HTCAV Sponsor Profile – All Lever Shock Absorbers
Words: Chris Ralph
Photos: Steve Russell-Clarke, Chris Ralph (workshop) and Phil Wisewould (track)
It’s a story to warm every historic racing heart. Kid helps Dad with racecar, works on another in the hols. Ends up buying it, racing it, storing it and racing it again decades later. Oh, and he inherits Dad’s bespoke lever arm shock absorber business, now servicing customers around the world.
Steve Russell-Clarke, the man in charge of All Lever Shock Absorbers, the HTCAV’s newest Gold Sponsor, is one of those naturally funny guys who always brightens your day. Stories told are legendary and fascinating, including his own…
As an 8-year-old, Steve started helping his dad Mike in the pits with his Austin-Healey bug-eye Sprite. Early bonding with BMC A-series engines stuck, as did the race prep, pit protocol and crafty stuff. Once he could reach the pedals, Steve was allowed to drive the Sprite to the dummy grid - as a reward for all the pit repairs (“It was English - it always broke!”).
Mike carried a huge number of spares in the boot of his Leyland P76, so he and Steve were always “bug-eye central” at historic meetings around Australia.
The tearaway gets a licence
At 16, Steve became one of the youngest drivers in his era to get a CAMS licence, passing the driving test at Calder under the stern eye of Peter Brock, John Harvey and Bob Gill on the corners.
Yes, Steve got to drive the Sprite, but the teenage gung-ho racer had seen historic touring cars and wanted in. With their wealth of A-Series knowledge and bits, Mike and Steve were excited: “What about a Morris Minor?” “You’re joking, Dad!” “An A30?” “They tip over.” “Got it,” said Mike, “An Austin A40 Farina!’’ “What’s that?” He soon found out.
On school holidays, Steve had been helping build Sunliner campervans for Tony Hunter, another one of the bug-eye racers. Tony was also building a race A40 that Steve did some spannering on. He didn’t know it at the time, but Steve had helped build the car he would later own. Tony soon wanted a Cortina, so it wasn’t long before Steve got his sticky fingers on the Austin.
And we’re off!
Steve and great mate Peter Caffyn rebuilt the A40 and went racing, startling everyone with a daredevil car control that, 36 years later, hasn’t diminished – as evidenced by the startling kerb hopping at last year’s Historic Sandown.
“You won’t catch a Mini in the Under 1300cc class, but there’s no better fun than monstering bigger cars in corners. It handles so well!” Steve says.
There are many SR-C derring-do stories. At 18 and with his parents at the Cape Patterson weekender, his dad’s million-dollar Sprite engine was sneaked into the A40. But at Winton, he spun the car a couple times - and the engine about 12,000. “Dad marched me off to the Moonee Ponds Westpac for a personal loan to rebuild it…”
The unlikely car/driver combo was welcomed many times at Bathurst and Amaroo, while at a one-off Calder meeting in 1988, Steve came in too hot where the National Circuit joined the Thunderdome via a sharp off-camber hairpin. “As I rounded it, the A40 was balanced - motionless – on the driver’s side wheels.” Would it fall over? “I stopped. After what seemed like forever, it plopped back down on its wheels and I carried on!”
This year, Steve is primed for a full HTCAV assault in the little orange demon. “Driving the car you raced as a kid - you’re a kid again!” he laughs. “Here we go!”
But a life of shocks was in store…
Around 1980, Mike, a Communications Officer with the CFA (and yes, brother of TV cook Peter Russell-Clarke) heard that a Moorabbin shock absorber business was closing. At the same time, nearby Pedders were moving and ditched the lever arm side of the business.
Seeing a dream retirement plan, Mike bought the stock and machinery of both companies, trucked the lot down to Cape Patterson and built a giant shed to fit everything in. Pedders franchisees funneled their lever arm repairs to him, as did volume specialists like MG Workshops, The Healey Factory, Hillman Spares and more.
From father to son…
“Dad was meticulous, thinking all his customers were Frank Williams. In reality, they just wanted shockers that didn’t leak oil,” Steve says, “I thought it was a casual, social thing, but he churned them out! I used to help him and learnt processes and machinery, so I was well-primed to take over after he died in 2018.
“But discovering all his technical drawings and fine detail information on every lever arm shocker was pure gold. That mountain of unique information was the thing that convinced me to take on Dad’s work.”
Which cars use levers?
Armstrong lever arm shockers were ubiquitous prior to the 1960s, especially on British cars. Fords from Anglia to Zephyr, along with Austin, Morris, MG, Austin-Healey, Wolseley and Riley from the Nuffield Group, and Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam and Singer from the Rootes Group all used them. Standards and Triumphs, Rovers, Daimlers, early Jaguars and Aston Martins utilised lever arm shocks, too.
Cooper won both a Formula 1 World Championship and World Sportscar Championship with them in 1959. (And fun fact - the mostly unloved Morris Marina was stubbornly fitted with them right up to its end in 1980.)
The first Holden, the 48-215, had them, and in 1954, Armstrong York Pty Ltd built a factory on four acres in Sunshine to mass produce Armstrong shock absorbers for export.
In the US, GM cars and trucks used Delco units, as did Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth and De Soto, while Ford used Houdaille rotary shocks (as did Ferrari into the late ’50s).
From the UK to Hastings, Vic
Today, there’s still a strong demand for lever arm shocks, which our now not-quite-so-young boy racer further tapped into with a trip to the Goodwood Revival, visiting foremost and famous historic race prep firms. “The historic racing business there is huge. Whole companies work on your car. You just turn up and drive - much of the time, on lever arm shocks.”
Steve’s knowledge of these “proper shocks” and raffish charm left the Poms defenceless - orders have been rolling in to this little Hastings cottage industry.
Tired bodies are sandblasted to spotless condition before the bespoke (and period: “That’s Roy Pedder’s actual lathe…”) machinery gets to work on them.
“Properly operating lever arms offer a unique ride and handling combination” says Steve. “Owners of ‘knee action classics’ can’t stop telling me the joy it brings them.”
So, to ban the bounce or junk the judders, email [email protected] or call him on 0418 393 377. You’ll get a smile out of it, whatever happens.
