New Zealand OSCA Database - Histories And Whereabouts

[gokiwi]

I hope you dont mind me jumping in on this thread but here are a couple of photo's of the Vigurs Celeste.

[gokiwi]

and of the man himself.......

[gokiwi]

Also Steve attempted to power the Celeste with a 4.1 litre turbo charged Buick V6....it was a failure.

[paul lancaster]

I hope you dont mind me jumping in on this thread but here are a couple of photo's of the Vigurs Celeste.[ATTACH=CONFIG]25142[/ATTACH]

With pics like that, you can jump on whenever you like man, I remember the celeste well.i think it came to a fiery end on a trailer in a highway crash

[paul lancaster]

I hope you dont mind me jumping in on this thread but here are a couple of photo's of the Vigurs Celeste.[ATTACH=CONFIG]25142[/ATTACH]

With pics like that, you can jump on whenever you like man, I remember the celeste well.i think it came to a fiery end on a trailer in a highway crash

[gokiwi]

Yes I think that was when Steve destroyed the Bronco on the Kilmog coming back from Teratonga......replaced the Celeste with Avon Hyde's Commodore I think.

[Steve Holmes]

Awesome pics of the Celeste there Scott. Thanks heaps for sharing. I always wondered what happened to this car. I just assumed it had been quietly retired and was sitting in someones shed. Didn't realise it was destroyed on a road accident. Thats a real shame. Didn't Steve also own the ex-Clyde Collins Cortina at one stage? Did bits from the Cortina go into the Celeste?

[rogered]

Yes I think that was when Steve destroyed the Bronco on the Kilmog coming back from Teratonga......replaced the Celeste with Avon Hyde's Commodore I think.

may be wrong, but had a feeling commodore was before celeste

[tmann]

photo of Barry Vyke Hillman Imp before it was scraped.

[tmann]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25169[/ATTACH]

photo of Barry Vyke Hillman Imp before it was scraped.

[Rod Grimwood]

Rogered, yep wrong. Jigger got Commodore off Vigurs. Celeste was after Cortina I think.

[seaqnmac27]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25169[/ATTACH]

photo of Barry Vyke Hillman Imp before it was scraped.

Sunbeam Stilletto. This is after Bryan Bate's ownership, after which iirc it was sold to Sandy Powell, who drove in rallycross. Where it had a very nasty crash, the pics of which are on the Mini and Imps thread.

[tmann]

Rodger Freeth starlet being rebuilt at Possum Bourne's home garage. Photo by Doug Crook.

[tmann]

and another taken sometime later. more photo's to come

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, these are awesome! And they're dated. I assume this must have been when the car had its big rebuild with the new bodywork being fitted?

I remember interviewing Trevor Crowe about this car once. He built it and only raced it one season (1986/87 I think???), but it was still very fast, straight out of the box, and immediately faster than his first Starlet. But he said a lot of people don't consider it to be his car, because of its long association with Rodger Freeth. But I always considered it, in its original guise, to be his car, and in its reformed guise, to be Rodgers.

[tmann]

Now that I know how to post photo's I'll send more that show this car and it's rebuild.
Have a photo dated 1988 as raced by Freeth, CRC colours, smaller guards and alloy cage.
Photo above is 1990 with new steel cage and getting the larger guards as car is now.
New cage and fabrication done by Doug Crook who also took these photo's

[tmann]

sorry, should have posted photo's in order. this photo dated 1988, shows alloy cage and small guards.
Rebuild photo's above ,1990, show steel cage, body ready for larger guards.

[tmann]

It's not often photo's are taken of the inside of a car, this was high tech in it's day, 1988

[Oldfart]

Brilliant Starlet photos.

[Shano]

Those bars that look like rulers just under the main part of the dash were Rodger's 'telemetry'. They were connected by cable to the suspension on each wheel and he had a video camera mounted to film them. From that he made adjustments.

As Tmann says, it was hi-tech for its day. Rodger was a very innovative guy.