Yards And Yarns

[pallmall]

Mentioned on another thread in the past few days, I thought this thread might provide much discussion and jog many memories.


Johnny Riley Cars Sales, late 1957. The NZ Stockcar Team about to set off the the Auckland wharves to load their cars for the voyage to Australia.
#2 Johnny Riley, #3 Red Dawson, #4 Louie Antonievich (All photos by Cliff Wadsworth)







The Johnny Riley 36 Ford Coupe with Chrysler Fire Power Hemi engine nearly finished for the Australian trip. L to R. Ron Riley, Graeme Harvey, Johnny Riley, Don McDonald.




This was quite a motor sport area at the northern end of Otahuhu, with the Riley yard, and a lot later Red Dawson's car yard next door. Graeme Harvey's workshop around the corner in the sixties and dragracer Brian Trigg. A lot of racing machinery was built and worked on around here.

Now established that the photos above were taken at Riley's earlier premises at the Southern end of Otahuhu, this was also a bit of a motor sport area back in the day, especially with stockcars and speedway. Stockcars, and later midgets were run out of Farmers Co-op Car Sales by "Bert" Jones who also did some circuit racing around the late fifties. No doubt there are other motor sport connections from this area that we will get informed of.

[Steve Holmes]

Gavin, I hope you don't mind, I just edited the thread title so its not NZ exclusive. This is such a great thread subject, and we have members all over the world, it'd be great to get input from everywhere.

Fantastic post! And brilliant pics.

[AMCO72]

I thought that might jog a few of the older members into life, so while I was mucking around thinking about it someone else has started the thread....thanks. Unfortunately I dont have any photos to go with the stories so words will have to do. Christchurch where I grew up had a number of interesting yards and I have mentioned Des Wild as one, but in the late 50's and early 60's there were a lot of, what are now, very collectable cars for sale on display in crummy little yards. As I said there was no Ebay or Trademe then so a car yard was the only place where a car could be seen. The amazing thing is how long it took to shift some of these cars....lots of MG's, D type Jaguar, SS90, 3 litre Bentleys, etc etc and as Bob said they just sat for months out in the weather. Salisbury motors in Colombo St seemed to specialise in sports cars and I spent many hours 'checking them out' I think the salesman knew that I had no money so he pretty much left me alone, writing me off as some dopey kid with nothing better to do......should have been doing a paper round!! I also had dealings with Wally Darrell, the ACE tyre distributor in ChCh and single seater special builder. My Dad had bought a number of Jaguars from Archibolds and they always had some interesting stuff, and I got to sit in the C type and SS100. So thats a start. I will expand on these and other tales soon as Im sure others will want to get in on the act.

[AMCO72]

The only thing remotely connected with performance in this story is the AJS 7 R motorcycle. I was a student at Lincoln College in 1959 when I noticed an ad in the newspaper for a car for sale at 5 shillings...50p in todays currency. 'Petes' Autos in Riccarton Rd was having a promotion and because the WOF and Rego on this car was ready to run out 'Pete' decided to use it as a drawcard. The car in question was a 1934 Austin 10. The trick was that the 5 shillings was made up of coins from special dates, ie a 1952 halfcrown, a 1938 shilling, a 1956 sixpence etc up to the value of 5 shillings. My friend with AJS was also a part time server in the canteen so he had access to the till and a large amount of coinage to sift through to get the right years. We set out on the bike suitably attired in protective gear....T shirt. shorts and jandals....no helmets in those days... and sitting on 100mph down those long Canterbury straights arrived in ChCh to find we were the first outside 'Petes' yard. Our friends stayed back collecting the necessary coins and then followed us in. This was late afternoon friday so we had to set up camp to wait for the promotion to start on saturday morning. Dont remember getting much sleep but the weather must have been kind to us. When 'Pete' arrived on saturday we went straight to his office, signed the necessary papers and were the proud owners of the Austin. We didnt think of going for a run or even starting the engine so overcome at how smart we had been. I set out for Lincoln while my friend followed just in case. Actually I dont know how he could see through the clouds of oil smoke that issued from all parts of the car, and as Tom McCarhil said 'it didnt have enough power to pull a greased gumdrop out of a babys mouth" We made it home eventually and used the car occasionally to go to the pub at Springston but one needed a gas mask to ride in it. I think it got retired soon after and has probably been restored and is someones pride and joy today. As for the AJS 7 R, those of you who know bikes, was just one of many English machines at Lincoln in those days......Triumphs, Nortons, BSA, Velocette in the days when England ruled as far as the bike world was concerned. Fortunately there were not many cops around otherwise we may have gone for a skid....literally.

[Steve Holmes]

Am loving there stories guys, keep them coming.....

[thunder427]

Am loving there stories guys, keep them coming.....

...lets give this site a little 'Class'...Lets refer to these establishments as 'USED' car yards......I grew up in the 'Used Car World' in Christchurch,the heady days of 'No 1/2 Deposit', just a 100 down,jump in,drive away....!

My Father with his Business partner had an establishment on Ferry Road,Christchurch,called 'Merlyn Motors'..(MERven/LYNdsay) "Do A Great Deal Better" was thier catch phrase......Where to start ,,so Many great Moments.......I would get to go to the yard on a Saturday or School Holidays as long as the lawns were mowed with out having to be told and my 'Room' sustained a reasonable lever of sanitry......read, Bed Made most mornings!!!

I'm sitting in my fathers office and a Wolsley/Police car park's out the front,I noticed the Officer walk past the showroom and go next door to the Caravan builders....suddenly out comes my Dad with a Trolly Jack,Merv's got 2 'Besa' Bricks in hand and they proceed to jack up the police car,slipping the two bricks under the rear axel,down with the jack,rear wheels 1inch of the ground....I'm in "Shock'!!!..Dumb struck!!!,mean time they are beside themselves with laughter,hiding in the back of the showroom waiting for the 'Said' officer to return..given time, back he comes,looks 'left and right' marches around,unlocks the drivers door, slides in,hits the ignition...by this time the show room crowd as swollen to about 5,they are rolling around ,busting thier sides,,all I can think of is My 'crazy' Dad going to jail....well PC plod selects 1st gear,indicates his intentons to merge.....well the 'showroom' is a 'Roar' now.....out with the Clutch..nothing happens,door opens,out climbs the PC,scratching his head,thinking,..."I Drove it in here"..............!!!

Well, now its just too funny, the 5 spill out on to the foot path just as the Caravan builder comes to inspect the 'lack of forward motion...................the whole thing was accepted in the Good Humour' of the time....and No my Father didn't have to go to jail
..............regards thunder427/MJ.............'great thread ,AMCO72...(more to come!!,naming names!)

[AMCO72]

Ah yes....Ferry road Christchurch. This was a major route out of ChCh to the suburbs and had more than its fair share of Used Car Yards. We lived at Mt Pleasant and I attended school in ChCh city so I cycled down Ferry road regularly. Always a southerly wind into town and always an easterly wind home, so had headwind both ways!! Now, do you know I cant remember a single yard of all the dozens that were along this strip that had 'interesting' cars. They were full of sensible everyday vehicles for Mr Joe Average....Vauxhalls, Standard Vanguards, Hillmans, Etc. All the interesting ones were tucked away in dusty little corners round the town, and most, if not all their owners were members of the Canterbury car Club and were regular competitors in club events. Virtually the only way to advertise cars back then was via the Press or the Star Sun newspapers, but these guys had some sort of bush telegraph amongst the club members so a lot of the cars never appeared in the paper, hence you had to check them out for yourself on a regular basis. One I used to go to a lot was Salisbury Motors in Colombo St, another haven of used car lots, and this guy always had sports cars, mostly MG's, and here I am talking cars from the 1930's and early 50's. A nice 5 year old MG TD could be yours for 725 pounds [1500 bucks in todays money] Sounds cheap but remember you could buy a pretty good house for 5000 pounds so even then the sports cars were relatively expensive. I used to spend time sitting in these objects of desire wishing I could go to the bank and withdraw the necessary cash and drive out into the sunset. I couldnt, and in fact the first car I bought was from a wrecking yard...a 1928 Singer Junior, a car with no sporting or performance qualities at all, but it did 6 years later lead to the Singer LeMans a very honest little car which challenged the MG marque for a while. The thing about these yards is that they were all so small.....8 or 10 cars at the most....dont know how the dealer paid the bills but they seemed to survive. Perhaps a dealership licence was easy to get so lots of chaps had a go being salesmen, but 10 years later they were all gone. No more CASH...TRADE...TERMS...
we were entering the era of the professional car dealer...read SHARK.

[Steve Holmes]

This is a great thread guys, loving the stories!

[AMCO72]

Actually, I am being unfair to the Singer Junior mentioned in my last post. It did have some sporting pretensions in that it had a Single Overhead Camshaft, so there! Also a strange back-to-front gearbox shift pattern ie 1st was toward you and down, 2nd away from you and up. and top, away and down......very confusing if you were not thinking what you were doing. On the road the car, a tourer, was about as 'fast' as a 1935 Austin 7....I know this as I had lots of 'races' with my friend who owned an A7. They could just about struggle up to 45 mph, but it felt like a 100 as everything was flapping and vibrating so much. But I tell you what, you learned very quickly to start applying the 'brakes' well before you needed to stop, so little was the retardation. Gave us fellas a good grounding for later on though, and when I see todays bover-boys driving on their brakes I would love to get them into an old car and see what would happen. Next post, a famous Mustang and some great Jaguar dealers.

[thunder427]

This is a great thread guys, loving the stories!

PMC......Prince Motor Company......Carlos Neate/not sure about the 'E'/raced a Prince 'Skyline'GT at the Puna!, a real car guy!!tttttook me for a BBBBlast ,in the RAIN!!! in a 'Red' 1969/70 Shelby Mustang through Christchurch during the 'Lunch'Hour'...Wow!!! comes to mind,The thing kept wanting to go 'sideways'!!!!!!!.................Showroom/possibly Hereford St ,the Jim Mullins Farina,Clyde Collins LWT Farina,a Skyline GT,not sure on the Anglia????................regards Thunder427/MJ

[AMCO72]

Yep, your spelling is correct. Carlos Neate raced that Skyline GT seen at the right rear of the photo. Quite a tiny car and went damn well. Any of you who saw it will recall the howling sound it made on its journey round the track. I think that the boys had constructed some sort of megaphone which was attached to the exhaust outlet that gave it that distinctive sound. Neates car yard was one I was going to mention as my Dad had bought a car or two from them. The one I remember best was his 1960 Mercedes benz 190 SL.. Perhaps I was too one eyed about my preference for English cars, but I found the Merc the oddest machine. Unlike the 300SL, this thing had a puny 2 litre engine which could hardly pull the skin off a rice pudding. The gearing was incredibly low.....had to be to get it to go, and it seemed to be reving its guts out to get anywhere. Was constantly breaking down....dodgy electrics, and when my Dad died in 1977 I could have inherited the car but after driving it around Christchurch during the week I was tidying his affairs, I said no thanks and put it up for sale. I thought the correct thing to do would be to offer it back to Carlos Neate and duly rang him to see if he was interested. I got a guarded ' yes, but let me do some home work'. I told him that he had better be quick because I wanted to get back to the Nth Island and needed the car gone. I had also put an ad in the newspaper and a couple of days later got a ring from a chap who came and inspected the car and bought it on the spot. I rang Carlos to tell him it was sold, and he called me for every mongrel under the sun. I pointed out that I had given him first option and he had blown it by mucking around. For Gods sake, I only wanted $3000 for it......probably would sell for about $70,000 today. Funny fellow.

[AMCO72]

We are jumping around the country a bit now, but in 1962 I was working on a dairy farm in the Waikato and had purchased a 1954 MG TF from that well known purveyor of cars, Spinner Black, who had a small yard in Morrinsville. Spinner [Spencer] was one of lifes characters who dabbled in all sorts of things and went on to compete in that brutal sport of Offshore Powerboat racing. Anyway the MG was just about the worst car I have ever owned...not quite, that prize went to a series 3 Sunbeam Alpine...and I needed to divest myself of it smartly. In the main street of Hamilton , the Golden Mile, there was a very upmarket yard called Fleetwood Motors, previously Monaco Motors, run by the infamous Bruce Mundy. He had on the lot a very nice Triumph TR2 that had had a very extensive and expensive rebuild after a crash.....new chassis etc etc. After much negotiating, about 30 seconds, I signed for the Triumph and left the hated MG behind without shedding a tear. More about the Triumph later,but the famous Mustang that I mentioned before was of course the Ivan Segedin, Red Dawson et al car that was sponsored by, yes youve got it, Fleetwood Motors and now restored and driven by Neil Tolich at classic events round the world. Fleetwood motors was one of the first yards to use flags and banners to grab your attention.....was way beyond its time. I made regular visits there because there was always something interesting to look at, and there might have been something better than the Triumph, there wasnt not in my price range anyway, and I kept the car until I traded it in on a 1953 XK120 C DHC at Des Wilds in Christchurch.

[GD66]

.............Showroom/possibly Hereford St ,the Jim Mullins Farina,Clyde Collins LWT Farina,a Skyline GT,not sure on the Anglia????................regards Thunder427/MJ

Long shot : Ron Rutherford's #44 ?

[David McKinney]

Colour looks right (from dim memory...)

[GD66]

You too, David ?

See page 2 of the Jack Inwood thread, post #30.

[Chris Kitzen]

Mentioned on another thread in the past few days, I thought this thread might provide much discussion and jog many memories.


Johnny Riley Cars Sales, late 1957. The NZ Stockcar Team about to set off the the Auckland wharves to load their cars for the voyage to Australia.
#2 Johnny Riley, #3 Red Dawson, #4 Louie Antonievich (All photos by Cliff Wadsworth)




This was quite a motor sport area at the northern end of Otahuhu, with the Riley yard, and a lot later Red Dawson's car yard next door. Graeme Harvey's workshop around the corner in the sixties and dragracer Brian Trigg. A lot of racing machinery was built and worked on around here.

This series of photos has been bugging me since it was posted. The building looks like one that was at the very south end of Otahuhu not the north end. It was I believe just over the Tamaki Esturary Bridge on the Great South Rd about 100m north of where Graeme Addis had his Wild Wheels business. It's long gone now but I grew up living close to it and used to deliver the Herald as a school boy and that building was the northern most point on my run in the late 60's early 70's. Does anyone remember Johnny Riley Car Sales being located there before being up the other end of Otahuhu?

[thunder427]

....being the 'son' of 'Used' car dealer/salesman had a lot of 'Plus's
Kids at school thought that my father was a 'Car Thief',as I arrived at school (remember when you used to gather at the gate!?) each day in a different car.....My heavy 'Crush' at Intermediate' school (Heaton St Intermediate/ChCh) would have nothing to do with me BECAUSE my Dad was a 'USED CAR SALESMAN.....turned out that at the end of the year school concert when our Fathers meet,that the were in the 'RNZAF' together and had been friends prior to postings...people! I was strong,although I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world,I chose to ignore Her!!!!........

a Biggy was You Got to ride in 'New' trucks that were being 'Test Driven' prior to delivery......and best of all was the Cars bought home for the weekend,one such vehicle was a ...Twin carby VW, that had belonged to a gentleman/Member of the Cantbury Car Club (just as AMCO72 stated! ) A Mr Jim Mullin's, the VW was that typical 'Boring' Fawn Colour that VW had an ability to provide...I'm cramed in the back,we are heading to some family engagment (Afternoon Tea!!..Yawn!) so with some encouragment from his son,my Father decides to 'Blow off a 55/56 Customline,the look on the Fords drivers face has we speed by was worth the Wrath that my mother served up to my Father ,whom gave me a wink in the rear view mirror..'Go! Dad!!...............regards427/MJ

[AMCO72]

Talking of XK's and Jaguars in general the name Sybil Lupp springs immediately to mind. She was the other half of Archer and Lupp of Wellington and had a big following of enthusiasts in the area. Plenty has been written about Sybil so wont go over it again except for one little gem she shared with me during a JDC rally at Easter in Rotorua about 1969. She had a novel way of balancing the SU carburetors on an E type. She would remove the bonnet, take out the plungers from the dashpots, put a piece of dowel with graduations on it into the oil chamber of all three carbs and drive the car up the Ngauranga Gorge Rd....SH1 out of Wellington...and watch the dowels to see how far out they were poking while under power. She would then be able to see which carb was doing all the work and adjust accordingly. Not sure whether she was having me on but she was dead serious!!!!!! Sybil was often the invited guest in the early days of the Jaguar Drivers club and her expertise was put to good use as a judge in the concours. She had a good eye and liked everything to be right, even back in the beginning of her racing carreer she usually won best presented car, especially at the Lady Wigram Trophy race where she came 2nd in the MG TC in 1952. Was a supercharged car so went pretty well and of course, unlike a lot of the machinery in those days, was reliable. She did all the tuning herself and cut quite a dash in the pits with her blond hair and white overalls. The MG still exists in the hands of FAZZAZ owner Gavin Bain and will be restored to its former glory one day.

[AMCO72]

Thanks for that Bob. Sybil was a bit of a hard case and sometimes I was not sure whether or not she was being serious. I could just imagine her flying up the Gorge rd, hair flying, a big grin, getting that E type just right. She couldnt have had access to a dyno....I suppose they were few are far between then...early sixties.

[Steve Holmes]

Yep, your spelling is correct. Carlos Neate raced that Skyline GT seen at the right rear of the photo. Quite a tiny car and went damn well. Any of you who saw it will recall the howling sound it made on its journey round the track. I think that the boys had constructed some sort of megaphone which was attached to the exhaust outlet that gave it that distinctive sound. Neates car yard was one I was going to mention as my Dad had bought a car or two from them. The one I remember best was his 1960 Mercedes benz 190 SL.. Perhaps I was too one eyed about my preference for English cars, but I found the Merc the oddest machine. Unlike the 300SL, this thing had a puny 2 litre engine which could hardly pull the skin off a rice pudding. The gearing was incredibly low.....had to be to get it to go, and it seemed to be reving its guts out to get anywhere. Was constantly breaking down....dodgy electrics, and when my Dad died in 1977 I could have inherited the car but after driving it around Christchurch during the week I was tidying his affairs, I said no thanks and put it up for sale. I thought the correct thing to do would be to offer it back to Carlos Neate and duly rang him to see if he was interested. I got a guarded ' yes, but let me do some home work'. I told him that he had better be quick because I wanted to get back to the Nth Island and needed the car gone. I had also put an ad in the newspaper and a couple of days later got a ring from a chap who came and inspected the car and bought it on the spot. I rang Carlos to tell him it was sold, and he called me for every mongrel under the sun. I pointed out that I had given him first option and he had blown it by mucking around. For Gods sake, I only wanted $3000 for it......probably would sell for about $70,000 today. Funny fellow.

Ahh, for a crystal ball aye Gerald: http://www.classiccarfair.com/shop/M...des+190SL.html