Ralph Broad was an engineer by trade who ran a small business in Sparkbrook a suburb of Birmingham. Although Broadspeed were never really interested in selling go faster goodies or for that matter working on customer cars, they are such an important team I could hardly exclude them from my list.

In 1959 he bought one of the very first BMC Minis and was soon to be seen out most weekends racing, sprinting, or hillclimbing it CON 111 soon became one of the Minis to watch! On his first time out at Silverstone in CON he won his class and broke the up to 850 lap record.

During the 1963 season the Team Broadspeed, now comprising Ralph Broad, Don Jackson, Peter Tempest, Eric Barnard, Jeff May and John Fitzpatrick ran a pair of 850cc Minis in Group 3. The drivers were Broad himself and Fitzpatrick with Jeff Mat acting as team manager. As far I am aware this was the first season that the Team Broadspeed Colours of Silver over Red (that's Ford / Aston Martin Silver Fox & Rolls Royce Regal Red) were seen, this colour scheme would become the "Official, Broadspeed livery until the teams eventual demise. Although the Broadspeed Minis were a bit down on power compared to the Cooper Car Company vehicles they were often just as "Fast", this was put down to the exceptional handling of the Broadspeed cars. On one occasion one of the cars engines was examined by the scrutineer's as it was going so well, upon investigation the car was the regulation 848cc. Meticulous attention was paid to all aspects of the cars preparation, broads "trick two supposedly being to make absolutely certain that EVERYTHING was balanced perfectly.

By 1964 the 850's had been replaced by new 1071cc Cooper S's,these were in turn quickly superseded by 1293 models. Team Broadspeed had now entered their golden era! Not only were they pushing the works Cooper team in the British Saloon Car Championship, but they could WIN as well. It was around this time that Broadspeed first began to attract a little Works support and the odd interesting engine part, from Eddie Maher at the Morris Experimental Engines plant.

In 1965 Broadspeed became the official Works backed competitor in the European Saloon Car Championships. During this season the Broadspeed cars won their class at the Monza 4 hour race, the Nurburbring 6 hour race, and a class win at Zandvoort, they also won at Spa.

During this season it was not unknown for the Braodspeed Team to take points off Coopers, maybe it was this, or maybe there was another reason, but at the end of the 1965 season Ralph Broad severed all links with BMC and ran the very successful Ford Anglias the following season, and remained a faithful Ford representative in Circuit racing for years to come. Say broadspeed to most car enthusiasts and they will automatically say Escort! But Minis brought them their first success.

I have reproduced a couple of original fliers for broadspeed conversions below, click on the thumbnail for a full size image.

Flier for 997 & 998 Cooper Conversions	Flier for Cooper 'S' Conversion	Flier for Full Race 'S' Conversion	MGB & Sprite

I couldn't finish the Broadspeed section without mentioning the Broadspeed GT, a "Luxury" steel / glass fibre mini variant of which a few were made in the UK and even fewer in Australia. To read page 1 of a contemporary review from Autocar click HERE for page 2 click HERE.