Some pictures of the vehicle starting at the top pre roof chop and with Neil Doyle, photo after the roll and why the roof was chopped, photo as Alec Dickie bought it, various photos with Alec and a picture with his father Ken. Photo of how we bought it from Governors Bay and yes there was another orange one there and it looked a lot like the road car sitting on the trailer in Angria's thread. Neil Doyle put me on to the vehicle as his brother in law knew it's location. Other photos are as painted now. It has a new roll cage also as the original was in bad repair and didn't have floor plates. I have more photos. Would love to find the original wheels, I know Alec and Ken put some mechanical parts into the victor but unsure whether that included the wheels. Anyone able to supply photos or information would be of great assistance. Thanks
wow can we have some more pics please, this is one of THE iconic cars of my youth, to see its restoration to such an obvious high standard is a joy,all info gratefully accepted , did you get the car off the gentleman that had it in the classic car mag and how much of the car did you get ,love to see some pics of the firewall, suspension anything.
It never ceases to amaze me how these once legends of NZ motoracing end up being parked up and forgotten about......the Sidchrome Imp, and one very close to my heart, the Amco Mini are a couple of many others that used to thrill crowds all those years ago, being dumped in some paddock, or haybarn if they are lucky, robbed and left to rot. Fastback55, that is one real mean looking critter, always was, and I hope will soon be again. As Howard Wood has said, we in NZ built some bloody amazing race cars way back then, able to take on the much more fancied 'exotic' stuff from overseas. Of course nowadays everything is so politically correct and sanitised, and I believe that is why there is such interest in 'classic' racing in all it's guises. I'm sure with the encouragement you will undoubtably get on this forum you will be spurred on to an early completion date. There you go Greg.....get arse into gear with that Morrari and lets see you both ripping up the tarmac.
This is a really cool thread. I wish those pics were a little bigger, I'd love to see more detail. How long have you owned the car? Great to see it finally getting the restoration it deserves.
Thanks for remarks everybody, as you can see I'm having trouble resizing photos. I love this car and always have from my days at school looking at motoring magazines. One of my workmates and I were discussing the Dunedin Street racing we had seen on TV and we were looking through some old NZ motoring mags and talking about cars we liked and would like to see racing again. There was a picture of Alec Dickie racing the fastback, I said I "would like that car if I had a choice". I knew that it had been stripped and some of the mechanical bits put into Alec's Victor as OSCA rules required a standard body shape which the fastback did not fulfill. The next day I went to our post office and got all the South Island Electoral Roles and managed to find 5 Alec Dickies and 4 Neil Doyles. I figured out by age who the most likely prospects were and sent letters away. I found out from one Alec Dickie reply, that the Alec I was after was killed in a car accident. The correct Neil Doyle however answered my letter and told me his brother in law knew where the car was in Governors Bay and supplied a phone number. I rang the gentleman (surname Vincent I think) and got a friend in Christchurch to go have a look. He got back to me saying that the car looked great and to buy it. I paid the $1500.00 for it sight unseen. The photo above shows the cars condition when we turned up to pick it up, it was in a bad state but it was still what I was after but I wish I had paid less for it as $1500.00 was a lot of money for me in 1989 with a young family and a large mortgage. We towed it back by A frame with our Chevette Station wagon with tuned 2lt motor after repacking all the wheel bearings and trying to make everything inside safe. It took two days to get it back home to Whakatane so quite a journey considering at 60 mph it got bad speed wobbles and any tight corners would cause it to skitter as it has bad steering lock. So it was back home after only 4 weeks since the letters went out. But from there the speed slows down as it has taken a long time as you're all thinking. We had a 7 day a week business for 12 years while I also worked a 5 day a week job. I also completed an adult apprenticeship as a fitter and turner in that time and did considerable amounts of work to the fastback in that time, purchasing a motor and gearbox and other items. I also lost the sight in my eye while lifting a tandem trailer I was building by myself (burst blood vessel to optic nerve) so that messed things up a bit. I have also pursued my first love of hunting, learning to shoot left handed and have had many trips with my son to Stewart Island, Fiordland and Southern Alps chasing all sorts. We have also gone looking for moose twice in Dusky Sound. We also do a stoat trap route for the local Kiwi Trust which is very worthwhile but consumes a fair bit of time. Still a very exciting life but one in which I need to focus on the fastback. A visit to Hampton Downs revived interest and the topics in The Roaring Season have really bought back memories. I quite agree with Amco72 the racing happening at the moment is complete crap, all those BMWs are no doubt great fun but no spectacle to me and Commodores and Falcons all look the same. I like Central Muscle Cars and different things like Bonney's monaro and Hansens TVR. The classic scene is great and good to see it progressing but even that has hassles as Alan Dick mentions in the latest Classic Driver regarding the Custaxie not racing, a shame as yes it's a replica but doesn't it look good and aren't people interested, there's got to be a place for it. I'll post more pictures soon.
Thanks for sharing that with us ,and I am sorry to hear about the personal set backs along the way ,but it looks like at least another bit of our history is in good hands,thanks again
Fantastic to know that this iconic car is safe and being rebuilt. A big thanks for taking on the task and sticking with it for the benefit of all us old motorsport followers. Won't that be a sight to look forward to.
Great story! Thanks for sharing. Just out of interest, did Doyle race the car with the chopped roof, or did this come later when Dickie owned it? I know it wasn't chopped during the final Allcomer season. But I think Doyle continued to race it beyond Allcomers didn't he? I hadn't realised Alec Dickie had died.
There is mention earlier in this thread of Doyle having rolled the car which might have hastened the roof chop conversion. This thread has miffed a few people who were looking into building a replica of this car thinking it had gone to the great missing race carpark in heaven!!
You know, we must be stuffed in the head. Getting all excited about some old heap of junk that we have traced. I caught this bug years ago when I first joined the VCC in it's early days...1955....the year of the Lemans tragedy. In those days there was a lot of old stuff lying under hedges and we used head out into the country in search of some treasure that was rumoured to be able to be saved. Even back then, a lot was wellpast it's useby date......wooden framed bodies dont last long in the open. Of course we were not looking for old race cars because most of them were quite new, but an original Model T, or an Essex, or a Hudson, now they were worth getting excited over. I thought I had got over this nonsense, but no, and those on this thread who have read 'Yards & Yarns' will recall my experiences in 'Jagnet' hunting down old Jaguars. So I suppose it needs oddbods like nicktassie, fastback55, and lots of others who love the detective work necessary to hunt these things down. It seems to be all worth it in the end but sometimes I wonder what we have let ourselves in for. So, fastback55, restore the car to how it was and dont be tempted to 'improve or modify' it to 21st century specifications, or you will have COD problems for sure. My own personal opinion is SO WHAT. Its called continuous development and would have undoubtably gone down that path if it had continued to race. And from one cogger to another......apply for your racing licence soon. With your medical history, wouldn't like you to go to all this trouble and then be told you can't compete!! See my piece in Oldfarts 'getting even older'.
Talking about continuous development. In fact the Anglia is continuing to race, it's just that there has been a bit of a gap since it was last on the track!! Why should these guys be stuck in a time warp using old technology? Improvements to brakes is sensible, and engine knowledge has come a long way from the '70's. Anyway, everybody's engines are better these days, so why penalize these old war-horses. I dont know what the issues with the Custaxie are regarding it's COD compliance, but frankly Francevic can race all he likes as far as I am concerned......he is not the fastest out there, he's not running away at the front of the field making everyone else look silly, though he used to in the old days. I daresay the engine that ends up in the Fastback will be considerably better both in HP and reliability to what it was......good job. These old girls were built by guys who thought outside the square, and did anything and everything, and yes, pushed boundaries, to achieve their goal.......win races. We are continually being reminded that 'the cars are the stars' in this wonderful world of classic racing, so who gives a stuff what developments have been done to get a machine up and running again, as there is NO incentive to win. IS THERE???? I just shuddered when I saw those images of the ex Hoare Ferrari lying in some dark, dusty old museum in the Netherlands, unused and unloved. For goodness sake get these things out and doing what they were designed to do. Read Mr Justice Otton's summing up on the Old No1 Bentley court case, in another thread on this forum.....that says it all as far as classic racing goes.
In answer to your question of did Neil Doyle race the car with the roof chop the answer is yes Steve. As far as I know Alec only raced it when painted Blue and white. Most of the photos in green I got from Neil Doyle apart from the one without engine, that was when Alec had just bought it. Neil has been a big help and Ken Dickie (Alec's father and his wife were great as they had a comprehensive photo album that they made for Alec's children. Ken has written me two letters with such accuracy that he could tell you that a part was held together by a 3/8th bolt and a drawing of the dry sump tank (I have the original thanks to Don Elvy) and such detail on all sorts of detail including the steering that I will supply photos of (mini rack). I also have a photo of it passing the Ferrari 250LM (probably the other way round ha ha)
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