The Roaring Season

Here are some of the wheels the Morrari ran. Firstly there is one of the actual Borranis it had and the other photos are of the steel wheels which seem to show a centre hub and an adapted wire wheel configuration to take steel wheels - like Gerald pointed out.

AMCO72 wrote:Greg....hope you dont mind all this throwing of ideas around. It gets everyone talking and thinking about the car. It was around so briefly, and probably only in Auckland, that most folk dont have clear memories of it, and there were at that time a lot of other wild and woolly beasts racing so perhaps didnt stand out as it should have. I mean for goodness- sakes; a morris minor body on a Ferrari chassis......get off the grass!!!!!

Hey Gerald, we dont mind at all - its all healthy conversation and like you say it was around so breifly and only really in Auckland and I think Matamata??? And as you also say - a Morris Minor?????? Even from our hot rodding back ground - these days its a bit of a goofy concept!!!!!

That said, we have been blown away by the response to this project - it seems alot of people have somewhat fond memories of the original Morrari. This is shown on here, feedback through the NZ Hot Rod Magazine and also NZ Classic Car Magazine.

We really appreciate all the comments and photos and info snippets from this forum and look forward to seeing what else comes out of the woodwork to help us with the Morrari.

Thanks,

Mark and Greg Stokes

From what I can see in those photos ,those adaptors look very similar to some things we have done over the pat years ,in fact we have a couple of similar adaptor centres to allow us to run centrelock wheels on our Dynapack Dyno.I don't think there was a lot of emphasis on weight back then it was more a matter of making it happen some how .The empasis on weight reduction and lightness of components came about more so in the proceeding years especially with the smaller capacity saloon cars,I know that right up until later times a lot of the cars were over engineered weight wise.Reg Cook springs to my mind as one of the first people to really start paying attention to this area with his first Minis

kiwi285 wrote:That sounds like a long term labour of love. We wish you and your father all the best. It will certainly be a car to stir up interest when it hits the track.

Yes Kiwi285 that's really sounds like a long term labour of love
all the best for you Greg & Mark.

Thanks again everyone on here for your conversation/feedback and photos - its all so very encouraging!

Will post some more photos from Glen Jones collection once sorted

140mph down the straight, but "not very happy about going round corners". Likes perfect for Mark, don't you think Greg? A true hot rod in every sense.

Now that photo is interesting. Note the spelling....MORRIARI....not MORRARI. Was that extra I correct and was just left off later. The reason I ask is that I am pretty sure we used to call it the Morr I ari... and when this post started and it was called the Morrari, without the extra I . mmmmmmm dont know. Actually I like Morriari.....perhaps because subconciously thats how I remember it.

I just went and checked Allan Dick's 1967 Motor Year Book and he called it the Morrari. But thats not to say it wasn't also called the Morriari by others. A lot of the time the cars were just nicknamed by the press, or by fans, and there was often nothing official about the names.

When describing the Custaxie, the 1967 Shell NZ Motor Racing exclusively calls it 'The Monster'. They don't call it the Custaxie even once.

I don't remember it ever being called the Morriari

David McKinney wrote:I don't remember it ever being called the Morriari

Me neither. It was a late entry in the December 1964 Auckland Car Club meeting and seems to have been referred to as Minor or Morris-Corvette. When "Motorman"s report of the meeting came out(in February!), it referred to both Morris Corvette and Morrari. In the meantime it appeared in the Grand Prix programme as the Morris-Corvette, but I think the name "Morrari" had been coined by then, and from that point on the car was entered as that, although mis-spelled sometimes as Morarri. At the time of the Rod Grimwood photo, the name probably hadn't appeared in print anywhere, so Morriari was a good guess.

140mph and not good at corners sounds PERFECT! Thats a neat pic Rod! Interesting to hear the variations in the name too.....

Greg, if you are intending to race your recreation of the Morarri it may be worthwhile to have a look at MSNZ Schedule CR regulations. These cover replica and retrospective specials and there may be things that could be done in the building of the car that would make it easier to navigate the MSNZ bureaucracy when it comes to entering the car in MSNZ events. I understand the recreation of the Custaxie had some issues which could have been easily addressed during the build. If required I could put you in touch with one of the MSNZ Historic commission members who could help you through the process in a constructive manner.

Hi Roger - thanks if you could email me direct at mailto:?subject=&body= that would be appreciated. We certainly dont want to get off on the wrong foot with this build.

Had a real good look through all the photos on here as well as some more I have of the steel wheels era,by magnifying those photos I believe you can definately make out the adaptor,threaded nut retainer set up,the Firestone stickers also appear on the car about the same time which goes with my original comment about the rubber, one other thing on the adaptor wire wheel saga is don't forget Glen and some of the guys were from my memory also involved with the Colin Lumsden De Soto wire wheeled / dual wheeled escapade around this same time

This was sent to me by a buddy of mine called Steve (Roaring Season member vette8). This is from November 1965 issue of Motorman. I guess the car had no takers, as Souness raced it again that season.

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There you go Greg, a couple more photos from Glen Jones family collection.

Wow, Rod, those Morrari photos are incredible!

Thanks Steve for posting the advert of the car and Rod - well you made my week! What neat pics! The engine shot shows more than enough detail to go by. Awesome shots thanks!

Greg, is there any chance we can get Mark to register on here as well? It'd be great to hear from him too, and he is such a talented engineer, I'd love to get his thoughts on the project.