by Steve Holmes » Mon Mar 02, 2015 11:01 pm
Some great info here by Mark Petch regarding the Volvo 240T, after I'd asked him on Facebook the history of this car prior to his ownership:
My car was indeed the ex Pierre Dieudonne car, one of the two GTM Factory works team car's that Volvo AB owned,as well as a spare factory Shell the GTM were building into a third car. When Volvo pulled the plug on GTM in favour of running with Eggenburger in 1985 Delcourt's car and the new unfinished chassis and 3 engines went to Rudi Eggenburger, who had just won the 1984 ETCC for BMW, but was not happy with BMW for a number of reason's. mainly because BMW could not see the threat of the Turbo era.
I purchased the car to drive myself, and it was not until Pierre suddenly demanded that he wanted to be paid to come out to NZ that I changed tack's and instead bought Michel out. With all the drama of Pan-Am 'losing the car' at Frankfurt airport for over 2 week's, when it finally arriving on the Saturday in Auckland, and having to then fly it down to Wellington in a Bristol Freighter, I decided that to attempt to race after that marathon effort, would be fool hardy, and so had Robbie on standby, who had also managed to do some laps in the Anderson's Pine Pack car on Saturday morning.
When I met Michele for the first time and saw what a huge man he was, I was jolly clad I didnt have to try to drive were he had the seat and steering wheel positioned, fortunately it was near perfect for Robbie, so that was it really. There was no purpose in me replacing a succesful driving combination at Puke the week after, nor when I decided to take the car to Australia, because as Robbie was already a New Zealand Saloon Car Champion, it was a hell of a a lot easier to get sponsorship for him than myself.
I bought John Bowe into the team for the Enduro's because we needed somebody as fast as Robbie, which I was not, and John was an excellent choice because straight away he was as quick as Robbie, which lead to some bruised ego's which was not easy to manage.
Some great info here by Mark Petch regarding the Volvo 240T, after I'd asked him on Facebook the history of this car prior to his ownership:
[color=#141823][font=Helvetica]My car was indeed the ex Pierre Dieudonne car, one of the two GTM Factory works team car's that Volvo AB owned,as well as a spare factory Shell the GTM were building into a third car. When Volvo pulled the plug on GTM in favour of running with Eggenburger in 1985 Delcourt's car and the new unfinished chassis and 3 engines went to Rudi Eggenburger, who had just won the 1984 ETCC for BMW, but was not happy with BMW for a number of reason's. mainly because BMW could not see the threat of the Turbo era.[/font][/color]
[color=#141823][font=Helvetica]I purchased the car to drive myself, and it was not until Pierre suddenly demanded that he wanted to be paid to come out to NZ that I changed tack's and instead bought Michel out. With all the drama of Pan-Am 'losing the car' at Frankfurt airport for over 2 week's, when it finally arriving on the Saturday in Auckland, and having to then fly it down to Wellington in a Bristol Freighter, I decided that to attempt to race after that marathon effort, would be fool hardy, and so had Robbie on standby, who had also managed to do some laps in the Anderson's Pine Pack car on Saturday morning.[/font][/color]
[color=#141823][font=Helvetica]When I met Michele for the first time and saw what a huge man he was, I was jolly clad I didnt have to try to drive were he had the seat and steering wheel positioned, fortunately it was near perfect for Robbie, so that was it really. There was no purpose in me replacing a succesful driving combination at Puke the week after, nor when I decided to take the car to Australia, because as Robbie was already a New Zealand Saloon Car Champion, it was a hell of a a lot easier to get sponsorship for him than myself.[/font][/color]
[color=#141823][font=Helvetica]I bought John Bowe into the team for the Enduro's because we needed somebody as fast as Robbie, which I was not, and John was an excellent choice because straight away he was as quick as Robbie, which lead to some bruised ego's which was not easy to manage.[/font][/color]