Photos: The Graeme Bennett Collection - Part 1

[Bruce302]

Better ?

[Steve Holmes]

Better ?

Yes Bruce, much better!

[Steve Holmes]

Another from the Castrol GTX ranks, Rod Coppins in the L34 he purchased in 1974, and which he and good buddy Jim Richards took to Bathurst that year, finishing an impressive third. This was the first time Richards had ever been to Bathurst.

Attachment 18045

[Rod Grimwood]

Yes Bruce, much better!

Yes much better photo wise, the behaviour of the guy and kid is dumb, there is no bank just straight across grass to fence Steve.
Ask poor Jamie.

[Steve Holmes]

Here is a great shot showing just how hectic the action could get in Sports Sedan racing. Its important to remember that although there were cars built specifically for Sports Sedan racing, most Sports Sedan fields were made up of cars from other classes, such as ShellSport, production racing etc. This shot captures that really well. Coming up over the hill, Graeme Addis in his Charger Sports Sedan gobbles up several slower cars, including ShellSport and proddie cars. The yellow Escort looks to be left hand drive, so is possibly that of Mark Rutherford, this being the car Bob Homewood later rebuilt into his amazing Sports Sedan.

[Steve Holmes]

Here is one of the longest serving OSCA racers, Ian Munt in his fantastic looking V8 Capri, that was originally built and raced in Australia by Bruce Carey, before Munt bought it, while living in Sydney, and who then shipped it out to NZ when he returned home.

[Steve Holmes]

V8 powered Ford Capri's made for popular Sports Sedan/OSCA racers in the early 1980s. Here is the OSCA car of John Osborne leading Wayne Huxfords North Island Sports Sedan. The Osborne Capri is the same car built in the mid 1970s by Don and Rob Halliday, and originally fitted with a quad-cam Ford V6. It was later owned by Danie (sp?) Lupp, who fitted it with a Jaguar V12. Osborne ran it with a small block Chevy V8.

[Steve Holmes]

Yet another of the Chevy V8 powered Capri's, here is Inky Tulloch in his OSCA version. Tulloch won the OSCA championship with this car, which started life as a factory RS2600 race car, before being purchased by Paul Fahey in 1974. Fahey replaced the pushrod V6 with a later, more powerful quad-cam V6, and won the NZ Saloon Car Championship with it in 1975. It was then raced the next two seasons by Grant Walker before Tulloch bought it and repowered it. John Osborne later bought it when his own ex-Halliday Capri, pictured above, caught fire and burnt to the ground. Its now owned by Roger Townshend and is being restored to as Fahey raced it in the 1975 season.

[225sloper]

These are really cool photos