by Dave Silcock » Thu Nov 01, 2012 6:24 am
Hi Stu, I was lead to belive by Roddy Mac Phearson, who brought this car to NZ, that it was a Mk X, as you may have gathered I am more interested in the car than its history, so you may well be correct. This was Roderick's second visit to our shores, and having dis posed of the ex Ken Wharton, ahem, Cooper Bristol to Jim Boult,thought he was on to a good thing and brought out this device to unload on to some gullible colonial. My company was preparing nearly all the Bristol engined cars in this country, and had in fact been looking after the Cooper Bristol for Roddy the previous season. So we were involved with this car from its arrival from the UK. At that stage it was red and the body looked some what akin to a bag of walnuts. He suceeded in selling it to a Robin Saville who sad to say took his own life, and Bill Clark bought it from his estate. As a partner in Auto Restorations he pretty soon had the body rebuilt and engaged us in the mechanical side of things. We built a hybrid 2 litre, 2.2 litre motor with the longer stroke crank but the standard bore and one of our big valve heads. It also had what the poms call the Silcock camshaft, in fact a BCF 2 Cosworth, but what would they know. Bill's son James drove it with great vigour as well as the Mk1 Cooper Bristol the Bill also owned. I once drove both cars on the same day at Wigram and could not believe the benefit of the Lotus body shape. It went back to the UK and was driven at some stage by Soames Langton. So in answer to your question, its in my work shop and driven by a chap who worked for me by the name of John Crew, otherwise known as Motley!
Hi Stu, I was lead to belive by Roddy Mac Phearson, who brought this car to NZ, that it was a Mk X, as you may have gathered I am more interested in the car than its history, so you may well be correct. This was Roderick's second visit to our shores, and having dis posed of the ex Ken Wharton, ahem, Cooper Bristol to Jim Boult,thought he was on to a good thing and brought out this device to unload on to some gullible colonial. My company was preparing nearly all the Bristol engined cars in this country, and had in fact been looking after the Cooper Bristol for Roddy the previous season. So we were involved with this car from its arrival from the UK. At that stage it was red and the body looked some what akin to a bag of walnuts. He suceeded in selling it to a Robin Saville who sad to say took his own life, and Bill Clark bought it from his estate. As a partner in Auto Restorations he pretty soon had the body rebuilt and engaged us in the mechanical side of things. We built a hybrid 2 litre, 2.2 litre motor with the longer stroke crank but the standard bore and one of our big valve heads. It also had what the poms call the Silcock camshaft, in fact a BCF 2 Cosworth, but what would they know. Bill's son James drove it with great vigour as well as the Mk1 Cooper Bristol the Bill also owned. I once drove both cars on the same day at Wigram and could not believe the benefit of the Lotus body shape. It went back to the UK and was driven at some stage by Soames Langton. So in answer to your question, its in my work shop and driven by a chap who worked for me by the name of John Crew, otherwise known as Motley!