Go Slideways wrote:Jac Jac just told me that his car: "wasn't Neville Crightons it was raced by Jim Richards and Steve Millen at Levin motor races were they crashed it and repaired to drive it back to Auckland and got written off at tokoroa when they crashed into a lake. Jerry Clayton then turned it into a speedway car for Richards and Millen - I put it in vote national colours during the elections, because I always pick a winner lol"
Jac Jac probably wasn't aware of the Crichton history. The car was so totally different from when it because a speedway car. Its only in recent years this information has become more widely known.
Stunning pix and must be early days as its so straight. Ron Kendall Radio Hauraki Mazda 81 behind him. Thanks Rex for this neat memory .Still running the original HQ GTS steering wheel
Steve Holmes wrote:So how about we start a thread on race cars that appear to have vanished from trace. See if we can't track a few of them down.
Here is one I've been trying to learn the fate of for some time, with no luck. I first found out about this car when writing an article for Australian Muscle Car mag a couple of years ago. The reason it grabbed my attention was because it was built in the Wairarapa, in New Zealand, where I moved with my partner Helen a few years ago. While researching various magazines gathering info for the article, I stumbled upon details of this car.
It was built around 1971 by Wayne Fuller, and fitted with an FVA motor reportedly from Paul Faheys Escort. Fuller raced the car in OSCA during the 1971/72 season, and was often the fastest car in the field. At the end of the season Fuller set his sites a little higher, and took the car to Graham Berry (of Berry & Chung hot rodding fame) to have a heap of fabrication work done on the firewall and transmission tunnel, so he could fit a 350ci small block Chevy, with twin off-set Holleys.
This was quite an ambitious project at the time, and appeared to have quite a bit of potential. The newly rebuilt Escort finally debuted at Bay Park in late 1973, driven by 24 year old Roger Brader, another Wairarapa hot shoe. It was very quick in a straight line, as fast as the front running machines of Allan Moffat, Jim Richards, Leo Leonard (in Mustangs), Red Dawson (Camaro), Rod Coppins (Firebird), and Paul Fahey (Capri), but required some development work on suspension and brakes.
Brader and Fuller raced the car at several events throughout the 1973/74 season, but at seasons end Fuller decided to sell it and go boat racing instead. The Escort was sold engineless to Warren Steel in the Hawkes Bay. Steel had planned to fit a smaller Chevy motor to compete in the 4.2 Saloon Car Championship, but failed his eyesight test, and had to sell the car.
It was purchased by John Scott in Auckland, who owned a transport company. This would have been late 1974, or early 1975. From there, the trail goes dead. I'm not sure if the John Scott who purchased the Escort was the same John Scott who raced speedway in the '70s and '80s, but that John Scott did happen to own a transport company, also in Auckland, so perhaps it was the same person. Either way, I've not been able to track him down.
Would love to know what happened to this car, and if it survived. Obviously Escorts were pretty popular during the '70s, and it could have ended up anywhere. Was it converted for ShellSport? Was it scrapped? Was it pushed into someones shed and forgotten about?
Anyway, here is a pic of the car at Levin when it was still fitted with the FVA. It changed little when the Chevy was shoe-horned in, except the wheels became slightly wider. It was silver with a green stripe down each flank, then later had a red or orange stripe.
Thanks Sean. I have those two magazines in storage somewhere. The Escort was still fitted with an ex-Fahey Lotus motor during this time. I think this was the 1971/72 season.
Great to see these old photos it must have been one of the first mustangs in NZ with flared gaurds this car has a big history of owners & drivers.Thanks for finding the pics.
All we need now is some with Christie Morris when it was Red
