Wal - you are to be congratulated for taking on this project and I am sure it will be beautifully presented when complete (even if it has some of George's quirky methods still employed).
Really looking forward to seeing this car on track again. Another peice of NZ motorsport history.
And yes the old Mk I Consul was pretty close to the track.
Gee, those Lexington colours look just as striking now as they did way back then. Presumably that's Bert Hawthorne's Brabham in the pits in front of the Gordon Edwards Rorstan mini. Also wonderful to see a pic of Brent Hawes, a hard charger and a great loss.
No wish to hijack, so must add that shot of the M8 protoype at the Goodwood test contains every member of the McLaren think tank, not the sort of thing you'd see trackside these days...thanks for sharing, Wally.
Wal,Originally Posted by Wal Will
From what I can remember the McBegg colour was either Yellow or Lemon Chrome which were both tinter colours at the time.
Last edited by Kwaussie; 01-07-2012 at 11:37 AM. Reason: spelling
Although a few of us had talked about the 'idea' of resurrecting the car it didn't move past the talking stage until, when on a visit to Jay Esterers workshop in Canada I discovered he had an M6 body that he no longer needed.
The M6 'replica' that he bought out here to New Zealand a couple of years ago was so far from an original car that the organisers in the US of A would not let him run/race it, and so he decided to covert it into a 'replica' M6GT and road register it. leaving him with a sports car body surplus to his requirements.
Armed with photo's of the McBegg it was modified over there before shipping.
The chassis was not such an easy problem to solve. The work involved in making jigs and patterns - just for a one off - was a bit more than I wanted to take on (bearing in mind I didn't/don't want this to be a 5 year project).
There is a small father and son business in England called Autotune Ltd that have been looking after and restoring McLarens for some time, making the occasional McLaren chassis to order . Richard (the son) is very passionate about Mc Laren cars and their history, and when asked if they could do a one off chassis with the peculiarities of the 13" wheel car, they jumped at the chance, and I was very surprised at the information they already had at their fingertips, including photo's I had not seen before.
In the following photo's of the chassis being built on their jig you can see what I mean about the work involved in the bulkheads.
There were quite a few tubes/rails in this car that were square as opposed to round in the production cars.
The reason for this was to make it easier to attach the flooring, dash, and firewall behind the driver.
In house this car was known as 'The flat floor car' as for the first time we tried to get a very large smooth underside to the chassis in an attempt to increase down force. Also unique to this chassis was the Mallite composite material used for the floor,dash, and firewall.
In the photo of the mid section, the corner bent top rails behind the cockpit were blanked off in the middle with a plate, and originally the water to the radiator ran forward down the passenger side and back on the drivers side.
Last edited by Wal Will; 01-09-2012 at 10:42 AM.
The chassis and body officially met at Rick Michels (Evolution Motor Sport) workshop in Invercargill, where he has generously given me some space, the use of his equipment, and a substantial amount of his time.
Last edited by Wal Will; 01-09-2012 at 12:54 AM.
I find it away more difficult to build off a few photos that to just go ahead and create as one sees fit. I must have had at least three goes at that #4 pipe trying to get a roughly equal lenght and the shape right.
Digby Taylor is still around and involved with the design of a catamaran for use on Lake Taupo - see this TradeMe listing with his contact details : http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/boat...-418754033.htm
The sports car rear uprights stayed the same casting from the M1 through to the M6 - only difference on the M6 aplication is that the bottom radius rod pickup was moved from the boss on the bottom of the casting and onto the bottom whishbone. George went with the M6 setup because he had bought home M6 wishbones.
Luckily Ray Franklin of Vintage engineering is turning out an extremely good copy of those uprights.
The original Girling brake calipers have become almost impossible to find (especially if you need 4) but a company in England are making a good sandcast copy.
Wal, you are certainly pushing ahead with this project. Do you have any timeline in mind for completing the car ?
Fantastic effort Wal. Look forward to seeing the completed. And loved the presumably never previously published photos at Teretonga.
This is a fantastic thread Wal! Great work.
Really hoping to have it at the February meeting at Teretonga. Working 10x7.
Chassis was stripped bare over the weekend and is off to be blasted and painted in the next few days. Murph's law says that I must have missed at least one bracket that needs welding when I start final assembly.
George built the thing in about 6 weeks - but he had a few more helpers.
If it is not running I will take it to the meeting as a static display.
Those 'stick on lumpy bits' on the nose section of the McBegg were there when George bought the body. You can see them in that Goodwoood photo. Put there because when we cut the 2" out of the profile the radiator connections stuck out.
Well apart from a couple of leads this has not produced any of the photo's that I thought might be lurking out there somewhere.
Just because I can - here is one of the 'McBegg' chassis at Silverstone with Chris driving it. As you can see by now, its second meeting, it has 13" fronts and 15" rears.
Back in the days when cars were allowed to make noise, and people were allowed to take risks.
Indeed Chris in car #29 was on his way to second place. It was quite a good days for Kiwis - Denny won and Bruce was third...
This thread is just fantastic!
Thank you Michael (and you Steve).
This project has been a labour of love, putting me back in touch with those good times and George with whom I had lots of laughs, and a great deal of admiration for what he achieved.
This newspaper cutting is worth posting as well.
I've found another of that first weekend. As I said earlier, I think George didn't get the spring rate right 'straight out of the box'. She looks about ready for take off by half way down the straight - and I can only say again that Barry (Keen) showed large testicles on that day.
Last edited by Wal Will; 01-14-2012 at 09:33 AM.
Just for the record I'll post here the parts that have been collected that as far as possible have been verified as off the original car. I have used the parts that are/were servicable after crack testing and evaluation, the rest will remain as part of the car and its history.
Brilliant thread Wal, thanks for recreating some Begg history.
Probably the only photo I took of the McBegg when Geoff Mardon dropped it into the fence at my feet, Pukekohe March 1969.
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