Lotus Cortina 50th Anniversary at 2013 Muscle Car Masters

[Steve Holmes]

For those of you attending the Australian Muscle Car Masters at Eastern Creek (or Sydney Motorsport Park as its known these days) this weekend, be sure to stop by and say hello to the folks at the Lotus Cortina car club, who this year are celebrating the models 50th anniversary.

The club have assembled 11 Lotus Cortina's for display, including a couple of cars with some interesting period race history. Additionally, they've also managed to get some of the original Cortina race drivers along, including Jim McKeown, Leo Geoghegan, Robin Bessant, David Weakes, and Chris Brauer. One of the original racers is the Chris Brauer car, so Chris will be reunited with his old weapon again which will be neat.

Neale Bayliss has designed this beautiful poster for the weekend, using some stunning old Bruce Wells photos supplied by The Roaring Season. These will be available for the drivers to sign, so make sure you grab a copy. A definite collectors item.

[zombie289]

I NEEDS TO HAVE ONE OF THESE!

[neale]

It was a fantastic day. We had 11 Lotus Cortina's (a couple of ex race cars from the period) on Display at this years Muscle Car masters to celebrate the marques 50th birthday.
The day was topped off with having so many of the drivers from the 1960's there as well including, Jim McKeown, George Garth, Robyn Bessant, David Weekes, Chris Brauer, Leo Geohegan & Allan Moffat.

My highlight would have to be getting to drive a Mk2 Lotus for the day & getting to do a couple of laps of the track with the legend Jim Mckeown in the Passengers seat. He left me with some great words of wisdom while I was driving him around the circuit & we approached the new section - I said "I've never been around this new part so I don't really know the lines to take" & he replied "for Christ's sake don't try & learn them now!". We all had a bit of a giggle at that one. There was another great quote from the weekend as well. We were in the grandstand with George Garth & while we were watching a race that had started to settle down he said, "Let me out there in a car, I'll get the crowd on their feet, I'll give them a show!!". They were all a great bunch of guys & I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to spend the day with some legends of Australian Motorsport. Its going to be hard to top it next year.

Anyway to the photos.


Here's what 11 real Lotus Cortina's look like. I pretty good achievement to get this many together at the same time. with cars coming from as far away as Queensland & Canberra to be there for the day.




My ride for the day

[neale]

The Real deal.. The ex Chris Brauer/Dr John Uren car (#6) & Norm Watts (#28)






The parade lap


I great article in the program about the cars

[neale]

Scott Fleming still flying the flag for the Lotus Cortina. His best result of the day was 2nd in the group Nb race against some tough competition







I have a lot more photos from the day that I will go through & post in the other section about muscle car masters

[Cooper997]

Great effort Neale.

Wish I could have been there to witness. Keep posting more photos and info please.

I made my UK based Lotus Cortina owning friend aware of this thread.

Stephen

[Steve Holmes]

Great work Neale, awesome pics. Sounds like you guys really did a great job. How long did the posters last?

[darren]

Are there any posters left????

[neale]

Cheers guys, I cant claim the glory for the event I just helped out a little where I could there was a group of us involved at different levels that helped to make it a great day.

Steve, I don't think the posters even made it to lunch time, a lot had been snapped up before we even made it to the track. Everyone loved them, especially the drivers. We even had a guy from the Hunter British Ford Club ask if we could print an extra 15 for club members that couldn't make it to the event. So Darren & anyone else that would like one, shoot me a PM & I will try & get one to you.

[Jay Bowden]

What a great weekend
Thanks must go to Geoff for getting this together.

[John Uren]

What's the "Real deal" about #6?? Dr John Uren raced the original model, no 'orange' in the sidelight/turn signals.. that came in on the later model.

The 1964 Silverdale thread on this site shows a "realer" deal.