Steve Holmes wrote:So how about we start a thread on race cars that appear to have vanished from trace. See if we can't track a few of them down.
Here is one I've been trying to learn the fate of for some time, with no luck. I first found out about this car when writing an article for Australian Muscle Car mag a couple of years ago. The reason it grabbed my attention was because it was built in the Wairarapa, in New Zealand, where I moved with my partner Helen a few years ago. While researching various magazines gathering info for the article, I stumbled upon details of this car.
It was built around 1971 by Wayne Fuller, and fitted with an FVA motor reportedly from Paul Faheys Escort. Fuller raced the car in OSCA during the 1971/72 season, and was often the fastest car in the field. At the end of the season Fuller set his sites a little higher, and took the car to Graham Berry (of Berry & Chung hot rodding fame) to have a heap of fabrication work done on the firewall and transmission tunnel, so he could fit a 350ci small block Chevy, with twin off-set Holleys.
This was quite an ambitious project at the time, and appeared to have quite a bit of potential. The newly rebuilt Escort finally debuted at Bay Park in late 1973, driven by 24 year old Roger Brader, another Wairarapa hot shoe. It was very quick in a straight line, as fast as the front running machines of Allan Moffat, Jim Richards, Leo Leonard (in Mustangs), Red Dawson (Camaro), Rod Coppins (Firebird), and Paul Fahey (Capri), but required some development work on suspension and brakes.
Brader and Fuller raced the car at several events throughout the 1973/74 season, but at seasons end Fuller decided to sell it and go boat racing instead. The Escort was sold engineless to Warren Steel in the Hawkes Bay. Steel had planned to fit a smaller Chevy motor to compete in the 4.2 Saloon Car Championship, but failed his eyesight test, and had to sell the car.
It was purchased by John Scott in Auckland, who owned a transport company. This would have been late 1974, or early 1975. From there, the trail goes dead. I'm not sure if the John Scott who purchased the Escort was the same John Scott who raced speedway in the '70s and '80s, but that John Scott did happen to own a transport company, also in Auckland, so perhaps it was the same person. Either way, I've not been able to track him down.
Would love to know what happened to this car, and if it survived. Obviously Escorts were pretty popular during the '70s, and it could have ended up anywhere. Was it converted for ShellSport? Was it scrapped? Was it pushed into someones shed and forgotten about?
Anyway, here is a pic of the car at Levin when it was still fitted with the FVA. It changed little when the Chevy was shoe-horned in, except the wheels became slightly wider. It was silver with a green stripe down each flank, then later had a red or orange stripe.
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"Berry & Chung"!!!! Bought back a few mammaries! (just for you, Jum)
I recall Dave Chung's father, mainly because of his lovely stilted use of the english language. A typical conversation went like this: "Is Dave there?" "Wat you wan him for? Dwinking? Wooting, Gamling."?
Dave himself had a slightly different way with english - "Whats you're car"? "Chevelle454, 4 on the floor and a dozen in the glovebox.
I fondly recall one night when the boys were out in the Chevelle on the pull. We called into a pub looking for any talent - you know the story! the later it got - the more you drank, the better the girls looked.
Anyway, 9.45 we hooked on to a couple of likely ones. A rule we had was never pull until just before closing time, that way you didn't have to waste money buying them drinks. Turned out these chicks knew where there was a party happening so we piled them into the Chevelle and lit off. It wasn't until we got there that I realised my shag for the night was well and truly up the spout, so being the gentlemen that we were, we had a quick chat and jumped out the lounge window when the girls went to the toilet. Never been so grateful that women always go to the dunny two at a time.
