Guy Buckingham, engineer and automobile designer, Died at 94

  Sports

Guy Buckingham was born on February 11, 1921, and died on November 17, 2015.

He was an English aircraft engineer who established the Australian automobile manufacturer ‘Nota’ in 1952 in Oxford before taking it to Australia in 1955.

Guy employed his expertise in the English racing car and aircraft design in the manufacturing of new Australian racing cars.

He used aircraft technology to help build triangulated, multi-tubular, space framed racing cars, which had in the past been seen in Australia only as imported automobiles.

Before going to Australia, Guy took on the skills he learned in the RAF through aeronautical engineering to build along with a team, a lightweight car to take place in a 6 hour race at Silverstone against the likes of Jaguar, Healy, Aston Martin etc and won!

While in Australia, among numerous other car design & manufacture projects, Guy built 5 Formula Junior class racing cars.

The first 2 are the only Australia built front engine cars. These still exist and are known as the “89” and “90” cars.

The 1959 car won the first FJ race held in Australia at Warwick Farm with Guy as the driver. Their history was short, racing through to 1963/4.

The 89 car has a continuous history to the present day. The 90 car was never raced from 1964 onwards until it was rebuilt in 2004.

They are raced under the historic register HSRCA in Australia as 1959 and 1960 Nota FJ. The third car was rear engined Nota FJ Renault, History unknown.

This car was owned by Ian Cook 1970 till 1972 and raced at Oran park Amaroo as a formula 3 and was not that reliable motor wise.

Cook then sold it on to Peter Taylor, who with Brian Morrow lengthend the chassis by 70mm to suit Peter’s 1850mm height and fitted it with a Toyota 1198cc engine built by Mcgrath in Victoria the car went well at Oran Park and Amaroo until Peter sold it on.

Peter still has pictures of the car and these may be viewed on auto pics site web year 1973 in Amaroo park Raceway photo by Lance J Rutting.

The fourth car is a rear engine FJ with a Ford 105e engine.

This is in England at the present time, located near the Goodwood race circuit, where it often sees action.

The fifth car was a chassis only and this was cut down the middle of the space frame and made into to Nota Tace with a Hillman engine and ran in the Clubman series This being similar in style as the Lotus 7 and super 7 of the era.

Guy Buckingham passed away at age 94 in November 2015.