Adelaide's Kevin Drage turns engineering skills to creating famed alloy wheels for Australian factory muscle cars
Adelaide motoring engineer/designer Kevin Drage (left) saw Harold Clisby's V6 1.5 litre F1 engine project to completion in 1965 and produced cylinder heads for Repco-Brabham's Formula 1 team. He switched from the late 1960s to making Australia's first commercially-produced one-piece aluminium alloy wheels, including those used by Peter Brock (bottom left) in his first Bathurst win in 1972. Bottom right: Drage's double overhead camshaft engine conversion design for Globe Products.
Adelaide’s Kevin Drage created some of the most famous alloy wheels for Australian factory muscle cars.
Drage started work in the 1950s as a designer at Iplex Plastics in Adelaide developing tooling for new products and a glass reinforced plastic. He moved to two years as a development engineer at Chrysler car plant before moving across Adelaide to General Motors-Holden for more two years, developing techniques for plastic products. While at Holden he was seconded to work at Precision Pressed Metals, working on fibreglass boat hulls that sparked the 1950s/60s leisure boat boom.
From Drage’s interest in motor racing, he built a supercharged Morris Minor that won his class in the Australian hill climb titles. This led to pit crewing for Derek Jolly, racing a Lotus, and working with such luminaries as Bib Stillwell, David McKay and Alec Mildren in Adelaide.
Drag’s engineering talents were noticed by Harold Clisby, inventive owner of Clisby Industries, air compressors makers in the Adelaide suburb of Prospect. While with Clisby from 1960-67, Drage developed other products, most notably, Clisby’s ambition to design and build a V6 1.5-litre F1 racing engine. Drage became its project engineer with machinist Alec Bailey.
Drage started his own design and consultancy business while at Clisby Industries. His first client was Globe Products, designing a double overhead camshaft conversion for the Ford 289ci V8 engine. The engine's new cylinder heads and other components were cast at Clisby Industries and machined at Globe. The engine was installed in an Elfin 400 owned by John Hurd and driven, with successes, by Noel Hurd.
Drage’s most significant, but acknowledged, feat was supplying more than 100 cylinder heads for four different engine types for Repco-Brabham's Formula 1 team over two years. These were made by Drage through his work with Clisby Industries and Globe Products.
From 1968, Drage, as chief engineer at Globe Products, designed and developed Australia's first commercially-produced one-piece aluminium alloy wheels. This started with alloy wheels for the factory Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase III assault and the Holden Dealer Team's Torana XU-1s for Bathurst 1972 – won by Peter Brock on 13 x 6" Globe Sprintmaster alloys, while Allan Moffat ran 15 x7"Globe Bathurst alloy wheels.
The Globe Bathurst wheels emerged from Jack Brabham owning a Ford dealership in Sydney. The 15 x7 Globe Bathurst wheel was retrofitted to the Phase III Falcons when the Phase IV program was cancelled. The 15 x7 Globe Bathurst wheel was later a factory option on the XB Falcon and the Cobra. Drage was asked to design larger and lighter wheels for the HDT Toranas. He stayed with the Sprintmaster design made from magnesium and cast by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and machined at Globe.
In 1973, with Bathurst looming, Ford approached Drage to design and supply some 24 15" x 9" front and 15" x10" rear wheels for the XA Falcon GT. Beating a tight timeline, Drage delivered the final four wheels by light aircraft to Bathurst on the morning of the race – won by Moffat and Leo Geoghegan.
Globe's alloy wheel business expanded, making them for Ford, Holden, Mitsubishi and Toyota. Drage pioneered the polycrystalline artificial diamond machine-finished wheels for the Wherrett Special. Globe Products also raced a MkI Ford Escort and Drage developed a fuel-injection system for the twin-cam engine. He also designed and developed a fuel-injection system for the Ford V8 engine used by Pete Geoghegan in his Mustang.
Drage also worked on the Fischer Ford RS2000 Escorts fitted with his own design magnesium alloy wheels and high-performance racing ignition system. Drage continued contributing to wheel design and engineering with Adelaide firm Castalloy who bought Globe and Magnum Wheels.