The Roaring Season

I think this was just prior to the Huttons signwriting going on the car Steve. As for the Glenvale Camaro - which I`ve got a good photo of - I`ll do some enquiry over the weekend, but I vaguely recall that car in my fathers workshop, and it had been hit hard up the arse in a road accident not long after Rod raced it. If you look at the front guards when Rods car was gold, my father made up a pipe former and they semi squared the front wheel arches so Rod had more lock to lock.

The Camaro raced at Glenvale, belonging to Spencer Black, was a big block-so what happened to it?

fullnoise68 wrote:I think this was just prior to the Huttons signwriting going on the car Steve. As for the Glenvale Camaro - which I`ve got a good photo of - I`ll do some enquiry over the weekend, but I vaguely recall that car in my fathers workshop, and it had been hit hard up the arse in a road accident not long after Rod raced it. If you look at the front guards when Rods car was gold, my father made up a pipe former and they semi squared the front wheel arches so Rod had more lock to lock.

Thanks Steve, I always wondered why Rods Camaro appeared with the squared out front wheel arches. Never knew why this was done, I always assumed the car had taken a hit and this was the easiest way of repairing it. Thanks for clearing this up for me. It was actually done partway through the 1970/71 season when still in Cambridge colours. You can see it on the grid here in this Terry Marshall photo. Earlier in the season the guard openings were round.

Thanks also for explaining the Glenvale car. There is a good photo of this car in one of the old magazines also.

I'm pretty sure it is must be before the Huttons went on. There are a few things I can tell from the car that date it to after the PDL Eurocars time. That would be Bay Park and isn't it cornering nice and flat, the tail is down slightly and the power is on.

Steve Holmes wrote:Great shot here of the Rod Coppins Firebird. Given there is no PDL signwriting, I assume this must be from the 1973/74 season? Or did the PDL signage disappear later in the 1972/73 season?

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Much later on (late 70's) I nearly bought a black '68 396 4 speed car that Rod had for sale on his car yard. It was a bit rough, but it went well. 325 hp from memory.

John McKechnie wrote:The Camaro raced at Glenvale, belonging to Spencer Black, was a big block-so what happened to it?

John McKechnie wrote:The Camaro raced at Glenvale, belonging to Spencer Black, was a big block-so what happened to it?

Which Camaro are you talking about John? Which race and what number was the car? My new Kirkey seat could be on this!!!

Rod raced a dark (black?) coloured 67 Camaro at the 1970 Glenvale, finishing third after qualifying fastest. The only photo of the car in the race coverage shows the rego number partially blocked by Jim Palmers Monaro, but it starts off DE5????

That`s right Steve, its rego was DE5124, it was a black `67 Camaro, and according to my source, which is not tomato sauce, the car was not owned by Spinner Black, it had 396 badges on the front guards ( as per my photos which I`ll get Bruce302 to post) but was in fact a 350/4 spd, and the car was bought by Rod in the South Island. The car was rear ended a few months after the Glenvale race, Spinner Black started racing a Camaro no. 7 which was a hidden headlight model, and it was this car that Rod took over after not liking the Monaro Spinner had built for him. The damaged Glenvale Camaro sat in the corner of my fathers workshop in Takanini, with Rod gradually taking bits off it, and here is the real twist, the body shell was sold to the McConnachie brothers, which I hope Rod Grimwood may know something about.

Great news, Thanks Steve. I know we will have a full thread on Rod in no time at all.
catch up soon.
Bruce.

fullnoise68 wrote:Bruce, I`ve been talking with Rods daughter Toni, and I`m organising for her and her daughter to come up from Invercargill for the first weekend of the Denny Hulme Festival, she is rapt with what is on here already about Rod, so a dedicated thread to him would be good and you can post some of my photos of him that I showed you a while back.

Steve-I can pick up the story now.The McConnachie bros built this Camaro into a saloon car for Waikaraka Park.Car, painted white, was built in a workshop just past the Breweries coming into Papatoetoe. I used to drop in and see it as I worked at Paine Mts very close by. I am sure it was 1973 .Real hot rodders and car builders.They also built up a 69 Mustang Fastback for the Park .
.An article in Autonews said Rod complained of having to run an old 327 when he had another Camaro that had a 350 in it-that explains that.
He cant complain about Monaros, because he came 3rd in the race , beaten by 2 Monaros .1st was Jim Palmer, second was Grady Thomson.
So the top 3 cars all had 350s, but the Monaros were the better cars on the day-.Man , I loved saying that. Coppins had to make a pit stop because the petrol tank was not as big as the Bathurst Monaro tanks. said the article. All 3 drivers were seasoned campaigners and it was a clean race
The Glenvale 100 was run in August 1970-and Rodney also ran his racing Camaro in the support race.
As a matter of interest the production Camaro took pole 1 min 18.3.The racing Camaro 1 min 5.
Still curious why the mag stated -"owner Black drove the car-in practice-but handed the reins over on race day.."
Also-"pole position Coppins faced with a difficult task of driving an unfamiliar car."
Donn Anderson was not in the habit of making things up, so who did own this car at that moment?
I put in the part of the big block as the picture -page 7- describes Camaro as being 390 -a typo error.
Steve E -looks like you keep your Kirkey seat. So what was this bet about?

kiwi285 wrote:Unfortunately I haven't cropped the photo so I guess that the the young boy will remain semi anonymous unless you want to reveal all LOL Be sure that your past will catch up with you sometime.

Steve, you looked so innocent back then.

Re the Camaro:
The McConnachie boys did build the Camaro into a Waikaraka car and it went to Porirua Wreckers and raced at Te Marua. The Mustang caused a bit of action when the promoters at Waikaraka recieved a load of bills for it.

John, a lot of it is `Journalistic Licence' as in they write what they want themselves and the readers to believe. Maybe Spinner wanted to try Rods car as a comparison to the other Camaro, who knows. Some of the crap that I read about myself in the Truck Racing at the time:
`Elliott slammed into the back of Robin Porters Kenworth.........it was Rodney Crick in the sister M.A.N.
`Elliott had the big M.A.N. V8 humming around Ruapuna.......it was a 6 cylinder.

I`ve always learnt there is a valid reason why we are given two ears and only one mouth... so you can listen twice as much as you can talk!!!

Not forgetting of course that the ownership of cars as well as drivers reputations is always up for interpretation.
history in motor racing is always-his story.
With a rap sheet like you have been quoting Steve, you will have gaps opening for you and hands waving you through.

fullnoise68 wrote:That`s right Steve, its rego was DE5124, it was a black `67 Camaro, and according to my source, which is not tomato sauce, the car was not owned by Spinner Black, it had 396 badges on the front guards ( as per my photos which I`ll get Bruce302 to post) but was in fact a 350/4 spd, and the car was bought by Rod in the South Island. The car was rear ended a few months after the Glenvale race, Spinner Black started racing a Camaro no. 7 which was a hidden headlight model, and it was this car that Rod took over after not liking the Monaro Spinner had built for him. The damaged Glenvale Camaro sat in the corner of my fathers workshop in Takanini, with Rod gradually taking bits off it, and here is the real twist, the body shell was sold to the McConnachie brothers, which I hope Rod Grimwood may know something about.

Amazing! So would this be what the Glenvale car became? Must have taken a real hard hit up the arse for them to consider it too far gone to repair. These cars were worth pretty big money then. Note that its been converted to rhd.

Here is a really early photo of the Spinner Black/Rod Coppins Camaro in 1968. It ran like this just very briefly before being repainted white/red for Lexington.

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Thats it Steve, Mr Taylor was just about unbeatable in it. He lived north of Wellington, remember stopping and having a refreshment with him on way to Wellington (Te Marua) in 76 with yanks Tony Valente and Tom Corbin and the Monza (Starfire).
The top photo was not long after he got it and it was white with lime green top.

Thanks Rod. I always wondered how this car came to end up on the speedway, its great to finally fill in the blanks. There were several US cars that ended up in NZ speedway, and they really stood out, as it was rare enough seeing a Camaro or Mustang on the road, much less charging around a dirt bullring oval. I know the McConnachie Mustang was a road car that had been rolled, and I think the same was true for several of the others. Do you know why it was converetd to rhd?

So is this the same car or a different one?

Is that the Bakers Camaro that wasn't one? R indicates a Rotorua car.

Oldfart wrote:Is that the Bakers Camaro that wasn't one? R indicates a Rotorua car.

Correct, R is Rotorua, looks a little Holdenish