The Roaring Season

Howard Wood wrote:The Anderson BMW 2002 Alpina is under restoration in Northland and the owner hopes, I understand, to have the car running or at worst on display at the 2012 Hampton Downs Festival which celebrates BMW.

Paul Swann (PJ) had the car after Steve Millen, PJ was a cousin of the Schollum Brothers who owned Steves Pacific cars. It then went to a fellow from Mairangi Bay. It was PJs favorite car and he was looking forward to seeing it finished, but unfortunatly pass away about 3 months ago.
Howard can you tell me were it is as I would love to catch up and have alook at it.
I will try and down load a picture of it just after PJ sold it.

Thanks guys, thats good news about the BMW. Interesting too seeing the above photo of the car later in its life. It looked pretty good here. Did it still have the turbo fitted here?

Shano wrote:The Trevor Discombe bike is a Yamaha TZ750, one of the first of the big, powerful, Japanese two-strokes. Discombe is very fast and I say 'is' because he still races a TZ350. He'd have to be 60 and still competing on a grand prix motorcycle .... the man is all class.

I'd say by now Trevor would be knocking 70, after all Ginger Molloy is around 73, and yes, he's still quick, and still smooth as ever.
The TZ750 in the pic is in a Dutch-built Nico Bakker chassis which would date it around the '75/'76 season. While beautifully made, and nickel-plated, the chassis was more suited to the longer, more flowing European circuits of the day, rather than NZ's mostly short, tight, point-and-squirt tracks. After a big crash, the chassis was replaced and the bike rebuilt as a TZ750D. The Bakker chassis later reappeared in Levi's colours, ridden by Stu Avant.
I first saw Discombe racing in 1965 on a 7R AJS, and guess what...he was quick and smooth then, too...

Rod Grimwood wrote:Paul Swann (PJ) had the car after Steve Millen, PJ was a cousin of the Schollum Brothers who owned Steves Pacific cars. It then went to a fellow from Mairangi Bay. It was PJs favorite car and he was looking forward to seeing it finished, but unfortunatly pass away about 3 months ago.
Howard can you tell me were it is as I would love to catch up and have alook at it.
I will try and down load a picture of it just after PJ sold it.

Rod, I have sent you a PM.

After 30 years trying not to scratch the itch I gave up and have built a replica BMW 2002 Alpina Group 2. I managed to locate some genuine Group 2 "Pig's Cheek" front guards and rear wheel arch extentions on Ebay and took a mould off them. I am lending the moulds to the new owner as they are the same as the Anderson car had in its first year here and is how the current owner wants to present the car, in Cambridge livery. Over the years as wider and wilder wheels were fitted to the car the guards were chopped and eventually lost.

In Rod's picture, post #41 the Group 2 front guards are still intact but the rears are gone.

Group 2 guards
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Thats a great looking cars Howard. Will you be at the BMW Festival next year.

That's the plan. As the car is to Schedule K there are a number of options although I will run in the BMW series this year. As that is a bit of a hot rod series I am interested in more period correct options as well. HRC seem keen to promote a Sched K only series if they can get enough cars.

Howard Wood wrote:Group 2 guards
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Thats nice Howard, looks like it'll be lots of fun! Schedule K is a good idea, I hope enough cars can be brought up to K specs. This is what is used in Europe and those who race to these specs speak highly of them.

Donn Anderson has written an excellent article on the Rodger Anderson BMW as above in the latest NZ Classic Car mag. Interesting that the car was built in Germany, and shipped to NZ, but it raced as right hand drive. Looking at it closer, the windscreen wipers are set up for a lhd car. So I assume it must have been converted to rhd. Why was this? The article said the car was fitted with the standard 14.6:1 steering box, because the better 12.8:1 box would only fit the lhd cars. So in some ways the team were limiting themselves slightly by running rhd.

The wiper set up is the same RHD and LHD, or at least my RHD car is the same as the Anderson car. The quick ratio steering box is available only in LHD and one sold recently on ebay for gizzillions.

When Rodger Anderson bought that car the '02 was at the beginning of what became a homologation war between Ford and BMW, first with the Escort v '02 and then Capri v CSL. Amonst the later items homologated were rack and pinion steering with much shorter steering arms. I have done this on my car and the improvement is quite noticeable.

Before the European Touring Car Group 2 regs changed in 1973 to allow 4 valve engines (so the BDA Escort didn't dominate) BMW were getting 225 HP out of their 2 valve injected 2 litre engine which would probably have been around 40-50 HP more than the Anderson car.

Thanks Howard, yes I can see that the wiper set up is the same now, looking at your car.

Hi Steve, why can't I see half ofmthese pics, all I have is name jpg size etc

Right click on the tag and click "reload image" at the top of the list that comes up - I have the same problem.

OR.........put your machine to sleep. Go away and have a cup-a-tea, come back and re-start the machine and....'VOILA'...the images are there. Often happens to me. Don't know about tags and reloading cos I'm a learner!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Steve, would like to see the pic of francevic in the katipo, can you repost it please