Bruce- thanks for the update my ex used to work at Whangarei branch in 1968- they had Skoda agency there.
Huge family business- Chev, Vauxhall, Bedford Holden , bought by Graham Hitch ,dismantled and sold everything. - he was an asset stripper , learnt his trade at Brieleys
Wonder what they put this cars way to warrant a sticker?
Last edited by John McKechnie; 09-19-2015 at 07:19 AM.
My ex worked there too......now that is a worry !!!!!
When you read my post # 351 on my Programme thread you will understand why Warren Paine did not take me on as an apprentice at the Morrinsville "Paine Motors".
BTW. I sure enjoyed watching Frank Matich driving at this meet at Warwick Farm in 1970.
(Ken Hyndman )
Bry,
Thanks for posting, i hadn't seen the second part of the interview, all the stuff about modified fuel cams is interesting, and not stuff Derek and i covered when we chatted about the article.
Its all indicative of FM's attributes and sensitivity as a a test and development driver. Goodyear would not have handed out testing contracts to every 'tom, dick and 'arry' it would be interesting to know how many such arrangements were 'on foot' at the time.
One anecdote Derek mentioned i forgot and must plug into the article; FM tested the A50 @ W Farm, Derek having wheel aligned the car the night before on the very sophisticated gear the team had. FM did a couple of laps and declared the toe setting was out on one side of the car. Derek protested, but relented when FM was adamant despite the care taken that they were out...sure enough they were, not a lot but enough to a very sensistive driver...which he was!
Finally the fuel cam story reminds me of a similar one in relation to Jack Brabham. The DFV was famously abrupt in its power delivery early on. Brabham used the engine for the first time in '69...and quickly modified the fuel cams of his engines to improve the 'drivability' of the Cossie. One of these cams was left in an engine returned to Cosworths' for rebuilding, the engineers quickly realised 'old Jack' had improved their design, the cam was replicated and then incorporated into all engines issued to customers from that point...
Clever Aussie Driver Engineers!...
m
That's 'Lugsy' Adams pushing on the wing...Originally posted by kiwi285
Here are a couple of photos of Frank's F5000 cars here in NZ. They were taken at Pukekohe in January 1970.....
Wasn't that the day Niel Allen won in the ME5?Originally posted by khyndart in CA
.....BTW. I sure enjoyed watching Frank Matich driving at this meet at Warwick Farm in 1970.
Frank had problems, IIRC, and tried storming through the field after a pit stop.
Ray Bell- you seem to know a bit about Aussie cars of the 60s, can you help with this please-
Any shots or stories of the Matich SR 4 -94 inch wheelbase-before Mark Petch brought it back to NZ cane to NZ to become the Katipo MJ70 ?
The SR4 never went to New Zealand...
It was transferred from Matich to Repco as a display car. Later it was bought by a Repco employee and today is used in Historic racing.
If the Katipo MJ70 is the car I think you mean, it's built on an SR3 chassis.
My source-
Formula 5000 in New Zealand & Australia: Race by Race
By Wolfgang Klopfer
Page 40.
So, how may SR3 chassis were there-any history please?
Wolfgang... formerly known as 'island' on the Nostalgia Forum...
He regularly posted there to get information for his book, I've not seen it.
SR3 chassis? I really don't know, but I believe Frank raced three or four of them himself at some time. There was in the early seventies a car built up by Rod Dale for Ted Dunford which was said to be a Matich chassis, but it may have been a copy. It's a very blurred world.
There is at least one photo of the Katipo in the F5000 Thunder book, I think that's in the Terry Marshall section of the book.
And now, after looking at:
http://forums.autosport.com/topic/58...chigan-matich/
http://www.theroaringseason.com/show...Katipo-s/page3
I am no longer so sure about the origins of the car. One thing mentioned in the latter is that the 'only original part of the chassis left was the roll hoop'... and as pics show that to be fairly narrow in both the SR4 and the Katipo while the SR3's is wider indicates it might have been an SR4 chassis.
But if that is so, apparently not much of it.
Ray this is incorrect. Matich suffered incredible burns in the 19B crash when the impact ruptured the fuel tank and slashed petrol over him. This caught fire. It was made worse because he was only wearing a nylon shirt rather than fire proof overalls.Originally Posted by Ray Bell
Initially treated in Brisbane hospital then transferred to a top Sydney hospital for top specialist care. He almost lost an arm from gangrene. He was out of action for more than 6 months. It took nearly 18 months to recover from the burns.
His first race after that crash was not until the Bathurst 500 in October 1966, that is 15 months later. He ran a Cooper S, and although a comeback after such a long time out, he set the fastest lap of the race ahead of the 3 BMC "works" Cooper S', which included Mini kings Foley and Manton.
Of course you're right about the Mini racing being '66, not '65, brain fade there... and further evidence that I shouldn't post that kind of stuff when I'm away from home (and my RCN binders).Originally posted by Terry S
.....His first race after that crash was not until the Bathurst 500 in October 1966, that is 15 months later. He ran a Cooper S, and although a comeback after such a long time out, he set the fastest lap of the race ahead of the 3 BMC "works" Cooper S', which included Mini kings Foley and Manton.
Matich's first race after the July '65 (25.7.65) crash at Lakeside was at Sandown in February '66 (27.2.66) for the debut of the Traco Olds. The Mini came in after he sold the Traco Olds and while he was awaiting the SR3's completion.
Terry,
I'm not sure what meetings FM did in '65 post Lakeside prang, Ray would have the best idea of that reporting as he was at the time.
FM didn't have the Lotus to race, it was rooted, the remains sent to Elfins to assist in development of the Elfin 400 design ideas, the Brabham was sold to someone in NZ, forgotten who.
FM definitely raced the Elfin 400/Traco Olds from February 1966, this article i wrote on FM's Elfin 400 may fill in some of the gaps for you. I don't cover the accident in detail mind you.
http://primotipo.com/2015/05/28/elfi...garrie-cooper/
Mark
Red Dawson bought the Brabham...
I don't think the nylon shirt came into it either. Frank would have been in his racing suit, it was official practice. About that time there was an incident in England where Bruce McLaren had a nylon jacket on which worsened his burns in a minor incident.
Ray you are right about the first race after Lakeside crash being Feb 66 debut of Traco Olds.
I was using a range of sources (including memory) and wrongly took a paragraph from Bill Wood's Legends of Speed. Silly me to repeat anything from that book.
He was talking about Matich's crash then jumped to a few other drivers then came back to Matich with:
He says "Matich had returned to racing in a Mini Cooper at Bathurst in October 1966. It had taken him nearly 18 months to recover from the burns"
Completely overlooked the Traco Olds.
Please note the Traco Olds belonged to Laurie O'Neill and he was the one that sold it to Allen, not Matich. There was some form of blow-up between O'Neill and Matich and they went their separate ways.
Oh yes, Terry...
I'm well aware of the ownership issues. Laurie still retained some kind of relationship with Matich, however, and I suspect he had more than a passing interest in the A50-A53 period.
It was Laurie who 'encouraged' John Goss to buy up the Matich stuff when Frank retired. John, you will recall, spent a short time racing Laurie's Porsche, but Ford influences (and graft...) took him out of that.
I'd love to spend time with Laurie talking about his relationships with the four AGP winners he's befriended or helped along the way... Allan Tomlinson, Doug Whiteford, Frank Matich and John Goss.
Strangely enough, I heard a story today about Matich and 'ownership'. A small-time constructor/racer bought a trailer from Frank, a couple of years later he was approached by someone who told him he had his trailer. "Frank sold it to me," he responded. "But I only loaned it to Frank, it wasn't his!" came the retort.
Ray, I see that in May 2007 you wrote "I'm intending writing Matich's biography"
Was that completed and published?
As a great Matich fan I'd love to read it.
Terry, Matich agreed that I could do his biography and after a long time we spent a few hours together at his place about ten or twelve years ago...
We covered ground regarding his father's coming to Australia and his early life and then we were supposed to get together again some time later.
In reality, I could probably work from there as racing records are available and I spent time with the Matich family during the early sixties and was able to observe his racing closely as a journalist through the seventies. I even know a bit about his business interests after that.
But when I did the story about him in F5000 Thunder which had to be written at a time when he was unavailable, and because I refuse to write Frank's own version of everything, preferring to rely on things I saw and recorded at the time, he was pretty bitter with me. Frank typically did this to everyone.
I could rely on each of his chief mechanics through the whole period, all of whom I know personally. But I'm not sure if I want to do it any more, certainly less so as a stand-alone bio. Perhaps as one of a number in a book about several drivers?
Sometimes when you read a website you can get confused by conflicting information within the site.
This is annoying and confusing, when all you want is the truth, and there is no resolution of the conflict.
A great case in point is the attached on Matich's SR4 sports car:
http://tasmanrevival.com/2010/08/08/...-frank-matich/
Just who was the owner for much of its history?
In the text it says Nigel Tait purchased it in July 2005 from Repco/ACL.
However if you go to the comments section at the bottom, Frank Matich says in June 2012 "I have never sold the SR4 to anyone. The ownership has not changed since it was built."
So which is correct.....
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