Historic Sport Sedans

[Rod Grimwood]

He must have a fairly large book of old photos. Love dropping in and chatting, he is a living bit of NZ motorsport History and has many great tails and so much information on "The Old Days'.

[Bailey]

Bailey- I remember John had the C & J Roadster with Caddy in it in early 70s, did he ever throw that around the track also?

John That is the one and only C & J Roadster in the picture by SPman I only ever recall it having the 427 engine
that Colin Prast got new from Tonawanda It ran in the 12s on the quarter, so it had a good amount of power for those
times The 'pace car pilot' from the north shore, could probably tell some stories of this car Hillside road and Porana
road saw plenty of V8 action in those days

[Rod Grimwood]

Was good 'test' road back then, as it was not through road. North Shore Brick and end of road was just passed Johns entrance, with not a real lot of other places down there.

[John McKechnie]

Ivan and Jason Bevins both sat and passed their comp licences today. Thanks Tony R for looking after them. Looks like they are all go.,,,, greatl

[ERC]

Sadly, Peter's ex Trevor Crowe Skoda won't be ready. Still awaiting a spacer of some sort apparently. Shame.

[John McKechnie]

My people went over this morning to see about getting this sorted and having him there.
After all, it is next weekend, and the weekend after.
There is a window of time to get things done.

[TonyG]

Where are the following cars now? (not technically traditional Kiwi sports sedans but they sure fits the bill) Moffat Capri, the Zakspeed Escort , the ex Thomson Merc. They are demonstration runs in all meanings of the word so surely they would be able to join in. I don't remember seeing a couple of the cars that are running before I left NZ in 92 yet the Capri and Merc were certainly around then.

Any updates on the Halliday Capri replica buildup. Last report Steve put up was I think before the last Festival and they were ready to fit suspension? Had been fairly quick progress to that point by all accounts but nothing since.

Add in the Tony Antonevich trailer Queen which would be more HMC but still another car that no one gets to see.

A few years back on here, there was a thread on an Escort that was being restored in Waiuku? I remember the talk about rear suspension mounts and gearboxes. I think a gearbox was hard to find to keep in correct. Was it the AWA escort? Is it still being restored?

Any chance Bobs Escort could be on display, even Grimmies Escort. Would still show the public they still exist and how good the engineering was back in the day. Surely they could have a fenced off area where they could be safely displayed. Add the Crowe Skoda. Doesn't have to run does it. Hell I wish I could see them all again running or not but I guess as my brother once said he ruined me by taking me to the car racing from 3 yrs old and he was sorry for that. Boy did I give him a bollocking for that. Best days of my life.

Anyway, to all who are participating as competitors or spectators, I wish you all glorious mid range temperatures and clear skies and hope to see lots of pictures on and off track - pretty please !!!

Regards
Tony

[John McKechnie]

TonyG- will fill in spaces as I can-

Moffat Capri- Gordon Burr has it. It was running regularly at Historic meets .It is needing some work. It never was a Sports Sedan
Thomson Merc- was entered this time last year, but blew the diff in practice. Roger also races other cars while it is being rebuilt
Zakspeed Escort- I have no details.
Halliday Capri replica- I have no details.
Tony Antonevich- always send him an invitation -like others.
Bobs Escort- he will appear when he is ready.
Grimmies Escort- has had some distractions recently. he correctly feels that Shellsports should be part of Sports Sedans and wants to get his car active again.
Crowe Skoda- we are working to get Peter there. Car is stripped and preference is for racing not display.

Having a car for display is difficult to organize, especially when it is incomplete.
George made a huge effort, and spent a lot of time sitting with his unfinished Mustang for the punters with everyone appreciated this effort.
I also was getting the Monaro ready to bring out for a display, a hernia put a stop to this.
Has anyone out there got some more details for our TonyG ?
Also maybe his comments can bring some cars out for display.

[crunch]

Grimmies Escort- has had some distractions recently. he correctly feels that Shellsports should be part of Sports Sedans and wants to get his car active again.
.

Yep; great idea.
We need to find a place to keep these cars running in original Shellsport spec. Many have just been butchered, or plain lost and they are a big part of our 70's and 80's.

[John McKechnie]

Peter Hooper who was involved with running a Toyota then is running a replica Shellsports Corolla, and will be there for both weekends.
I am keen to get these cars involved again, as I have stated here before- in Historic Sports Sedan class.
The big question I ask the world is did any MK 1 Escorts run YB motors during the Shellsport era, is so then who ?

[crunch]

Peter Hooper who was involved with running a Toyota then is running a replica Shellsports Corolla, and will be there for both weekends.
I am keen to get these cars involved again, as I have stated here before- in Historic Sports Sedan class.
The big question I ask the world is did any MK 1 Escorts run YB motors during the Shellsport era, is so then who ?

Not that I know of.
They were twin Cams or Pinto 2litre or 1600 x-flow as the Shellsport rules stated only two valves per cylinder

[Howard Wood]

Peter Hooper who was involved with running a Toyota then is running a replica Shellsports Corolla, and will be there for both weekends.
I am keen to get these cars involved again, as I have stated here before- in Historic Sports Sedan class.
The big question I ask the world is did any MK 1 Escorts run YB motors during the Shellsport era, is so then who ?

Given that the first YB Cosworth appeared in 1986 in the Sierra RS and ShellSport folded in 1985, I think we can categorically state that no ShellSport Escort Mk 1 ran a YB!

[TonyG]

Thanks guys. I knew the Moffat car was not sports sedan but the kiwis did race against it in period definitely in Aus, can't remember if Alan ever bought it to NZ. Getting old and too lazy to look. lol.

Hope the Hernia is treating you ok John. Nasty buggers in the wrong place.

I can understand the go versus show preference as well as Bob and Grimmies preferences which have been documented in passing by both before. Was just curious if either had had a change of heart

Regards
Tony

[John McKechnie]

Howard- thank you for this succinct statement.
Dont suppose you also know if any Sports Sedans ran YBs before they stopped the class?

[rogered]

Howard- thank you for this succinct statement.
Dont suppose you also know if any Sports Sedans ran YBs before they stopped the class?

Of the top of my head, rod briery came out from the uk a did a couple of events with a mitsi starian - cosworth, and terry richardson hadi think a cosworth sierra block etc in his escort turbo.He may be able to confirm this

[4dnut]

Hi I run the Zakspeed Mk1 replica, i am desperately trying to get it going for the festival. Just had to take the engine out again to fix a small issue. Hopefully get it back in tomorrow after work. As for the question on YB engines, it can be a bit grey. What actually is a YB. Is it the turbo engine built by Ford/Cosworth or a you talking about something else. Some of the engines running were not built by Ford or Cosworth they are modern Smith and Jones engines. A S & J engine started as a YB but ended up taller and made of aluminium and with there own cylinder head.

[Howard Wood]

Hi I run the Zakspeed Mk1 replica, i am desperately trying to get it going for the festival. Just had to take the engine out again to fix a small issue. Hopefully get it back in tomorrow after work. As for the question on YB engines, it can be a bit grey. What actually is a YB. Is it the turbo engine built by Ford/Cosworth or a you talking about something else. Some of the engines running were not built by Ford or Cosworth they are modern Smith and Jones engines. A S & J engine started as a YB but ended up taller and made of aluminium and with there own cylinder head.

Exactly, so either way the engine and its derivatives were never available for homologation in the 1968 - 1974 Mk 1 Escort. Therefore a car so fitted will never comply with schedule K and if running in age grouped classes should be running in the period of the engine, ie at least post 1986.

[ERC]

Which is why we don't have an issue in the ERC Series!

What started as a pre 1977 series with run ons has had to morph into a rolling age group, as the number of pre 1977 cars available, shrinks. As pointed out above, the joy of handicap racing is that there is no real advantage, whether running a 1300 Escort or a 2 litre.

We are now running later cars, as even a 1990 cars is now 25 years old. Remember also that under T & C, the 'T' is supposed to be thoroughbred, yet no definition exists! We don't make any pretensions as to 'Historic', therefore run to our own set of rules - which doesn't please some outsiders, but some people seem to overlook the fact that all rules are written for the benefit and/or protection of competitors, not outsiders.

Each series has its own structure and philosophy and there are very few cars that can't slot in somewhere. The advantage is that meeting organisers dealing with group convenors, is far preferable to the days of old, when as a driver, you could be unceremoniously dumped into a totally inappropriate class.

[Habu]

Hi I run the Zakspeed Mk1 replica, i am desperately trying to get it going for the festival. Just had to take the engine out again to fix a small issue. Hopefully get it back in tomorrow after work. As for the question on YB engines, it can be a bit grey. What actually is a YB. Is it the turbo engine built by Ford/Cosworth or a you talking about something else. Some of the engines running were not built by Ford or Cosworth they are modern Smith and Jones engines. A S & J engine started as a YB but ended up taller and made of aluminium and with there own cylinder head.

So if the area of YB into Escort is grey, does this mean that a cast iron block (read Cortina / Sierra) with a "YB" type cylinder head would be acceptable as this is essentially what the Warrior/Connaught/Holbay engine is, which is compliant for classic rallying? Or is this effectively not within the "spirit" of the rules?

Dead keen to see your Zakspeed run again 4dnut as its always a bit of a personal highlight

[4dnut]

I was under the understanding that YB cylinder heads were not eligible for classic rallying overseas, that's why most escorts run BDG or the Connaught/warrior engine(which was deemed a continuation of old period cylinder head, and still available). YB was not in period. It's one of the things how much do you want to deviate, is a 4AGE essentially a BDA and we can use those. I don't buy the argument that people use YB because it's cheaper, it is not ,simple , what it does do is let you use an alloy block of different dimensions that enable engines to become 2.5litre plus. Yes an iron block YB would be more acceptable, but not correct, just less wrong.