1959 Ascort

This car was at Collingrove too. It's a real rocketship. It belongs to Barry Lord and it's number 19 of a total build of 19. Are you familiar with Ascorts? They were built in Sydney in 1958 and 1959 by a company called Hermex Corporation who specialised in fibreglass production equipment. They were extremely well built, double skinned throughout with a steel tube frame between the inner and outer panels. The Ascort wasn't a kit car but was marketed as a complete new car. Volkswagen, Porsche and Okrasa, the VW engine component company supplied new components for the construction. The first batch of 12 were produced and sold well due to their high quality and performance. At this point, VW pulled the pin on supplying new chassis because the car had the potential to interfere with the sales of the Karmann-Ghia. Mirek Craney, the man who concieved the Ascort, managed to purchase new VW components from Europe to make a few more cars but it made it a fairly expensive exercise to build complete cars in this way. Craney didn't want to build kit cars and sadly, called off production, returning the deposits to the 57 people still waiting for their cars. Barry is very much a died-in-the-wool Ascort enthusiast, owning two others apart from this one. A new paint job is planned, perhaps after the odd mould is taken.

Below are a couple of shots of another South Australian Ascort, a restored example belonging to another owner.