The Martin Derbyshire Collection

[Steve Holmes]

The first two shots in this post are again from the 1976/77 season. The last two are from January 1979, when the Bay Park, Pukekohe, and Manfeild promoters organised an Open Sports Sedan series, which helped revive big engined sedan racing in the North Island. Each round had two races, each race was a handicap start, with the fastest off the back. The fastest two cars were the Leo Leonard PDL II Mustang, and Jim Richards Falcon hardtop.

This post shows the reworked PDL II, with new deep front splitter, and tall rear aerofoil, which had been grabbed from an idle F5000 the team had in their workshops. The yellow Capri is that of Brent Bullivant, who built this car in 1974, when he was just 19 years old. By 1979, he was living in Australia and maintaining Richards' Falcon, but he dusted off the Chevy Capri for these races. The Capri always struggled with no rear grip, the result of Bullivants non-existent racing budget, which forced him to use old cast-off tyres from other teams. Jim Richards tested the Capri on a couple of occasions for Bullivant, noting the car would benefit from a new set of tyres!