Old Programmes, movies and memories from the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

[John McKechnie]

Roger....my neighbour in the late 70s, early 80s was Merv McDonald who had the Mini Minus...later known as the Beast.It is on other threads here...hillclimbs . Used to be a Cooper and that looks like his body, though dont remember nose being so open It did however run a VW motor in hillclimbs with him and later Steve Browne- Ross H will know. Dont think Merv ran it as early as 1968....but happy to be enlightened

[Milan Fistonic]

Roger....my neighbour in the late 70s, early 80s was Merv McDonald who had the Mini Minus...later known as the Beast.It is on other threads here...hillclimbs . Used to be a Cooper and that looks like his body, though dont remember nose being so open It did however run a VW motor in hillclimbs with him and later Steve Browne- Ross H will know. Dont think Merv ran it as early as 1968....but happy to be enlightened

This is Steve Browne with The Beast at Anderson's Farm Hillclimb in December 1977. It was running a 1500cc VW engine at that time.

[John McKechnie]

Thanks Milan, Merv is now departed, but he was a close friend and its great to see the pix again

[Ike]

The "Beast" at this time looks like an altered Vee.....The body and windscreen are ex-vee, with a VW motor, the gearbox would be VW as the rear wheels and rear brake drums are all VW.....The front end is from something else

[Kevin Hirst]

The "Beast" at this time looks like an altered Vee.....The body and windscreen are ex-vee, with a VW motor, the gearbox would be VW as the rear wheels and rear brake drums are all VW.....The front end is from something else

Look's very cooper cross spring to me, would think not legal for " V "

[Roger Dowding]

Just reading Ken H's introduction to this thread ;
" I found another box of "stuff" that I had dragged back from Kiwitahi to California and although some of it has been presented before I feel one can never get too much of the racing history from the 50s and 60s etc. Some of the old Ardmore programmes give a wonderful insight to who,what and where some of the drivers and cars came from.
I used to cut out pictures from the NZ Herald and Weekly News and put them in scrapbooks and I wanted to share some of that also and encourage anyone else to share what they may have "tucked away" from this era. "

My growing up [ haven't stopped yet !! according to ' her indoors' ] must have been similar, cutting out articles and acquiring motoring " stuff " which is now considered memorabilia.
I have an "Accounts Ledger " that my father put together in the late 1940's - cuttings from UK magazines and NZ papers of various Car Road Tests stuck into the Ledger - it must have rubbed off.

As mentioned on " Old Tracks " a wet day here, so have been editing photos that I took recently of some of my " memorabilia " while going through my Archives - Two large boxes of stuff,plus a bookshelf that all live in the Garage along with around 300 of my Scale Models and few metal signs.

A couple of Books with the NZ connection .. and my part of a set of Le Mans books by Brooklands ;



Thanks to Spgeti for the " Waimate " Book..


Le Mans ;
1947 to 1965




1966 to 1982