Originally Posted by
spinner32
Jac Mac, you are partially right. Kevin Ryan did indeed race the Cossack car, with a BDA in it. It was still in the same colour scheme, but the green was changed to a red/orange. I remember it dropping it's clutch on the start line at Ruapuna , and the brooms had to come out to clean up. Kevin sold the car to Kevin Munro and bought the AVO built car (from Rex Hart?) and put the "California Fried Chicken" sign writing on it, and went on to win the OSCA championship.
Kevin Munro put a pushrod 1600 in the car, and changed the car to look like a Zakspeed Escort. (front spoiler, and filled in the bottom of the rear guards and colour scheme). Kevin moved to Fiji to live, putting the car into storage. During one of the Fiji coup's (around 1986), Kevin came home, and announced that he wished to sell the Escort. Luckily the announcement was to me, and knowing the history of the car, I grabbed it as a roller. It was missing the magnesium wheels, but I discovered that Ron Rutherford had bought them for son Mark's Shell Sport Escort, but they didn't fit, so were stored up in the loft.So I was able to purchase them. I stripped the car down, discovering the various colour schemes. I did some restoration, but not very much. I had the car for 10 years, but with other race cars in the garage, and nowhere to race an old Escort, progress was minimal. A guy Abbot from Invercargill approached me to buy it, and the car went south. Where it was restored to Cosack colours.
Hope this fills in some gaps.
Cheers, Pete Blomfield
P.S I have the John Hazard RX3 on the 2nd row in my garage now, and restoration starts in the next couple of weeks.