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
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
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.Originally Posted by Kwaussie
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.
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
Dennis Smith of Spider fame.
Baker bros, Jamie A Les Reisterer,
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.
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
John Miller
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.
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.
He was a ripper, his science show was called In The Nature Of Things (black and white too, if I recall). There have been a few pics of his specials come up on this forum in the early days.
He was good at knocking up interesting science experiments to prove his point, much more interesting than the crusty old knob jockeys we had teaching science at school.
Last edited by GD66; 11-25-2014 at 11:35 AM.
Found it ! From the wonderful Bill Pottinger Collection thread, Ron Walton's pre-unit Triumph-powered Wasp.
That is a great photo by Bill P. GD66.
Enjoyed Ron's TV shows -
Are they Dunlop Squirts on the front?
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