The Special Builders!

[bry3500]

http://ralphwatson.scienceontheweb.net/lycoming.html

[tweaks]

Brian Maybey of Nelson who built the BCM's

[Kevin Hirst]

http://ralphwatson.scienceontheweb.net/lycoming.html

In the lycoming story, Bob Gibbons is mentioned several times, can any body tell me if this is the same gent that was part of Hope gibbons & ford motor company? Bob & wife May [ as above] retired to Puketona when we were there, he had several model A,s and was always down to the garage for small repairs & W,O,F,s etc lovely guy but died after being there for about three or four years, May sold up shortly after to move back with familly, really missed the chats when Bob died, any info would be most appreciated.

[rf84]

Yes it is the same gentleman. If I am correct his father established a company called The Colonial Motor Company and imported Ford cars into NZ for some years. When Ford planned to assemble cars at Seaview they came to an agreement with Colonial Motor Company to pay a royalty for every car that was assembled. Colonial Motor Co still exists-they recently purchased the Nissan dealership here in Hastings and (I have been told) Jeff Gray European.
Bob was the original driver of the Mark 5 Cooper that I subsequently owned.

[Kevin Hirst]

Yes it is the same gentleman. If I am correct his father established a company called The Colonial Motor Company and imported Ford cars into NZ for some years. When Ford planned to assemble cars at Seaview they came to an agreement with Colonial Motor Company to pay a royalty for every car that was assembled. Colonial Motor Co still exists-they recently purchased the Nissan dealership here in Hastings and (I have been told) Jeff Gray European.
Bob was the original driver of the Mark 5 Cooper that I subsequently owned.

Thanks for that RF, did not know that Bob was into motor racing or the connection to Ralph Watson at the time I knew him,would have made those chats a lot longer,

[rf84]

'Chats' with Bob were always long. He was very deaf and also "deep thinker". It was not uncommon to ask him a question and then wait 30 seconds or more for a reply. You never quite knew if (a) he hadn't heard you or
(b) he had heard you but was thinking about his reply or
(c) he had heard you but, while thinking about his reply for so long, he had fallen asleep!
At a "Wings and Wheels" race meeting at Ohakea in the early 80's Bob stood around all Saturday looking at his old Mark 5 Cooper (which I owned at the time) and proffering snippets of information about the car and things that had happened under his ownership. A mate and I spent the whole day trying to persuade him to have a little drive. He would not even sit in it for a photo. The next day he arrived back from Wellington and agreed to sit in it then, after a LOT of encouragement, he agreed to take it for a "little drive" down a taxi-way. He disappeared and was gone for a long time-so long we thought he must have stalled it or broken down. We hopped in the tow car and headed off in the direction he had gone when, through the shimmering heat haze on that massive air force base taxi- way, appeared a small red shape. He passed us going absolutely "flat out" in the opposite direction. When we got back to our 'pit' he was sitting grinning like "the cat that got the cream".