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Bevan Kaine, Morris Minor with John Charlton in another 1000 alongside him, Longford 1965…

This photo gave me a chuckle, for every Ace who raced at Longford there were dozens of club racers enjoying their motorsport on this supreme challenge of a circuit, lucky buggers.

In fact just about everybody in Tasmania with a competition licence (sic) entered this race, which Ellis French has identified as the 1 March 1965 Sports and Touring Car Handicap, held on the Monday-main -race-day during which Bruce McLaren won the Australian Grand Prix in his Bruce McLaren Racing Cooper T79 Climax. Click here for that lot; https://primotipo.com/2019/09/27/longford-1965/

Peter Turnbull recalled Bevan, and the challenges of setting off in handicaps first, “Bevan had a radio in his car and radio station 7LA used to broadcast the races. In the handicaps Kainey was usually the first away with Bob Jane off scratch. By listening to the radio he always knew where he was in the field and where Janey was,” and therefore the point at which he needed to be on hyper-alert!

I’ve a soft spot for Minors, Morrises in general actually.

My Dad’s first car, the family car, was a two door, jet-black Morris Minor 1000. I remember balling my eyes out when it went down the 27 Almond Street driveway for the last time, it’s replacement, a brand new white Morris 1100 appeared that evening.

In some ways the 1100 was a more memorable car. It became Mum’s runabout when Dad got his first company car, Pete hit the bigtime in 1967! I’m saying it flippantly but two car families were not the norm in the middle-burbs like North Balwyn then. I learned to drive in it, did my first circuit laps at Sandown during a Peter Wherrett Advanced Driving course in it, and had my first decent slap and tickle in the back, so it will always be a bit special, but the black Morrie, wow, happy childhood memories.

Dad managed to get five of us with voluminous holiday luggage, three Zippy boards (remember them?) and all the shite that kids need down the beach into the shapely little car or on the packrack atop the roof, then off to Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula we would go. Usually luck ensured the trip was on a hot Melbourne summers 100 degree day with only Mexican air-conditioning – an open window – to prevent us all becoming potato crisps.

The downhill drop from Riversdale Road and flat terrain past Toorak Road along Warrigal Road suited Morrie wonderfully through Springvale, then flat-as-a-pancake Nepean Highway from Mentone to Seaford, but steep Olivers Hill at Frankston was third gear with a decent run up or valve bounce in second otherwise, the little beastie being blown-off by six-cylinder FB Holdens and the like!

Still those little A-Series motors are tough little buggers aren’t they, just ask Bevan Kaine…

Bevan was clearly a keen competitor, here he is in front of a group lining up at Penguin during the Tasmanian Hillclimb Championship in 1964, I wonder if this little Morrie still exists?

The varied group of cars includes a Morris Cooper, three Cortinas, let’s assume GTs, a couple of Humpy Holdens, a light green FE, another Humpy and an MGA.

Etcetera: A Very Special Morris…

As soon as I popped this article up Tony Johns saw it and said “You must get in touch with Chester McKaige, he has a Coventry Climax engined Minor built by Lyndon Duckett”, so here it is, in Chester’s own words, a fascinating story too.

On the 17th September 1957, Miss Phyllis Davis of North Caulfield, Victoria bought a brand new green two-door Morris Minor saloon registered GSR 580, engine number F5/H/31449 – chassis number 467583/01001. She kept the car for two years before selling it to Lyndon Duckett.

Duckett was born in 1916, his parents for many years ran a hardware store on land now occupied by Myers department store in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne. Lyndon, not interested in the family business, established a garage and workshop, “Duckett Engineering” in the premises of what were originally stables for Cobb and Co. Coaches in Sutherland Place off Little Lonsdale Street.

He was a very gifted engineer, and during the early 1940s restored a 1908 Mercedes that allegedly was built to dominate the Semmering Hillclimb in Germany that year. He also campaigned a black Type 35 Bugatti fitted with a R1 Anzani engine and a 1908 Isotta Fraschini. He owned a number of other cars including the Morris Minor he bought in 1960, a couple of Alfa Romeo 1750s, Aston Martin DB4, Isuzu Bellet and Lancia Fulvia to name a few.

He must have had an idea brewing away because in late 1959 he wrote a letter to Lotus Engineering asking if there was an adaptor ring available for mating a TA M.G. gearbox to an F.W.A Coventry Climax engine. The reply back was that adaptor rings for M.G. TCs were widely available for £9.10s and what’s more, ex stock.

At about the same time, his good friend John (Jumbo) Goddard was in England and was commissioned to visit Coventry Climax to purchase an F.W.A. engine and then the M.G. factory where he purchased a new TC gearbox and adaptor ring from Lotus Engineering. The three items were boxed and sent to Australia arriving in Melbourne in mid 1961.

The original Morris engine was removed and the F.W.A. 1100c.c stage-3 tune engine was fitted and mated to the TC gearbox. The brakes were upgraded to Morris Major specs but the rear axle ratio was left alone. Because of the state of tune of the engine (14:1 compression ratio) the car was adjusted to run on methanol through two S.U. carburetors.

It is surprising how easily the motor fitted into the engine bay. The coil and the entire auxiliary under bonnet equipment was retained except for the battery which was repositioned in the boot. The front and rear bumpers were removed and substituted for plain chrome ones. At some stage the bonnet was substituted with one from a Morris commercial van or utility, wheels remained standard.

The interior also received some subtle changes, the most obvious being the dashboard. The lid of the glovebox in front of the driver became the instrument housing for Smith’s instruments; oil pressure, amps, gearbox temperature, tachometer and water temperature.

The original Bakelite steering wheel was replaced by a Les Leston timber rimmed wheel of the day. Two horns were fitted, a standard one and a ex-Police type siren which was fitted under the dash, the noise emitting from two Lucas horns mounted on the front bumper bar mounts, the sound was most impressive!

Other small changes included replacing the headlights and the use of safety pins to re-join the Axminster carpet over the transmission tunnel which had been modified to take the M.G. gearbox.

The car was duly finished in 1962 and GSR 580 went over the weighbridge with a tare weight of 16 cwt. Testing of the car was done on Friday afternoons and the writer recalls a conversation with a friend of Lyndon’s that the noise was “something to behold”. The test track was along Dynon Street and what was then New Footscray Road and back to Little Lonsdale Street. Whilst the engine and transmission had the desired effect, the car had endless problems with overheating, so much so that the grille was extended to fit a larger aluminium radiator.

Lyndon used the car at a number of events including the Geelong Speed Trials in 1963 recording 19.10 seconds for the ¼ mile. This was a bit unfair for the car because the Class catered for cars up to 1,600cc and included a Porsche and his friend John “Jumbo” Goddard in a supercharged Morris 850. He also competed in a couple of drag races at Sandown but there are no recorded times for these events.

The addition of the bigger radiator helped somewhat to control the boiling aspect but the problem was not completely solved and the car was relegated to the back of the garage whilst the business grew in leaps and bounds. Both the Mercedes and the Bugatti were sold but he kept the Morris and the Isotta plus a number of other cars which were stored out of sight and out of mind at the rear of the Little Lonsdale Street garage and at his home in Toorak.

I came onto the scene in 1957 and Lyndon became my Godfather as he and my late father had become great friends living a stone’s throw from each other, both sharing the passion for old cars the ten years age difference not a problem in the slightest. As a child, I used to play in the Morris much to Lyndon’s consternation. It was always covered and had a place at the back of the garage.

Fast forward to 1978, I, and a couple of other chaps formed the Morris Minor Car Club of Victoria and my interest in the Morris revived itself once more. I knew Lyndon had no intentions of parting with it although he did help me fit and tune a couple of twin carburetors to a Morris Minor 1000 I had at the time.

Lyndon died in 2003 and at that stage I had a small business distributing Penrite Oil. Over a period of a week, I had numerous phone calls asking what oils should be used in low mileage cars that had been dry stored and would one day be returned to the road. Eventually it dawned on me that the cars mentioned were once the property of Lyndon Duckett.

Knowing who was looking after the estate, I found out that there had been numerous offers for the Climax engine but not for the car and that it was still available. Any thought of separation of car and engine had never entered my head. I immediately got hold of my good friend Thorpe Remfrey and we went halves in the agreed price, and on the 18th August 2003, the Morris was pushed out into the open for the first time in years and trucked to it’s new home in Moorabbin.

A couple of weeks later, we got the car running but at 14:1 compression ratio we decided to detune it to around 10:1 running on 98 octane fuel. The old problem of boiling reappeared but the fitting of a thermatic fan solved it straight away. A couple of other items on the To Do list included a new set of tyres and a complete change of fluids, she then made her first public appearance at the Geelong Speed Trials in November 2003, forty years since her last outing there. We found out later that Lyndon had purchased a ZF gearbox for the car but hadn’t got around to installing it, that would have been the icing on the cake!

So, what is like to drive? In a nutshell, fast. Ok it’s in a different league to more modern engines that are put into Minors these days but compared to contemporary cars of its day it keeps up with most of them. The engine revs freely, which hampers any fast gear changes, as the gearbox is rather slow to engage gear without crunching, the ZF gearbox would have made all the difference.

The mileage when we bought it was 10,00 miles and since 2003 we have done a further 3,000 miles. The body is still very tight with no rattles and still carries the original transfer on the back window “Yes this is a Morris Minor 1000” still in mint condition. The brakes being up-graded Morris Major stop the car very well and the distinct sound of the telemetric Smiths tachometer is very soothing. Of course no heater and radio are fitted. I have since replaced the carpet and the braided door surrounds but the rest of the interior is standard.

I use the car quite regularly here in Tasmania, the roads being so good for old car motoring and have attended numerous old car events both here and on the mainland the car attracting interest wherever parked. It is quite surprising the number of people who say, “I used to have one of them”, my reply being “Bet you never had one like this?” Chester finishes his marvellous article.

Credits…

Historic Racing Car Club of Tasmania – Bevan Kaine, Ellis French Collection, Peter Turnbull, Vic Wright, A Morris

Special thanks to Chester McKaige for the article about his Lyndon Duckett built Morris Minor Climax

Tailpiece…

‘Goin our way?’

Barry Lloyd and Doug Stewart before the Bathurst 1000 Mile Car Trial on 20 September 1955, I wonder how they went, both teams that is?

Finito…