The Romano WE84 is an Australian designed and built, mid-engined closed top racing car built to CAMS Group A Sports Car specifications. The car began its life as the Kaditcha K583 when it first appeared in the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship and was built by the Queensland based Kaditcha owner and former McLaren engineer Barry Lock after he was approached by Brisbane accountant, property developer, timber mill owner and former speedway racer Bap Romano in 1981 with the idea of building a Le Mans type coupe. When the car first appeared in 1983 it looked like an FIA Group C Sports Car (such as the Porsche 956) rather than the open cockpit Can-Am style cars of previous years. This led to the false belief that it was built to the Group C regulations
Bap Romano's ultimate ambition was to take the car to the famous 24 Hour French classic in an All-Australian challenge. Although this did not happen, going on the qualifying performance of the car at the 1984 Sandown 1000 race as part of the 1984 World Endurance Championship held at Melbourne's Sandown Raceway against the FIA Group C Sports Cars, the Romano, with some minor modifications to bring it up to FIA specs, would not have been out of place in Group C2 at Le Mans.
Build Bap Romano travelled to England in December 1981 and purchased a 3.0L Cosworth DFV V8 engine (engine no. DFV 088) from John Nicholson of Nicholson McLaren Engines. The engine itself had actually been used in Formula One during the season by the McLaren team in the hands of John Watson and a young Alain Prost. While in England Romano was introduced to the Works Manager at Tyrrell Racing, Neil Davis. Davis took an interest in Romano's plans for the car and the two formed a friendship that saw the K583's suspension designed around components of the 1981 Tyrrell 010 Formula One car.
Romano had chosen the Cosworth for its proven reliability in racing against the best alternative at the time, the 5.0L, Chevrolet V8 Formula 5000 engine, which although in 1981 was rated to be more powerful at , was also a lot heavier at against the DFV's . In addition, running the lower capacity DFV would put the car in the 1.6 to 3 litres Class B in the Australian Sports Car Championship which paid more points per outright placing. When purchased from Nicholson McLaren, the DFV was reportedly producing @ 9,450 rpm and was rebuilt to be able to run for 2,000 racing miles. A late 1983 rebuild of the engine at the teams base in Slacks Creek in Brisbane had it producing approximately ). This compared to the DFV's used in Grand Prix racing that in were rated at approximately and required a rebuild after just 350 miles, or the equivalent of one Grand Prix weekend.
By mid-1982 the car was built with full ground effects aerodynamics and was ready for testing. The car proved quick in testing and the engine was as strong as expected, but the suspension was proving suspect, breaking numerous times under the heavy load generated by the ground effects.
Racing life 1983 By the time the Kaditcha K583 Cosworth made its debut in Round 1 of the 1983 Australian Sports Car Championship at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne, Romano had enlisted the services of former Williams and Tyrrell F1 mechanic Wayne Eckersley to help sort out the car after his faith in Lock had gradually eroded with repeated suspension failures in testing. Romano, driving in Class B (1.6 to 3 litres) suffered a crash in its first lap of practice, forcing the Kaditcha to be a non-starter for both heats on race day. Lock believed the crash was caused by Romano going too fast too soon on cold tyres, while Romano was adamant that suspension failure was the cause.
The car suffered yet another suspension failure during practice and a DNF due to a burnt out coil in Heat 1 of Round 2 of the championship at the Adelaide International Raceway. The burnt out coil was the result of its position on top of the Cosworth engine. The cars had been held on the grid for long time while the back markers took up their positions, and the heat build up was enough to cook the coil only 4 laps into the race when Romano held a 3-second lead over the Kaditcha Chevrolet of Peter Hopwood. On just the 3rd lap, Romano broke Garrie Cooper's Sports Car lap record at AIR of 52.2 (set in his self-designed Elfin MR7 Chevrolet), lowering it to 51.67, a record that still stands for the 1.6 to 3 litres category as of 2025.Tiga Mazda - A Short Life! The coil was replaced in time for Heat 2 where Romano and the car scored their first win, coming home 5.5 seconds in front of eventual series champion Hopwood.
In the 5 rounds and 10 races of the 1983 championship, Romano and the K583 scored 3 race wins and one round win at the tight Winton circuit. He also recorded 6 fastest laps (including 3 class lap records) and 2 pole positions. Romano actually won both heats of Round 4 at his home circuit of Lakeside in Brisbane, but both he and Hopwood were excluded from the results for dangerous driving following two clashes in heat 1.
Despite only finishing 6th in the championship, Bap Romano proved that he had the fastest Sports Car seen in Australia to that time.
In November, Romano entered the K583 in the Sports Car/GT Invitation as a support to the 1983 Australian Grand Prix at the 1.609 km (1.000 mi) Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne. Romano qualified the car second on the grid beside Australia's Formula One World Champion Alan Jones who was driving a Porsche 935 K4 GT car imported from America for the race by John Fitzpatrick Racing. Jones won the first 15 lap preliminary race from Peter Brock driving Bob Jane's Chevrolet Monza with Romano back in third place in front of the Porsche 935/78 of Momo Wheels founder, Italian Gianpiero Moretti. Jones also won the main 15 lap race from Romano and Peter Brock with Moretti again finishing fourth.1983 AGP Sport Sedan/GT Challenge Despite the Kaditcha-Cosworth giving away over to the turbocharged Porsche and about to the 6.0L V8 Chevrolet Monza, Romano used the superior handling and aerodynamics of the car to finish the 15 lap race only 6.79 seconds behind Jones and 3.22 seconds clear of Brock showing that both car and driver had the potential to be a regular race winner.
1984 In the almost 6 months between the Australian Grand Prix meeting at Calder in mid-November 1983 and the start of the 1984 Australian Sports Car Championship in late April, Wayne Eckersley rebuilt the inner workings of the car, redesigning the sidepods to work without the skirts which resulted in improved ground effect aerodynamics. With Eckersley's new skirt-less design, the car was found to produce as much downforce as it had previously with the skirts. He also rebuilt the suspension of the car after it was found that the Tyrrell suspension designed for a Formula One car was actually inadequate for a sports car that weighed more and produced similar loading from the ground effect aerodynamics. It was deduced it was this suspension issue that had caused the numerous failures through testing in 1982 and racing in 1983. Eckersley also re-profiled the front of the car, retaining its distinctive twin front air scoops but enlarging both to allow more air to both the ground effect venturies and to the brakes.
During this time, the Cosworth DFV's original builder at Nicholson McLaren, Ross Calgher who had since retired home to New Zealand, had flown over to the teams base in Brisbane at the request of his former employer and rebuilt the engine in late 1983, upping the power from to around .
Under Eckersley's direction the car was transformed and Romano went on to dominate the championship. The car was renamed the Romano WE84 (WE for Wayne Eckersley) and Bap Romano won 4 of the 5 rounds, sat on pole for every round and set fastest race lap in every race he contested. The only round he did not win was the crash marred Round 1 at Calder where he was involved in a crash, running into the back of Ray Hanger's Rennmax while lapping him at the end of Calder's back straight during Heat 1 which destroyed the front of the car causing Romano to be a non-starter in Heat 2. Bap watched part of Heat 2 from the Channel 7 commentary box, giving television commentary alongside Evan Green, Garry Wilkinson and John Sheppard for a few minutes.
Despite running in Class B which paid more points for a position than his main opposition Chris Clearihan (driving Hopwood's 1983 car) did for a position in Class C, the way the results of the series fell with Clearihan failing to finish Round 3 at Lakeside due to suspension failure, Romano would have still won the 1984 ASCC had they been competing for the same class points.
1984 Challenge to Peter Brock In mid-1984 Bap Romano, feeling that he had the fastest sports car in Australia (and having proved so in the 1984 ASCC), challenged then seven time Bathurst 1000 winner Peter Brock, with Brock to drive the Porsche 956 that he was to share with Larry Perkins at the 1984 24 Hours of Le Mans, to a series of races on circuits in Australia fair to both cars claiming the WE84 could beat Brock's 956. At the time Brock's Melbourne based Holden Dealer Team had taken delivery of the Porsche for repainting in the colours of team patron Bob Jane for publicity purposes and so the team could become familiar with the car after 10 years of running production based Holden V8 touring cars. Romano claimed in a Brisbane newspaper that it was 'ridiculous' for Brock to pretend that his 1984 Le Mans challenge was an 'All-Australian' effort since the Porsche was made in West Germany. However it was noted that Romano ignored the fact that his car had sourced many of its components, including the suspension and Cosworth V8 engine, from England, though the Romano WE84 was designed and built in Australia.
Romano's open challenge to Brock went unanswered.
1984 Sandown 1000 Following the successful 1984 championship, Eckersley and Romano prepared the car for the Sandown 1000 which was a round of the 1984 World Endurance Championship where it would compete in the special AC Class for Australian-based GT and Sports cars. The preparation included adding of ballast to the WE84 to bring it in line with the FIA weight scale for cars with a 3.9 litre, four valves per cylinder engine (the lead weight, bringing the car to , was placed on the passenger floor which would bring its own problems). Despite Romano purchasing a 3.9 litre Cosworth DFL V8 with the intent on putting it in before the meeting, it was only put in after the first day of practice when it became apparent the 3.0 litre DFV was past its best after Romano's co-driver, four times Australian Drivers' Champion Alfredo Costanzo (the faster of the pair by over 2 seconds despite not having driven the car previously after missing a pre-meeting sorting session at Calder Park) could not lap in better than 1:42 when Romano had expected that his car was capable of lapping around 6–8 seconds faster.