Take something for granted, and we risk having it ripped away.
For me, foolish me, Peter Bryant was always going to be there. An interesting guy, a very human guy, fun, warm, witty—often scandalously so—bright and innovative, astoundingly energetic. A ball o’ fire whose boisterousness could be alarming, but mostly charming. Everybody seemed to like and admire him. Over the past 40 years I enjoyed many times spent with him and, more recently, his wife Lois.
Abruptly, he’s gone. Lois said, “It’s like the sun went out.”
We had just been together—alas, not together enough—at the new Riverside Automotive Museum’s “Legends” gathering at the end of March. It was a very busy weekend. Peter and I both had small roles to play in the event itself, and with our wives we both were operating table displays to hawk our respective wares. His autobiography, Can-Am Challenger, published by David Bull and winner of a 2008 IAMA Gold Medal, seemed to be going deservedly well.
Only a few feet separated our setups, but business was brisk. Lots of enthusiastic and good-humored people were eddying around, wanting to talk about racing history. Peter and I only grabbed a couple of brief chats.
“It’s only nine and a half minutes from the old circuit,” he remarked the first morning (our hotel was out there). “Oh, I just did it in 9-15,” I retorted. His eyes narrowed. “I’ll do it in seven tomorra!!” An old racer who refused to age.
Former racer Peter Bryant was a donor to the auction. To help raise funds for the museum’s designated charities, he brought a set of copies of his original full-scale drawings for his Ti22. That was the quick and solid “Titanium Car” in which Jackie Oliver gave the Can-Am McLarens several runs for their prize monies in 1969 and 1970.
Commanding the stage, unrepentant Cockney accent booming through the mike in his fist, Peter presided as museum founder Doug Magnon and Can-Am racer Oscar Koveleski unrolled and displayed the huge scrolls.
“People don’t believe I drew anythin’; they think I did it all with chalk on the floor!” Peter bellowed.
These drawings were very expensive to produce, he claimed. Done on very special paper, they cost him probably $750 a set. He was seeking an appreciative home.
The opening bid was $100. Peter frowned.
Keeping my hands under firm rein, lest they betray an appreciation I could not afford, I contented myself with memories of the Ti22 itself. Peter Bryant’s Titanium Car burst on the Can-Am scene three races from the end of the 1969 season, at Laguna Seca.
Those were exciting days for a racecar enthusiast. You could almost count on seeing something new every weekend. Some of these brave experiments obviously stood no chance of going near victory circle, but the brand-new white wedge unloaded by the latest newcomers looked promising. Tidy, businesslike, aerodynamically aggressive.
Bryant had given it full-length fences, to trap high-pressure air atop the chisel-shaped body for better downforce. We hadn’t seen that before.
Underneath, there was a lot of titanium, including the monocoque. I was shown something made of this space-age metal. It practically floated in my hands. Intriguing.
The new car proved both as solid and as quick as it looked. Teething troubles handicapped its performance at Laguna, but Oliver nursed it to the finish line. At Riverside two weeks later, he qualified 4th and was fighting for that position in the race when something broke.
In my post-race beavering, I rushed up to Peter to ask about the problem. “Differential,” he told me, and I published that. It was only years later at a Can-Am reunion banquet that he revealed a titanium component had fractured. I braced him about misleading me.
“The Titanium Metal Corporation of America was sponsorin’ us,” he retorted forthrightly. “I weren’t gonna tell you the truth!”
Bryant’s Ti22 went on to several stirring performances in 1970, including a stint in the lead at Mosport and three strong 2nd-place finishes, with one joint fastest lap. Its strong Ti tub also saved Ollie during a nasty “blowover” tumble at St. Jovite.
The monocoque was too rumpled to repair, so Peter quickly built a new one. He set the old one out in the alley behind his shop, inverted, to act as a barbecue table. One morning it was gone. Peter figured it had been picked up as trash.
“It’s probably in a landfill under Newport Beach,” he said. We agreed that one day some archeologist will dig it up and wonder, “What the heck is this?”
It was the first Bryant, one of the few serious challengers to the mighty McLarens, that’s what it was.
Few at the Riverside auction seemed to appreciate Peter’s drawings. Bidding was slow. Peter grew frustrated. Finally Dan Gurney raised his hand and took the rolled-up scrolls home for $200.
“If anybody wants a new Titanium Car, we’ve got the drawings,” Dan quipped. In fact, Peter was already involved in a project to have a new one built by Craig Pence in Boise.
Energy, enthusiasm, surprising expertise, that was Peter Bryant. Oh, and good humor that was often outrageous. One time at a gathering I was chatting with Oscar when Peter bear-hugged the two of us and loudly called out, “Look, a Polak with two Peters!”
Peter Bryant fell to an apparent heart attack in the early hours of March 31, the Tuesday after Riverside, just a few days short of his 72nd birthday. Among many expressions of grief that came to my own inbox was this from a gentleman who had only just met him:
“I was at the Legends of Riverside event,” he began. “I was caught up with Mr. Bryant and…expressed my admiration. He took me by the arm to the next building and flew through his book like a school kid. He hardly slowed down at all and made me feel like we were friends. What could I do? I bought his book and he enthusiastically wrote in it for me. I have never met a man with such joy, enthusiasm, and as friendly.
“I personally felt badly for him when you could see that he had his heart and soul in his drawings that were up for auction, and they didn’t command the bids commensurate with his passion and enthusiasm.
“It was with great sadness that I learned of his death shortly after we parted in Riverside. I felt that I had just made a great acquaintance; he brightened my life for a weekend and I was looking forward to hearing what he was going to do next. I don’t believe that I have had so much given to me and then taken away in such a short period of time.”
Amen. Rest at peace, my friend. You done good.
