Early O.S.C.A saloons, 1971-75 era, any pics out there b/w or colour?

[Steve Holmes]

These are great! What happened to all these cars? I understand the Dymand Capri was scrapped? Does the Bates Torana still exist? How about the Vivas?

[Jac Mac]

Im just worried that it might have been me .. IIRC there were a couple of pics in Autonews about that time, one was of Ron McPhail in the escort as pictured, the other was of my Ford powered Imp.... the intent of the photo comparision at the time was to show different camber angles etc... needless to say, the Imp with its swing arm front & trailing arm rear did not have two wheels pointing in the same direction..

Weren't they great cars and the variety of makes run in those days. Photographer looks like he is in a hurry to get out of the way. Maybe he could see something that we can't.

[ian]

Hi guys. First post for me. Re the Weslake chev engine. What Paul did with this engine was truly amazing. I was Roy Grangers crew during this time. Ihave photos with roker covers off that i will post Cheers IAN.

Paul,that is one good summary of events there in your final sentence you say you had a soft spot for that engine ,I understand what you are saying and how you feel,there has been more that a couple of projects I have felt that way about even though they gave me plenty of grief along the way you become part of them I guess and look back on them with fond memories

[Steve Holmes]

Welcome to the site Ian, I look forward to seeing those photos.

[ian]

[ATTACH]4606[/ATTACH][ATTACH]4607[/ATTACH]Here are the pictures.

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, Ian, thanks so much for posting these. What a stunning piece of kit! Is that the engine bay of the Cortina its fitted into?

[ian]

Wow, Ian, thanks so much for posting these. What a stunning piece of kit! Is that the engine bay of the Cortina its fitted into?

No sorry Steve the Cortina ute was 2.5L v6 powered. The Weslake headed Chev was used in the Roy Granger speedway Monza as discussed by Paul Kirk. Paul claimed to have a soft spot for this motor which was a bit of an understatment. To stand in PK's dyno room and put my hand on this engine while it is under full load at 6500 rpm was a feeling I will never forget.

[105angria]

Is this the Roy Granger that had a very nice Commer Cob ,orange with ,Brabham mags full house 1725,used to cruise around the square on a Sat night, legend

[Steve Holmes]

No sorry Steve the Cortina ute was 2.5L v6 powered. The Weslake headed Chev was used in the Roy Granger speedway Monza as discussed by Paul Kirk. Paul claimed to have a soft spot for this motor which was a bit of an understatment. To stand in PK's dyno room and put my hand on this engine while it is under full load at 6500 rpm was a feeling I will never forget.

Thanks Ian. I thought this was the motor that was also used in the Bellis Cortina? Thats the Cortina I was referring to when I asked what engine bay that was. Or am I talking about a completely different engine?

[Paul Kirk]

I've always been a bit fascinated with the early era of O.S.C.A. Living in Auckland we didn't really see much of it but it all sounded pretty exciting down south. I remember on one occasion in early 1973, there was a sort of O.S.C.A. tour to the north, with several meetings. By the time they got to Pukekohe there had been several mechanical casualties, but I clearly remember Paul Kirk's yellow Viva with red wheels?, (really liked that car and it went well) and 3.5 Buick V8 motor, Blair Paton and Ron McPhail in there respective blue and black twin cam Escorts, plus Peter Kocis in his Torana, also possibly Grant Aitken in his 1450 Mini and Pat Pascoe's light weight ex McRae Twin Cam powered A40. I remember Kocis and Jim Richards in the Sidchrome Imp had a coming together shortly after the start with the Imp launched through the fence. I'd be really keen to sight some pictures of the early years of OSCA, in the pits on the track wherever, particularly from down south if anyone has any gems stowed away!

Giday Gearald,
I remember that Puke meeting that some of us OSCA guys went to!
Thanks for your kind words re the Viva Buick, actually it didnt suit that track for 2 reasons, (probably many more if I really thought about it), and they were (1) it was under geared so I had to throttle off down the straights, (I'd flogged the diff out of my road going XU1, 3.08:1, but it needed to be higher), (2) also around the sweeper after the start/finish line it felt extremely unstable, (this was unusual as the car was normally good in fast corners), this was due, as I discovered later, to the rear axles flexing! I know this seems strange but I had been having trouble twisting axles at the splines (they were Hillman Minx axles) so I'd waisted them down to just under the root diametre of the splines so the loads would be absorbed by the torsional flex/twist thereby reducing the concentration of the load on the spline. What I didn't think about was that the axles were also subject to bending strain when cornering, so I suspect the outside rear wheel was taking on positive camber or whatever else it wanted to do when subjected to high cornering loads!
And there was another issue---I remember the last race was a handicap event so I took off determined to make as much ground as possible, anyway down the back straight as the race wore on, I caught up to a Mini just before the CHICANE, yeah thats right, they put some Euclid tyres halfway down the straight in the form of an "S" bend! anyway I had to back right off and let the Mini go through first, by this time all the big V8s had cought up (and passed) so I just cruised to the end.
But I did enjoy going up North, and I actually won the North Island OSCA Championship outright, (the Viva was "B" class), but that was only due to the fact that I went North more often than the others from down here!
But they were GOOD days in those days, things have changed a bit and I haven't made up my mind whether it's for better of for worse!
PK.

[ian]

Hi 105 angria. Probly berore I khew him but sounds right. Always was and still is a petrolhead. Living in Brisbane. His son races speedway salons very succesfully.
Sorry Steve for confusion. Yes definatly same engine. Photo is in Monza speedway salon re Paul Kirks earlier post.
Paul your Viva went the way of so many older cars. I worked at Williams Auto Wreckers in Kaipoi and remember the day it went through the crusher.

Is this the Roy Granger that had a very nice Commer Cob ,orange with ,Brabham mags full house 1725,used to cruise around the square on a Sat night, legend

[Paul Kirk]

It was bought by Don Peddie I believe, I remember him running it in OSCA a couple of times...then it probably went to the Peddie farm to retire... quite a few toys ended up there .....

The A30, IIRC there was one Ford powered & one with Truimph 2000 power anyone know more?

The Torana/XU-1 behind the Hammond x Crosbie/Simpson? Escort could be Peter 'bloody' Kocis (spl?)

All this stuff is not good for me.. If you wanted a wide rim..you made it... roll cage..make it...flare a wheel arch...just cut the inner out,weld it on the outside...fill in the gaps....Hell OSCA even paid prize money per event & then a bonus at season end on points earned during the season... Now what happens, pay a big entry fee, sign your life away in case you hurt someone, pay a fine if some turkey sitting 'on high' deems you were not far enough forward to actually pass...throw away perfectly good crash hats & belts every couple of years...dont even think about making your own wheels or roll cage, just be a good boy now and even though you can see the gaps in the welds of your MSNZ certified cage made by an 'expert', that little scrap of paper & the photos will stop it falling around your ears..use this fuel-yep we know its quality drops off after a couple of weeks, wont matter if your pistons melt, BTW, get the noise down a bit will you... Oh, and the prize money etc...we got over that..the new unwritten rule is that entertainers pay to do so in the name of progress...

Hay Jac, the 2 A30s you refer to could well be the Kerry Rout Triumph 2000 one and the Jeff Whealan Ford 1340 examples. As usual there are storys attatched to most of the old cars but briefly re Kerry's car--it was built by Colin Berryman, (I'm sure his name will be famillia to many here, sadly not with us any more), and used 3 of those little 35mm Webers and had a funny rear suspension linkage that promoted roll-steer.
I was testing it at Ruapuna one day and to my surprise when braking for the hairpin it sort-of swayed one way and my automatic reaction was to aply steering input to counteract it, then it swayed the other way, and so on and so on! Quite un-nerving! When discussing it with Kerry he said you just said hold the steering wheel straight and it might sway a bit but it always went straight. Unfortunately some idiot from Wellington in a MIni drove into the side of Kerry at Rothmans corner and the poor old A30 ended up like a banana and that was the end of that! And re Jeff's 1340 A30, complete with A3 Cosworth cam and 28-36 DCD Weber, (actually it might have been a Weber off a Ford V6 were both butterflies open similtaniously), it didn't go too bad but one day at Timaru it went better than usual! Why? Well there had been a bit of a "do" Sat night and Jeff didn't make it to his bed so went straight to Levels and the effects of the lack of sleep/booze was noticed by some of the others at drivers' briefing but nothing was said and Jeff really threw the car around that day! The following Timaru meeting the guy (whose name I can't remember) that was conducting the briefing made it quite clear that sort of behaviour would NOT be tollerated in future!
Them were the days!!!!
PK.

[Paul Kirk]

Is this the Roy Granger that had a very nice Commer Cob ,orange with ,Brabham mags full house 1725,used to cruise around the square on a Sat night, legend

Yeah, I think it was the same guy.
PK

[Paul Kirk]

Hi 105 angria. Probly berore I khew him but sounds right. Always was and still is a petrolhead. Living in Brisbane. His son races speedway salons very succesfully.
Sorry Steve for confusion. Yes definatly same engine. Photo is in Monza speedway salon re Paul Kirks earlier post.
Paul your Viva went the way of so many older cars. I worked at Williams Auto Wreckers in Kaipoi and remember the day it went through the crusher.

Ian? That isn't "Cheddar" is it? I've got a feeling it might be. If you're in Ch Ch/Kaiapoi any time, my details are all in the phone book, it'd be good to catch up. And re the Viva, a guy from Ashburton tracked it down with the aim of rebuilding it, but arived at Williams just a couple of days after it was crushed! Buggar!
PK.

[Paul Kirk]

It was bought by Don Peddie I believe, I remember him running it in OSCA a couple of times...then it probably went to the Peddie farm to retire... quite a few toys ended up there .....

The A30, IIRC there was one Ford powered & one with Truimph 2000 power anyone know more?

The Torana/XU-1 behind the Hammond x Crosbie/Simpson? Escort could be Peter 'bloody' Kocis (spl?)

All this stuff is not good for me.. If you wanted a wide rim..you made it... roll cage..make it...flare a wheel arch...just cut the inner out,weld it on the outside...fill in the gaps....Hell OSCA even paid prize money per event & then a bonus at season end on points earned during the season... Now what happens, pay a big entry fee, sign your life away in case you hurt someone, pay a fine if some turkey sitting 'on high' deems you were not far enough forward to actually pass...throw away perfectly good crash hats & belts every couple of years...dont even think about making your own wheels or roll cage, just be a good boy now and even though you can see the gaps in the welds of your MSNZ certified cage made by an 'expert', that little scrap of paper & the photos will stop it falling around your ears..use this fuel-yep we know its quality drops off after a couple of weeks, wont matter if your pistons melt, BTW, get the noise down a bit will you... Oh, and the prize money etc...we got over that..the new unwritten rule is that entertainers pay to do so in the name of progress...

Hay Jac, the 2 A30s you refer to could well be the Kerry Rout Triumph 2000 one and the Jeff Whealan Ford 1340 examples. As usual there are storys attatched to most of the old cars but briefly re Kerry's car--it was built by Colin Berryman, (I'm sure his name will be famillia to many here, sadly not with us any more), and used 3 of those little 35mm Webers and had a funny rear suspension linkage that promoted roll-steer.
I was testing it at Ruapuna one day and to my surprise when braking for the hairpin it sort-of swayed one way and my automatic reaction was to aply steering input to counteract it, then it swayed the other way, and so on and so on! Quite un-nerving! When discussing it with Kerry he said you just said hold the steering wheel straight and it might sway a bit but it always went straight. Unfortunately some idiot from Wellington in a MIni drove into the side of Kerry at Rothmans corner and the poor old A30 ended up like a banana and that was the end of that! And re Jeff's 1340 A30, complete with A3 Cosworth cam and 28-36 DCD Weber, (actually it might have been a Weber off a Ford V6 were both butterflies open similtaniously), it didn't go too bad but one day at Timaru it went better than usual! Why? Well there had been a bit of a "do" Sat night and Jeff didn't make it to his bed so went straight to Levels and the effects of the lack of sleep/booze was noticed by some of the others at drivers' briefing but nothing was said and Jeff really threw the car around that day! The following Timaru meeting the guy (whose name I can't remember) that was conducting the briefing made it quite clear that sort of behaviour would NOT be tollerated in future!
Them were the days!!!!
PK.

[Paul Kirk]

Modestly yes ! Peter Kocis was just in front, gone out of the photo Dick Young is in the other Torana,I think that is the Triang following me Murray Soames is in the Lotus Cortina ,he went on to build a Escort with all the Lotus
Cortina components in it,this Escort was later brought by Bryce Platt ,developed more and became his Championship
winning car.Murray was another of the founding members of that early Auckland OSCA chapter,I think he also looked
hard at that time at the Olds F85 option

Hay Bob, if my memory serves me right Greg Lancaster and Rex Findlay were also active Auckland OSCA branch members.
PK.

[ian]

It surely is Paul. Live in Invercargill now. Will be up at Xmas for family and friends and will try to catch you then.

[bob homewood]

Hay Bob, if my memory serves me right Greg Lancaster and Rex Findlay were also active Auckland OSCA branch members.
PK.

Yes that is right ,Myself Greg,Rex,and Adrian Walmsley ? I think were the original comitte,we used to have the monthly club night over in some place in Panmure,Rex and I used to run the gauntlet before evey club night picking up the evenings refreshments from that dodgy pub in Mt Wellington,pity the fuel crisis thing came along because I reckon it would have worked up here

[Steve Holmes]

Warwick Clayton has sent me a small number of photos from Manfeild, and an OSCA invasion with several teams making their way up from the South Island. He didn't say what year this was, but I would guess it could be the 1973/74 season?

Anyway, here is, first up, our own Roaring Season member, Paul Kirk.

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Trevor Crowe in the Chevy powered Corolla.

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I think this is Robert Bartley in the V8 Cortina? Wasn't this a North Island car?

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Clyde Collins in his V8 Cortina

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[Steve Holmes]

And a couple more. Lawrence Bruce in the ex Kennett/Dunlop/Haig Shelby Mustang.

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Alec Dickie in the Chevy Victor.

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