The growing influence of engineer-drivers Jack Brabham and a couple of years behind him New Zealander Bruce McLaren would transform the race. Brabham, who first won the Grand Prix in 1955 in an obsolete Cooper T40 Bristol he had brought home from his first foray into English racing, would test new developments for Cooper during the European winter, beginning a flood of Cooper-Climax Grand Prix machinery into Australia and New Zealand before Brabham started building his own cars, as well as the appearance of Lotus chassis as well, finally killing off the Australian "specials". With European Formula One restricted by the 1.5-litre regulations and big powerful 2.5-litre Australian cars were tremendously attractive to the European teams and when BRM Grand Prix team toured Australia during the summer of 1962, the seed grew that became the Tasman Series.