primotipo…

Yes, yes I’m not a Kiwi but I like them, they are Our Bro’s across The Ditch after all. I know S.F.A. about their rich racing history, my interest goes way beyond our shared ‘Tasman Internationals’ history too.

There are a load of photographs doing the rounds on NZ’s racing social media sites, so it seems smart to capture and share some of them rather than lose them in the bowels of Facebook. The potential for cockups is great as I don’t have the same depth of knowledge – such as it is – as I do of Australian material, but just drop me a note on mark@bisset.com.au and I’ll fix up any boo-boos.

There is no order to all of this, so apologies to all you OCD-ADHD-On The Spectrum mob.

The more you look, the more you see of the shot above: from the left it’s Bill Hannah, Angus Hyslop’s mechanic with the big hat seated under the umbrella, to his left standing up with the peaked cap is Owen Steel, in the middle Jackie Stewart is talking to Kerry Grant, with Spencer Martin a little further to the right.

This series of photographs were taken during the 1965 Tasman Cup, featuring Bruce’s new Cooper T79 Climax. The shot above shows Wally Willmott on the left and Pop McLaren in the Trilby during the Lady Wigram Trophy weekend where Jim and Bruce finished 1-2.

More here: https://primotipo.com/2021/10/15/lady-wigram-trophy-1965/

While Bruce won the Tasman in 1964 with his Cooper T70 Climax, the 1965 victor was Jim Clark, here in discussion with his mechanic, Ray Parsons, with their Lotus 32B Climax. Jimmy took four wins: Levin, Teretonga, Warwick Farm and Lakeside, and Bruce one win at Longford – the Australian Grand Prix – to finish the series second.

The merriment is perhaps around getting Bruce’s new Firestones – he had just signed with them – to work with suspension geometry designed for Dunlops. It any of you Kiwis can explain exactly what changes were made I’d love to hear from you…

Ray Parsons and Jim Clark with the Lotus 32B. Ray Parsons’ story see: https://primotipo.com/2022/02/20/ray-parsons-australian-lotus-mechanic-racer-and-development-driver/

Wally Willmott, Bruce Harre, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark, Tyler Alexander and Colin Beanland gathered around the Cooper T79, probably Wigram, 1965.

Why isn’t Jimmy ready to boogie? David Oxton remembers that “Graham Hill, Clark, Frank Gardner and Bruce flew direct from the South African GP in time for an unofficial testing session on the Wednesday. For some reason Jim didn’t take part in that, so that could be an explanation.” An alternative is offered by Milan Fistonic, “If it’s Wigram McLaren and Clark ran in different heats, so McLaren could be getting ready to go out in heat 1 while Clark still had time to suit up for heat 2.” Aren’t first-hand recollections gold, even 60 years later!

Peter Whitehead’s Ferrari 125 in the Wigram paddock, 1955. He won the race from Tony Gaze’s HWM Alta and Ken Wharton’s BRM P15 V16. This car was sold at the end of the summer, to Australian, Dick Cobden. More about Whitehead and the Ferrari here: https://primotipo.com/2023/12/13/peter-whitehead-ferrari-new-zealand/

Denny and his McLaren M23 Ford loading up for some demo laps at Pukekohe. What year folks? More about the McLaren M23 here: https://primotipo.com/2014/07/24/macs-mclaren-peter-revson-dave-charlton-and-john-mccormacks-mclaren-m232/

Malcolm Ramsay’s HQ Holden Kingswood Repco-Holden F5000 engined Australian ‘Improved Production’ car.

I’ll be faarked how it complied with those regs with THAT engine, THOSE strengthening members and fabricated wishbones DEVOID of fixed bodywork and all. Holy Moses. But maybe it was all in evening up the show for the local poverty-pack against the well-homologated Mustang, Camaro et al. Do tell taxi-experts. Hmm, lets think…In the back of my brain this car was pranged twice at Adelaide International, the second hit was fatal. Perhaps after the first one it morphed into a Sports Sedan, in which case the modifications make perfect sense. One for you Taxi Experts.

It was a mega-car too, I’ll never forgot the sight of Mal Ramsay wrestling the thing around Shell Corner at Sandown (as below) bellowing its F5000 roar during the very first car race meeting I ever attended, the 1972 AGP meeting. With a little more development from the Birrana Cars boys it could really have been a good thing, what a crowd-pleaser it was all the same.

Chris Amon, Ferrari 246T on the cover of May 1968 Motor Manual. Ya gotta hand it to them, their coverage of the January-February Tasman Cup must have been considered, coz it sure wasn’t timely.

Amon won two of the seven rounds in the little Dino, he was bested by Jim Clark’s works-Lotus 49 Ford DFW. Chris went one better in 1969, taking four wins and the championship in 246T/69 #008. Ferrari then sold that car to Graeme Lawrence who repeated the achievement against a field of F5000/Tasman 2.5/2-litre cars in 1970. Lawrence won at Levin only, but his speed and consistency throughout was enough to beat the quickest F5000, Frank Matich’s McLaren M10A/B Chev which took two wins and placed second overall. More on the Dino 246T here: https://primotipo.com/2018/05/01/wings-n-dino-things/

1956 NZ GP grid, a 100 lap, 186 miles race of the Ardmore Airfield circuit won by Stirling Moss’ #7 Maserati 250F from the 3-litre Ferrari 500/625s of Tony Gaze #4 and Peter Whitehead on the front row.

#19 is Ron Roycroft’s Bugatti T35A Jaguar 3.4 (sixth), #6 is Peter Whitehead’s Cooper T38 Jaguar that was raced to sixth place when Reg’s works-Aston Martin DP155 lunched an engine in practice, while #22 is Tom Clark’s Maserati 8CM 3-litre (eighth). #39 is either David McKay or Tom Sulman’s Aston Martin DB3S and #10, Norman Hamilton’s Porsche 550 Spyder awaiting pilot Frank Kleinig (ninth).

Roberto Moreno, Ralt RT4 BDA on pole before the start of the 1982 New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe, January 9, 1982.

Steve Millen #7 and David Oxton in #18, RT4s as well. Moreno won the first heat from Millen, Millen won the second from Moreno while Roberto won overall.

Jim Clark, Lotus 49 Ford DFW 2.5 at Teretonga in 1968, Bruce McLaren won the Teretonga International from Jimthat January 27th in a works-BRM P126 2.5 V12.

Bruce didn’t run a car that summer, the deal came about as a result of McLaren’s use of customer BRM V12s during the 1967 Grand Prix season. It would be interesting to know (a) What Bruce thought of the 3-litre V12 (b) What Bruce thought of Len Terry’s P126 chassis and (c) What Bruce thought of the 2.5-litre variant of the V12. If anybody has a contemporary magazine article that covers any of that lot, I’d love to hear from you!

Aussie Terry Allan, Chev Camaro SS at Baypark during Easter in 1970.

Allan was the first bloke to race a Camaro in Australia, at Calder in May 1967. Fitted when delivered with a 327 cid V8, the machine was fitted with a worked 396 before it left the states for Oz. What became of it folks?

The Repco Research Maybach 1 success in the 1954 New Zealand GP at Ardmore is a real triumph over adversity effort told in this piece here;

When the car threw a rod and punched a hole in the block, “Charlie Dean phoned Australia for parts, but they couldn’t be landed in Auckland in time. Nothing daunted, the crew started scouring the city for makeshifts. They got a GMC conrod from Ray Vincent, a machine shop made up a new cylinder-liner – B Johnsons as above – while patches were fabricated for the crankcase,” related Naomi Tait.

Peter Donaldson related that his father, “Dawson Donaldson was dressed to go to the GP ball on Friday night but left mum standing at the front door in her ball-gown to head to Johnsons to work all night making parts including a new conrod.” In a tragic sidebar, “Dad was killed during an event in the Ostrich Farm Road hillclimb in December 1958 racing the Austin 7 Ulster that had been Bruce McLaren’s first car.”

“All Friday afternoon and night the crew toiled in Shorter’s garage while Jones slept in preparation for the race he might not run. At 10.40 in the morning the miracle happened. The motor was turned over, coughed and sprang into life. It was test run for a few minutes, hurriedly taken out to Ardmore, and the finishing tuning done on the course. And this was the car that won the race.”

More here: https://primotipo.com/2024/01/08/stan-jones-won-the-1954-nz-gp-70-years-ago-today/

Lex Davison’s ex-Moss/Gaze HWM, by then fitted with a Jaguar 3.4-litre XK engine with C-Type head, below, in the Ardmore paddock.

It wasn’t the quickest or most reliable of Davo’s cars, but it did deliver his first Australian Grand Prix at Southport Queensland a few months hence. Jones gift-wrapped the win after the chassis of his nearly-new Maybach 2 broke during the race giving Stanley the wildest of Gold Coast rides but luckily not killing, or badly injuring him. See more here: https://primotipo.com/2018/03/01/1954-australian-grand-prix-southport-qld/

Start of the 1963 Mount Maunganui sportscar race Frank Matich, Lotus 19 Climax. John Riley, Lola Mk1 Climax and Garry Bremer, Jaguar D-Type on the front row.

I did an article about this meeting some years back, see here: https://primotipo.com/2017/09/08/bay-of-plenty-road-race-and-the-frank-matich-lotus-19s/

(unattributed)

Chris Amon and David Oxton did swapsies with this March 701-3 Ford DFW 2.5 – Mario Andretti’s STP 1970 F1 car – and the Lotus 70 Ford 5-litre F5000 machine shown below at Levin during the 1971 Tasman Cup. STP’s Vince Granatelli is steering the car.

Steel Brothers, the Christchurch based NZ Lotus agents organised a deal for David Oxton to race the car – chassis #70-02 was the car raced by Dave Walker in the November 1971 Australian Grand Prix at Warwick Farm – but Chris wasn’t happy with the March, he was third in it at Levin, so STP bought Oxton’s Lotus.

In that he was Q9/ninth at Pukekohe, Q6/fifth at Wigram, missed Teretonga, then Q4/second at Warwick Farm and Q12/fourth at Sandown. Chris then flew to France to meet his new commitments with Matra, and John Cannon raced the Lotus in the final round Tasman round at Surfers paradise to Q6/seventh.

David Oxton’s races with the Lotus 70 yielded Q11/DNF half shaft at Puke, and Q10/seventh at Teretonga, maybe David could let us know the respective merits of both cars!?

Credits…

Bob Homewood, Gerard Richards, David Bull, Sean Taylor, Russ Cunningham, Jack Inwood, Naomi Tait Collection, Ross Cammick, Alan Boyle, Brian Ferrabee Collection

Tailpiece…

Jochen being bolted into his Lotus 49B Ford at Levin, January 11, 1969.

He boofed chassis R9 in the race – won by Chris Amon’s works-Ferrari 246T – so Colin Chapman flew another car, chassis R10 out the following week, and in which the staggeringly-quick Austrian took his first Team Lotus victory, in the Lady Wigram Trophy on January 18, 1969. See more here: https://primotipo.com/2018/01/19/rindt-tasman-random/

Finito…