Saturday, February 19, 2011

Ron Tonkin and the Triden

Wayne Tonkin who lives over in Albury, sent me some photos from his dad, Ron's album. Ron raced the Triden in 1961, 1962.
Mallala 1960
Collingrove 1961
Clubhouse Corner, Mallala 1961
Collingrove Hillclimb 1961
Collingrove 1961
Collingrove again 1961
A bit of history from Wayne, Lee Nicolle and Graham Waller, the current owner - The Triden was built in 1956 by Graham Driscoll using a chassis and running gear from a 1949 Triumph 2000 roadster and combining this with the motor,gearbox and diff from his Holden sedan racing car. I'm pretty sure Graham was the guy who ground cams back then and ran midgets at Rowley Park etc. - see below...

The Triden was raced at Port Wakefield by Driscoll minus body during 1957, 1958. It was then sold to Ron Tonkin  who manufactured a one-off fibreglass body which was fitted in 1959 and raced by him until 1961. It was then sold to Bill Moyle who road registered it and continued to race it until about 1964. The car was brought into historic racing by Bill's son in 1979. These two pictures appear to be from that period....
AIR
Winton
Mike Gosbell was a subsequent owner and it is now in the hands of Graham Waller who totally restored it in 2000. It's gone from SA to WA to NSW and ironically it presently resides just 20 minutes away from Wayne's home. Wayne has been invited over to see the car and today is the day. He's taking his camera of course and I, for one, am awaiting the outcome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw in the unique cars article this month that wayne tonkin mentioned some other car bodies that his father buit, with aston and healey influence , i presume he meant styling wise, i have an unidentified glass body, if i could correspond with wayne i could supply pics and see if he can identify mine, any help here would be appreciated.E Mail, blythpmb@optusnet.com.au