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

[Rod Grimwood]

Just to help with the confusion, there was a PINK Monaro with Woolworths written on it also in this mix, may be some how somebody needs to make contact with Jandels he may know a little bit about these cars. (think i have phone number)
I have talked with Lyall from Lyalls carpainters fame and he said he remembers painting all sorts of cars back then, he painted a couple of Monaros but can not pin point the exact colours etc. Remember this is a while back.

[Daryn]

[quote="Rod Grimwood"]Just to help with the confusion, there was a PINK Monaro with Woolworths written on it also in this mix, may be some how somebody needs to make contact with Jandels he may know a little bit about these cars. (think i have phone number)
QUOTE]

Hey Rod, If you could get in contact with him or pass on his details that would be great.

[Daryn]

Here you go Steve, No number plate.

[Steve Holmes]

The December 12 1975 issue of Motoraction magazine shows a photo of Steve Dymond driving a very similar Monaro to the one in your ad Daryn. It has the dark vinyl roof and the trip along the bottom of the bodywork, plus the kidneybean mags. Up until the previous season, Dymond had been racing an earlier HT Monaro. My guess would be that he purchased the first Don Scott Monaro that Scott had raced during the 1973/74 GTX season, when Scott bought the Crichton car. The car pictured in your ad must be this car. I bet its green too, just to confuse things even more.

Also, if you're after memorabilia, Kiwi writer and artist Tim Chadwick released a book around 10 years ago in which he'd painted pictures of various different NZ racing saloons. And I'm sure your Monaro is in the book, from when Crichton had it. I could be wrong, and hopefully another member can jump in here and confirm or deny this before you go looking for a copy of it.

[Steve Holmes]

You must have quite a rare beast there, because there really weren't many HQ Monaro's that were circuit raced in period, and yours and Bob Janes are the only two I can think of that are known to exist.

There is the Pete Geoghegan Monaro that appears in this clip: http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthread.php?148-1976-Australian-Sports-Sedans

This car raced most of its life as an HQ, but it was originally built as an HJ (from an HQ shell), because it debuted in 1975, and the HJ was the current model then. CAMS made the team switch to the HQ nose from 1976, otherwise they couldn't run the Chevy motor, because the HJ wasn't available with the Chev. And when it gets restored, it'll be restored back to an HJ. There was another HQ Monaro sports sedan that was raced by Gordon Stephenson and Peter Finch. I think it spent some time in WA. Not sure what happened to this car though.

[Greg Stokes]

Chris Ganley worked at Pulmans for years - he now owns:
Track Sport Engines Limited
Unit 6, 4 Markedo Pl, Papakura, Auckland
09 299 2940

[Daryn]

The December 12 1975 issue of Motoraction magazine shows a photo of Steve Dymond driving a very similar Monaro to the one in your ad Daryn. It has the dark vinyl roof and the trip along the bottom of the bodywork, plus the kidneybean mags. Up until the previous season, Dymond had been racing an earlier HT Monaro. My guess would be that he purchased the first Don Scott Monaro that Scott had raced during the 1973/74 GTX season, when Scott bought the Crichton car. The car pictured in your ad must be this car. I bet its green too, just to confuse things even more.

Also, if you're after memorabilia, Kiwi writer and artist Tim Chadwick released a book around 10 years ago in which he'd painted pictures of various different NZ racing saloons. And I'm sure your Monaro is in the book, from when Crichton had it. I could be wrong, and hopefully another member can jump in here and confirm or deny this before you go looking for a copy of it.

Mate I'm definitely after any memorabilia to do with my car, especially if it's in colour! I'll go hunting for the book! I reckon you're right, Can you scan the Steve Dymand car in for me, I've borrowed a scanner so I'll scan all my images I have. I have one of the Dymand car in October 75 but its not a very good scan and it's front on only.

[Daryn]

Chris Ganley worked at Pulmans for years - he now owns:
Track Sport Engines Limited
Unit 6, 4 Markedo Pl, Papakura, Auckland
09 299 2940

Thanks Greg

[Daryn]

This is the only one I have of the Steve Dymand Car. To hard to identify, it's the best scan of it I can do!

[Daryn]

Here are the photo's I have of the Crichton car!

[Shano]

Far out that driver's going for broke. Perhaps thinking he's on the stock car track. Is that Croaky driving?

[Daryn]

Far out that driver's going for broke. Perhaps thinking he's on the stock car track. Is that Croaky driving?

Yep thats Croaky driving, he gave the GT's Hell.

[Daryn]

Hey Steve,
Is this the Book by Tim Chadwick your talking about? is there any chance you could scan and post up any decent picture of the Dymand car or e-mail them to me, I'd really like to study the photo against the advert I have. Thanks.

[Daryn]

Actually I've just found another one called The classic years. Does anyone out there have either of these books?

[Steve Holmes]

Yep sure Daryn I'll scan and post that. Its from Motoraction mag which was printed on newsprint, so the result is always pretty grainy.

No thats not the book. The one I'm referring to is full of paintings done by Chadwick. I can't remember what its called exactly, will try and find out.

[pallmall]

The paintings one is The Classic Years. "Saloon Car Racing in NZ The Classic Years"
Small painting on P41 of Chrichton's car in 1974. I can't see it helping in the search for info much.

Was there anything in "Holden- A Kiwi Passion" ? I think The Warehouse still have these going cheap.

[Steve Holmes]

I think its really that he just wants to collect as much related material as he can about the car Gavin.

[Daryn]

Yeah you're right Steve, I just want as much and anything at all about the car!
This was the promo on trademe.com about the "Holden- A Kiwi Passion" Pallmall is referring to:

"From the immortal FX & FJ models right through to the latest V8 powered Commodore cars & utes, Kiwi Holden fans are passionate followers of the brand.
NZ has produced its fair share of top Holden race drivers, from the early pioneering efforts of drivers such as Graham Harvey (FJ), Ralph Emson (EH) & David Slater in the Manthel Motors X2, right through the early Monaro era, featuring Jim Palmer, Jim Richards & Neville Chricton & on into the 21st race-winning territory held by legends such as Greg Murphy & Jason Richards."

I think I'll buy both books anyway as it does mention Neville Crichton and Monaro in the same sentence.

[Steve Holmes]

Sorry for the delay on these. OK, here is the shot I promised of Steve Dymand in his HQ Monaro, which which I think is Don Scotts first car. This photo is from the December 1975 issue of MotorAction mag.

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[Steve Holmes]

These are from the 1975 Villa Maria endurance race at Manfeild. The Monaro (shown on the second row in the first shot) led the race briefly at the halfway mark, and was running 3rd with three laps to run when the magneto worked itself free, twisted around, and ripped the spark plus leads off!

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