George Bonser’s Terraplane Special during the 1938 Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst.
He was tenth in the 3.5-litre straight-six powered machine in the race won convincingly by Peter Whitehead’s ERA B-Type on April 18.
This car was raced pre-War at venues such as Wirlinga, where the duo placed second in the 1938 Interstate GP behind Jack Phillip’s Ford V8 Special, and at Penrith, where Bonser won the All Powers Car Championship of Australia on Anzac Day that same year.
Bonser commenced racing midgets in 1940, served in the RAAF during WW2 then announced his return to Midget racing in 1945 and soon became one of the sports’ stars.
By May 1946 he was regarded as the fastest speedcar driver in Brisbane after winning two races in the third Test between New Zealand and Australian drivers at the Exhibition track. He also raced his Alta Ford on the circuits, at Strathpine in August 1946 for example.
He retired in 1950 then returned in ‘52 and was still competitive in 1953 in an Edelbrock V8 powered car having won the NSW Speedcar Championship at the Speedway Royale Sydney in February. In May the following year, he looked to have won the Australian title in Brisbane until piston failure in his Ford V8 ’60’ intervened.
During the lead-up to the ’54 AGP at Southport, Bonser and Clive Gibson worked with Frank Kleinig on the final, slim, monoposto variant of the Kleinig Hudson Special (DNS electrical short) but what became of George Bonser after this folks?
Bonser’s Terraplane beast survived into the post-war era but gave up its life – its chassis and wheels at least – to form the basis of the (Ron M) Ewing Buick Special, which was famously built by Ewing, an ambulance worker, in the backyard of the Summer Hill, Sydney ambulance station!
Other ingredients of the car included an ‘aircraft-type cooling system’, Lancia gearbox, ‘some parts collected in Malaya where Mr Ewing was a war prisoner, including dashboard instruments from a crashed Japanese plane’, while Bugatti bits comprised the steering wheel, box, and column.
With its Buick 40 straight-eight engine, the ‘League of Nations Special’, as one wag christened it, was considered a strong contender for line honours in the October 1946 New South Wales GP at Mount Panorama, but the car blew its clutch.
He set FTD at the Mona Vale hillclimb in April 1947 and returned to Bathurst for the AGP that October but again failed to finish. By March 1948, Ewing entered the New South Wales Hundred at Bathurst in the Spike Special, where he was again unsuccessful, completing only 13 of the 25 laps won by John Barraclough’s MG NE Magnette.
Ewing sold the car in late 1949 or early 1950 and planned to build another ‘over 200 horsepower’ Buick-powered special with a tubular chassis and independent front suspension. Did he realise that aspiration folks?
Etcetera…
Midget car drivers and owners have done their bit for the fighting forces and when afternoon racing is commenced shortly, there will be a number of familiar faces missing from the ranks of the sport. Johnnny Barraclough, Fred Scully, Snowy Rogers and George Bonser are all in the R.A.A.F, as is the case with Jimmy Painton and Bob Preston. Tommy Trudgeon, veteran driver, and Jack Ferguson are members of the A.I.F. On the other hand, Clem Scott, Bill Reynolds. Ned Kelly and Wally Reid are all engaged in vital war productions.
This article by Les Vowles in The Telegraph, Brisbane, was published on October 11, 1947.
To young and old speedway enthusiasts, George Bonser is a bonser driver. No one took his racing more seriously than Bonser: last season, he had more than his share of misfortune, but this season he has taken up quarters in his garage, so that, in the pursuit of still more power and speed, he will always be on the spot to carry out any improvement to his car that may come to mind.
Its not unusual for a driver-mechanic to stay up all night working on his car in preparation for Saturday night’s racing, and then it’s a decided advantage to have one’s sleeping quarters adjacent to one’s work
No other driver admired the American cars more than Bonser when Niday and Grimm were here earlier this year. Their cars were parked with Bonser’s, and he made a careful study of them. Since then, Bonser has incorporated many parts he obtained from the visitors and also altered the design of parts of his car.
One of these necessitated the abandonment of a starting clutch, which is considered obsolete in America but which is a necessity if a driver is to get away smartly in our clutch start handicaps. However Bonser’s car now is so fast that he partly makes up for the necessity to use a push start.
Bonser came into the car racing game via motorcycles. He and another motorcyclist figured in a remarkable pair of accidents that put one out of the racing game but Bonser kept going and is today ranked in the first flight of Australian drivers.
It was at a motorcycle road racing circuit that Bonser and a rider named James were having a duel for supremacy. Lap after lap they tore around and as the finish approached, the crowd encroached on the course. Dashing down to the line, Bonser’s bike got into a wobble and became uncontrollable. It crashed into the crowd with fatal results for one spectator.
After that race, Bonser decided to take to car racing. It was at Penrith, a wide dirt track, that the remarkable sequel to the original accident occurred.
The motorcyclist with whom Bonser had been racing when the earlier fatal accident occurred, also had graduated to motorcar racing and was a competitor at Penrith in the same race as Bonser.
Many parties picnicked at the all-day meetings at Penrith (Monday June 13, 1938) before the war. At the top of the track was a shallow drain to prevent seepage onto the track, and then came the safety fence. Spectators had strict instructions to remain outside the fence, but on this occasion, a family party, unobserved by the officials, settled at the edge of the drain while a race was on.
Frank Kleinig, (Kleinig Hudson Spl, one of the outstanding pre-war and immediate post-War Australian drivers on any surface), who raced at Strathpine last year, was having a tussle with (Wally) James (MacKellar Ford Spl aka the ex-Bill Thompson Bugatti T37A Ford V8 Spl s/c chassis 37358) and Bonser when James’ car spun, skidded off the track into ‘no man’s land’ and crashed into the family party with fatal results for three persons.
James went out of the racing game but Bonser went on with it, though these days he has been racing the small speedcars.
George now has a plan to race a big car (a road racing car) again, and when I stepped through a collection of vegetables and fruit which George was packing fpr the weekend I saw a partly finished ‘three-quarter’ car. This car had a full-size V8 engine. The chassis was a modified Bugatti. The whole car looked resplendent with chrome plating. This car is to be used at Strathpine, Penrith and Bathurst.
One of Bonser’s narrowest of escapes occurred in an Alpine reliability trial from Sydney to Kosciusko, returning via Canberra. One of his team bet Bonser four bottles of beer that he could not get to Kosciusko first – he started near the end of a field of 22.
In the mountains the windscreen iced up and the road became extrememy slippery with the result that the car left the road at a bend, rolled over several times and came to rest upside down with Bonser and his party trapped in the car.
Petrol, oil and acid leaked on them before they were able to attract help by flashing the lights on and off. No one was injured, and the car sustained only a bent gear lever. And he did not even win his beer, complained George.
Bitzers Keep The Crowd on Tiptoe, by Neville Davidson in The Courier Mail, Brisbane on May 23, 1947.
I found this piece on the state of the Australian speedcar art in 1947 interesting in its economics and summary of car specifications.
Spare bits and pieces of old cars, a lot of ingenuity, top-line mechanical skill, and nerves of steel have put speedcar racing in Brisbane in the top bracket of sporting popularity.
In the last year more than a million people paid £63,000 to see speedcar racing ot the Brisbane Exhibition track.
But the little streamlined cars which provide all the thrills and noise are not mass-produced factory models, but home-made, hand-built jobs with most of the parts rescued from scrap-heaps.
And the men who made them and drive them have shot into the news. Ray Revell, now an Australian champion, got his present car from New Zealand, where its original owner had largely copied the design from an American who had been driving there.
Most engines available in Australia are obsolete and have to be rebuilt. Local driver Ron Strong bought his engine in a junk yard for £5 but has spent nearly £200 on it since. George Bonser blew his original motor last year. He eventually got another of the same type and converted it into a racing engine. He found it on a dairy farm where it was being used to generate electricity.
Not any engine can be used in a speedcar. The weight of the engine and transmission must not be more than 350 lb (really!?). That has to be fitted into a frame of 45 inches maximum width. From tip to tip, the car must not be longer than 110 inches. The wheelbase maximum length is 78in. The maximum wheel diameter is 12in, including the tyre.
Other specifications for budding Henry Fords are: a wall of fireproof material between the cockpit and engine. No fuel lines through the cockpit. No car to race without a bonnet, which must be strapped
down with leather. A safety belt is compulsory. Four-wheel or front drive is banned; the front
wheels would climb like a tractor if they hit another car.
But to the man with the right car there is good money to be picked up. There was £5500 taken at the gates for the World Championship meeting here last month. Of that £2500 went to the drivers and speedway riders. Ray Revell, when he was driving from 160 yards, and winning the handicap and scratch double, frequently made up to ?£ (sorry folks can’t fuggin read the number) on an average night.
But £2 or £3 a night is all the front markers get when they cannot finish near the front of the field. And Frank Arthur, the manager here, says that Brisbane has just had the greatest motor racing track season ever in Australia both in attendance and money takings.
Apart from cricket and football (rugby) tests, Brisbane had never tasted anything of world championship flavour till the car derby. Many people still shrug and do not believe that the race was a world championship. They say the field was two Americans and the rest Australians.
But Perry Grimm and Cal Niday, the Americans, were officially sent by the United Racing Association of America. Grimm was the leading stakewinner in the States last year with $US25,000. There is scarcely any speedcar racing in England. European road racing is done by big cars and comes under a different heading.
Penrith Speedway Tragedy, Monday June 13, 1938…
This report was published in The Referee, Sydney on June 16, 1938
‘The final of the 10-mile All Powers Car Championship had a line-up of five of Australia’s fastest cars and finest drivers. Frank Kleinig (Kleinig Hudson Spl), Fred Foss (Ford V8 Spl), Hope Bartlett (Bugatti Brescia), Wally James (MacKellar Ford V8 Spl s/c, and George Bonser (Terraplane Spl).
They got away to a perfect start, and for practically a lap kept together.
Almost simultaneously, Kleinig and James roared out of the straight doing the fastest time of the day. Practically neck and neck, they hurtled up the track, when, suddenly, to the horror of the thousands packed around the track, James’ car got out of control. It swerved off the track straight at a group of onlookers sitting outside the protection of the safety fence. They had no chance of escaping. The car cannoned into the safety fence and bounced back.
AMBULANCE MEN’S WORK
Those on the other side of the safety fence, moved instinctively back, and then came forward when the car, after hitting the wire strands, stopped four feet from the fence. The fence had done its job, and those behind it were safe. Ambulance men did heroic work.
In the re-run, Frank Kleinig won the event from George Bonser and Hope Barllett. Kleinig gave a polished display to win with an average speed of over 70 miles an hour.
Bruce Rehn (Victoria) was outstanding in the five miles Sidecar Championship of New South Wales, winning from Roy Barker by over yards at 71 m.p.h. It was a remarkable effort on the part of the Victorian, who led from go to whoa.
The Australian under 1500 c.c. event went to R. Curlewis (M.G.), who negotiated the distance at an average speed of over 65 m.p.h. The farther the race went the further he went ahead, and won from J. Crouch and Hope Bartlett by over 300 yards.
On Wednesday, police made special observations of the track and the protection afforded to the public at the speedway. Their report will be tendered as evidence at the inquest.
Police observed that the public usually congregates on the eastern side, which is elevated and is near the judges’ stand. The track is protected from the public enclosure by a post and wire fence, with a cable strand as the top and main supporting wire.
It is easy for anybody who cares to take the risk to climb through the wires, but officials state that at every race meeting, a warning is issued through amplifiers on the ground of the dangers of doing so.
Mr. A. N. Pryor, chairman of directors ot Empire Speedways Pty. Lid., said that he and the managing director Mr Frank Arthur were deeply shocked by the tragedy.
It had always been through the company’s policy to safeguard riders, drivers, and the public to every possible degree, and any suggestion that had been submitted had always received careful consideration.’
Photo and Reference Credits…
Bill Forsyth Collection, Australian Consolidated Press-State Library of New South Wales, John Dallinger, various newspapers via Trove, State Library of Queensland, Rick Marks Collection, Brian Darby Collection, Penrith City Library
Finito…
primotipo... 