An excellent article in classic and sports car up until Grant Cowie is mentioned then it goes totally off the rails. The car was not built by Mike Courtenay, I built the car. Totally, everything from the research, the chassis frame, body work and engineering. The only thing that I outsourced was the sewing of the leather upholstery.
So to put the record STRAIGHT once and for al,l Mike Courtenay did own the car but had absolutely no input into its build. The remains recovered by Grant Cowie were offered for sale in Beaded Wheels for an extended period before being purchased by John Holdsworth. John had a local Auckland panel shop make up a new body /frame etc to incorporate what remained mechanically of the original car, and while this did serve to keep all of the remaining components in one place, it bore only a passing resemblance to the Green / Brewer device.
That reincarnation was purchased by Mike Courtenay (the car that is in Roger Dowding photographs) who did very little racing with it, His brother John raced it at Hamilton and had rear suspension failure (either before or after mounting the kerb) That damage was repaired and Mike put the car on the market, with little interest resulting. Having recently sold my Cooper I was interested in another car so I arranged for Mike to bring it down to a test day (whenuapai) I had a play with it, and with the assistance of Ralph Watson we got it going reasonably well, enough anyway to show its promise and I purchased it from Mike along with the trailer.
I raced it in HRSCC and VCC events for a number of years until (another) blown head gasket side lined it. Upon stripping it down I decided that it was time to undertake a total rebuild to bring it back to what the original Hec Green / Jack Brewer device had been.
As it was, the car was incorrectly built totally out of aluminium (not steel as originally) including the chassis frame, it was too long by 17 inches, it was too wide, it was too low, it had VW front suspension, it had modern coil over rear shocks, it had swing axles - not low pivot, VW hubs and brakes and "steelie" 15 inch wide wheels. single carburetor, a hot long overlap cam not suitable for supercharging, ALL OF WHICH WERE INCORRECT. I scrapped all of the aluminum (and got paid the princely sum $70 by the scrap metal man). (see accompanying photos)
I took extensive advice from Jack Brewer ( Hec by this time was in Aus and had other interests) I had to try to think like a couple of ex RNZAF WW2 engineers with no money who wanted to go racing and apply that mindset to the rebuild. I fabricated a new chassis exactly as described by Jack Brewer, built the trailing link front end and front uprights exactly as they had been originally, obtained 'bungy cords" of suitable dimension from an aircraft parts supply company in USA, I even managed to locate after much searching and at considerable cost the correct Kittyhawk suspension struts. The car was rebuilt exactly as it was in its time with Les Moore (who changed the wheels from the original troublesome welded ones to wires) I changed the carburation to the same progressive arrangement that had been used by Hec with a 1 1/2 downdraft carb providing initial fuel with a 2 inch side draft coming on from about 1/3 throttle. (the original sandcast 2 inch was outside my budget so the HD8 was fitted) had a new more appropriate cam ground, I made up a dashboard comprising aircraft instruments (as could have been purchased post war from surplus sales.)
I raced the finished article for a number of years during which time I had numerous mechanical issues mostly associated with it blowing head gaskets, cracking or and melting pistons (remember that we are talking of a supercharged engine running with up to 16 lb boost) so detonation was the probable culprit. When it was going well it was at the front of the pack but unfortunately after most race meetings I was faced with an engine strip down, and another engine rebuild.
The Hec Green built gearbox provided for a very high drive ratio 6:1 in 1st, 4.5:1 in second and 3:1 in top. As a consequence racing at Taupo club circuit was all 1st and second gear, even on the full Taupo circuit it only got into top briefly near the end of the back straight.
I ran it on methanol, on a methanol blend, on various fuel ratios, but didnt start to get reliability until I lowered the compression ratio and changed out the fixed spark magneto for a distributor which provided advance and retard. These changes provided no decrease in performance but made the car much more driveable and reliable.
It was in this form that I offered the car for sale, it being purchased by Rob Whitehouse and Paul Radisich. I sincerely hope that they do get to run it at Goodwood, I will be over there again this year and would take great delight in seeing it stretch its legs
these photos show the car as it was purchased from Mike Courtenay, and the aluminum chassis in the final stages of cutting up for scrap