SUBSCRIBE TO THE
MAGAZINE NOW
Facebook-f Instagram
Search
Close this search box.

Sir Jack Brabham passes away

19 May, 2014

 


The sad news travelled across the ditch that Sir Jack Brabham passed away on May 19, 2014.

Brabham started his racing career in 1948, competing in Australia and New Zealand before travelling to the UK where he became involved with Cooper Cars – winning the world championship for the marque in 1959 and 1960. It was during this period that Brabham mentored Bruce McLaren, also a member of the Cooper racing team. In 1962, Brabham established his own racing equipe with fellow Australian, Ron Tauranac. In 1966, Brabham became the first – and still the only – man to become F1 world champion in a racing car bearing his own name.

Brabham retired from front-line racing following the 1970 F1 season, but continued to be involved in motorsport and, latterly, becoming a much-loved and high profile ambassador for the sport.

In 2014, Brabham was the oldest surviving Grand Prix world champion.

Almost mythical pony

25 July, 2024

The Shelby came to our shores in 2003. It went from the original New Zealand owner to an owner in Auckland. Malcolm just happened to be in the right place with the right amount of money in 2018 and a deal was done. Since then, plenty of people have tried to buy it off him. The odometer reads 92,300 miles. From the condition of the car that seems to be correct and only the first time around.
Malcolm’s car is an automatic. It has the 1966 dashboard, the back seat, the rear quarter windows and the scoops funnelling air to the rear brakes.
He even has the original bill of sale from October 1965 in California.

Becoming fond of Fords part two – happy times with Escorts

17 July, 2024

In part one of this Ford-flavoured trip down memory lane I recalled a sad and instructive episode when I learned my shortcomings as a car tuner, something that tainted my appreciation of Mk2 Ford Escort vans in particular. Prior to that I had a couple of other Ford entanglements of slightly more redeeming merit. There were two Mk1 Escorts I had got my hands on: a 1972 1300 XL belonging to my father and a later, end-of-line, English-assembled 1974 1100, which my partner and I bought from Panmure Motors Ford in Auckland in 1980. Both those cars were the high water mark of my relationship with the Ford Motor Co. I liked the Mk1 Escorts. They were nice, nippy, small cars, particularly the 1300, which handled really well, and had a very precise gearbox for the time.
Images of Jim Richards in the Carney Racing Williment-built Twin Cam Escort and Paul Fahey in the Alan Mann–built Escort FVA often loomed in my imagination when I was driving these Mk1 Escorts — not that I was under any illusion of comparable driving skills, but they had to be having just as much fun as I was steering the basic versions of these projectiles.