Anyway, here's a collection of previous Bollyblog posts about the car that tells all.
MILANO HOLDEN GT179
The first car to be raced by Dick Willis, a young motor mechanic of Coffs Harbour, was an FX Holden, which was well modified in line with early 1960's standards, and was raced at Lakeside and Lowood as well as local hillclimbs and sprints. However, the old Holden's body was rather rusty, and scrutineers were making unkind comments, so Dick became attracted, through adverts in the motor sports magazines of the time, to the Milano GT body and chassis kits with which he could use the modified mechanicals from his tired racer.
He made the trip to Brookvale in Sydney to inspect the JWF factory and meet Ian Johnson and subsequently ordered a kit which duly arrived in Coffs Harbour by train in December, 1963. While waiting for the body to arrive, a dramatic new car had arrived on the Australian motoring scene, the Holden EH, with the exciting new 179 engine. A new engine could be bought through the local Holden dealer for 125 quid so this was ordered.
With the assistance of his employer, Don McInnes of Precision Rebores, Dick spent most of his spare time and weekends over the next six months working on the project, using as many of the parts as possible from the old FX, a Singer 4 speed gearbox and modifying the 179 engine with 3 one and threequarter inch SU carbs and all the other tweeks they could think of as tuning information on the 179 was non existant in those days. In fact, when JWF wanted to fit 179 engines to their own race cars it was Dick to whom they turned for information, as his car had by far been the first Milano to be so fitted, 18 months before their own cars.
Finally in June, 1964 the Milano was running and registered (DKA 726). It weighed just over 600kg. Painted Hawthorn Green it looked magnificent, just like a miniature E Type Jag, drawing crowds everywhere it went.
First competitive event was a quarter mile sprint at Inverell where it took FTD, a promising start. However the Singer gearbox was hopeless and was soon replaced by a BMC B Series box fitted with close ratio gears, available over the counter from your friendly BMC Dealer, which was a great improvement and has stayed with the car ever since.
During the remainder of 1964 and 1965 the Milano competed in every possible sprint or hillclimb in the northern NSW area, usually setting FTD and creating a new outright record at the then new nearby Grafton hillclimb.
Early in 1966 Dick decided to move to Sydney to contest the NSW Hillclimb Championship, in which he finished second in the sports car section to Ron Thorpe's legendary AC Cobra, setting many class records and an under 40 at Silverdale, and finally beating the Cobra in the penultimate round at Newcastle's King Edward Park.
Highlight of the year was winning the NSW Sprint Championships at Castlereagh, then a very prestigious event, against stiff competition with a time of 13.535 secs. At a previous Castlereagh drag meeting the Milano had narrowly defeated the Lister Corvette, later to become well known as VPP9.
During the 1966 season Dick's Milano was never beaten by another Milano, a continual source of frustration for the JWF facoty cars. At the conclusion of the year the Milano was offered for sale and was bought by Bevan Hill of McLaren Vale SA, for $1700. Bevan proceeded to terrorise everyone on the roads of SA, and raced the car at Mallala on several occasions, eventually managing to wrap the Milano around the only tree anywhere near the circuit when a rear trailing link broke, fortunately escaping without serious injury, a sad end to a great car.
The remaining bits were dispersed to various "friends" etc. however the Milano wasn't completely dead yet, as Dick Willis, on eventually hearing of the car's fate retrieved some of the parts and managed to be able to assemble enough components to be able to commence a restoration. By 1983, with the project reasonably well advanced Dick became distracted with Coopers and work halted, until in 1994 he offered it for sale.
The buyer was Ken Mitchell of Melbourne, who, with the assistance of Paul Trevethan, spent the next four years completing the project, his first race meeting was at Winton in 1998. Since then the Milano has been regularly raced at most Eastern States Historic Race Meetings and was featured on the cover of the 2000 Winton Historics programme, a welcome return for a great car!
The Dick Willis Milano GT saw the light of day around the same time as the Sam, Bruce, Moss examples and was pretty quick. Here it is getting out of shape at Silverdale in the 60s.
The car later passed on to Bevan Hill in SA and was eventually written off at Mallala. Dick picked up the bits, finding enough to add to a new body to turn it back into a car again. Eventually it was sold to Ken Mitchell who competed in historic events and in recent times it was acquired by Clark Watson and Matthew Liersch in Albury Wodonga (see Vintage Fibre Restorations in Links). Recently I saw an ad in UK for the car for 48,000 pounds. What prompted me to think about all this? A note from Clark, below about Kenny.
The last chequered flag for Kenny!
Some sad news today folks,
Ken Mitchell who campaigned the Milano for many years after restoring the car to it's past glory has sadly passed away while enjoying the Belgian Grand Prix late last Sunday Night 29/8/10 . While the Doctors will no doubt say it was due to a heart attack or stroke I'm fairly confident it was caused by Mark Webber slipping from 2nd to 6th place before the La Source Hairpin on Lap 1.
For those that didn't know, it was Ken's engineering prowess that helped Peter Brock become a household name when they famously built and campaigned the Austin A40 together and remained close friends until Peters untimely demise. Kenny loved a Beer, a Smoke and a laugh. He was a fierce racer and cooked a mean potato.
Ken will be sorely missed by all.
Regards
Clark Watson
The car later passed on to Bevan Hill in SA and was eventually written off at Mallala. Dick picked up the bits, finding enough to add to a new body to turn it back into a car again. Eventually it was sold to Ken Mitchell who competed in historic events and in recent times it was acquired by Clark Watson and Matthew Liersch in Albury Wodonga (see Vintage Fibre Restorations in Links). Recently I saw an ad in UK for the car for 48,000 pounds. What prompted me to think about all this? A note from Clark, below about Kenny.
The last chequered flag for Kenny!
Some sad news today folks,
Ken Mitchell who campaigned the Milano for many years after restoring the car to it's past glory has sadly passed away while enjoying the Belgian Grand Prix late last Sunday Night 29/8/10 . While the Doctors will no doubt say it was due to a heart attack or stroke I'm fairly confident it was caused by Mark Webber slipping from 2nd to 6th place before the La Source Hairpin on Lap 1.
For those that didn't know, it was Ken's engineering prowess that helped Peter Brock become a household name when they famously built and campaigned the Austin A40 together and remained close friends until Peters untimely demise. Kenny loved a Beer, a Smoke and a laugh. He was a fierce racer and cooked a mean potato.
Ken will be sorely missed by all.
Regards
Clark Watson
Dick Willis/Bevan Hill Milano
My name is Beven Young and with the current interest in Milanos in the Bolly Blog it brought back memories of the one that I became involved with in the 1960s.
The original owner-builder was Dick Willis from Coffs Harbour and its building, history and race record was very well documented in Dick's earlier posting in the Bolly Blog and I would like to add a little bit to it. Back in the 60s I used to buy Racing Car News and I first became aware of Dick Willis and his Milano via that medium. In just about every issue of the magazine in interstate hill climb race results they always seemed to get a placing and glowing reports such as "the huge spinning tyres of Dick Willis' Milano".
In 1966 Dick sold it to Bevan Hill who at the time was an Adelaide Uni student and was living at McLaren Flat. I first met Bevan through Bob Small. I was living at Victor Harbor and Bob's father had just bought the service station on the top of the hill as you drove into Victor. Due to our mutual interest in motorsport and cars in general, Bob and I became friends and he persueded me to join the Adelaide Uni Car Club which was just after Bevan had bought the car and due to the generocity of Bob's old man it was garaged at Victor.
The original Milanos were a fibreglass body kit for MG T series but this particular car had a ladder frame chassis made from 4" (??) round tubing, shortened Holden banjo diff housing, close ratio BMC B series gearbox with swing axle front suspension and drum brakes from a Ford Prefect and a very HOT 179. We never had it on a dyno but we were told it had over 200hp and weighing only 600kg my recollection of the car was it was horribly quick and virtually able to light the rear tyres up in any gear.
The motor had all the right stuff. The block was bored out 3/16" to 3.75, it was fitted with a 149 head and 1/4"over size inlets, 1/8" over size exhausts (the combustion chamber was virtually all valve), SB Chev valve springs, 3 SUs, extractors, reground cam and was able to rev to nearly 8000 rpm.
From what I can remember, with its lift off front, ladder frame chassis and basically all Holden mechanicals, it was simple, with everything accessible and easy to work on. The only major change we made was to change the front end from a swing axle system with drum brakes - Ford Prefect beam axle cut in the middle with an "eye" welded onto each half making it into an independant system - which led to some very interesting camber angles as shown in one of the previous photos (Forty Bends Hill Climb at Lithgow, 1966).
However, considering the number of records and FTDs that Dick held it must have worked. As Bevan was using it more for circuit sprints, we converted it to a more conventional double A system using Humber IFS with disc brakes, with an MGB rack and pinion.
On the street with its 12 second 1/4 mile times which, in those days made it a very quick street car, the Milano was a wolf in sheep's clothing and was very effective at harrassing fellow sports car drivers (nowadays we would be known as hoons). I remember one night when we were out in it, we came across someone at an intersection in an MGB. When the lights changed we just managed to keep up with the B and at the next set of lights we once again just managed to keep up. At the third and last set of lights Bevan revved the motor aned dropped the clutch and the Milano snaked all the way across the intersection with the MGB disappearing into the tyre smoke. Looking back it was probably a bit childish but at the time it was great fun. The only problem with driving it on the road it had no radiator fan and boiled easily in traffic.
At a circuit sprint at Mallala when, as Dick mentioned in his article, one of the Milano's rear trailing arms broke and spun it backwards into the only tree along the back straight on the inside of the circuit. I was up at Mallala and witnessed it and it looked like a bomb had gone off under it, bits of fibreglass flying in all directions. We ran over to it fearing the worst but Bevan was lucky. He walked away from it. His only injuries being a cut on his head and slight concussion. Like a phoenix which rose from the ashes it was rebuilt and as Dick had stated in his previous article, the story doesn't have a sad ending for it's still being raced in Historics in Vic.
Just after the accident Bevan moved interstate for employment and that was the last I saw of him for it seems he has "just disappeared off the face of the earth". Dick still lives in Coffs Harbour and is still heavily involved in motorsport in an AUSPER T2 Formula Junior and Bob and I are still friends.
My name is Beven Young and with the current interest in Milanos in the Bolly Blog it brought back memories of the one that I became involved with in the 1960s.
The original owner-builder was Dick Willis from Coffs Harbour and its building, history and race record was very well documented in Dick's earlier posting in the Bolly Blog and I would like to add a little bit to it. Back in the 60s I used to buy Racing Car News and I first became aware of Dick Willis and his Milano via that medium. In just about every issue of the magazine in interstate hill climb race results they always seemed to get a placing and glowing reports such as "the huge spinning tyres of Dick Willis' Milano".
In 1966 Dick sold it to Bevan Hill who at the time was an Adelaide Uni student and was living at McLaren Flat. I first met Bevan through Bob Small. I was living at Victor Harbor and Bob's father had just bought the service station on the top of the hill as you drove into Victor. Due to our mutual interest in motorsport and cars in general, Bob and I became friends and he persueded me to join the Adelaide Uni Car Club which was just after Bevan had bought the car and due to the generocity of Bob's old man it was garaged at Victor.
The original Milanos were a fibreglass body kit for MG T series but this particular car had a ladder frame chassis made from 4" (??) round tubing, shortened Holden banjo diff housing, close ratio BMC B series gearbox with swing axle front suspension and drum brakes from a Ford Prefect and a very HOT 179. We never had it on a dyno but we were told it had over 200hp and weighing only 600kg my recollection of the car was it was horribly quick and virtually able to light the rear tyres up in any gear.
The motor had all the right stuff. The block was bored out 3/16" to 3.75, it was fitted with a 149 head and 1/4"over size inlets, 1/8" over size exhausts (the combustion chamber was virtually all valve), SB Chev valve springs, 3 SUs, extractors, reground cam and was able to rev to nearly 8000 rpm.
From what I can remember, with its lift off front, ladder frame chassis and basically all Holden mechanicals, it was simple, with everything accessible and easy to work on. The only major change we made was to change the front end from a swing axle system with drum brakes - Ford Prefect beam axle cut in the middle with an "eye" welded onto each half making it into an independant system - which led to some very interesting camber angles as shown in one of the previous photos (Forty Bends Hill Climb at Lithgow, 1966).
However, considering the number of records and FTDs that Dick held it must have worked. As Bevan was using it more for circuit sprints, we converted it to a more conventional double A system using Humber IFS with disc brakes, with an MGB rack and pinion.On the street with its 12 second 1/4 mile times which, in those days made it a very quick street car, the Milano was a wolf in sheep's clothing and was very effective at harrassing fellow sports car drivers (nowadays we would be known as hoons). I remember one night when we were out in it, we came across someone at an intersection in an MGB. When the lights changed we just managed to keep up with the B and at the next set of lights we once again just managed to keep up. At the third and last set of lights Bevan revved the motor aned dropped the clutch and the Milano snaked all the way across the intersection with the MGB disappearing into the tyre smoke. Looking back it was probably a bit childish but at the time it was great fun. The only problem with driving it on the road it had no radiator fan and boiled easily in traffic.
At a circuit sprint at Mallala when, as Dick mentioned in his article, one of the Milano's rear trailing arms broke and spun it backwards into the only tree along the back straight on the inside of the circuit. I was up at Mallala and witnessed it and it looked like a bomb had gone off under it, bits of fibreglass flying in all directions. We ran over to it fearing the worst but Bevan was lucky. He walked away from it. His only injuries being a cut on his head and slight concussion. Like a phoenix which rose from the ashes it was rebuilt and as Dick had stated in his previous article, the story doesn't have a sad ending for it's still being raced in Historics in Vic.
Just after the accident Bevan moved interstate for employment and that was the last I saw of him for it seems he has "just disappeared off the face of the earth". Dick still lives in Coffs Harbour and is still heavily involved in motorsport in an AUSPER T2 Formula Junior and Bob and I are still friends.
There's a bit of reading for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment