The "Good Old Days" were they?

[Robert Ryan]

There was a Wayne Maniken Turbo Torana running at Liverpool Speedway. I remember Phil Ward's Escort, used to test at the Speedway and according to some regulars there it was getting 14 second times around the paved 1/4mile.
If Bob wants to do something positive and help revive Sports Sedans, than I would back him.

[pete55]

I hope you are going to race it spa. Very quick car for it's time. Does anybody know what happened to the Bill Fanning car. I may be wrong but did Phil Ward buy that car to go with the other one he had. I thought that Phil had two Escorts in Wrigley's/2UW colours.

[Morris 1100]

Originally posted by spa-eau rouge
firstlly ,MORRIS 1100 , get your facts right before you go to print on forum's , i myself was an apprentice @ REPCO BRABHAM ,[1965 /1968] ,and it didn't happen the way you the way you described events of the erea . i have enough info to write a book on the subject. back on forum , i am the owner of the stillwell mk 1 BDA/G MK 1 ford escort [1974 to now] and the car is complete in evey respect, including all the correct CAMS ,log books.

Well, what did happen then?

[deeks6]

Originally posted by pete55
No, two different cars. Harrops had Repco V8, Mahnkens a turbo six.

Definitely not. Wayne had a turbo shop in Moorabbin and ran a turbo 202 in the ex-Harrop car. It was awfully quick - allegedly had 650HP on 30lbs boost and had a whole heap of innovations to stop the engine tearing itself apart.

[Aarrgh8]

Hey, deeks6, the Marina V8 was built and driven by an old friend of mine, Noel Delforce. He had a Wolseley 24/80 (?) Sports Sedan before that. Noel's brother, Russell Delforce, raced an Austin Freeway before that.

Noel and Russell had a motor business in Wyong, back in the seventies. There was a guy with a tyre business next door called Russell Skaife. He had a son called Mark.

That's another story.

BTW, anyone remember the Grace Bros team in Sports Sedans? Bruce Cary's Capri V8? I was a humble gopher for John Leffler and his Mini at the time.

[deeks6]

I thought so - remember seeing it at Oran Park - had a P76 V8 in it.

[Falcadore]

Originally posted by Robert Ryan

1) Why did Formula 5000 lose top billing? Time comes and goes for many categories and staying at the top is a fine act. By the time 1980 came along Motor Racing was sick all over, eventhe ATCC couldn't get over ten cars to one round. When even touring car was bleeding like that what hope did anyone else have?

Along came a rock and things changed. There's a nice Sports Sedan piece in the new MRA by the way.

2) Problem is open wheel racing died. Without a market they had no-one to build for. Formula 5000 died. Formula Atlantic was dominated by the superlative Ralt RT4 design that was never really succesfully imitated. Formula 2 was good for a bit, but it wasn't a national series and the desire for new cars was satisfied by imports. Van Diemen started to dominate the Formula Ford market, and with used VD, Swifts, Reynards and et al being as good as anything locally produced new, econmics worked for the used cars. Formula Holden looked promising for a while but not enough competitors signed on to make it viable for constructors, despite good designs from Elfin and the TAFE Shrike crew. The advent of carbon chassis delivered the coup de grace.

But there is still Spectrum and the Formula Vee builders, so the art is not yet completely lost.

3) The quadcam motor was a tad disappointing, and the Repco filled a gap when the big makers were struck down by collective ineptness. Much like when BMW dominated the early years of Group A in Australia, Brabham had an engine already well tested and developed by years of Tasman racing when nobody else did, and stole a march. Then came the Cosworth DF series design and would have swept even a superb Repco design aside. The Cossie was a revelation almost of the same calibre as rear engine mounting.

4) No comment. Don't know enough

5) NASCAR/AUSCAR filled a space during the Group A years. While touring cars continued to snub V8s vs V8s in favour of encouraging people to race 4 cyl lighweights or turbocars then the Thunderdome had a market. That market was effectively doomed when Glenn Seton wheeled a V8 Falcon touring car onto the grid at the Sandown 500 in 1992. From that point on it was a steady slide for the Dome downwards.

If I had a gripe about what might have beens, then I'd pick Honda deciding not to invest in a well budgeted Super Touring squad, and insufficient international support to the Super Touring Bathursts. Same with overseas teams coming to the Group A Bathursts.

The engineered death of the Group A World Touring Car Championship. The farce of 90's International Sports Car racing.

And more than anything the attitude that if your not with V8Supercar you are the enemy. All that wasted energy on antagonism.

[Falcadore]

Originally posted by pete55
I hope you are going to race it spa. Very quick car for it's time. Does anybody know what happened to the Bill Fanning car. I may be wrong but did Phil Ward buy that car to go with the other one he had. I thought that Phil had two Escorts in Wrigley's/2UW colours.

I did an article on Phil Ward's Escort a couple of years ago. The car went to South Australia and run by the Monterosso brothers who eventually replaced with the fearsome Mk II based RS6000. The Ward car then went to Victoria for a few years but today resides in Queensland where it is still racing and is presently owned by the English clan. The car caught John English' eye several years ago after remembering driving against it in its prime. The car is presntly painted orange and is 13B rotary powered.

[Falcadore]

Didn't Thommo make a comeback with the Merc during the early 90's revival of Sports Sedan national championship?

At the recent Shannons Historic meet at Queensland raceway, a selection of a half dozen historic sports sedans did some demonstration laps, led by the XJS driven by Mark Trenowth and Gary Scott amongst others. Don Hollands Mini was also there along with a RX3, three other Minis and a 250 Falcon engined Anglia that for some reason races wingless as a Sports car up here. Go figure :P

[Falcadore]

FalconEL kept track of the varios Monzas for a while. If he could pop in and inform us, and while he's at it - hows the resto of 'Pesky' the ex-Seton Escort going?

[deeks6]

Originally posted by Falcadore
Didn't Thommo make a comeback with the Merc during the early 90's revival of Sports Sedan national championship?

He made a comeback but it was in a Supra.

[Falcadore]

A Mercedes SSedan appeared somewhere between '91 & 96 or so, ran at one Victorian circuit and may have been a temporary points gathering exercise while a crashed or mechanically broken car was repaired, and thats as far as my memory goes.

[pete55]

Did or did not the Mercedes at one stage run a 253 sleeved Holden motor fitted with twin turbos. I seem to remember it was running as a 217 c.i motor or somewhere near that.

[Steve Holmes]

thunder road. What happened to the Bob Jane Monza? I think Thompson later raced this car? Did it have any race history before Jane had it?

Does Jeff Barnes still have the ex Dawson Monza? He bought it out to NZ during the 90s to compete in an NZ versus Aus Sports Sedan series. Also in the Aus team was Kerry Bailey (Supra), Des Wall (Supra), and Bryan Thompson (Jag XJS V12).

Having the Australian cars come out here has been a traditional part of NZ motorsport. The season just been had a couple of Saabs, a Commodore, and Baileys Nissan Sports Sedans all light up our tracks.

[Robert Ryan]

Steve,
I hope Darren Hoossack and Tony Ricciardello, go over the Tasman, this time to take on a mixture of Trans Am and OSCA's. They dropped out last time.

[Robert Ryan]

Falcadore:
(2) The imported Openwheelers. killed the local openwheel"culture". Acceptably fast cars became too expensive.Prior to this in the 1970's the Renmax's, Elfins etc, provided an affordable alternative.
(3) By the time Repco had sorted the "Cammer", the company found overseas racing was way too expensive. The company needed another backer to keep in the racing engine business. Also the tyranny of distance, was not good (at that time) for a company based in Australia. Different now.
(5) A Lot of the AUSCAR/NASCAR thing was their own fault. Less to do with the rise of the V8 Touring cars. I have never known a series to have such a suicide wish.

[Robert Ryan]

(2)Continued. Formula Ford was very affordable when it started , with field made up of locally built cars. The importation of Reynards etc have killed that. Why did the local racing industry go for cars that were a lot dearer and in many cases , not as competitive as the local product? Beyond me.

[Amonfan]

Just to fill some gaps

Ron Harrops V8 EH did go to Wayne, then later to Stewie Douglas who still has the car with talk of his son possibly returning it to the track for the Vic State Series.

The Cortina's were great cars, the Moore car ended up in Perth, forgotten the guys name, Glen someone i think, the Pat Crea car went to Vince Powell in Tassie, was driven by a few guns in its career (Gardner, Harrop, Bowe, i think Richo too)

The Edmondson Bimmer ended up in Perth too with David Drew behind the wheel. Not sure where it went after that.

The kharman ghia was of course Ken Hastings, before that device he had the indecently quick VW.

The Garry Rogers Monaro was the ex Geoghegan car that went on to Phil Lucas after garry then to Bob Stevens. Later went to Perth and raced by Mike Bignell before going on to the capable hands of Allan McCarthy.....

The Garry Rogers Torana Hatch was initially built for Rex Monahan, no not the 4 door Rex had, this was a brand new hatch for 1980. Not sure Rex ever raced it but ray Cutchie certainly did before Rogers took it over that same year. It later passed on to Robin Doherty and then Mike Ceveri. Not exactly sure but id expect it became a doner car for the Ceveri Sierra.

The Jane Monza which went onto Bryan Thomson became a doner car for the Supra which was raced until recently by Des Wall.....

As for the Merc, well it was first raced in 1981, and John Bowe deffinately drove it, then later Brad Jones, and 20 years later they would be team mates again, if only they knew I still have the Chequared flag when they did a cover story on it with Bowe at the wheel

As for the Marina, maybe there was a few..... There was the Watt car, the Delforce car and also the Gordon Mitchell car which was apparently a ex London to Sydney car..... HELP lol

[mickj]

The Hastings KG went to SA and was fitted with a rotary. I have a B+W photo of it somewhere. When Hastings had it it had those ugly flairs, which if I remember rightly were formed around a Tea Chest box.
Another car was Dick Wards Fiat Abarth-Rotary from WA.
I think Amonfan is right Id say there where 3 Marinas.
I also have the Chequered Flag with the Benz on front, and the 1 that featured the build of Jim McKeowns mid engined Porsche 911.
I dont think the historic movement would brace the Sport Sedans.
There is an Elfin 400 sports car that has had 1 run at PI historics approx 2 years ago, and cannot run again as it is not fitted with an origional Traco Olds, it had a Chevy fitted. Its not in its origional form.
How could Thommo rebuild the VW, as its running gear was F5000. I dont think the powers to be would let him build a replica, the same would apply to a lot of other SS.
It would be good to have some old sports sedans out.
Steve that Topolino look wild, thanks for posting a pic of it.

[Group'C']

It would be good to see a few of these old cars getting a run some were!
The old Scotties Tissue Box (Pat Crea Cortina)is owned by Ray Mead in Hobart, Hasn't been raced in years.

[deeks6]

Thommo does'nt have any of the VW left or the Merc for that matter. I think the Merc is actually running around in Vic Sports Sedan.

Here's the mystery solved about the Marinas - found this site with photos. It's fantastic, you should all take a look. Hope I'm not breaching copyright - there was'nt a specific notice and I've acknowledged the site.

http://www.members.tripod.com/motorsportarchive1/

As you can see, the Marinas are definitely different cars.

Also attached a pic of the Karman Ghia, definitley not ugly flares, mick (at least not at this time).

[deeks6]

The Delforce Marina

[deeks6]

And the Karman Ghia

[Group'C']

I'll finish that post now
Peter Mather in Hobart found his old FJ racer lying around and restored it to immaculate condition complete with Repco Cross flow head.

The Edmonson Alfetta is owned by Chris Clearihan and I believe it was being restored.

It was 1985 when the Title was called Australian Sports/GT Championship, Bryan Thomson used the Merc and the Monza (ex Bob Jane)to take the GT side of the title, Brad Jones all so drove the cars at some events.

Mentioned before was Goss in a Jag, cant remember that but what about John McCormacks Jag!

The Ling/Gowns Celica, last raced by the Lusty Bros

The Rotex Monza raced by Jim Richards

[Steve Holmes]

deeks6, that site is owned by Chris Meadon. Chris has an enormous amount of knowledge on just about every car ever raced in NZ and Aus. I'm suprised he hasn't appeared on this thread yet. And his site was set up for contributors to show their old racing photos, so if any of you have some dusty old shots sitting around doing nothing, get in touch with Chris.

The Thompson Merc is now in NZ. Was imported very recently to the North Island. Can't remember the guy who has it. Pretty sure it runs small block Chevy.