Dunedin Street Races - revival meeting January 1984

[Roger Dowding]

The story is in Jim Bennett's own words, most of the photos from the Bennett Family archives Jim and son Warren Bennett - a couple of Jim's photo's I have now managed to download,

From the previous part of the story ; The photo's

Bill Harris at Nelson beach Races 1957



Dunedin 1958 - the Racing Cars and Specials
Ross Jensen in the Maserati
RA Vanguard, Jensen in the Maserati 250F Bruce McLaren in the Cooper behind Jensen and Ron Roycroft in the Ferrari far right.



The Story ;
" FURI – The beginning

Cliff , had collected enough bits to start to build what was intended to be an Austin 7 special. The engine had already been upgraded to a Ford 8 as these could be obtained for the same price as an Austin and were more durable. However shortly after, car dealer. Sid Cottle had acquired a Ford 10 single seat speedway type midget and Cliff purchased this with only the minimum of encouragement from his kid brother. The only condition was that I would buy the Ford 8 motor for what it cost him and he would throw in all the other bits and help with construction and fabricate an aluminium body for me.

The Midget Special ; Finally uploaded - had to convert from png file *******47



Pre Furi One ;
This was when I was 14 and many of my high school exercise book covers testified to early body styling attempts.
It was agreed that I would pay off these parts with money from my after school job at Dunedin Electroplaters.

Toolmaking Apprentice.
Cliff had been getting some replacement thrust washers made for the Model T differential in his Midget. This work was done by the engineering firm of Wilson and Wilson who had recently been bought by Doug Ross and Gerald Hoare (ex employees of J & AP Scott Ltd respected engineers in the city). I had visited Scott’s, previously, with a few others from my class at Tech and was quite impressed with the range of machinery and variety of work being done. Cliff mentioned to me that one of the staff at Wilson & Wilson had told him they may be looking for an apprentice in the new year. Doug Ross was a car trials competitor of note and one time Otago Sports Car Club President. Gerald Hoare had a very quick Chev Coupe which he fitted a modified powerful GMC truck engine and had also built what was one of the first “dragsters" in NZ (11.8sec 1/4 mile in 1961) while a staff member rode a very quick Triumph "drag" motorbike that he had made. What better place for a budding car constructer to serve an apprenticeship?

I was on their doorstep on my way to High School the following Monday with my school reports to hand. This was something of a surprise to Doug and Gerald as they said that they hadn’t really discussed this position to any degree. However they gave me an interview and at my suggestion permitted me to start work part time after school and during the August holidays as a trial. I never mentioned to them that the Electroplaters were reducing part time staff and I was still paying off Cliff for the Ford 8 engine so there may have been some ulterior motive in my apparent enthusiasm for starting at the engineering works.

A few years after completing my apprenticeship I had the opportunity of acquiring the shareholding of Doug Ross when he decided to quit the business and became co director with Gerald Hoare.

Gerald Hoare
I first became aware of Gerald at the first Otago Sports Car Club standing ¼ mile sprint, that I saw (1958). He had 1939 Chev Delux Coupe which he had repowered it with a 4.5 litre ex army truck engine. As a confessed “hot rod” enthusiast he had done significant modifications to the engine to increase the performance. He sourced performance camshafts and other parts from the USA.

This was difficult in those days as one could only purchase US$1.00 postal note per day from a post office. He used to leave work as soon as the bell rang at 4:30 and try and visit as many Post Offices as possible before they shut at 5:00pm.

I recall also a ¼ mile sprint around 1959 or 60 where there was a good selection of “modern” high performance cars. Jaguars Xk120 & XK140, Aston Martin DB4, Austin Healey 100S of Fred Losee and a C Type Jaguar sports racer driven by David Young from Timaru. The Chev coupe had fastest time of the day beating the C Type Jaguar by about 1/10th of a second doing a low 15 second time. He also drove the Chev to Tramway Road near Rangiora (and back) where the NZ speed records for cars and motorbikes were set. The Chev was officially timed over a flying ¼ mile at in excess of 200KPH - 126MPH as I recall. Fast in those days for a road legal saloon
"