Found a couple of pictures of the famous Zephyr Special. It is the pale green number 8 lined up on the grid at Port Wakefield alongside Mildren's Cooper and is in the hands of former BCCA member, Keith Rilstone. The year was 1959.
Here is Keith working on it in the pits. This was in the days when BP was C.O.R. and the oil was called Energol and the fuel arrived in drums on the back of a semi.
The Zephyr Special must have had the original backbone chassis. The engine formed part of the structure and the chassis was really a tube, which I guess the tailshaft ran inside, and everything was attached to that tube. They look like FJ Holden wheels and the tyres look a bit like retreads.
Here is Keith working on it in the pits. This was in the days when BP was C.O.R. and the oil was called Energol and the fuel arrived in drums on the back of a semi.
The Zephyr Special must have had the original backbone chassis. The engine formed part of the structure and the chassis was really a tube, which I guess the tailshaft ran inside, and everything was attached to that tube. They look like FJ Holden wheels and the tyres look a bit like retreads.
John Davies wrote:-
ReplyDelete"Is the Zephyr Special on your blog the car that Eldred Norman built? Graeme Snape had a very, very similar car at Speed on Tweed this year. Bill Norman, who lives in Murwillumbah, was also competing and he remarked to me that he remembers helping his Dad building the Snape's car. Graeme entered the car as a 1955 Zephyr Special. His best run was 0:56.5721 for 140th place out of 163 cars. There may be photos on the Speed on Tweed website. http://www.speedontweed.com/ "
Of course the answer is yes, it is the famous Eldred Norman Special and Bill is Eldred's son. His most notorious special was the Double Bunger, powered by two Ford V8s. This large machine had water cooled brakes which produced spectacular clouds of steam as he applied them. Eldred retired from racing in 1956 to concentrate on inventing and Keith Rilstone campaigned the car before going on to race the Rilstone Special.
ReplyDeleteThat is not Keith working on the car .The Collingrove site also says it is at Collingrove which it is not .It is at Port Wakefield.
ReplyDelete