Monday, May 12, 2008

Dinky

Remember Dinky? Dinky started life as one of the rare Mk.4 coupes. There were a few of them, I remember a Peugeot powered one getting around Sydney. Anyway, this one lived in Northcote, Melbourne and in the hands of Peter and Judith Jones attended everything Bolwell that was going in the seventies. Funny looking things the coupes with their gull-wing doors. This is what happens when you make a hardtop out of what was designed as a roadster. Garrie Cooper did the same thing with a one-off coupe version of the Elfin Mallala which became a rather famous racer and I'm sure was at the recent Phillip Island historic meeting. Peter used Dinky in this guise in competition and on the road for a very long time.
From where I don't know, he acquired a Mk.4B body and below is how Dinky turned out to be in the end.
This photo below is that very body sitting on a trailer in a backyard in suburban Adelaide where it was taken to flop a mould before the Dinky rebuild took place. Lots of procrastination eventuated and eventually the body was called back to Melbourne before the moulds were made.
Peter did get to use Dinky in its new form but died at an age too young to be fair quite a few years back now.

5 comments:

PeterG said...

John, just to correct you, there were no Elfin Mallala Coupes, the car you were refering to was the George Spanos Elfin Streamliner GTS one off.
As an aside the last of 5 Mallalas built, after returning from South Africa, was owned (or may still be owned) by Stephen Knox a former Editor of the now defunct 'Racing Car News', he also owned B8/68 the white Sports, this car has the distinction of being registered BN.302 in NSW, WA and Victoria.

John L said...

You're right of course. I never was good on Elfin models.

John L said...

When Stephen Knox had B8/68 he went to the trouble of gathering up the Nagari owners he could find in Sydney and this little group included numbers 66, 68, 77, 78, 113, and 119. Incidentally, the owners of 113 and 119 both claimed to have the last Nagari ever produced. Some other owners have claimed the same thing.

PeterG said...

Thats interesting he found 6 Nagaris and only one of them was a Coupe, whats the probability of that?

John L said...

Maybe you gravitate to where your interest lies.