969 F1 Driver’s Championship, beat out only by Jackie Stewart.

Chassis #3 had actually been racing since the 1968 seasons, as the Repco-Brabham BT26, driven four times by Jochen Rindt.

While the Australian-made Repco V8 led the Brabham team to consecutive World Championships in 1966 and 1967, the engine proved unreliable throughout the 1968 season, with the Cosworth-Ford DFV V8 taking its place in 1969, whereby the car was renamed BT26A.

The car was retired from F1 immediately after Ickx’s second place finish in Mexico City, and sold to American entrant Doug Champlin for his driver Gus Hitchinson to campaign in the 1970 SCCA L&M Championship. In SCCA, Chassis #3 raced in six rounds, winning two; and finishing second at Sebring. The car was also driven in the 1970 United States GP.

Today, the car is offered for auction by Bonhams; "well-preserved, magnificently presented and truly historic".

The car is in running order and could be entered into the Grand Prix de Monaco Historique or the FIA Masters Historic Formula One Championship.

Bonham’s Global Director of Motorsport, Mark Osborne added: "Having been in the old Brab myself… the Ron Tauranac (spaceframe) design caters for today’s drivers more adequately than almost any other manufacturer of the period".

The Brabham BT62A will be auctioned at Bonahm’s Amelia Island on March 7 2019, with no public estimate provided.

Similarly, the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance taking place alongside the auction, will have Jacky Ickx himself in attendance, as the event’s Honoree.

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