Continental Special -- Gary Mullholland , Tyrrell Turtill

[Royce]

Hi Petey,

Its amazing to see that people are still interested in the Continental. Seeing the car at Ruapuna for the filming day we did for the play will remain a high point of my life.

Even better is knowing it survived all the crap we have been through in CHristchurch over the last few years.

I'd love to bring my son along to see it race one day if you ever hear of it going on a track.

i can be contacted via www.blueted.co.nz

Glenn

The continental has been purchased by Noel Atley gone to a very good home in the deep south
royce

[alwylie]

I saw the Continental Special doing standing 1/4 mile runs at Ruapuna around 1969-70. It was, at that time, able to remain stationary with the engine running but only just. I remember it tended to push the locked front wheels along while staging and with its single speed, torque converter transmission the engine note remained almost constant throughout the 1/4 mile run.
In one of the photos at the beginning of this thread there is a group of people standing in front of a red and white car. It's a 1955 Pontiac station wagon, a distinctive and rare vehicle I used to see around Christchurch without knowing who owned it. Years after Tyrell Turtill's death, my friend and flatmate, John Britten, told me it had been Tyrell's car. The two had got to know each other when they were both studying engineering at Christchurch Polytechnic. One of the things John liked about Tyrell was that "he was always trying to do the impossible", something which could also be said about John. To illustrate his point, John told me the Pontiac had once broken a half shaft and Tyrell had mended it by Easyfloing (silver soldering) the broken parts together and then doing skids on some gravel to demonstrate the strength of the repair!
Much later, I read in a magazine a sad tale about the Pontiac's ultimate fate. It seems it fell into the hands of someone who wanted its V8 engine for a hot rod. The details elude me now but I think the engine was installed in a rod but then left sitting out in the weather with no air cleaner so water got in and ruined it. The rest of the car was similarly neglected and ended up being scrapped.