New Zealand Historic Saloon Cars Under HRC

[Steve Holmes]

When the New Zealand Historic Muscle Cars group was formed about 4-5 years ago, it was done with with the intention to build and race period correct big-bore sedans, over 3,000cc in capacity, with a cut-off date of December 31, 1977.

In order for HMC to work, the rules couldn't be compromised. Every car on the grid had to be 100% compliant. But in order to achieve this, and be able to offer event promoters a full grid and good quality racing, HMC needed to work in conjunction with another historic racing group that bore some relation to what it was doing and where it was going. This group was a loosely formed pre-1977 combination of saloon cars and production sports cars, built to MSNZ Classic and Historic T&C or Schedule K rules.

The partnership worked well, and the racing was great, with the big-banger V8s and the nimble small capacity machines recreating the battles of old, that took place in the NZ Saloon Car Championship in the late 1960s through early 1970s.



However, as HMC grew, so the under 3,000cc group remained largely static, with nobody stepping up to take control, and push it forward. To that end, the directors of HMC made the decision to take the under 3,000cc group under the HMC wing, and run it just as HMC is being run, in an effort to protect owners of genuine legal T&C and Schedule K cars, encourage others to build cars, or to bring these cars out of sheds and race them once more against like-minded owners with cars complying to the same regulations.

Firstly, some minor tweaks were made:

Only saloon cars are eligible (no sports cars)
An eligibility list is currently being compiled of cars that may race
A small selection of over 3,000cc cars that don't fit the HMC appearance will be accepted

This group has been named 'Historic Saloon Cars'. HSC and HMC will race together at proper historic racing events, but will be split at events where the grids are too big. It has been said the most exciting HMC races are those combined with the small capacity cars, so having HMC and HSC all run under the one umbrella, should guarantee some fantastic racing, lost of fun, and, hopefully, good steady growth in the area of period correct pre-1977 saloon car racing.

If you own, are building, or contemplating building either a historic Pre1977 T&C or Schedule K saloon, and would like to get involved with Historic Saloon Cars, please contact Bruce Dyer at: bruced105@gmail.com or Dale Mathers at: dmathers@xtra.co.nz

This thread is dedicated to all matters relating to Historic Saloon Cars.