Discovered. Another brand of Australian Special.

Two identical sports car bodies that their present owners had a feeling were Buchanans have now been identified as something else. I'm speaking of Immanuel's car that he picked up in Murray Bridge about 20 years ago and Larry's identical body that he acquired relatively recently. The two cars were built together by and for Cyril Harris (Wayne Harris' dad) of Murray Bridge and Ron Tonkin. The mould for the bodies was derived from various bits of Austin Healey 100/4, JWF Monza and Buchanan. Ron Tonkin had a factory in Edwardstown and one of his main activities was making fibreglass panels for Elfin. In 1956 he built the Triden, a sports car of his own design with Holden power on a Triumph chassis. The mould for these 2 new cars was obviously derived from the Triden mould. You can see the Austin Healey shape in both of them. As you know, my memory of that fibreglass car in Albert Ludgate's garage had that Healey shape too. That makes sense as he lived only a short walk up Edward Street from the Edwardstown race car factories. Tonkin raced the Triden until 1962 when he sold it to make way for this new car which he completed and continued with his racing. Meanwhile the other one was built by Cyril Harris on a Singer 9 chassis and ran a Hillman motor and gearbox. It was painted dark green. I think it was built over quite a period of time starting in about 1961-62. Wayne Harris doesn't recall it being driven much further than up the drive and in 1975 it was sold to Dennis Newell who is part of the "Newell's Tanks" family. It was here that it became a red car and received its grey Holden engine. Immanuel bought it in Murray Bridge in about 1990 but somewhere along the line Peter Elphick or his son had it but not for long. Now to track down the history of the Tonkin car. Ron was reputed to to be part of the Tonkin Radiators family so that might be a good place to start, assuming there are still family members in that company. Larry bought the body from Ron Graham who had found it in Blackwood where it had lived under an apple tree for a very long time.