Geoghegan Family Cortina In New Zealand

[Steve Holmes]

Folks, I've had a request from an Australian enthusiast wanting info on the Geoghegan family MkI Cortina, and if it had any race history in New Zealand. I know Pete Geoghegan raced his Mustang at the 1966 NZGP meeting at Pukekohe, but did he or Leo race the Cortina in NZ prior to this?

Any pics, old programme scans, or other info would be greatly appreciated.

[khyndart in CA]

Steve,
Was it any of the Cortina's mentioned at these TRS threads ?

http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthread.php?641-1964-Australian-Touring-Championship-Lakeside

http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthread.php?1056-Geohegan-Brothers-1964-GT-Cortina

(Ken)

[Dale Harvey]

The GT was bought from the Geoghegan’s by George Garth and raced very successfully by him. He still owns it. The Lotus Cortina is now in Sydney, owned by Trevor Simpson. I am not sure that either of these two raced in NZ. The other Cortinas would be ones that the brothers raced at Bathurst in the 500 mile race. Not sure about their history.
Dale.

[Milan Fistonic]

The Geoghegan brothers were at the 1965 NZ GP meeting at Pukekohe. Ian had the Lotus Cortina and Leo the Lotus 32.

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Ian Geoghegan's Lotus Cortina leads Bryan Innes through Railway corner, past the stranded Harrowfield Lotus Cortina.

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Entry List for the 1001 to 1600cc race that was won by Geoghegan.

[John McKechnie]

Sorry to hi-jack this Steve-
Is this is the red Mini Cooper S of Bryan Innes- single tank- his first one, and the one that was doing Mini spins on front straight at Puke ?
I met the owner of it yesterday, after Innes, it was painted white to sell after racing , he bought it in Palmy in 1992 .very low miles. Guy saw it when he was 6 years old , always wanted it and eventually tracked it down ....with folding.

[superroo69]

Thank you Milan, for confirming a missing part of the Geoghegan Lotus Cortina's racing history. It is only due to forums such as these, that are frequented by a large number of highly knowledgeable and passionate, motor racing enthusiasts, that information such as this is brought to life. And it all started from one member's recollection of a race meeting he attended, when he was young.
Thank you also to Steve, for developing this site and for posting the query on my behalf.

Paul

[superroo69]

Hi Ken... it was neither of these. See above.

Paul

[Ray Bell]

I think we once established that the Geoghegans had two Cortina GTs in modified form...

One a 2-door and one a 4-door. Isn't that right? Dale would know, I'd expect.

[khyndart in CA]

"It’s painted black because Leo’s dad ran a taxi fleet back in the 1960s and all of the taxis were black. So, all of his racing cars were black too! "
I found this interesting 2015 ( clublotus.com.au ) article about Trevor Simpson and the Geoghegan 1963/64 Lotus Cortina which looks like the one that came over to NZ for the 1965 NZGP meet at Pukekohe.
What a beautiful restoration, especially after reading the history.
Quoted as per Trevor Simpson.
" I’ve wanted to buy a Lotus for thirty years. I first tried to buy a Lotus Elan back about thirty years ago, but unfortunately someone else bought it before we were able to.
Since then I’ve looked at a number of cars, but that love for Lotuses; the design of the cars, hasn’t dulled.
Getting closer to the present I actually tried to buy the Dawson-Damer Lotus 49 a few years ago after the Tasman Revival, but unfortunately that fell through as well.
There were 97 factory Lotus Cortinas made. When the factory made them, they sent them out in batches of three. Jim Clark got three; Alan Mann Racing also got three, and so did other teams around the world.
Three of those cars came to Australia. They left the United Kingdom in November of 1963 and arrived in early ’64. We’ve done a lot of research, but we don’t yet know where the other two cars went.
Graham Mein of Ballina originally purchased the Geoghegan Cortina in 1988 and I’ve known about the car for six to eight years. In period it raced for about two years. It won a number of races and was often on the podium.
Graham commented to me that when he first encountered the Geoghegan car he didn’t realise that it was a Works car. It wasn’t until we spoke to Andy Middlehurst of the UK, who has the original papers from Lotus, that we worked that out.
Back in 1965 it was badly rolled at Catalina Park. It was.. sort-of.. repaired and then sold to Blair Sheppard Cars in Brisbane. Geoff Digby bought it, road registered it and used it for some years.
Graham Mein ended up buying it in 1988 and began restoring it. This became a twenty-five-year, no-bolt-overlooked restoration and he’s done a perfect job with it. There’s nothing that needs doing on it – all I’ve done is put historic plates on it and installed seat belts!
When Graham agreed to sell me the car, I think he did so because he knew that I was passionate about the car and wanted to preserve it and to keep it in Australia.
As my wife Kerrie said – it’s a very pretty car. Being a factory car, it’s come quite a long way from the standard Lotus Cortina.
It’s a racing car; sparse and purposeful, but undeniably beautiful. It’s painted black because Leo’s dad ran a taxi fleet back in the 1960s and all of the taxis were black. So, all of his racing cars were black too! In later years the Geoghegans painted all their cars white.
With the historic plates organized I’m thinking about doing some of the Club’s plate runs. I don’t have any plans to race it, but I want to get it out so that people can take a look at it and enjoy it!"
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(Thanks Trevor Simpson.)


(Ken H )

[superroo69]

This is the car I am researching and the car that raced at the NZGP event in 1965. The car was bought from the Geoghegans by a Queensland amateur racer, by the name of Frank Melit - who was quite a handy driver and raced it for a short time, with some local success. Unfortunately, he also rolled the car... twice, once at Lakeside (which was a gentle roll over) and the second time at Lowood, which was a bit more serious. I believe that despite being entered in later events, Frank didn't race the car again. Car was eventually traded to Blair Sheppard and eventually sold to Geoff Digby, who drag raced the car quite successfully, earning National class records during his time with the car. Although there is more to tell, it will have to wait until I finish the article.
BTW... if your wondering about why it kept rolling over, Leo Geoghegan told me once that despite being a very quick car, it didn't handle anywhere as well as their GT Cortinas… something he put down to the A arm rear suspension, even after trying modify it to handle better.

Paul

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[Ray Bell]

The transformation of the Geoghegan cars to white was very quick...

Old Tom died and from that time onward the cars were white. Even the famous Mustang arrived in black, but only ever raced in white because Tom died during its preparation period. The 23B was only ever seen in white, the 32 went from black to white.

It's surprising that Trevor's rundown didn't include Frank Melit and his famous rollovers.

[superroo69]

I believe that Graham and Trevor were both aware of the Lakeside rollover, but not the Lowood one. Trevor probably didn't think it was worth mentioning, when he was interviewed for the Lotus Club article.

[Terry S]

I think we once established that the Geoghegans had two Cortina GTs in modified form...

One a 2-door and one a 4-door. Isn't that right? Dale would know, I'd expect.

Yes the Geoghegans had two black Cortina GT’s, one four door and one two door.
The four door was released in Australia some time before the two door. Ford gave them a four door to develop for racing. At this time they were also entering four doors for Firth and Reynolds.
I am not sure how long the Geoghegans raced it, and I can see no photos of it on the regular sites.
The main touring car event of 19864 was the Australian Touring Car Championship. This was a single race and not a series. It was held at Lakeside in July.
The week before Ian Geoghegan was practicing the four door at Oran Park when he inverted it at Energol and wrote it off.
Ford immediately sent up a two door from its press fleet of two door Cortinas. All the good bits were hurriedly transferred across to the two door. They just made it to Lakeside practice in time.
Geoghegan went on to win the ATCC, his first of five. The other four were in Mustangs.
With their Lotus Cortina on the way, the two door GT was redundant to their needs.
Tom Geoghegan (Ian’s father) did a deal to sell the car to local Liverpool racer Barry Seton. There was an unusual clause in that if Seton wanted to sell it at any time the Geoghegans had first right of refusal to buy it an agreed price.
Seton only ran the car at two meetings, Warwick Farm and Oran Park. He quickly realised it was only as fast as his old 48-215Holden. After a strip down they realised it needed a serious upgrade to become competitive. “Our winning GT Cortina of the recent Lakeside meeting did not perform as expected because some of the good gear was missing”. “Tom Geoghegan purchased the car back without hesitation or question for the original purchase price”. The quotes are from Joel Wakely’s excellent book.
Sometime later the car was sold to George Garth from NSW Central Coast. Realising it could not compete against the increasing number of Lotus Cortinas in improved production he ran it as a Sports Sedan. He was very successful at Oran Park, prior to the arrival of more sophisticated V8 sports sedans.
Over time he took a lot of weight out of it and fitted a Lotus twin cam engine. The most obvious external change was the fitting of split front bumpers.
It is understood Garth still retains the car.

[superroo69]

Hi Terry

Thanks for filling in an important fact that had me puzzled. I was aware that Barry Seton raced the car - based on race reports which indicated that both the Geoghegan GT Cortina and the Lotus Cortina raced in the same event, with Seton in the Lotus - but was not aware that he owned it at that time. This now makes more sense. And yes... George still owns the car, but according to Graham Mein, its in fairly poor shape and despite George's assertions that he will fix it one day, Graham thinks this is unlikely and the car might end up just rotting away. Sad.

[Ray Bell]

Seton bought the 2-door GT, not the Lotus...

I believe that Seton also did some panel work for the Geoghegans at times.

Leo also raced the Lotus Cortina, but I think that was only the once, at an Oran Park when Pete was crook.

[John McKechnie]

Growing up in the 1960s , as a kid I went to the movies.
Before the main feature there was black / white Aussie news staring off with Kukaburras then showing , I think, a Mk1 Cortina coming round the corner of a race track and rolling.
What track and whose Cortina please ?

[bill hollingsworth]

Catalina Park is where Geoghegan rolled his Cortina.

[bill hollingsworth]

1965. http://autopics.com.au/65077-peter-manton-brian-foley-passing-the-pete-geoghegan-rolled-cortina-catalina-park-katoomba-1965-photographer-ian-thorn/

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by bill hollingsworth
Catalina Park is where Geoghegan rolled his Cortina.

The same car was rolled at Lakeside by Frank Melit and also at Lowood.

[khyndart in CA]

Whoops ! Those darned Minis made me do this !

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[Roger Dowding]

Whoops ! Those darned Minis made me do this !

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Neptune racing team Mini and Mustang [ Beechey ], not sure of the other Mini though ..

On their way to a meeting - from Fb page Old Australian Motor Racing Photographs - well worth a look.

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[Milan Fistonic]

Neptune racing team Mini and Mustang [ Beechey ], not sure of the other Mini though ..

On their way to a meeting - from Fb page Old Australian Motor Racing Photographs - well worth a look.

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This is an entry list from the Warwick Farm meeting on 5 December 1965. The numbers don't match but it does show the three Neptune Racing Team cars.

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[Roger Dowding]

This is an entry list from the Warwick Farm meeting on 5 December 1965. The numbers don't match but it does show the three Neptune Racing Team cars.

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Milan, thanks for that - I would like to post the entry list and the advert on the Australian Fb page - with appropriate acknowledgement ..

Interesting that Alan Moffat - was Canadian at that time, and in his pre Mustang Days - he ran Lotus Cortina's in the USA as well, with Horst Kwech, a European - Australian who finished in North America, Moffat the other way around.
Think Ken H has posted stuff about Horst on other threads.

[Ray Bell]

I think you'll find that's the team for Lakeside...

[Terry S]

Growing up in the 1960s , as a kid I went to the movies.
Before the main feature there was black / white Aussie news staring off with Kukaburras then showing , I think, a Mk1 Cortina coming round the corner of a race track and rolling.
What track and whose Cortina please ?

John, if it was a white car it could have been NZer John Ward at Catalina in 1968.

The crash was fatal as he wasn't wearing a seat belt

http://autopics.com.au/68056-r-coppins-mustang-passing-j-ward-s-fatal-crash-catalina-park-katoomba-1968/

[John McKechnie]

Terry.....was earlier than 1968,maybe 1963-67, did you not get this Aussie news at your picture theatres like we did?
Spectacular with many roll overs,sure the car was light colour
Understand from a racer friend of his that the steering wheel did significant harm.

[John McKechnie]

After some research and seeing the Kookaburras-
https://teara.govt.nz/en/video/26150/movietone-news-kookaburra

...this could be it. thought it was a Cortina when I first saw it, maybe not.

https://aso.gov.au/titles/newsreels/australian-movie-magazine-7201/clip1/

[khyndart in CA]

Did Peter Manton have an "unfair advantage" at Catalina Park in his LHD Mini Cooper # 2 on an anti- clockwise course?

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(Ken H)

[khyndart in CA]

Catalina Park could be a brutal track as Bob Jane found out in 1965 with his Mustang crash and it was especially sad for us in NZ when John Ward died there in August 1968 and as Terry's entry #25 notes that it is his very good friend Rod Coppins passing the scene in his Mustang.
" R. Coppins Mustang passing J. Ward s fatal crash - Catalina Park Katoomba 1968"
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John Ward on the left and Rod Coppins were partners in a car sales yard in Gisborne in this 1967 photo.(Gisborne Photo News)



(Ken H)

[Ray Bell]

When Manton turned up with the LHD installed in his Mini it was said the plan was to change for left and right-handed tracks.

I don't know that he actually ran LHD at any time other than this Catalina, but he may have at Sandown in the following February.

As for the rollover at Bathurst, it does look familiar but I just can't pick it, it happens so quickly and going back slowly it is too blurry. Is that a Viva in the foreground? If so, that will locate the year and then the identification is easy.

[John McKechnie]

Took a while to find this, do other people remember seeing this?.
Looks like a Viva Ray. black and white film, no jappos then.

[Dale Harvey]

I think it is the Viva rollover.
Dale.

[John McKechnie]

number A 58- Shoesmith/ Robarts...50 year on, I now know
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz_jVjdMv8Y

[Ray Bell]

What a shame it wasn't a Cortina...

[John McKechnie]

Ray...Cortinas have had a high attrition rate..Check out cars in NZ.Gerald Hargraves V88 version rolled, Jack Nazers burnt, John Wards, written off., just to name a few .

[Ray Bell]

But the Vivas had such a short time in the sun...

Cortinas just kept on going in some form or other.

[John McKechnie]

Ray,In our Sports Sedan Class, Vivas running from XU1 -327,352 Chevs are still having their place in the sun with Historics.
.......and we have no Cortinas, they run in Historic Saloon Class.

[Ray Bell]

Wouldn't they be Vivas the same as we called them Toranas?

All the same, only a couple ever raced in Australia. One with a Hemi 6 engine.

[John McKechnie]

This one is HB Viva which has square headlamps.- has had 202 XU1 motor fitted to it and raced since 1977.
HB Torana has same body but square headlamps

[Ray Bell]

We're getting a long way from the Geoghegan Cortina..,

Which did win the ATCC at Lakeside by the way. A lucky win as Brian Muir was forced to use Goodyears which had an increased wear rate as they wore down. And Bob Jane's Jag had gearbox trouble IIRC.

[Terry S]

This is an entry list from the Warwick Farm meeting on 5 December 1965. The numbers don't match but it does show the three Neptune Racing Team cars.

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The Neptune Team normally ran with #2 for Manton, #3 for McKeown and #4 for Beechey at all circuits except Warwick Farm.

You can see from the above that it numbered strictly down the page in order. Only the unlucky #13 was omitted.

If there was a Division 2 race the numbers continued from Division 1. Not that they really liked Division 2 races.

It was no place for favourite numbers. You had to have a good supply of peel off numbers.

It was very "pukka" and English, the influence of Geoff Sykes. It was not for nothing it was called "Aintree Down Under".

[Ray Bell]

Was it?

I can't say I ever heard it called that...

[Milan Fistonic]

Found this article in the November 1964 edition of Sports Car World.

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[Terry S]

Was it?

I can't say I ever heard it called that...

See this:

https://www.pitstop.net.au/browse/search?ipType=&searchKeywords=aintree

[Ray Bell]

A name for a book planned fifty or sixty years after the event, yes...

But never the circuit or any mention whatever in the day.

[928]

in #43, the first photo caption
i bet the chrome rocker cover was good for 8-10 mph. lol

[bill hollingsworth]

Aintree of the south seems a very apt title Ray, whenever it was dreamed up. I only went to Warwick Farm once, in 1974 which sadly was the last car race meeting ever held there.

[Ray Bell]

Frankly, I don't think so...

It had its own character and even if Geoff had been an Aintree (BARC) man he came here with some definite ideas to do it better than Aintree.

1974? You mean on the Club circuit?

[Terry S]

Found this article in the November 1964 edition of Sports Car World.

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It is incredible how much ATCC winning cars have changed.

This car had only 130 horsepower and 5 and 1/2 inch tyres..........

[John McKechnie]

and the competition was Beechey and Muir in their S4 Holdens

[Terry S]

It is incredible how much ATCC winning cars have changed.

This car had only 130 horsepower and 5 and 1/2 inch tyres..........

This car was the lowest powered ever to win the ATCC

It had been preceded by four Jaguars and was followed by five Mustang V8’s

[bill hollingsworth]

It was 1973 not 1974 thanks Ray for the correction.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Terry S
This car was the lowest powered ever to win the ATCC.....

Also the lightest by a big margin.

It's interesting that this car wasn't significantly faster than the best of the 48/215 Holdens in 1963.