Super Saloons pioneer Tony Hazlewood dies aged 87

Tony Hazlewood, fabled agricultural engineer, racer and co-founder of the Super Saloon Drivers’ Association with Mick Hill, died earlier this month aged 87.

A larger-than-life character, with an infectious grin, an illness had tragically left him bed-bound, unable to communicate with his loyal family and carers, for more than a decade. Sadly, Tony’s stoic wife Angie passed away earlier this year.

High Wycombe-based Hazlewood, brother Gerry and pal Ryan Lee started racing Minis in the 1960s. Tony graduated to the ex-Doc Merfield Ford Cortina Mk1 V8, which he campaigned mainly at Silverstone. Gerry’s Westwood Lawnmowers concern – synonymous with a new type of 24-hour grass track racing at Wisborough Green – was also promoted on the bespoke ‘Superloons’ that followed.

In December 1971, Hazlewood acquired a new DAF 55 Coupe shell from the Eindhoven factory. With engineer/fabricator Ray Kilminster, local garage proprietor Tom Cooper (father of Formula Ford ace Rob) and suspension guru Chas Beattie, he incorporated an Oldsmobile V8 engine, Hewland FT200 transaxle and March 712 suspension to create one of the country’s best loved Special Saloons.

Initially viciously twitchy, it was tamed by 16-inch rear wheels following a regulation change. Hazlewood made it into a winner and set Thruxton’s first 100mph saloon lap record, cutting a 1m24.6s best chasing Gerry Marshall (Vauxhall Firenza) at the 1973 British Automobile Racing Club championship finals.

While promoting Super Saloons with sponsorship from Tricentrol, Hazlewood continued to race the DAF V8 in the ownership of genial Corbeau Seats founder Colin Folwell. His subsequent Jaguar XJ8 creation – an outrageous machine in which the seven-litre Chevrolet V8 engine occupied the passenger area and footwell – was a flop, winning a minor Silverstone race with build partner Gordon Mayers of Hughes of Beaconsfield up. Stirling Moss and Mike Wilds tested it, but second owner Mick Hill couldn’t make it work either!

Hazlewood’s new Templar Tillers business was already demanding much of his attention when the dominance of Marshall in the pro-built Holden Repco-powered Firenza ‘Baby Bertha’ through 1975 hastened Super Saloons’ demise. The cost of running big V8s in international-level events with commensurate prize money had already attracted even hardened tin-top nut Hill and Skoda-Chevrolet builder John Turner to Formula 5000, and the Donington GT championship was on the rise.

When Hazlewood – who ultimately ran his old pal Wilds in a monstrous BRM P154 Can-Am car and an obsolete F1 Williams FW07C/15 bought from Frank for a song – sold Templar to a PLC, he switched his focus to designing and manufacturing Pacer and Patriot off-road vehicles, many sold into overseas markets.

As a passion project, he also reacquired the DAF shell, long stripped of its mechanical assets having been modified to take Tony Sugden’s two-litre BDX engine, and rebuilt it over a number of years to compete again before illness struck.