Dunedin Street Races - revival meeting January 1984

[Roger Dowding]

A photo provided by Kwaussie [ Patrick ] who knew the Bennett brothers and sent me this ;

Cliff and Ivan were Jim Bennett's older brothers and were into racing cars in the 1950's they both had Morgans and were as mentioned members of the Otago Sports Car Club.

Photo not dated but I have asked Jim Bennett if he knows when [ 2008 ] and where [ Dunedin ] he did so edited
[ and excuse the spelling of Lorraine D.... -my bad ]
Cliff Bennett and the Lotus based Special,Jim and Furi 14, Ivan and the 1922 Lorraine Dietrich which has been in NZ since 1922. It will have a great story too !!
The Good Oil on the photo by Gerald O'Brien - it featured [ cropped ] in an article on the Bennett Boys in the Otago Daily Times back in July 2008 with notation " The retired Bennett brothers helped each other building this trio of vehicles. Photo by Gerard O'Brien "

Details of Cliff's car from Jim also ;
" Cliff’s car is a Lotus Europa that he bought as a write off. It had been in a collision and went on fire burning everything non metal. Cliff fabricated an aluminium body.

I helped Cliff fit a Fuego 1600? hemi pushrod engine & 5 speed gearbox with twin dellortos and a mild cam grind it was much nicer and quicker than the original 1400 Renault engine & 4 speed. More powerful on a rolling road than a good Lotus Elan.

He did much of the body work on all three cars, Ivan’s Lorraine only had scuttle forward, one door and the mudguards. "



Coming soon Furi 2,the Story - The Jaguar powered and supercharged car with a Commer TS3 supercharger
[ Roots type blower ].
That Commer TS3 could be a side story.

Another photo that I have found from a guy who owned Furi 5 at some stage Russ Cunningham from Bay of Plenty



This car story will be later on.
Also more photo's from the Bennett Boys early years ..