Help! Neville Crichton's HQ 350 Coupe Race Car Lives On! (The Green One Anyway!)

[Steve Holmes]

This is from the second round of the 1975 winter series (the Manfeild race was the first round). This race was sponsored by Rod Coppins Motors. This time the Monaro was battling for 3rd until a lengthy delay in the pits dropped the team right back. They finished 10th at the end.

Sorry about the quality of these scans. Newsprint doesn't scan very well on my scanner.

[ATTACH]2836[/ATTACH]

[Rod Grimwood]

Villa Maria at Manfield was a classic, Rod Millen lead them all out of first corner in his rally RX3 but as it dried the grunt of the bigger cars took over. Coppins had the same Bourban sponsor as Millen as Coppins had just done Bathurst and Millen the Southern Cross Rally at same time in Aussie. Not alot of the bourban came back through customs after we all caught up in Sydney on way home.

[Steve Holmes]

Brilliant Rod!

[Rod Grimwood]

Correction Rod Coppins had Southern Comfort and Rod Millen had Kentucky Bourban sponsoship. It was very dangerous.
Just spent a few hours with Jandels as he was up here scrutineering the rally cars. The brown Monaro was the car he did the Dukes of Hazard on the Waikato River on way back from Levin. It ended up as the Jerry Clayton Sidchrome Monaro that Jim Richards campaigned around the speedway tracks for a while. Steve Millen drove it when Jim shifted to Aussie. I posted a bit about this on the speedway thread and Jandels confirmed it on weekend.

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks for that info Rod. I didn't know that was the same car that became the Clayton Motors speedway car!

[tonttu]

Here is the Don Scott car at the GTX (final?) round at Ruapuna May 1974.

Slightly clearer photo of the Dymond Monaro at the wet/dry November 1975 Ruapuna meeting (Firestone Series Production). Dymond won the wet race.

And again Dymond leading Stuthridge in the dry race until the XU-1 got passed to win. Sort of counter intuitive really you'd have thought the XU-1 would have had the legs in the wet and the Monaro in the dry but not on this day.

[Steve Holmes]

Tonttu, these are great shots! Thanks for sharing. You seem to have some real gold in your collection. Can you recall what colours these two cars were?

[Daryn]

Awesome photo's. thanks to all! Okay I spoke to Craig Pulman about the Don Scott car he sponsored and he told me the car was yellow. Low and behold there is a layer of yellow paint after rubbing back the roof pillar. After looking at Tonttu's pictures above I'm pretty sure that the later Group C style Don Scott car is Neville's old car as per above.

[Steve Holmes]

It sounds like you have a car with some pretty impressive racing history Daryn! Bloody cool. I agree, it does seem like the same car right the way through. I'm hoping more photos surface in its different guises, and some colour ones would be neat!

[Steve Holmes]

Here you go Daryn, Warwick Clayton sent me this photo. Note the rego number. Same as the green Crichton car and the brown car shown early in the thread.

[ATTACH]4636[/ATTACH]

[Daryn]

Thanks Steve, Great to see more and more photo's surfacing. Does Warwick remember the colour by any chance? Craig told me it was yellow for the car he sponsored.

[Daryn]

Steve, looking at the Craig Pulman sponsored 1975 winter series car and the last photo you put up, I would say that theses car are one and the same for sure. What do you think?

[Steve Holmes]

Yep, I would say thats the same car for sure Daryn. And if you looking at the number plate on the car, you can see its the same number plate as on Crichtons Monaro when it was green and racing in the GTX series in 1973/74, and on Don Scotts Monaro when it was brown and racing in the 1974/75 GTX series. So how cool is that! You now have the history of your car from 1973 - 1975, and you know it ran two seasons of GTX racing, and was then modified for the 1975 Winter Endurance seires, and even got to race against Peter Brocks 1975 Bathurst winning Torana L34!

[Daryn]

Yep, I would say thats the same car for sure Daryn. And if you looking at the number plate on the car, you can see its the same number plate as on Crichtons Monaro when it was green and racing in the GTX series in 1973/74, and on Don Scotts Monaro when it was brown and racing in the 1974/75 GTX series. So how cool is that! You now have the history of your car from 1973 - 1975, and you know it ran two seasons of GTX racing, and was then modified for the 1975 Winter Endurance seires, and even got to race against Peter Brocks 1975 Bathurst winning Torana L34!

Steve is there any chance you could ask Warwick if he remembers the colour of the car in the shot he sent you?

[Steve Holmes]

Hey Daryn, yeah I did email him a couple of times, but haven't had a reply. I'll keep trying.

[Steve Holmes]

I just found out my father actually went to school with Don Scott, they're the same age. Scotts family owned Splashe soft drinks, hence the sponsorship.

[Daryn]

I just found out my father actually went to school with Don Scott, they're the same age. Scotts family owned Splashe soft drinks, hence the sponsorship.

Hi Steve, I still can't find Don Scott, don't have any other suggestions do you?

[J42E48]

Interesting thread.

Crichton obviously liked his lime green cars as I own a lime green E48 Charger which he ordered from new.

[Daryn]

Interesting thread.

Crichton obviously liked his lime green cars as I own a lime green E48 Charger which he ordered from new.

Yeah probably, He certainly like to push the car to it's limit by the looks of mine, that's for sure!

[Steve Holmes]

Daryn, did you see the article in Australian Muscle Car mag on the 1975 NZ Winter Endurance Series recently?