The Roaring Season

Grant Sprague wrote:As I get older [or younger lol ] I just looooove these photos unique they are just so cool thank you for sharing

cheers Grant -

- Howard Hughes and his H-1 Racer.

#258 Smooooooooth

Boss 429 Lawn Mower!!

This one comes courtesy of the 'Canterbury Motorsport Pre 1970' Facebook page.
South Island Specials, Ruapuna 1968.

Another from FB
Alec Birch photos of 'True Chevotion', a street registered!! erm.. dragster built early 1970's by one of the American serviceman posted to Longbank near Blenheim.

bry3500 wrote:Another from FB
Alec Birch photos of 'True Chevotion', a street registered!! erm.. dragster built early 1970's by one of the American serviceman posted to Longbank near Blenheim.

Bry3500, back in the day 50-70's a race car had to have Registration, you would see cars with the Rego plate attached to the floor inside the car, don't know the reasoning !!

Roger Dowding wrote:Bry3500, back in the day 50-70's a race car had to have Registration, you would see cars with the Rego plate attached to the floor inside the car, don't know the reasoning !!

Thanks Roger! Did they have to have headlights as well?

bry3500 wrote:Thanks Roger! Did they have to have headlights as well?

That's pretty radical, didn't notice them to start with : would have thought they were too far back, but I guess only way to get at the right height without huge column brackets.

Roger Dowding wrote:Bry3500, back in the day 50-70's a race car had to have Registration, you would see cars with the Rego plate attached to the floor inside the car, don't know the reasoning !!

I think this has been covered before on this forum, but the annual registration gave you some sort of compulsory third-party insurance cover. I recall the forms having a long list of motor insurance providers on the back, from which you had to choose one. Eventually the insurance lobby had its way and it was scrapped. I'm not sure it was ever compulsory and I don't recall reg plates on speedway cars, but there are plenty of pictures of single-seaters with registration plates in Graham Vercoe's Historic Racing Cars book.

Stu

stubuchanan wrote:I think this has been covered before on this forum, but the annual registration gave you some sort of compulsory third-party insurance cover. I recall the forms having a long list of motor insurance providers on the back, from which you had to choose one. Eventually the insurance lobby had its way and it was scrapped. I'm not sure it was ever compulsory and I don't recall reg plates on speedway cars, but there are plenty of pictures of single-seaters with registration plates in Graham Vercoe's Historic Racing Cars book.

Stu

Stu, sounds right, they dropped CTP as they still have in Australia, think part of the ACC act which provided cover for victims of accidents, the people not the car..

Race cars were registered E Class A ,which was a farm registration for vehicles ,it was to cover machinery which had to go between farms on public roads. The Mini Max i raced and hillclimbed had such a plate,so this means the race cars were covered when they raced at Renwick,Waimate etc.A form of this registration still exists as far as i know and came across it a few years back when lookinging at a BMW 2002 forsale in Tauranga and this guy had his car registered like that and used it on the road all the time.............not a good idea ,because if he had had an accident he would not have been covered !

to go along with Ross Holling's post. there was also a daylight WOF that was required. no lights, indicators,parking brake, wipers, windscreens, doors, just basic things to operate the vehicle on the public roads, but only from sunrise to sunset

[color="#0000CD"]The 'E' class A thing was not without problems, I remember trying to get it for the OSCA Cortina when I first built it and struck a 'jobsworth' at the Post Office, who insisted that as it was a car & 5000cc I had to pay the going rate equivalent to a new 302 Falcon, that wasn't going to happen on my pay scale, so two days later Mrs Mac went in and registered our brand new 'Ford 5000'... job done!.. BTW the rego was reqd for third party due to most club events run under MANZ being on closed public roads- beach racing, 1/4 miles, hillclimbs etc.
Still silly stuff going on today, I have a tractor with side mount mower that was ex parks & reserves, was on full rego due to operating outside a limited km radius from base, its registered as a caravan... don't ask me how they arrived at that classification![/color]

What a beaut ........ looks like Wally in the Zepher power black car on the right & our other icon in 77....not sure who the othesr are or were , but all going hard these guys , home made specials etc , about the era of the 30 min production car racing

bry3500 wrote:This one comes courtesy of the 'Canterbury Motorsport Pre 1970' Facebook page.
South Island Specials, Ruapuna 1968.

[color="#0000CD"]Front on pole looks like Barry Keen's helmet, probably Begg Twin Cam, outside on front row is the Begg/Humber 80 car ( Dr D Brunton?, Russell Thompson or Colin Bunce?), # 70 is Norm Smith in the Stuart Special and #77 should be Peter Leversedge. Car @ 2 on front row may be Lindsay Tosh in Begg /Daimler. Appears to be another front engine car @ 3 on front row that has beaten everybody else off the line. As Grant mentioned Wally Darrel in black car.[/color]

Woow Jac that is a great recall , as a lad Peter & Wally stood out from the crowd in their specials , know doubt the others were fantastic but too young to appreciate

Jac Mac wrote:[color="#0000CD"] Appears to be another front engine car @ 3 on front row that has beaten everybody else off the line.[/color]

Could the fast starter be 260M Zephyr? maybe the white/cream car on far right at the rear of the grid is the A50 Special with a Wasp and Bumble Bee nearby.

What are the 2 very low motorbike powered cars?

One would be Ron Walton's Wasp.


Ron used to have a tv science show back in the b&w days called "In The Nature Of Things."