The Roaring Season

Ron Silvester,Big guy, Big heart and a 'big' Chev coupe!!!!

That about cover's it!!!!!but there is so much to tell,I believe Ron was responsible for creating that Famous 'Australian' saying..."No Worries"!!!!!!, epitomises Ron's handle on life,"If you can think it, you can make it happen", he once told me,I'm proud to say Ron treated me like a friend,he was a 'Mentor' in so many ways ,not only to me,but to many people he saw the 'Light' in....If you said your going to do it to Ron then you had better get it done,because the next time you meet he would say, "Hey!! how did you go with that such and such"????.....it payed to have an answer, a positive,even if you had aquired a 'negative' result,he still wanted to know how you went..... the Man!!...RIP

The Coupe.........! regards thunder427/MJ

George was one of the first people to put a Chev V8 engine into one of the pre-war coupes and he was a pretty competitive driver in those times

Thats a cool photo Bob. YeeHaa

1962 GP meeting
I think that's George's second Corvette (Bob will correct me if I'm wrong
His first is immediately behind, driven by John Riley, with Red Dawson's Ford-Corvette alongside, then Tim Beetham and Joe Hayes in Mk2 Zephyrs with Alistair McLeod's Jag 3.4. I think it's Frank Stephen in the red Corvette with Carter's Studebaker Hawk alongside. Then Nigel Giblin (Alvis), Ted Thompson (flathead Ford) and Jock Mackintosh (Jag 2.4)
Eventual winner Bryan Innes (Zephyr) must be out of shot to the right and the only other starter not in the picture is Dennis Simmons in the Spinner Car Sales Mk1 Zephyr (with Mk2 engine)

[quote="David McKinney"]1962 GP meeting
I think that's George's second Corvette (Bob will correct me if I'm wrong

Yes I believe that is correct David that is the second car ,the first one would be the car Riley is driving in that photo,that was the meeting George told me he had problems in Practice which ended up with him having to work on the car really late the night before and apparently in the rush they forgot to change the rear wheels and tyres over before the race and he was plagued by bad oversteer all the race and a couple of spins which put paid to him doing better in that race

Did Rod Coppins buy the George Dixon Chev coupe, and inherit the number 141 ?

That was what he kept constant with all his cars didn't he ?
And on a side note, I see all the cars had 3 digit race numbers, not specifically in the above pics but the other thread from early Puke.

Bruce.

On your second point, I think this was one of the meetings where the whole entry was divided up into chunks, though there were some variations. Numbers in the Over 1600 saloon race ranged between 137 and 157

In think the No.141 is just a coincidence, though it was on the Chev coupé Coppins raced in 1964. Whether or not the car was ex-Dixon I don't recall (but - again - Bob will ) but the engine was, I believe, the ex-Camoradi one from the Tec-Mec, later to be seen in the Zephyr-Corvette

I think Rod McElrea also ran a Chevy coupe right through until the late '60s or early '70s? Anyone have more info on this car?

Pretty sure it was a six, as were others raced in the SI by Allan Milligan, Peter Gillum and (before the Corvette) Ron Silvester

George Dixon and Rod Coppins also raced sixes in the NI, and so did Jack Nazer

One of Terry Marshalls photos here of Sylvester obviously, but whos is the coupe in the background?

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Steve,
I won't clutter up this thread with a lot of quote replys .Some time soon I will write you a story on what I know of the Auckland Coupe scene early sixties ,I was pretty close to a lot of the guys back then,not sure if I can add a lot of new photos but I will look around ,some of the guys are still around

A couple of shot taken at Ruapuna several years ago

Doug Algie from Oamaru raced a 39 Chev Coupe for a few years. Two tone blue with the back of the boot cutaway.

Red Dawsons Willys coupe was bought by Lin Neilson from Dunedin, motor was taken out and put into a Mk3 Zephyr and raced for a season, then Lin bought a mini. 66 NZ Motorsport page 38 has a photo.

I never knew that
(But am not allowed to post the fact because it's too short...)

I dug this out of my files, taken when I was a schoolkid with a plastic Brownie camera (by way of explanation of the quality).

I don't remember where this was but could have been a car show at Epsom Showgrounds. It says Kevin Green is the driver. Does anyone know more about this car?

I did a photo shoot of the car for NZ Hot Rod, and it was on the cover of NZHR January 1969, there was a feature story in another issue. I can recall it racing at Pukekohe on the club track, but not much more.

So is this your handiwork then Gavin?

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pallmall wrote:I did a photo shoot of the car for NZ Hot Rod, and it was on the cover of NZHR January 1969, there was a feature story in another issue. I can recall it racing at Pukekohe on the club track, but not much more.

Kevin raced that car quite a bit around that time at Pukekohe ,I think from memory he also raced it at Paritutu,by that time the Coupes were really no longer competitive,

Steve Holmes wrote:So is this your handiwork then Gavin?

Yes,taken up at Bastion Point. I think that issue had lots of my stuff in. Some rebuild photos of the Eisert at Performance Developments, took lots of photos of that over about 6 weeks, not much ended up being published, a Hot Rod show, and some speedway stuff. Fun times.
Although the cover says January 1969, that was actually the issue for January 1970!