The Swedish single-seater you’ve probably never heard of

Current owner Lars-Göran Sjoberg talked up the story of the car’s history when we spoke to him after practice for the Chichester Cup. “Andersson raced it in a dirt track race in Sweden in late 1960 and the first race of the season in 1961 before he got his Lola. Then, it changed hands to another driver from the same town as Andersson called Ove Petersen and he continued racing it probably until 1964 and maybe into 1965.”

From there, the story goes quiet until the car re-emerged in the late 1980s in historic motorsport. Sjoberg started racing in 1973, made the switch to historic racing in the late 1990s and took on the Swebe in 1999. He has been racing it ever since.

“It’s pretty quick in a straight line but if you look at its rather antique suspension and comparatively narrow tyres it’s interesting in the corners,” he says. “And the brakes of course are dimensions for having a 500cc motorcycle engine, so they’re not that good either. It revs to 9,500 on the Lavant Straight and that corresponds to 120mph. The relatively narrow tyres and so on mean the drag is not that bad on this car.”

The Swebe qualified in 26^th place at the Friday practice session, something Sjoberg was pleased with considering he told us he would have been happy to have started 29^th in the 30-car grid. “There are people who say ‘If it’s not fast enough in the corners that depends on the driver not the car’ and I can admit that. You know the expression ‘The older I get, the faster I was’. [The Swebe is] actually quite forgiving when it comes to cornering. It lets go gradually and it doesn’t snap – you have plenty of time to correct any oversteer.”

Sjoberg also owns a Cooper T59 Formula Junior car, which makes for an interesting comparison. “The Cooper is of course much faster in the corners. It has the five-speed gearbox, the road holding and handling and disc brakes make a very big difference. But the Swebe is more fun. I sometimes say it doesn’t even go straight on the straights.” 

Swebe was originally named Svebe, a portmanteau of the founders’ first names, but was changed to Swebe when they ran out of the letter V to make the badges. They also felt the change gave the name a more international feel. This car has been raced all over Europe, but these days is usually reserved for domestic use in Sjoberg’s native Sweden. The Swebe may not have finished the Chichester Cup, but its appearance at Revival marked a rare overseas outing which we were certainly glad for.

Photography by Toby Whales.