"The Datsun Sports 2000 of Allan Hanns was bought from Bob Cox in mid 1970's. It was the ex David Mingay Richard Carter car, it then went to Chris Muelengraaf in SA.
I now own that Datsun Sports 2000 here in Brisbane.
I also was a student at Caulfield Grammar in Melb. when Alan Edwards was the head Librarian mid 1970's and can remember looking in awe at the Bolwell roadster when Alan brought it to school one day for a 'Show and Tell' session.
That's what started me off in the debauchery of motorsport.
I still race the historic Datsun 2000, it wins plenty.
I am looking at something that has a bit more grunt and notice the ex Steve Webb car is for sale. I am also a close family friend of the MacLurkins.
Small World hey."
Allan Hanns had two Datsun 2000 Sports and I presume this was the second one. The other one came from Victoria and was red, white and black. It looked a bit like a St. Kilda Football Club staff car. I see from an entry list of the 2007 MGCCQ Australian Hillclimb Championship that Jason's car has a group '0' log book. I recall it being owned by David Stone about 10 years ago. Would that be right? I presume Bob Cox is the same Bob Cox that now races a group Nc Mustang. Good luck Jason with your pursuit of the ex-Steve Webb Bolwell.
Anyway, remember when Col Anderson used to illustrate the front cover of Racing Car News every month? Well I especially like this one of David Mingay in the red Datsun giving eventual winner Ross Bond a bit of a hurry-up at Amaroo Park in 1971.
John Davies would have some memories of the rather famous MGB in the painting even though on that day it was a DNF. Those Turners were rather formidable little under 2-litre ProdSports cars back then too.
6 comments:
Thanks Jason for taking the time to write this and thanks John for featuring it.
Jason wrote- "Those Turners were rather formidable little under 2-litre ProdSports cars back then too."
Could either of you elaborate on "Those Turners" a little for me?
Turners were built in UK by Jack Turner, who even built Turner engines from time to time. They went from early 50s to 1966 when Jack had a heart attack. 670 were made, about 260 are known to exist including 9 in Australia. The blue Turner in the drawing was raced by Paul Hamilton in Sydney from 1968 to 1971 when he went to open wheelers. It was raced by John French then Wal Donnelly prior to Paul. Bernie Bisseling raced a yellow one in Prod Sports in Victoria prior to campaigning the Lotus 47. I presume it was the same car although I know that there were 2 raced about then because I recall taking a photo of two of them in the pits at Calder in the early 70s. I'll post a copy of the photo tomorrow. Early Turners ran BMC power, followed by a few Coventry Climax examples before going to small Ford engines. The ones I recall in Australia were Ford powered. The French/Donnelly/Hamilton car was chassis number 63/575 and I presume that makes it a 1963 model. It is still alive and well and owned by Ian Barberie and appears at Historic events. I seem to recall it being at Winton in 2002. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks very much, John, for all that interesting info.
This blog has turned up a lot of interesting cars I had never heard of.
John Davies comments on the 'Super B' in the painting.
"Dr. Ian Corness, the driver in the painting, now lives in Thailand and has again remarried.
The car is now owned by a Gold Coast MG club member Ian Rogers. When that Ian got the car it had a B series 1800 engine fitted with the MG A 1600 twin cam head in the spares.
From memory when the twincam head was originally fitted to the Super B the head studs had to be redrilled or something like that. I think the difficulty was in putting a 1600 head on a 2 litre engine. I am a bit vague but it WAS a long time ago!!"
That's interesting. I had a Twin Cam at one stage. The engine had an odd capacity to the other "B" series engines. From memory it was 1588 but I could have that wrong. Some of the Twin Cam engines ran very high compression from the factory. So there might well have been head stud changes.
Wish I still had it. It rode like a lump of concrete!
Dr Ian Corness wrote and published a book up here last year about his new life and funny experiences in Thailand.
Post a Comment