Photos: The Gerard Richards Collection - Part 1

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I'm really pleased to be able to add the fantastic photo collection of Gerard Richards to The Roaring Season. Gerard is a life-long motorsport enthusiast, and one of the most talented motoring writers I've ever known. He has written several exceptional articles on some of New Zealands most celebrated racers, including Red Dawson, John Riley, Garry Pederson, and Jack Nazer, Robbie Francevic, to name just a few. All the photos in this collection were either taken by Gerard himself, by his father Sim, or are part of the many and varied photos he has purchased over the years, by photographers such as Jack Inwood.

Gerard is a collector of all things motorsport, and has also emailed me some scans of old motoring related books he has collected, so I'll include these here also. He is a member of The Roaring Season, so while I'll upload his photos, and add a few brief comments, Gerard will fill in most of the details.

Here is a brief bit of info from Gerard himself about his collection:

"Pukekohe 1970-1975 is the scene for this collection of images taken largely by myself, and a few by my father Sim Richards. Apart from pictures taken at the April 1970 Saloon car championship meeting the second to last time the full circuit was used for a meeting other than the long distance production races, the rest of the pictures were taken at the Grand Prix Meetings in Jan of 1971, 1973, 1974 and 1975. The only rogue picture in the mix is an image of Jackie Stewart, in his B.R.M. V8 in the 1966 Tasman Series, taken by an unknown photographer, who gave us the image.

It was certainly fabulous to get amongst the diverse machinery in the pits during those years and capture some of the flavour. The big saloons and F5000 machinery captivated the mind and soul of this young adolescent and his brother."

Kicking off here are a couple of fabulous shots of the amazing New Zealand built RS2600 quad-cam Capri of Don Halliday. This car appeared in late 1974, the same year Paul Fahey fitted his own genuine RS2600 Capri with a quad-cam V6. The high-pitched howl of these two cars around New Zealands race tracks over the next two years is something many Kiwi race fans of the 1970s will never forget, particularly around the wide open spaces of Wigram, where their ear-splitting shriek was compared at the time with that of the famous BRM V16.

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And, speaking of which, the for-mentioned Paul Fahey car, during its two seasons raced by Fahey. Its first appeared at the big Bay Park Xmas meeting in 1973, fitted as supplied and raced in Europe with a push-rod V6 engine. Fahey ran the car that first season with this set-up in the 4.2 championship, before importing a quad-cam motor the following year and gunning for the outright championship. Perhaps the the biggest impact this car had when it first arrived in NZ was its radical box-style flares, the likes of which Kiwis hadn't seen before. These created a lot of interest, from the media, race fans, and Faheys rivals. The following year, the PDL Mustang, Sidchrome Mustang, Jack Nazer Chevy Victor, and several other teams had grafted similar style flares to their cars.

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The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

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Hell this is going to be a fantastic collection of photos when we get to see them all. It is just as I remember it all - hot weather, great cars, crowds everywhere and everybody in summer clothing (love those mini skirts) trying not to get too burnt.

Thanks for letting us see these Gerard. We must have been standing close to each other at times.

To think that in the near future we will see the Fahey Capri back on track and being drivem the way Paul used to drive it. If only we could get the Dawson Camaro back as well. That would really light up the HMC scene.

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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

The beautiful Red Dawson Chevy Camaro. This car first appeared on the NZ scene in late 1971, after Red took a trip to the US to find a replacement for his elderly Shelby Mustang. He actually wanted a Trans-Am car, possibly a Penske Javelin, but couldn't find anything suitable for sale, so bought this. It was a road car when purchased, and converted into a race car by Red's team back in NZ. He raced it for four seasons, three in the gold of Kensington Carpets, then, finally, in the less attractive white/red of Marlboro cigarettes. It never did give Dawson his second NZ title. While it had plenty of poke, it was quite a heavy car, and suffered somewhat from reliability issues, as Dawson was always searching for more power. But it was certainly a charismatic race car.

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This seems to be a common complaint about the Camaro Z28 in the ssouthern hemisphere I seem to remember hearing that same complaint about being too heavy when referred to Kevin Bartlett's car in the early 80's when raced in Australia, KB may be able to confirm or deny it, but my understanding is that there were certain homologation issues (brakes??) that made the car less successful than it could have been particularly at Bathurst.
Having said that, I remember seeing the Camaro in Kensington Carpet colours in dads books, particularly the cover of the '72 Sarginson annual, which Rod will get to soon, that really sparked my imagination.
This is the car Lawrence Bruce ended up with in the early 80's wasn't it?

Yep, it is the Lawrence Bruce car. Don Peddie/Allan Dick bought it off Dawson and got Kevin Haig to race it, and Ken Smith even had a go at one event! Re the weight issue, thats just what I'd been told by a couple of people, not sure how true it is. The car was pretty quick in its first couple of seasons, and Dawson had some big power engines. But I don't know what sort of efforts were made to get weight out of it. A lot of effort went into getting weight out of racing sedans in that era, in fact, more effort went into weight reduction than chassis rigidity, but nobody really knew much about that then. But it was pretty typical to see cars of the era heavily "swiss cheesed", in just about every surface area that wasn't considered of vital importance. So I don't know how its weight compared to the cars it raced against.

Re KBs Group C car, that was a bit different. It was FAST, but CAMS made KB race with drum brakes on the back in 1980, whereas the Falcons and Commodores had discs. They finally relented in 1981, but he only entered 3 races in the '81 ATCC, then had the big coming together with Ron Wanless while lapping him at Bathurst, when chasing Dick Johnson. By 1982, the Camaro wasn't really as competitive in Group C, as the Falcons and Commodores began getting more freedoms.

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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

Kicking off here are a couple of fabulous shots of the amazing New Zealand built RS2600 quad-cam Capri of Don Halliday. This car appeared in late 1974, the same year Paul Fahey fitted his own genuine RS2600 Capri with a quad-cam V6. The high-pitched howl of these two cars around New Zealands race tracks over the next two years is something many Kiwi race fans of the 1970s will never forget, particularly around the wide open spaces of Wigram, where their ear-splitting shriek was compared at the time with that of the famous BRM V16.

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It has probably been covered on one of the threads here, but what happened to the Halliday Capri. I presume that it ended up as an OSCA car. That was a mean looking machine. I believe that the family is/was trying to build up another Capri as a tribute car but it has all gone quiet again.

Mike, yes you're right, it became an OSCA car, but prior to that, Danny (sp?) Lupp (son of Cybil) raced it briefly with a Jaguar V12 motor. John Osborne bought it off Lupp, without the motor, and fitted the small block Chevy from his ex/Spinner Black/Rod Coppins/Bruce Jenner etc etc Camaro. The Capri caught fire and burnt to the ground, and Osborne replaced it with the ex-Fahey Capri, which he bought off Inky Tulloch, which had also been fitted with a Chevy by that stage.

Further to Mikes post, this is how the Halliday Capri looked when Osborne had it. Too bad about its fate, was a nice car, would have been great if it had survived and been restored back to how Halliday had it.

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Steve do you know of any picks in Danie Lupps ownership, I have only heard of it referred to not any shots of it.

I've not seen any photos of it sorry Sean, although it was he who painted it blue/yellow/orange as pictured above. I think he only ran it very briefly, and the thing was pretty troublesome. Mike Hourigan, who raced a Jaguar XJS Group A car in the 80s helped Lupp do the conversion. I did ask Hourigan about it once.................he didn't have fond memories!

I should also say, the photo of the Halliday Capri is from 1974/75, the first year Halliday ran the car. In my opinion, the Capri looked its best this season, with the very modest flares. The following season they became the larger box flares as was becoming popular with everyone, as seen here:

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My greatest memory of the Fahey Capri was during what was called his Flying farewell at Pukekohe and somehow the car came off onto the grass over the top of the hill and carried on down the side till it hit the dirt hump in front of the track crossing where it started to fly literally! Thumped back to earth on the otherside and slid to a stop.

The Orange Lola T332 F5000 car here awaiting the start of the 1975 NZ Grand Prix, is that of Aussie Johnnie Walker. It was slightly unusual as it was the only Lola to run the Repco V8. Walker was very competitive in this last true Tasman Championship and was contesting the outright title when he destroyed the car in a huge accident at Sandown Park, plowing into the horse railings... He was very lucky to survive, emerging only with cuts and abrasions. Also interesting in this picture is the red La Valise Lola T332 in the background of Ken Smith. Standing beside the red car are the diminutive Ken himself with Kiwi hard charging saloon racing legend Red Dawson, who were reputably great mates

Red Dawson was my boyhood hero in the big grunters brigade and his ultimate phallic race machine was the metallic blue '67 Trans Am Mustang with bold gold number 35 emblazoned on the doors. But by 1971 Red realised that this beast was no longer going to do the business and he replace it with a the gold Kensington Carpets '71 Camaro that he brought back from Stateside and built up into a racer. Its probably fair to say that Red was in many ways his own worst enemy when it came to winning titles. As I learnt from Bruce Newall his long time mechanic and Jack Nazer a major rival, Red tended to push things over the top. As Newell told me Red was always looking for more power and often over stressing his engines with stroker cranks and the like, with reliability suffering. Nazer described Red as a good charger, but often tending to overdrive and punish his machinery. Long time successful rival Paul Fahey, new all about conserving his equipment and winning titles. Red might have won both the 1972-73 title as he was generally faster than Coppins Firebird, who won the title. Also in 1973-74 Red had a string of failures, while being on pretty much even terms with winner Jim Richards. However despite that on its day Red and the Camaro did the business in a pretty impressive fashion

Bruce Newall was the workshop manager at Davie Motors in the 70s.I worked there at the time and never knew his involvement with Red. You learn something new every day

Thanks Gerard, good info. So basically everything was getting bored and stroked to within and enth of self-destruction, and sometimes beyond?

Heres a couple of former front running heavy-hitters, in the twilight of their racing careers; the Joe Chamberlain/Dennis Marwood Trans-Am Camaro, pictured here when owned by John Riley. And the former T/G Racing Trans-Am Firebird that Rod Coppins won the 1973 NZ Saloon Car Championship with, shown here when owned by Robin Tanner.

The Camaro is looking particularly scruffy by this stage.

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1975 Grand Prix and not just 2 cars in their twilight, actually 3. The car in front of the Firebird is the HK Monaro of George Bunce.It also was in its last season as a race car. Fortunately all these 3 cars survived and will be reunited on a track one day soon.What a photo shoot that will be.

1975 Grand Prix and not just 2 heavy hitters in their twilight, actually 3. The HK Monaro of George Bunce in front of the Firebird was also in its last year. .Fortunately all 3 have survived and will be reunited one day.What a photo shoot that will be.

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Originally Posted by Gerard Richards

Red Dawson was my boyhood hero in the big grunters brigade and his ultimate phallic race machine was the metallic blue '67 Trans Am Mustang with bold gold number 35 emblazoned on the doors. But by 1971 Red realised that this beast was no longer going to do the business and he replace it with a the gold Kensington Carpets '71 Camaro that he brought back from Stateside and built up into a racer. Its probably fair to say that Red was in many ways his own worst enemy when it came to winning titles. As I learnt from Bruce Newall his long time mechanic and Jack Nazer a major rival, Red tended to push things over the top. As Newell told me Red was always looking for more power and often over stressing his engines with stroker cranks and the like, with reliability suffering. Nazer described Red as a good charger, but often tending to overdrive and punish his machinery. Long time successful rival Paul Fahey, new all about conserving his equipment and winning titles. Red might have won both the 1972-73 title as he was generally faster than Coppins Firebird, who won the title. Also in 1973-74 Red had a string of failures, while being on pretty much even terms with winner Jim Richards. However despite that on its day Red and the Camaro did the business in a pretty impressive fashion

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Hi Gerard, I agreee Red was my hero too. He didn't always have success but he was always a real trier and seemed to lack the support that Paul Fahey had. The Mustang with the big gold numbers was just the bees knees to me. Loved it.

Mike, When Frank Ryan had the car, do you think it had charisma when it was plain white (like Bowdens) ?When Red had it this gorgeous metallic blue , it transformed it .Same as when John Riley painted his metallic green, it also looked stunning. When the two were parked side by side at Puke they drew big crowds.Saloon cars came of age, not just boring family cars any more.They were colorful.

As Steve suggests the John Riley Camaro was looking very second hand by this late stage of its competition era. The main culprit in its demise particularly in the second season that Johnnie raced it, was taking some advice from a so called expert who convinced him he could max out its competitiveness by space framing the front end. However as Tony Antonievich the man responsible for saving it and rebuilding it stated, the attempt at reconstructing the front clip was a total disaster. It was done in a very poorly devised setup and ruined the once magical handling. Also the front guards were no longer supported by frame and flapped about in the wind. A sad end for a once illustrious race car. The salvation being that the ruins were fortunately saved and refurbished to its earlier glory.

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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

Heres a couple of former front running heavy-hitters, in the twilight of their racing careers; the Joe Chamberlain/Dennis Marwood Trans-Am Camaro, pictured here when owned by John Riley. And the former T/G Racing Trans-Am Firebird that Rod Coppins won the 1973 NZ Saloon Car Championship with, shown here when owned by Robin Tanner.

The Camaro is looking particularly scruffy by this stage.

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The Ron Grable, Rod Coppins, Robin Tanner genuine Trans Am Pontiac Firebird enjoyed a slightly less grim racing retirement than the Marwood/Riley Camaro. Although it ended up as a street hack for a number of years, it was no where near as badly chopped about as the Camaro. I once saw the Camaro, rattling through Mt Wellington in Auckland in the early 80's, trailing a cloud of blue smoke with a crowd of young party groupies on board. It looked like heading to a quick demise at that junction.
The Firebird as pictured here, was in its last season with Robin Tanner aboard. He is pictured here with the long hair standing by his mount at the Jan 1975 NZ Grand Prix Meeting. Tanner I was once told was a bit of a hippie and didn't quite fit the image of a tough, big banger punter of the era. He knew Rod Coppin's quite well and had previously bought a Chevy Coupe with a well prepped 350 V8 Chevy motor from Rod in the early 70's.
Fortunately the Pontiac Firebird which has been owned by Bruce Thompson?, for many years has now also been beautifully restored with the help of Tony Antonievich's great restoration skills.

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Originally Posted by Steve Holmes

Thanks Gerard, good info. So basically everything was getting bored and stroked to within and enth of self-destruction, and sometimes beyond?

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Yes apparently Red, couldn't resist trying to eek out the maximum horses wherever possible and often sucumbed to broken cranks and various other mechanical maladies...

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Originally Posted by John McKechnie

Mike, When Frank Ryan had the car, do you think it had charisma when it was plain white (like Bowdens) ?When Red had it this gorgeous metallic blue , it transformed it .Same as when John Riley painted his metallic green, it also looked stunning. When the two were parked side by side at Puke they drew big crowds.Saloon cars came of age, not just boring family cars any more.They were colorful.

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I absolutely know what you mean John. The wild electric green and blue metallic paint on those Mustangs drew crowds like moths to the light in local racing paddocks during the 1969-72 era. They were stunningly beautiful to behold and as you say transformed saloon car racing into an electrifying affair

Red was my hero too back in the day.One of my photos is a pit shot of his 1st Mustang,which he really did drive the wheels off!! next to the other car he raced at the same meeting! is/was it a Brabham? Now thats a racing driver

Yep, it was the ex-Frank Matich Brabham BT7-A. In those days Red was doing a grand job in both disciplines.

A couple of the teenie-boppers. The fantastic little MkI Escorts of Rex Hart and Jim Stone. The Stone car was just 1300cc. Does anyone know what might have happened to these two cars?

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Jimmy Stone's car still lives. I think Dennis Thompson (no relation) has it and either it is restored or very close to it. That car could fly.

did that become the Roy harrington AutoTrader car????????????

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Originally Posted by Gerard Richards

I absolutely know what you mean John. The wild electric green and blue metallic paint on those Mustangs drew crowds like moths to the light in local racing paddocks during the 1969-72 era. They were stunningly beautiful to behold and as you say transformed saloon car racing into an electrifying affair

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As mentioned, the Riley Mustang

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Originally Posted by rogered

did that become the Roy harrington AutoTrader car????????????

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It certainly did

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Originally Posted by Bruce302

Jimmy Stone's car still lives. I think Dennis Thompson (no relation) has it and either it is restored or very close to it. That car could fly.

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Wow, thats interesting. I had no idea! So this is the same car?

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Couple of Monaros at different stages of their careers. The famous Beechey 1970 ATCC winning car, and the former Spinner Black, Grady Thomson car, owned here by George Bunce. The Beechey Monaro visited NZ in January 1971, so at the time was the reigning Australian Touring Car Champion. Of course, the 1971 ATCC was pretty disastrous for Beechey, winning just a single race, and only actually finishing two races from the seven rounds. He was really stretching the Monaro to keep pace with Bob Janes new Camaro, and Moffats ever-improving Mustang.

The Bunce Monaro was at the opposite end of its career when pictured here during the 1975 season. It arrived in 1969, was raced intermittently by Spinner Black, and, I think, Rod Coppins, before being sold to Grady Thomson. Grady actually raced it with a 350 Chev, so wasn't allowed to compete in NZ Saloon Car Championship races, as they had a 5.5 litre engine limit. So Grady basically just ran it as an Allcomer. It was later sold to Jim Carlyle, who tried to get John Riley to race it, but Riley decided it required too much work to get it competitive, and reverted back to his Mustang. John M, it pains me to post this photo but I know you'll enjoy it!

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Steve, thanks for this photo.You are more than welcome to swing past at any time and have a bonding session with it..With the HK Monaro, I cant find details of Spencer driving .Also Rod did practice at Puke Dec 1969,-Motorman Jan 1970-and did not race the next day.Its racing history really started with Grady at the Mercury 1000, but he did not do all the rounds.After that it became Bronze and seen like this April 1970. Jack Nazer remember the car as fast, loose and wild. Like Red , Grady was very hard on machinery-breaking a gear lever, gearbox, engine overheating, brakes overheating, tyres blowing-but he was fearless.
I will get as many details such as race results from these mags and previous owner and post as this is car is worthy of being remembered. Grady was the most successful driver of this car equalling lap record of 1 min 37.5 on big Puke track April 1970.He won races and hill climbs in it.John Riley definitely was not happy in it with a massive brake lock up at Baypark. Was the first Monaro to race here and ran from 1969 to 1975, and there no other Aussie car in the big bangers till Jim Richards did his Falcon Coupe. Like all race cars, it either became a road car or chopped into OSCA.It was a road car and then sat until it was a stripped body. Fortuately some bog had come off the flare wheel arch and this paint colour and some sign writing was seen.

In relation to the Beechey Monaro at Pukekohe , Paul Fahey was forced to run from the back of the grid, making huge gains in his Mustang till he retired, and Rod Coppins broke a power steering hose (Motorman) .So Beechey was never really pushed.A real anticlimax that race.

And unfortunately it was the only time the Beechey Monaro and Fahey ran together. Fahey told me once in an interview with him his new Mustang was bottoming out heavily over the Puke bumps in practice, so the team took the car back to the workshop to fit taller front springs. As a result, he didn't post a time, so the officials, in their wisdom, forced Fahey to start from the rear in the Allcomer race, robbing the punters of what should have been a real slug-fest between these two big-bangers. The car had only been completed a few weeks earlier, and this was the first time it'd been run at Pukekohe. He was still running his Escort in the championship races, and the Mustang was an Allcomer car with a bigger motor than the 5.5 litre limit. He did score fastest lap in his pursuit of Beechey, but that was of little consolation.

Yeah Steve, lets demand a rerun, we punters deserve our moneys worth. Let those officials carry the cost-and I bet the track would be packed.