Photos: The Gerard Richards Collection - Part 1

[Steve Holmes]

I'm really pleased to be able to add the fantastic photo collection of Gerard Richards to The Roaring Season. Gerard is a life-long motorsport enthusiast, and one of the most talented motoring writers I've ever known. He has written several exceptional articles on some of New Zealands most celebrated racers, including Red Dawson, John Riley, Garry Pederson, and Jack Nazer, Robbie Francevic, to name just a few. All the photos in this collection were either taken by Gerard himself, by his father Sim, or are part of the many and varied photos he has purchased over the years, by photographers such as Jack Inwood.

Gerard is a collector of all things motorsport, and has also emailed me some scans of old motoring related books he has collected, so I'll include these here also. He is a member of The Roaring Season, so while I'll upload his photos, and add a few brief comments, Gerard will fill in most of the details.

Here is a brief bit of info from Gerard himself about his collection:

"Pukekohe 1970-1975 is the scene for this collection of images taken largely by myself, and a few by my father Sim Richards. Apart from pictures taken at the April 1970 Saloon car championship meeting the second to last time the full circuit was used for a meeting other than the long distance production races, the rest of the pictures were taken at the Grand Prix Meetings in Jan of 1971, 1973, 1974 and 1975. The only rogue picture in the mix is an image of Jackie Stewart, in his B.R.M. V8 in the 1966 Tasman Series, taken by an unknown photographer, who gave us the image.

It was certainly fabulous to get amongst the diverse machinery in the pits during those years and capture some of the flavour. The big saloons and F5000 machinery captivated the mind and soul of this young adolescent and his brother."

[Steve Holmes]

Kicking off here are a couple of fabulous shots of the amazing New Zealand built RS2600 quad-cam Capri of Don Halliday. This car appeared in late 1974, the same year Paul Fahey fitted his own genuine RS2600 Capri with a quad-cam V6. The high-pitched howl of these two cars around New Zealands race tracks over the next two years is something many Kiwi race fans of the 1970s will never forget, particularly around the wide open spaces of Wigram, where their ear-splitting shriek was compared at the time with that of the famous BRM V16.

[Steve Holmes]

And, speaking of which, the for-mentioned Paul Fahey car, during its two seasons raced by Fahey. Its first appeared at the big Bay Park Xmas meeting in 1973, fitted as supplied and raced in Europe with a push-rod V6 engine. Fahey ran the car that first season with this set-up in the 4.2 championship, before importing a quad-cam motor the following year and gunning for the outright championship. Perhaps the the biggest impact this car had when it first arrived in NZ was its radical box-style flares, the likes of which Kiwis hadn't seen before. These created a lot of interest, from the media, race fans, and Faheys rivals. The following year, the PDL Mustang, Sidchrome Mustang, Jack Nazer Chevy Victor, and several other teams had grafted similar style flares to their cars.

[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?

[Steve Holmes]

Yep, it is the Lawrence Bruce car. Don Peddie/Allan Dick bought it off Dawson and got Kevin Haig to race it, and Ken Smith even had a go at one event! Re the weight issue, thats just what I'd been told by a couple of people, not sure how true it is. The car was pretty quick in its first couple of seasons, and Dawson had some big power engines. But I don't know what sort of efforts were made to get weight out of it. A lot of effort went into getting weight out of racing sedans in that era, in fact, more effort went into weight reduction than chassis rigidity, but nobody really knew much about that then. But it was pretty typical to see cars of the era heavily "swiss cheesed", in just about every surface area that wasn't considered of vital importance. So I don't know how its weight compared to the cars it raced against.

Re KBs Group C car, that was a bit different. It was FAST, but CAMS made KB race with drum brakes on the back in 1980, whereas the Falcons and Commodores had discs. They finally relented in 1981, but he only entered 3 races in the '81 ATCC, then had the big coming together with Ron Wanless while lapping him at Bathurst, when chasing Dick Johnson. By 1982, the Camaro wasn't really as competitive in Group C, as the Falcons and Commodores began getting more freedoms.

[kiwi285]

Kicking off here are a couple of fabulous shots of the amazing New Zealand built RS2600 quad-cam Capri of Don Halliday. This car appeared in late 1974, the same year Paul Fahey fitted his own genuine RS2600 Capri with a quad-cam V6. The high-pitched howl of these two cars around New Zealands race tracks over the next two years is something many Kiwi race fans of the 1970s will never forget, particularly around the wide open spaces of Wigram, where their ear-splitting shriek was compared at the time with that of the famous BRM V16.

It has probably been covered on one of the threads here, but what happened to the Halliday Capri. I presume that it ended up as an OSCA car. That was a mean looking machine. I believe that the family is/was trying to build up another Capri as a tribute car but it has all gone quiet again.

[Steve Holmes]

Mike, yes you're right, it became an OSCA car, but prior to that, Danny (sp?) Lupp (son of Cybil) raced it briefly with a Jaguar V12 motor. John Osborne bought it off Lupp, without the motor, and fitted the small block Chevy from his ex/Spinner Black/Rod Coppins/Bruce Jenner etc etc Camaro. The Capri caught fire and burnt to the ground, and Osborne replaced it with the ex-Fahey Capri, which he bought off Inky Tulloch, which had also been fitted with a Chevy by that stage.

[Steve Holmes]

Further to Mikes post, this is how the Halliday Capri looked when Osborne had it. Too bad about its fate, was a nice car, would have been great if it had survived and been restored back to how Halliday had it.

[seaqnmac27]

Steve do you know of any picks in Danie Lupps ownership, I have only heard of it referred to not any shots of it.

[Steve Holmes]

I've not seen any photos of it sorry Sean, although it was he who painted it blue/yellow/orange as pictured above. I think he only ran it very briefly, and the thing was pretty troublesome. Mike Hourigan, who raced a Jaguar XJS Group A car in the 80s helped Lupp do the conversion. I did ask Hourigan about it once.................he didn't have fond memories!

[Steve Holmes]

I should also say, the photo of the Halliday Capri is from 1974/75, the first year Halliday ran the car. In my opinion, the Capri looked its best this season, with the very modest flares. The following season they became the larger box flares as was becoming popular with everyone, as seen here:

[TonyG]

My greatest memory of the Fahey Capri was during what was called his Flying farewell at Pukekohe and somehow the car came off onto the grass over the top of the hill and carried on down the side till it hit the dirt hump in front of the track crossing where it started to fly literally! Thumped back to earth on the otherside and slid to a stop.

[Gerard Richards]

The Orange Lola T332 F5000 car here awaiting the start of the 1975 NZ Grand Prix, is that of Aussie Johnnie Walker. It was slightly unusual as it was the only Lola to run the Repco V8. Walker was very competitive in this last true Tasman Championship and was contesting the outright title when he destroyed the car in a huge accident at Sandown Park, plowing into the horse railings... He was very lucky to survive, emerging only with cuts and abrasions. Also interesting in this picture is the red La Valise Lola T332 in the background of Ken Smith. Standing beside the red car are the diminutive Ken himself with Kiwi hard charging saloon racing legend Red Dawson, who were reputably great mates

[Gerard Richards]

Red Dawson was my boyhood hero in the big grunters brigade and his ultimate phallic race machine was the metallic blue '67 Trans Am Mustang with bold gold number 35 emblazoned on the doors. But by 1971 Red realised that this beast was no longer going to do the business and he replace it with a the gold Kensington Carpets '71 Camaro that he brought back from Stateside and built up into a racer. Its probably fair to say that Red was in many ways his own worst enemy when it came to winning titles. As I learnt from Bruce Newall his long time mechanic and Jack Nazer a major rival, Red tended to push things over the top. As Newell told me Red was always looking for more power and often over stressing his engines with stroker cranks and the like, with reliability suffering. Nazer described Red as a good charger, but often tending to overdrive and punish his machinery. Long time successful rival Paul Fahey, new all about conserving his equipment and winning titles. Red might have won both the 1972-73 title as he was generally faster than Coppins Firebird, who won the title. Also in 1973-74 Red had a string of failures, while being on pretty much even terms with winner Jim Richards. However despite that on its day Red and the Camaro did the business in a pretty impressive fashion

[John McKechnie]

Bruce Newall was the workshop manager at Davie Motors in the 70s.I worked there at the time and never knew his involvement with Red. You learn something new every day

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Gerard, good info. So basically everything was getting bored and stroked to within and enth of self-destruction, and sometimes beyond?

[Steve Holmes]

Heres a couple of former front running heavy-hitters, in the twilight of their racing careers; the Joe Chamberlain/Dennis Marwood Trans-Am Camaro, pictured here when owned by John Riley. And the former T/G Racing Trans-Am Firebird that Rod Coppins won the 1973 NZ Saloon Car Championship with, shown here when owned by Robin Tanner.

The Camaro is looking particularly scruffy by this stage.

[John McKechnie]

1975 Grand Prix and not just 2 cars in their twilight, actually 3. The car in front of the Firebird is the HK Monaro of George Bunce.It also was in its last season as a race car. Fortunately all these 3 cars survived and will be reunited on a track one day soon.What a photo shoot that will be.