Where is the Doyle Corvette Anglia at now? I know it was with an owner a few years ago, does he still have it? Has a resto been started?
Doyles and others
The Neil Doyle Corvette Anglia was built at the Tinwald service station, Ashburton by Murray Ellwood (nick name Crankshaft) who drove a much modified red and white mk 11 zephyr road car. Ian Donald also helped on the build of the anglia and later drove a Mk11 Jaguar in south island pre 65 racing.
Hey Fastback are Murry and Ian still around they would be a great resource for a rebuild or replica
last info re Doyles
tahunanui
Bit of trivial history I guess ,but at the start of the 69/70 NZ Saloon Car Championship,the Motorsport Association of NZ changed around the classes and the rules for the forthcoming season,and the way the rules were you could not use a 5 Bearing block in a Anglia in the Championship anymore .I still had a 1475cc three bearing engine with a steel bottom end that I had used in earlier times ,so I decided to stick this old war horse engine back in my basically Club Anglia and do a couple of the rounds more or less for fun,it actually went surprisingly well for what it was ,this photo was from Pukekohe,at the round that was held there on the old long GP circuit ,which used the elbow that is evident in the photo.
You about to pass Rodger Anderson?
Terrific photo - I loved the long circuit.
Somebody a long time ago told me that the demon tweak with Anglia motors was to use a three bearing crank in a five bearing block. Is this true or was some one winding me up?
Other way around...five bearing crank in three bearing block... the anglia Franicevic used in one of the first major rallys [ Silver Fern ?] in NZ was reputed to have been a 1300 or 1500 crank in anglia block plus overbore, possible because on early 5 brg cranks #2&3 rods were fed from center main.
Beowulf, some of the smaller capacity ones I have seen ,have had five bearing cranks in a three bearing block,we had one recently that the crank had been machined up from a casting in its earlier days and the two bearings that where not used were still rough finished,you could do it with the smaller capacity engines.I have actually slipped a 1500 crank into a three bearing block,just for a look ,I think you would have to grind too much of the block away to make it possible.I used to run my "own personal " five bearing blocks with heaps of clearance on the two intermediate bearings,and then restrict the oil feed to those bearings.I have never built a customer engine like that ,as I am not sure that most people would go with my thinking,actually the crank etc that I mentioned, I had in that car above ,back when I got those parts and the skullduggery that happened to me by a certain party on the other side of the world is a story that belongs in Yards and Yarns
Steve it was another of the revamps and changes that took place ,I guess I could probably reproduce part of the text here without upsetting the copyright people ?
The 1500 five bearing blocks were out at the end of the Allcomers,there was a rule in there somewhere that perhaps David will remember that you had to use the same block that came out with the car ,Anglias never came out with a five bearing block ,the Anglias that had raced the previous seasons were 1300cc ones,the longer stroke Classic 315 ones were not a strong crank and the move had been to Escorts,which I guess is what they really wanted ,however as I said I had the steel crank etc from earlier days and you could rev it lots higher without fear of it breaking,so as I said I decided to put in and do a couple of meetings,I was under no illusions that it was a winner,however even I was actually surprised at how well it went,not sure that might have actually been one of the last times a Anglia run in that series,sombody will know
Thanks for that Bob. Yes it does sound a little like they wanted you Anglia guys to switch to the current Escort just a little doesn't it, or at least it seems they wanted the Escort to be the faster car. So perhaps that was motivation to switch. Though to their credit MANZ did make some good decisions when they introduced Group 5 for the 1968 season. The FIA regs required the models competing could be no more than 5 years old, in an effort to keep the cars current, but MANZ changed this to 10 years for NZ. Not that it would have affected the Anglia though, I think that was built until around 1967?
I'm sure the Escort had nothing to do with it. I'm pretty sure FIA Gp5 rules (at least as used by MANZ) stipulated original blocks so, as Bob says, no five-bearing Anglias
The first season of Gp5 in NZ was 1968
The first Escort to race in NZ did so in July of that year - well after the end of the championship season. Driver by the way was a chap called Jim Richards...
Not a very good photo sorry it has not stood the test of time ,but its the late Noel Goodwin in the Greg Sheldon TC Anglia at Pukekohe ,from memory Sept 1969 42 years ago to this week end