This time not so much the cars, but the guys who for various reasons (often because they could not afford to buy a car set down and built their own. This could be a big list, just to start TRS has honoured Jamie, so leaping to mind; in no particular order and they can be expanded on
Ralph Watson
John Mines
Lester Reader
Avon Hyde
Jim Bennett
George Begg
Brian Maybey of Nelson who built the BCM's
In the lycoming story, Bob Gibbons is mentioned several times, can any body tell me if this is the same gent that was part of Hope gibbons & ford motor company? Bob & wife May [ as above] retired to Puketona when we were there, he had several model A,s and was always down to the garage for small repairs & W,O,F,s etc lovely guy but died after being there for about three or four years, May sold up shortly after to move back with familly, really missed the chats when Bob died, any info would be most appreciated.Originally Posted by bry3500
Yes it is the same gentleman. If I am correct his father established a company called The Colonial Motor Company and imported Ford cars into NZ for some years. When Ford planned to assemble cars at Seaview they came to an agreement with Colonial Motor Company to pay a royalty for every car that was assembled. Colonial Motor Co still exists-they recently purchased the Nissan dealership here in Hastings and (I have been told) Jeff Gray European.
Bob was the original driver of the Mark 5 Cooper that I subsequently owned.
Thanks for that RF, did not know that Bob was into motor racing or the connection to Ralph Watson at the time I knew him,would have made those chats a lot longer,
'Chats' with Bob were always long. He was very deaf and also "deep thinker". It was not uncommon to ask him a question and then wait 30 seconds or more for a reply. You never quite knew if (a) he hadn't heard you or
(b) he had heard you but was thinking about his reply or
(c) he had heard you but, while thinking about his reply for so long, he had fallen asleep!
At a "Wings and Wheels" race meeting at Ohakea in the early 80's Bob stood around all Saturday looking at his old Mark 5 Cooper (which I owned at the time) and proffering snippets of information about the car and things that had happened under his ownership. A mate and I spent the whole day trying to persuade him to have a little drive. He would not even sit in it for a photo. The next day he arrived back from Wellington and agreed to sit in it then, after a LOT of encouragement, he agreed to take it for a "little drive" down a taxi-way. He disappeared and was gone for a long time-so long we thought he must have stalled it or broken down. We hopped in the tow car and headed off in the direction he had gone when, through the shimmering heat haze on that massive air force base taxi- way, appeared a small red shape. He passed us going absolutely "flat out" in the opposite direction. When we got back to our 'pit' he was sitting grinning like "the cat that got the cream".
Ron Abbot, Bob Dunstan, Neil Stuart, Neil Robertson, Bryan Taylor, Lawrence Knowler, Bill & Barry Barber, Graeme Amos,....... need to get Stewy Q on the job.
Graham Mcrae, probably the most successful
How do we define successful? People have differing aspirations from those who achieved the aim of being able to race on a non-existent budget and achieved that, to those who became major manufacturers and race winners on the international stage? If the latter then Graham probably fits. If the former, then all of them
Wop Amos, Barry Walker and Johnny Rush.
Frank Shuter
Stanton Brothers
Bill Crosbie
Hec Green
Ian Horley who built Mowog, then put a Ford engine and gearbox in and changed it's name to Beowulf. Also built a mk2 version which he still owns.
John Mines owns the JRM and has also built a "modern" sports car with a motorcycle engine.
Graham Doggert and Bob Elwin, who between them wore out the benevolence of Frank Hamlin and Murray Charles through building the Triford Special.
Dennis Smith of Spider fame.
Baker bros, Jamie A Les Reisterer,
Tyrell Turtle - his sports car is still around.
Dennis Smith also had fame with the ill-fated Anziel Nova project.
Surely we can put Ferris De Joux here
Tyrell Turtill thread here
http://www.theroaringseason.com/show...=Tyrell+Turtle
John Miller
Getting back to the special builders. Ron Walton. He was a Science teacher from Christchurch who had a Science programme on TV. Built at least two motorcycle engined cars-The Wasp and The Bee.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote