Photos: The Gerard Richards Collection - Part 1

[Steve Holmes]

The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

[kiwi285]

The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

Hell this is going to be a fantastic collection of photos when we get to see them all. It is just as I remember it all - hot weather, great cars, crowds everywhere and everybody in summer clothing (love those mini skirts) trying not to get too burnt.

Thanks for letting us see these Gerard. We must have been standing close to each other at times.

To think that in the near future we will see the Fahey Capri back on track and being drivem the way Paul used to drive it. If only we could get the Dawson Camaro back as well. That would really light up the HMC scene.

[seaqnmac27]

The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

This seems to be a common complaint about the Camaro Z28 in the ssouthern hemisphere I seem to remember hearing that same complaint about being too heavy when referred to Kevin Bartlett's car in the early 80's when raced in Australia, KB may be able to confirm or deny it, but my understanding is that there were certain homologation issues (brakes??) that made the car less successful than it could have been particularly at Bathurst.
Having said that, I remember seeing the Camaro in Kensington Carpet colours in dads books, particularly the cover of the '72 Sarginson annual, which Rod will get to soon, that really sparked my imagination.
This is the car Lawrence Bruce ended up with in the early 80's wasn't it?