The Mike Feisst Collection - Part 2

[Steve Holmes]

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Continuing this fascinating journey through Australasian motorsport history with the incredible photographic collection of Mike Feisst, we move to Part 2. This part is split fairly evenly between Australian and New Zealand photos, including Warwick Farm, plus several interesting inner city street shots in Australia, as well as a few Rallycross images, and several from Pukekohe. Enjoy them folks, and feel free to add captions.....

[Steve Holmes]

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[Steve Holmes]

Does anyone have more info on Reg Cook's Mini?

And is this the Ken Smith Lotus from which Max Pennington purchased the wheels and motor for his Escort? http://www.theroaringseason.com/showthread.php?72-Lost-Race-Cars/page2

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[Steve Holmes]

Look how easy it was to get up close and personal with Graham Hills Lotus. Do you think you could get that close to Sebastian Vettels Red Bull?

[Steve Holmes]

I believe this is the Hairpin at Warwick Farm?

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The Willment Escort Twin-Cam has only just arrived in NZ here, and still wearing its UK signage.

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[Steve Holmes]

This batch includes a rare shot of the Lawler 'Faltang', the Mustang powered Falcon XP coupe, a very early Australian Sports Sedan, known at the time as 'Sports Racing Closed'.

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I always thought Pete Geoghegans Mustang looked best in its Castrol colours.

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[Steve Holmes]

Note the extent of the wheel arch flaring here on Geoghegans Mustang, and compare it to how the car looked when both Coppins and Riley later raced it. The car was excluded from the results in the first round of the 1967/68 NZ Saloon Car Championship because of its wheel arch openings, not long after Coppins had acquired it. MANZ were really reading the new Group 5 regs to the letter of the rule!

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[kiwi285]

The Australian shots were taken at the end of the main straight at Warwick Farm. This was the Tasman series race in February 1967.

I always thought that Leo Geoghegan's Lotus looked fabulous in the Castrol colours as well as the Mustang

Note the increase in cans in the foreground as the day wore on.

[Steve Holmes]

Yes I had noticed the cans!

[Steve Holmes]

Is that Frank Matich in the beautiful SR3? Hard to tell with his head down.

The #6 Repco Elfin 400 is that of Bevan Gibson, who was killed in this car at Bathurst in 1969.

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[Steve Holmes]

This is the last batch for this part folks. Part 3 will follow in due course. Thanks again Mike.

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[Greg Stokes]

Incredible photos! Amazing detail and quality!

[Javman]

Yeah , totally agree Mark.

Thanks Mike for sharing these great historic photos.

Craig.

[thunder427]

This is the last batch for this part folks. Part 3 will follow in due course. Thanks again Mike.

895 Mr Gay Cesario/ Abarth he imported from Italy

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896 Mr Alan Hamilton.in those years 'Porsche Australia'/Distributor

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...The 'red' Abarth was owned and raced by a real 'Italian' gentleman,Mr Gay Cesario,thats him in the 'Blue Race Suit',probably giving the fuel mixture scew the demon 'twist'!!!,Mr C, is still actively interested in motorsport to this very day,his 'Son',whom I'm Proud to call 'My Friend', Lucio, drove for Lancia factory Team at Le Mans,placing 5th Co/Driving with Pascaroli,racing is in this 'families' Blood!!!

...The gentleman with his head turned away from the Camera,in the bottom photo,pushing the Porsche,is Another Gentleman of the sport, Alan Hamilton of Porsche Australia Fame,in fact was instrumental in giving the 'Young' Lucio a 'Porsche Aust.Factory' drive along side Alfie Costanzo in the 'Pacific' style single seater series run here in Aust. in the 80's..........regards thunder427?MJ:)

[GD66]

To eliminate a little of the guesswork, the yellow #24 Begg FM2 in post #8 was a rent-a-drive by the Oregon driver Pierre Phillips, and in post #13, the #3 yellow and red machine is the Forsgrini of Mike Campbell, unusual in that it had a Ford 302 engine....which was very prone to overheating problems... we are very lucky to have a beautifully-coloured, detailed archive of these exciting times fall into our laps : thanks again to all concerned.

[kiwi285]

I remember the Fosgrini name alright, but couldn't have identified it myself. Yes they were exciting times and I guess thats why we are all still so enamoured with the sport.

[thunder427]

[QUOTE=thunder427;1513]...The 'red' Abarth was owned and raced by a real 'Italian' gentleman,Mr Gay Cesario,thats him in the 'Blue Race Suit',probably giving the fuel mixture scew the demon 'twist'!!!,Mr C, is still actively interested in motorsport to this very day,his 'Son',whom I'm Proud to call 'My Friend', Lucio, drove for Lancia factory Team at Le Mans,placing 5th Co/Driving with Pascaroli,racing is in this 'families' Blood!!!

....spoke with Lucio today regarding this great Forum that .."would you believe it has a photo of your Dads Fiat Abarth,with the 'yellow' nose....and your dad's got his head in the engine bay, go to WWW." etc,etc.............phone rang sometime later....."Wow!!!what a great Site,just showed Dad the photo of his car,he nearly jumped out of his seat,do you know that Dad bought that Fiat just out side of Rome at a 'Hill Climb',purchased it 'on the spot',drove it straight home that day....some time later Dad decided to ship the Fiat and family to Melbourne /Aust,so we drove from Rome to Naples,some 4 to 5/hour drive, there was my Mum, Dad and my brother and sister and me and our belongings,all cramed in the 'Racecar',including some spares as we were shipping out from Naples on the same ship...boy !!I wished I Knew were that little car was today"????...........................Regards from the Cesario family/thunder427/MJ:)

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, thats great Myles! Thats such a neat little car, wouldn't it be great if they could track it down. I was divided between using that pic or the eventual Lotus one for the Home page image. Thats how cool I thought that car was.

[kiwi285]

Thats the sort of response that makes it so neat to publish these photos on the website. I always wonder if some of the original owners/drivers will catch up with them and share their experiences. It has obviously brought back some great memories for Gay Cesario and his family. It is also attracting a lot of attention to this website which will be great for all concerned and hopefully add further input to the Forums.

All those Australian photos were taken at the February 1967 Tasman meetings at Warwick Farm and Sandown Park.

[lcesario]

Great site!! As for dads Abarth Simca 1300,fond memories.I will ad to Miles Johnson's kind words and yes he's correct in saying that the Cesario family all of 5 of us travelled in this car from Rome to Naples on its way to Australia.Great memories!!!! seems like it was yesterday not 44 years ago.I will post a brief history on the vehicle i due course.Keep up the great work and keep those memories flowing...Lucio Cesario

[thunder427]

I believe this is the Hairpin at Warwick Farm?

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....Warwick Farm is correct,this cnr was known as 'Creek Cnr',which leads on to the 'Causeway' and across the Bridge...'CreekCnr' was 'famous' for the 'Phantom Bugler' who by the end of the day was more than a little of key!!!!!!!!!!! but very entertaining!...remember these were the days of 'Goodtimes',(just before .05 laws)we would buy one of those 'Galvinised/ American style rubbish Bins,then the group of..."I Could drive better than that with two flat tyres---MATE!!!....would arrive, with 'Ice and 'cans',pack them,layer at a time,smothering of 'chunky' ice, then another layer of cans..well you get the drift,(you were there??)........by the time we got towards the bottom layer we were under the impression that the 'Phantom' should get a record label contract.."ShIt!!He'S BlOoDy GwOOd Ya KnOw'!!!!!............while waiting for the Traffic to thin out ,we would have rubbish tin fights,squash the can with a couple of 'spectcular' body slams (how did I get so much bruising???!).and drive home..............another great day at the 'Farm'.."Hey !!who won the main race'????.."why ask me you were there tooooo, ya Mug!!??................Shit!!,I've got to catch a plane back to Melbourne!,how we going for time?????........regards thunder427/MJ:)/:)/:)/:)

[Steve Holmes]

Great site!! As for dads Abarth Simca 1300,fond memories.I will ad to Miles Johnson's kind words and yes he's correct in saying that the Cesario family all of 5 of us travelled in this car from Rome to Naples on its way to Australia.Great memories!!!! seems like it was yesterday not 44 years ago.I will post a brief history on the vehicle i due course.Keep up the great work and keep those memories flowing...Lucio Cesario

Lucio, welcome to the site, its great to have you here. I hope you'll fill us in on some stories of your own impressive racing career, as well as that of your family. The Cesario family trip from Rome to Australia sounds like the ingredients for an incredible thread of its own! Do you have any idea what happened to your dads Abarth?

[kiwi285]

Ah Creek Corner - that was the one I remembered it as soon as I read it. Yes the boys seems to enjoy a can or three watching their motorpsport.

[coldrive]

Truly amazed at the goldmine of history being posted here. Thanks to all for the effort.
The rallycross pix are taken at the old HopuHopu army camp neat Taupiri where the Hamilton Car Club ran a type of grasstrack/ rallycross in the days before Mystery Creek. Except in this case the event is actually a stage of the 1973 Heatway Rally (the monster that used both islands). You can see the HDT Torana XU1 of Colin Bond in one of the pix and also I'm fairly sure the Monaro GTS which was driven by the author/journalist Evan Green.