Here is my column for NZ Classic Car on Merv Mayo:


Merv Mayo was something of a shooting star on the New Zealand motor racing scene in the mid-late ‘50s – he was there and then he wasn’t, good enough to be a finalist for the inaugural Driver to Europe scheme along with Bruce McLaren and Phil Kerr. Like the man who would become the McLaren team manager, Mayo is in no doubt that the result was a foregone conclusion – “We all knew Bruce would win but it was a privilege to be a finalist”. Mayo and his future wife Win did a lot of “outies” with the slightly younger McLaren and as Win recalls over half a century on “we all became close friends – he even let me drive his Austin Ulster once!”

Mayo’s father was a motorcycle enthusiast but was adamant young Merv should stick to four wheels - “Dad was having some work done for him by Arthur Harris and noticed he was building a little Buckler and said ‘you should have a look at one of these’”. A talented engineer, Mayo set to work and on occasions would receive assistance from both McLaren and Kerr – “Sometimes Bruce and Phil got their hands dirty but as much as anything it was a case of picking brains and observing what we were doing”. In October 1956, Mayo registered the first Buckler Mk90 to race on New Zealand circuits, powered by a Ford 100E”.

Mayo threw himself into hillclimbs (both sealed and loose metal) and gymkhanas – “these types of events were great to give you car control but a restively low speed”. Mayo also hit circuits and in no time was turning heads – “I’ll never forget Roly Levis telling me it was the fastest Ford powered sportscar in the country. I loved Levin and won many races there – it was my cup of tea.” For the 1957/58 season Mayo embarked on the South Island circuits traveling with the McLarens – “Ruth and Pop McLaren treated us like family”. Bruce had been confirmed as Driver to Europe on the evening of the Grand Prix in early January but Mayo had a chance to join his mate in an open wheeler.

“Ron Frost badly damaged his Cooper at Levin and hurt his arm. He’d seen me drive and knew that I could fix a car. He was keen for the car to compete at Wigram the following weekend and asked if I would like to drive it – well of course the answer was ‘yes!’ but to get there I had to get the car rebuilt”.

So how did it feel after the Buckler? “I said to Ron that it feels real quick but his response initially was ‘well not according to the times’ - eventually he said ‘I know – no windscreen’. Once we fitted a screen, the times improved.” The new combination finished an impressive fifth but Mayo believes it could have been even better – “The car was running low on oil- I was trying to indicate this to the pits but it was obvious they didn’t have any idea what I was trying to make out because when I stopped I had to tell them. I went back out and still finished fifth.”
At one point Ron Roycroft in the big blue front-engined Ferrari went past and that fired him up – “I thought ‘I can beat that car’ and when Frost saw me drifting it later he said ‘He’s got it!’ and I guess I did”.

He was back in the Buckler for Teretonga and the Dunedin street race. It was while in the deep-south that sponsorship was offered by BP to race in England. By this time Merv and Win were engaged and the decision was made to stay – “My father had offered me a partnership in the engineering company. Later in the year Win and I got married”. The Buckler was sold to Malcolm Gill, who would later become famous as a Lycoming driver, and the Mayos put the proceeds into a home.

“Malcolm converted the brakes to hydrolics which it really needed”. Mayo may have stopped racing but the connections didn’t end. Although friendships with McLaren and Denny Hulme endured, it was with Jack Brabham that a special relationship developed – Win: “We had the whole family in the workshop scraping rust off Jack’s car one year”.

Merv would mechanic for Brabham while Win acted as timekeeper. An exception to the connection with the Antipodeans was 1961 when Merv was asked to fly to Christchurch to work on the works Lotuses of Innes Ireland and Jimmy Clark – “I actually drove one of the racing cars (a full works 2.5-litre Lotus 18-Climax) out to circuit from the middle of town amongst the race traffic.”

The Mayos have wonderful memories of that special time in the history of New Zealand motor sport – Win: “Merv learnt to never offer to carry Jack’s cabin luggage after picking up the bag once to discover half an engine in there”. The Mayo’s workshop became part of a regular arrangement for the Brabham team until the late 1960s by which time “…they all stopped coming”.

By then the Mayos had become committed Jehovah’s Witnesses and to many contemporaries it seemed that the interest had evaporated. Nothing could be further from the truth – “I never miss a F1 race on TV”. There was a chance to share a saloon car in a long-distance race at Pukekohe and while there is no doubt Win would have been all for it, for Merv it was a case of all or nothing – it’s just the way he’s made and this single minded approach has seen him heavily involved in the construction of many Kingdom Halls, both here and abroad.

There is little doubt this single minded approach, along with his engineering skills, would have served Merv Mayo well in racing because as Roly Levis recalls today – “he was a very fast driver”.