Yes thats right, it was yellow, then painted blue to match the colours on the other cars in the Shell racing team. Am I just imagining this, or did Norm sell it to someone who raced it in 1970?
Yes thats right, it was yellow, then painted blue to match the colours on the other cars in the Shell racing team. Am I just imagining this, or did Norm sell it to someone who raced it in 1970?
Yes, a fella Briggs i think, have that some where also.
Is this it? This is John Ziegler, in 1970. The car he raced was painted yellow, so maybe (assuming this is the ex-Beechey car) he repainted it back to yellow after Beechey did it in blue. That would explain why the pics of it sat gutted in a paddock show it with yellow paint.
Different car SteveOriginally Posted by Steve Holmes
Is this it? This is John Ziegler, in 1970. The car he raced was painted yellow, so maybe (assuming this is the ex-Beechey car) he repainted it back to yellow after Beechey did it in blue. That would explain why the pics of it sat gutted in a paddock show it with yellow paint.
Heres a link to Peter Briggs and this HK Monaro. Looks like this car didnt make it.
www.motorsportretro.com/2012/10/holden-monaro/
Article does not mention this John Ziegler
Last edited by John McKechnie; 05-28-2013 at 01:01 AM.
Great find John, thats fantastic!
Thats the info I have at home too Steve. Interesting read.
Looks like it has Torque Thrusters, same as Beecheys HK and mine. Very popular mag wheel. Probably the only mag available then.
Yes, there wasn't too much choice in Australia. Mawer wheels and Simmons began to appear around this time. Minilites started to gain popularity in 1969, and even in the Trans-Am championship where everyone was using Minilites by 1970, several teams started 1969 on American Racing style wheels, including the Bud Moore and Shelby Mustang teams. Mag wheels were only for the wealthy teams. Most just used widened steel wheels.
Is this correct - didnt the first Geoghegan & Jane Mustangs run mags, hello Miles, what were they American Racing Torque Thrusters? The Beechey HK sure didnt run widened steel wheels, although the Beechey Muzzy did.
Beechey ran steel wheels... but not always...Originally posted by cavvy
Is this correct - didnt the first Geoghegan & Jane Mustangs run mags, hello Miles, what were they American Racing Torque Thrusters? The Beechey HK sure didnt run widened steel wheels, although the Beechey Muzzy did.
This pic was taken in August '65 at Catalina Park.
Just to answer a few questions that have come up here, the introduction of alloy wheels to the Australian racing scene could be plumbed by following advertising and race reports.
And at the risk of wasting a lot of my own time, I did a bit of this, traversing RCN page by page from 1965 through 1967. Here are things I found:
Bob Jane was on alloy wheels, probably American Torque Thrusts, from the first outing of his Mustang in April. Peter Manton, and therefore probably also Brian Foley, had Minilites on his Mini by July. The Geoghegan Mustang debut was on August 29 and it was on Torque Thrusts.
Advertising from Hunter and Delbridge in the December, 1965, issue included their own brand of alloy wheels. They sold for £10 each, though by the February, 1966, issue they were up to £12 each. It wasn't general inflation, either, as their ad included disc brake conversions in both issues but their price didn't change.
These wheels were similar in pattern to Brabham wheels, they had rolled steel rims (just like you get on regular steel wheels) and I think these must be one of the type that had some kind of rivet to attach the rims.
The February issue of 1966 has an ad for Robbie Mac's Speed Shop in which alloy wheels are listed among their offerings, the following month Brian Foley Motors lists 'Mag alloy' wheels for Minis. In that same issue there's a classified for the Magnolia Climax sports car which mentions 15" cast electron wheels. This was a South Australian-built car.
Then the April issue sees the beginning of advertising from CC Tyres & Wheels for their Hi-Torque wheels, later called Road Runner Hi-Torque wheels. Like the H & D wheels, these have a regular rolled rim, but they seem to have a flange welded into them and bolts through from front to rear to join the alloy to the steel. They aren't very attractive, but were priced higher at £17.10.0 with a premium of £2 for chromed rims.
Then the surprise of it all... in that same issue there's an ad from Scotties and another from Modern Accessories with simulated alloy wheel trims, already there are fakes before the market is even gaining strength!
The June '66 issue has a picture of the new alloy wheels adopted by the Ford Works cars in England in the European Scene feature. In that issue's classified we see that Andrew Mustard (who had an Elfin WR375) offers Minilites in a wide range of sizes from 10" to 15".
Foley responded in the next issue by including Minilites for a wide range of models other than Minis while Lancaster Motors begins running an ad with a drawing of a Mini fitted with their 'Customag Wheel Trims' complete with 5-stud fitment!
An accessories feature in the August '66 issue sees Foley claiming to be the sole Australian agent for Minilites, Allspeed Performance Centre in Brisbane offering a large range of mag wheels, Dave Evans Racing Equipment (Brisbane) listing mag wheels, H & N Firth offering alloy wheels for Cortinas (POA), Neil Parkinson Performance Centre on the Gold Coast listing the CC Tyres Road Runner wheels and South Coast Wrecking at Southport offering magnesium wheels.
In an ad for the Buckle Monaco conversion in the September issue the photo shows a Brabham-style wheel that's almost certainly a one-piece cast alloy wheel. October's advance is from 'Woodpark Speed Equipment', not yet open and never to advertise again, who claim to be about to make GoCo mag wheels available.
In the November issue we see a pic of Norm Beechey in the Hillman Imp at Collingrove and the wheels look like Minilites to me. Mick Crampton begins advertising in that issue with the wording 'imitation magnesium wheels (actual castings) to suit Mini Minor' in their ad. Whatever that might mean.
By the December issue CC Tyres have their pricing of their Hi-Torque wheels from $32.95, possibly a minor price drop or possibly a smaller rim size or something. Mind you, none of these rims were very wide.
In February '67 there's the beginning of advertising for St George Imported Tyres in which they have mag wheels and 'mag centres for your rims'.
The July 30 meeting report has a photo of Beechey's Nova which appears to show him on alloy wheels, though later and earlier meetings show him on steel wheels. And in September there's a photo of Rusty French in a Chev Impala that also appears to have alloy wheels, but they aren't clear enough to say so with certainty.
Tasman Mags are advertised from the November '67 issue with alloy centres and regular rolled rims starting at $32.95 each, a month later CC Tyres makes a new advance with one-piece cast alloy wheels for Minis at $40 each.
Regarding the spun rims used on Simmons, Dale, Mawer etc wheels, these were around for ages. Ron Hopwood spun them for most makers in both steel and aluminium and even back into the fifties people like Ron Tauranac cast centres to suit.
Tony Simmons came up with his Hustler SC1 during 1968 and this had the first of his 8-spoke lightweight wheels using the Hopwood rims. The very first of these were prone to cracking on the outer part of the spokes and he quickly revised the patterns to put more material into them.
Somewhere along the way Big Dave told me the story about how he came to begin making the wheels that Mawer Engineering grew up on. I've forgotten the detail now, but I'd say it was late '69 at least before he got into the business.
Another variation on the them is the Mario Costa wheels out of Melbourne, these were used on the Cheetahs and their spinnings were made without a well to allow tyre fitting. The rims had to be split for tyre changes, they were alloy and very light.
I hope that gives some idea of how the scene changed from the mid-sixties to 1970 or so, it was certainly evident to all enthusiasts that alloy wheels were arriving even if they weren't on every second car on the road.
Symmons Plains
Wow, what an amazing photo Ellis. The Monaro looks stunning! I assume this wasn't the Symmons Plains ATCC round? That was at the end of the season, by which time it would have been blue. Is it the same event as pictured above where he parked it in the armco?
I vaguely seem to recall they were asking around US$300K for it Terry, but the site doesn't list prices anymore for some reason. As you know, people wanting to race sedans with period history in the US are all after old 1966 -72 Trans-Am cars so they can run in Historic Trans-Am. Although this Mustang is built to the same spec as many of the Mustangs in HTA, it has no Trans-Am history, and therefore, not eligible. You can pick up a privateer Trans-Am car for much less.
I guess the price tag is one of the reasons it hasn't returned to Aus either.
Steve, even at USD 300K it wouldn't be unrealistic to return to Aussie. Although would have been much better when AUD was stronger.
I recall Geoghegan's went to Des Wall for AUD 330K (plus action premium probably 10%)
Which brings up things into perspective of the individual of average means about venues like HTA and many other historic series in the USA. I was taking pics one time down in Coronado Island near San Diego with an old medium format Koni-Omega range-finder camera. Hilarious in retrospect were the little human nature games I had to play to get decent shots because well-intentioned but not overly "circumstantially aware" folks would come up, blocking my shot of course, and strike up convos. I've learned since to be more "people friendly" and just roll with the interaction with people, various and sundry, whom pop up to reminisce. The shot , I've learned, will still be there!
I digress. So, one of the racers, a fellow that raced one of the Camaros, a '67 with history, could have been a Guldstrand car, asked me some questions, I told him I'm an AMC fan and that I have a '70 AMX and a '69 SC/Rambler. He goes on to tell me that I should find an old Javelin, like an ex-'68 Kaplan car and that I could have an engine built affordably by picking a 25 or 30 hour engine...Well even then a "second tier" car like the #33 Bob Tullius or the #55 car would have been over $60,000 and a 30 hour engine build, 10-15 thousand bucks(USD). Now, if one were fortunate to find a pure privateer car built from "customer" bits that was never a "factory" effort perhaps you could step into the game for the equivalent of a cheap mobile home price. I laughed when he told me all this about engines rated in hours of expected run time and said," There's guys like you with the means to afford the purchase price and more important, you can pay the operating expenses. I'll continue to spectate and enjoy the experience second hand."
The best bet for anyone else that likes the look of a period racecar is to build a home-brewed special as close as possible to "day two specs" that fit into whatever affordable club racing that matches your budget.
Steve
It wasn't my intent to derail the retrospective, guess I committed a common noob faux pax and got a little too enthusiastic with my own anecdote, please continue...
Steve
Yes I agree Terry, not completely unrealistic, and certainly on a par with other improved production cars.
Yes! Good point Ken.
A couple of things on reading through this thread...
Kingsley Hibbard - he was an early Holden racer who retired for a few years. His return was in the Phase 3 days and he drove his car (probably that same yellow one) to Melbourne to run in the Sandown race. But he progressively pushed the envelope as he got closer and became the subject of a high speed police chase. He turned off the highway at Broadmeadow and tried to hide among the cars in the Ford car park but it didn't work.
That was as a Series Production car, the following year he turned it out as an Improved car as shown in the pics.
I always thought his body mods to the ex-Geoghegan Falcon were quite lacking in understanding of the stresses, and this is especially so seeing as the car had been given a good going over by John Joyce. So many mods were carried out that it carried a Bowin job number, I think it was the Bowin P7 but couldn't swear to that. It was in that form that it handled so well and it dominated the Oran Park ATCC round totally, with lap times previously unheard of.
But it wasn't only the handling, it was also the testing. Mick Lambert told me they spent a full day (or was it two days) at the circuit trying different things and in particular diff ratios. He couldn't believe it, they changed from one ratio to another, maybe it was 4.1:1 to 4.2:1, just a small change like that, and picked up over a second!
So what went wrong? The engine was cutting out in left hand corners, and there's a few of them at Oran Park. A comment was made that 'we always do a new wiring loom for all of our cars...' implying that something in the wiring loom, which they hadn't replaced, was amiss.
This was also the race where John Harvey really taunted Moffat. As Moffat came up to try to pass him after Jane had faltered, John would pull to the left of the straight and stick his hand out the window and wave him by. As he planted his boot into an engine that had much more grunt that Moffat could muster.
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