Attachment 553Attachment 554
Steve you asked me to add some photos of my sports sedan ,a couple of chassis photos will add more later
Printable View
Attachment 553Attachment 554
Steve you asked me to add some photos of my sports sedan ,a couple of chassis photos will add more later
Great! About time too. Will really look forward to this Bob. Period racing shots would be great too, if you have any.....
Fantastic! So when did you start building the car Bob? Did you start it from scratch as a space-frame car, or was it something that evolved from a monocoque car to eventually become a space-frame car, such as, for example, Graeme Addis' Charger?
No it was built from scratch from my own design by me and Kevin Weston in 1982 ,I did further devolpment on it over a period of time in the late eighties,remember it hasn't raced since around 1990,what little remains of the Escort body shell came from the old ex Mark Rutherford Shellsport car ,you may remember that I raced it in its original form for a couple of meetings with my 1850 Hart 416b based twin cam engine way back around 81/82
Ahh, I didn't know the Rutherford Escort was used as the basis for the body. Was this the brown MkII Mark raced?
It was a bloody ambitious car, to have been created from scratch as a space-frame car. Even though US space-frame cars first appeared in NZ in late 1975 and the merits for building cars this way was obvious, even by the early '80s the popular method was still for taking a road car and modifying it for racing. Most Sports Sedan and OSCA cars at this time were still being built this way when you built your space-frame car. So it was a really ambitious project.
Yes it was the old brown car ,Cook Motor Racing built for Warren Steele ,then to Mark and finally Mike Moore,as you will see from later photos not much of it is retained,what is, is severly modified,it was L/H drive originally when I first raced it as a Escort ,yes It was a clean sheet of paper idea ,we used McLaren uprights ,everyting else we built ,there were a couple of radical ideas for those days ,they all worked and I don't think the design has really dated .I recently had a respected overseas designer look at it and he could'nt believe it was concieved in 81/82
Attachment 559
What retained was modified and lightened,many hours were spent with a belt sander on the exterior of the panels ,completed weight was 600kgs without driver
Stunning Bob. Amazing it was so light too. Its really a beautiful piece of work.
Why did you buy the Rutherford Escort rather than a stripped out bodyshell when you only needed a portion of body section? Would that have made it a bigger job for you?
Steve it was the screwing round with the rules that have plagued my whole racing career ,round that time firstly I was going to buy the ex Barry Vuyk Stilleto and put my engine and Hewland transaxle in it ,but that run a foul of the rules with what I wanted to do ,then I brought the ex GM dealer Chevette that Cook built ,inteding to put my components in that ,but once again there was dramas with what I wanted to do ,which was to run one hewland in the rear as a diff unit only with irs and modify the front one so you could change the ratios in it as some of the Aussie cars did which was my interpretation of the rules ,but that was a no go ,so then I got fed up with the whole drama and just brought the Escort so I could at least run .The North Island Sports Sedan Association was then formed with what I thought was clear rules ,so I built the Escort using some of the bits that suited our purpose and the rest is history
As a matter of interest Bryan Bate later brought the Stiletto from Barry and got me to put a 13b Mazda engine in it for him ,believe me thare are a lot of untold stories out there
Yep, that sounds about right Bob. How many cars were still-born because of chopping and changing of rules? George Shewiery still has a De Tomaso that was 90% complete in the early 80s when the rules were changed.
Attachment 585
This used the Hart 416b head on a Ford block .The crank,rods and pistons were all NZ made in the engine at this time
Bob that's an outstanding race car! Full credit to you - that is one piece of art.
Attachment 607
The Alloy panel work shortly before painting,as you can see very little was retained of the old body shell,the doors were fibre glass and I had used them to the Yellow Twin cam Mk 2 before .They were reputed to be off the Leo Leonard Ashley Rally sprint Mk2 Escort,interesting fact ,we had to import the material for the screen back then specially
Waiting for that was one of the hold ups we had when building the car
I hadn't realised the panel work was all alloy, I assumed it was fibreglass. That is amazing to see the fabrication work on the body in bare metal, its really beautiful work, and almost too nice to cover with paint. The curves on the rear quarters are particularly beautiful. There must be hundreds of hours work in the body alone!
Thanks for that Photo Nigel,I actually have very few of that car,it would have been great to have seen that photo back then as it would have confirmed how well we had the wing and underfloor working ,it was all well before data logging etc ,but over the years I used a crude system of measuring what the suspension etc was doing ,simple but effective ,it did at least supply some answers
Like the red Bob, you going to have a play at all.
Yeh Rod I do want to run it ,really just got to finish putting the engine together ,its all there ,prob is I don't really want to leave it sittting around on the valve springs with out using it regulary as thats the reason I pulled the engine apart ,a set of springs is like $2200 ,but I would like to try and do the OSCA reunion meeting and the HD January meeting next year ,or at the minimum do a demo anyway
Be good to see her go again its a neat car. Got some photos tonight of another thats all but rebuilt/finished from Rotorua and it will be great to see him back out for some fun. Starting to put my escort back together slowly and i think will have to look at engine even though it has only sat on the floor in a bag for about 15 years, all new never fired a shot yet, wind it over but don't know, will maybe pull them and check anyway. I will put new wheels, fuel cell etc. Can not find my bloody log book, so imagine dramas with cage etc. If gets too awkward theres still fish out there. I am not going to play with the brakes as i want it to be as it was in Shellsport, it stopped most the time.
I agree with Rod - that is a stunning car and I love the colour scheme. Do you still have the Hart 416 engine and is that the power plant for this car ?
No the engine is now a 2 litre Alloy Block BDA which I used for the last couple of meetings in the car when I ran it ,the 416B after a lot of soul searching I sold to Rayden Smith to put in the ex Williment Escort which is where it is now ,but running on carburetors,I thought that was a good home for it
Yes Bob that was a great home for the engine. I love to see Rayden three wheeling that car around corners just as Jimmy used to do.
Do you have any time set for getting the Escort back on track ?
Where did the hart engine come from originally?
Pull your finger out Bob. I want to see it going again. :)
I brought the engine from Bryce Platt who had ran it in his Escort in 1600cc form at one stage ,before that from what I found out it raced In Australia F2 in a car that Geoff Brabham drove ,but I am open to correction on that one.I used the cylinder head etc in a 1850 cc engine in the Escort for the first season,I then ran a 2litre Alloy block twin cam in it briefly before taking that engine out to convert to a BDA ,this took a lot longer than I intended after getting totally mucked around with a couple of people doing work on it and the motor only finally went back into the Escort for the last couple of club meetings before I parked the car up The season before the BDA went back in ,unbeknown to most people I only ran a 1600cc short stroke Paul England engine I had ,actually the car went surprisingly well with that little engine and still gave a good account of itself, ( I just drove it harder ) that Paul England Engine which had also been a Aussie F2 engine went into my classic Escort TC for awhile ,its now retired to my engine collection.The BDA I have totally rebuilt myself and awaits final assembly
Saw this tidy Mk1 escort engine bay at the 2009 All Ford Day in Tauranga
Attachment 2580
Ahh That was the engine we built for Derek Cecil
Attachment 2581
Here In Rayden Smiths Escort ,Rayden in the green shirt ,the rest a lot of old faces from the past,Mary Carney,myself,Alan Boyle,and Barry Phillips
Bob, the car is looking stunning! Well done. Where did the alloy BDA come from? Would this be similar to what used to be used in the works MkII Escort world rally cars in the late 70s?
Yes the same ,not sure of the exact history of the block now ,but I know I brought about four of them before I got a decent one ,the late Murray Walker and I brought up a lot of them between us back around the eighties and we sort of went through them and kept the best,cylinder heads we did likewise
It'll be great to hear this little car scream again Bob. When are you hoping to have it back on the track?
Bob posted this request in the For Sale section, but I think it should be posted here also, so hopefully someone here can help?
"I am wondering if any one has a under bonnet photo of my Escort with the Paul England Twin cam engine in it .It would have been in the time it carried the Whakatane Auto Spares signage or the Lees Ford signage ,its possible that the word "England "on the cam cover may be visiable
Thanks, Bob"
Thanks Steve,yes just realised the other day it would be nice to have one of that engine in there,its been in a few different cars in its time
Attachment 3537
This photo with the Auto Spares signage would have been with the Paul England Engine
That car is completely wild Bob! When does it get its first outing?
Thanks Bob. Are you excited about getting it back out again?
Where and when was the photo in post #37 taken? I'm trying to figure out what that white thing in the top left corner is. Sort of looks like a Late Model speedway sedan, but it can't be if its in the pits with you.