Mystery sports car

[beowulf]

AMCO has my Levin History book at the moment, when he returns it and he will. I am very fussy about who I lend books to having "lost" quite a few in the past I will post the details if no one else does. Amco may if he spots this. It was done by a Carkeek who were an integral part of Levin and is very good.

[AMCO72]

OK, Amco72 here......'The Twenty Year History of the Levin Motor Racing Circuit'........1956-1976. A little circuit with a big history. ISBN 978-0-473-13861-5 First published 2010; Lance Hastie, PO Box 4219 Palmerston Nth. NZ. Mostly spelt Masarrari....various drivers and various engine capacities.....Crawford, Wellington, engine capacities increasing every race meeting!! G. McRae, Wellington, 1494cc. 1962 November. April 61....G McRae...Maserari 220S....2200cc This seems to be the first entry, spelt with an E, and 2200 cc engine. Only time at Levin with that engine size. Last entry seems to be march 1967...G McRae...1475 cc. So work all that out if you can. By the way is a great book....500 pages so is pretty comprehensive. Thanks to beowulf for the loan, and yes I will return it in mint condition!!!!!!!

[pallmall]

Tell me more, please. I have never seen or heard of the Levin history.

Stu

I picked my copy up at the McLaren Trust stand at the Amon Festival.

The Twenty Year History of the Levin Motor Racing Circuit 1956-1976
Published in 2010 by Lance Hastie, PO Box 4219 Palmerston North
ISBN 978-0-473-13861-5
Compiled by Murray Carkeek. (Who was the Levin club secretary, and the very best guy to deal with back in the day.)

List entrants and first three results for all meetings with a brief write up, a bit short on photos, but a valuable addition to a NZ Motor Sport library. 496 pages.

[pallmall]

In the back of the book there is a bit from Graham McRae, says the first meeting for the car was 15th April 1961, blew up in practice, dns. So that may explain the change in engine size on at least one occasion. In that piece the spelling is Masarrari.

[AMCO72]

Well, in the list of competitors it is spelt with an E...Maserari. And if as Mr McRae himself says in the back, it was a combination of Maserati and Ferrari why spelt it with an A.....MASER......ferr... ARI. Any way, the first entry in April 61 is the only way it is spelt with and E.

[woody]

The Levin book is selling for $85.00.

[David McKinney]

It's a compilation of entry-lists and results (usually first three or four) of every Levin meeting. Very little text, and what there is is clearly lifted from contemporary newspaper reports - to the extent of "Joe Bloggs should do well". Very few illustrations. Compiled by period race secretary Murray Carkeek and 'edited' by Lance Hastie

I got my copy from some retailer in Levin - if you put "levin 1956-1976" into google it should bring them up. If you have no luck I'll try and dig out my email to them

[David McKinney]

I really must go through programmes etc from its first appearance (February 1961) to see how it should be spelt. I'm fairly sure I decided back in the day it should be 'Masarrari', but there were numerous other spellings. McRae himself was asked a couple of years ago for a definitive ruling and didn't know...

OK - here we go. First appearance was April 1961, not February

Primary source (ie, contemporary) references to first appearances
(up to end of 1962 only)

What I have always believed to be the correct version highlighted in bold

1/4/61 Palmer Head hillclimb
Evening Post: Austin Special
Dominion: Masararri

8/4/61 Houghton Bay hillcimb
WCC Bulletin: Masarrari (twice)

15/4/61 Levin
Evening Post preview: “Masararri, not to be confused with Masaratti”
Programme: as in previous post
WCC Bulletin: Masarrari

07/04/62 Houghton Bay hillclimb
Evening Post: Maseratti
WCC Bulletin: Masarrari, Massarrari, Maserarri, Maserrarri

27/7/62 WCC Levin sprint
Evening Post: Masarrari
WCC Bulletin: Masarrari

24/11/62 Levin
Programme: Maserati (three times)
Auckland Star Sports: Maserarri
Dominion: Masararri once, Masarrari once
Evening Post: Masarrari

15/12/62 Ohakea
Programme: late entry – not listed
Evening Post: Masarrari

29/12/62 Mount Maunganui
Programme: Masararri (four times)

[beowulf]

I know it keeps all you pedants happy. But does it really matter we all know it is the same car. Must have got out of bed on the wrong side.

[David McKinney]

Well, we've got to call the thing by some name...

[AMCO72]

Beowulf.....who are you accusing of getting out of bed on the wrong side? If Mr McRae himself cant even tell us the correct spelling, why should we be so pedantic about it......its easier to say.....MasA.....than MasER and we are all guilty of lazy speech, well most of us.

[David McKinney]

Perhaps we should revert to calling it what I believe a recent owner did - McRae 220S?

[AMCO72]

What good idea!!!!

[Shano]

+ 1

[AMCO72]

And incidentally, what was the 2200cc engine in the car at that first meeting. Triumph?

[David McKinney]

Supercharged Austin A70!
That was followed by a Lycoming aero engine (run just once, I think) then a Humber 80 that grew from 1500cc to something around 1700 or 1800
When Lance Crawford bought the car from McRae he didn't get the big engine, but ran a 1500 Humber 80

[stubuchanan]

Well, we've got to call the thing by some name...

On the assumption that the car was registered for theoretical road use, as the majority of competition cars were at that time, would anybody know what was given as the "Make" of the Mase(a)r(rr)ari on its registration papers.

Or as a more general query, was there any restriction on what you could use as a registration name for a one-off vehicle in the 1960's.

I have a trailer which I bought(new) around 1990 and it annoyed me somewhat that the the papers had the make as "Home Built" because it was actually professionally built. After some years I queried this with Motor Registrations, and suggested it could be changed to Reeon or Reeon Engineering as they were the builders, but they would only agree to a change to "Factory Built".

[Howard Wood]

It was a requirement for all racing cars to be registered at least during the early '70's, something to do with public liability insurance I believe. At least for single seaters the usual category we used was "E class A" which was the same as a farm tractor, thus avoiding the various WOF requirements. Somewhere there will be a record of all those registrations and the make.

The term "Homebuilt" is a generic term now preferred by LTSA, I run trucks for a living and most of our heavy trailers are registered new as Homebuilt despite being manufactured by reputable trailer builders.

[AMCO72]

Yes, I wonder who the little clerk in the LTSA decided on the 'generic' homebuilt title. Just makes it easy for them. I'm sure Howard does not like his heavy trailers being called 'home built'!!!!!!! Likewise, TSV in Cambridge would object violently if you described their chassis and trailers as home built, knowing the expertise of the design and construction team there. Makes you sick, and we let them get away with it.

[stubuchanan]

To add to the confusion, the registration for a boat trailer which came with a 12 foot tinny I bought some years back gives the make as "Parkercraft". They built the boat, but I doubt that they built the trailer! Probably we should be thankful that is the level of our complaints. Some other countries less than 2000 miles away from NZ have a whole raft of rules and prohibitions on non standard vehicles and ruinous duties on second-hand imports.