The Roaring Season

Back to Mallory Park, May 25th 1970 (not 1971 as posted earlier). Gee, that is such a long time ago... Some are a little out of focus but that camera had no fancy rangefinder or auto focus, no auto shutter speed and aperture settings and no long lens.

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Should have been in the whoopsies section, but I hadn't scanned it then.








Real Cobras...


Little did I know then, that exactly 21 years later, almost to the day, I'd acquire a Volvo engined Marcos, albeit the big brother version.

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Interesting to see your photo of the Modsports Healey 3000 as it looks like the ex Syd Segal car ABL6 now owned by Bill Bolton in the USA. I was lucky enough to have a short drive of this car in 1986 - it was very light, very fast and very loud, but a great experience.
This is a photo of it competing in a hillclimb at Whistler in Vancouver, Canada and the other shot outside his home in Oregon where I think it still resides.

I posted earlier that the above was 1971 but my eyesight and marbles are getting a bit cloudy... It was in fact May 25th 1970, a year earlier. Ross, that means that although the Healey looks to be identical, it was then driven by John Gott, as many know the then Chief Constable of Northamptonshire and a Healey works driver, albeit, in rallies. It probably moved on to Syd Segal a year later, unless he already owned that car, but Syd was down as racing another Healey, number 87 and Bill Viney (probably with 'HAS 2'?) was a reserve carrying #89.

Same meeting, but taken earlier in the day and on an unbranded film, hence the colour differences. Less than perfect, but a couple of historical interest anyway. I may also have taken slides at this event, celebrating the freedom of a recently failed marriage no doubt, with a bit of a spend up on film!

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That Healey again. I loved Modsports. A class that would probably be outlawed in NZ today! Fancy removing bumpers and trim, and just look at those widened arches. I suppose you couldn't get a CoD if you built one like that today.


Ted Worswick's Modsports E Type.


Nearly a pic of Mike Hailwood...


F5000 Leda - driven by Mac Daghorn who I seem to remember running the Felday (sports) at some stage.


Trevor Taylor.

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The Kitchiner as posted earlier at Brands Hatch was down to be driven by Gordon Spice at this meeting. Graham McRae driving an M10B McLaren. The F5000 entry list shows up one or two oddballs, even if non-starters or reserves.

Riboto P1 Ford; Dulon LD8; Nike Mk 4; Harris Chevrolet.


Attachments disappeared yet again... Reposted Tuesday.

More from 1970.

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The late Roger Williamson.






The Tarmac F100 series didn't do a lot for me. The Royale out front, but the green car to the right is Nick Cole's Nerus, sister car to the ex-Paul Madeley car that did so well in the Hampton Downs Festival, before being exported to the USA.


Another for the whoopsie section.


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More oldies...

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Cossie 1


Cossie 2...




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Fast forward to 1993 as I skip through the mountain of film negatives - 8,000 of which have been logged so far (includes non-car stuff) but only a fraction scanned. Relatively few slides scanned.

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This gorgeous Singer 9 coupe (identical to the only car dad owned when we were young) is now for sale (Fremantle) if anyone is interested. According to the owner, there are only about 12 known to have survived (Dad's was scrapped in 1966). I can put anyone interested in touch with the owner. I was tempted, but out of my price bracket without selling the Marcos. The seller also owns a Marcos Volvo 3L... Strange coincidence.


Ferris de Joux's second BRP - I believe this one was Ford twin cam powered. The BRP-BRM is mentioned in Tony Robinson's excellent book.


A bit of tickling going on at Chelsea...




A late neighbour who passed away a couple of years ago, but the car is in in safe hands. A favourite pic.


Another Singer. Ian Coldingham.

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These pics are just so cool! What was that modsports Healey powered by?

ERC wrote:Back to Mallory Park, May 25th 1970 (not 1971 as posted earlier). Gee, that is such a long time ago... Some are a little out of focus but that camera had no fancy rangefinder or auto focus, no auto shutter speed and aperture settings and no long lens.

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Should have been in the whoopsies section, but I hadn't scanned it then.
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Real Cobras...
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Little did I know then, that exactly 21 years later, almost to the day, I'd acquire a Volvo engined Marcos, albeit the big brother version.
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Any idea who is driving the red Cobra?

Ray, I hope the whanau didnt all try to squeeze into the back of the Singer and go for a day trip to the seaside. Would have been very claustrophobic. Has a very similar body style to the MG of the period. I have a soft spot for Singers.......had a 1928 8hp Junior back in 1958, and a mate had a LeMans while we were at Lincoln.

Steve Holmes wrote:These pics are just so cool! What was that modsports Healey powered by?

Would you believe it - but a Healey engine! I'm not too sure of the Modsports rules of the day, but generally I think the engines had to be based on the standard item. It was a very popular class for several seasons and seemed to cater for fairly standard looking cars as well as the more heavily modified ones.

The Whanau was quite small then - me and a younger brother and a baby brother. For 12 years, our car languished in the garage, as dad ran out of half shafts I believe. My best pal and I would spend hours sitting in it and wished we had the ability to get it on the road again!

ERC wrote:Would you believe it - but a Healey engine! I'm not too sure of the Modsports rules of the day, but generally I think the engines had to be based on the standard item. It was a very popular class for several seasons and seemed to cater for fairly standard looking cars as well as the more heavily modified ones.

Thanks Ray, there were many Healeys that received V8 transplants in the '60s and '70s, both in circuit race, and drag racing, thats its quite cool when one retains its original motor.

Ray, who is driving the red Cobra in post #746?

Steve Holmes wrote:Ray, who is driving the red Cobra in post #746?

#81 Entrant Bill Harding, driven by Shaun Jackson - pole position
#98 John Sabourin's Elan was 2nd on the grid.
#82 Richard Taft (Cobra) 3rd on the grid, but won the race.
Andy Belcher's Sprite was 4th on the grid.

There were 4 classes, by capacity.

Note to commentators: In days' past, the commentators had time to read out a list of non-starters - slowly enough for you to record them - grid positions and then afterwards, the official results. But, the UK and European system then and now is of a long winded day with lots of wasted time between races, whereas the NZ system has a lot more racing - and you can find the results on 'MyLaps' anyway, even if most of the time it only has the driver and not the car!

Prefer the NZ system hands down.

Goodwood Festival of Speed 1996. This is now a sell out, ticket only event, so if it looks as though there weren't many people there in some pics, think again, as it was a case of getting in early. Despite my considerable height, viewing the on-track action was often behind three or four rows of spectators, so getting decent action shots was just about impossible.

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Talbot-Darracq


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Ray,
When I visited Patrick Head at Williams Engineering in June 1996, Patrick was about to go to Goodwood to set up the Williams 6 wheel
Formula One car he designed in 1982. The FW08B. It never raced but Patrick has his notes on the car in his hand as we were photographed in their showroom.
By any chance did you take any photos of this six wheeler when you were there ?
Thanks for all your wonderful photos.
Cheers Ken.



Patrick & Ken..photo by Sean Hyndman

I posted a message earlier, today, but it disappeared! Ken, I think I have pics of the six wheeler at the Donington Museum, Goodwood - (static) and at Monaco 2012. I'll post eventually... (see later post)

Scanner seems to be developing a mind of its own as I had to rescan several negs, (took 32 wasted minutes for just one set of scans...) as the produced scan wasn't as sharp as my negatives. I didn't want to post poorer quality pics than they deserve.

Ray,
I found these B&W pics from a 1982 press release that Patrick sent to me of the 6 wheeled Williams F 1 car. Not as great a quality as your photos but gives an idea of this different approach to getting the power to the road. Imagine the pit work to do a tire change on this !






(Ken Hyndman )

Whoops! Sorry, I was thinking about the Tyrrell!!! No, I didn't see the Williams 6 wheeler, but I'm usually only at Goodwood on the Fridays with a very patient wife or a non-petrolhead brother, so I don't take as many pics as I would like and am not normally around for much of the actual competition.

More from Goodwood. The re-scan's showed that I was right to do so, but what waste of time.

Currently seriously contemplating a visit to the Goodwood Revival in 2016, but as it is less than 2 weeks after returning from our annual long cruise, I may need to do some serious grovelling at home... (and sell off more books, memorabilia and garage items).

This is from a slightly earlier film of the day. I had/have been taking a pot luck attitude to scanning by flicking through three large volumes of filed negatives, but in this instance, I did want to digitally capture a few more from that specific event.

Heading up to the top paddock before they moved all the cars down to their allocated parking areas was productive, but the crowds pile in very quickly.

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