Vintage Kiwi Speed Equipment

[Steve Holmes]

Outside of motor racing history, I also have an interest in hot rodding history. There was actually quite a close relationship between hot rodding and motor racing during the early years in the US, and early American motor racing, like hot rodding, grew from the massive availability/cheapness of old Model T Fords by the early 1920s. These made great starting points for both racers and hot rodders, and from this an aftermarket industry was created, designing, building and selling speed equipment for the Ford 4-banger.

The arrival of the first affordable production V8, made again by Ford and first released in 1932, soon saw the speed equipment industry switch to create parts for this motor. Companies that are now worldwide house-hold names, such as Edelbrock, Offenhauser, Cragar, Bell, etc, were all created out of the aftermarket industry for either the Ford flathead 4 or V8 motor.

In New Zealand, however, although there was an eager and enthusiastic market for American speed equipment, it was very hard to actually get. And so a small number of New Zealand racers actually went into production building their own speed equipment parts, mostly for the flathead V8 Ford motor, to supply the local NZ market.

Recently, I was travelling around New Zealand working on a book about hot rodders and their garages and car and automobilia collections, and while visiting a couple of different hot rodders, I found a couple of neat old 1950s examples of Kiwi speed equipment for the flathead V8. One of these was a Shuter Sports 2x2 inlet manifold, designed and built by Frank Shuter. The manifold itself bares quite a close resemblance to an Edelbrock manifold from the same era, so its possible Frank used one of these to help with the design.



The other was a BCM 2x2 inlet manifold, made by Brian Mabey. I found this particular manifold to be quite interesting, as Brian was best known for building and racing cars powered by smaller British saloon motors than American V8s. I don't know how many of each of these manifolds were built, but needless to say, they are extremely rare.



Anyway, just thought I'd share, I find them interesting.