New Zealand Hillclimbs

[RogerH]

Yeah I would have chosen the bank and rocks too Roger! Neat car by the way. Is it a Stanguellini or Volpini? What is its history? How about creating a thread about it? Would love to know more.

It is actually a 1959 Taraschi FJ built by Berardo Taraschi in Teramo, Italy. He built about 60 race cars but many were bike engined sports cars that ran in the likes of the Mille Miglia in the late 1940s and early 1950s. There were around 20 of the FJ cars made and about 6 are currently active worldwide. Mine raced mainly in the US at the likes of Watkins Glen, Sebring etc and it didn't have any notable drivers except for Kirk White who was a US Ferrari distributor and Brock Yates who originated the Cannonball Run and was involved with "Car and Driver" from memory. Brock contacted me a couple of years ago and wanted to buy the car back - he said it was his favourite race car although it had made him deaf in the right ear with the megaphone exhaust.
I have another single seater with a lot more history (currently with Bob Homewood getting it's engine tweaked) so I may put together a thread on it sometime.
Link to the Taraschi site : http://www.squadrataraschi.it/