Thanks Steve - some great info and pics coming out.....
Thanks Steve - some great info and pics coming out.....
A bit of background on the original car. It was one of two Ferrari 555 Super Squalo ex F1 cars prepared by fitting larger capacity sports car engines for Reg Parnell and Peter Whitehead to drive in the NZ International races of 1957. Both cars were sold in NZ after the series, the car in question being the Whitehead car and it went to Tom Clark (of Crown Lynn fame, later Sir Tom Clark and supporter of later drivers like Graham McRae). Tom Clark raced (and crashed) the car in NZ and Australia to around 1959 when the car was sold to Bob Smith who raced it until 1963. Bob Smith had the body modified as the picture below shows. The car did the rounds of the car dealers sitting on various forecourts until it was converted into the Morrari. The 4 cylinder Ferrari engine went to the Southward Museum, and it is either the engine in the Monza Ferrari today, or the one displayed alongside the Monza.
Incidently the car was driven on a one off occasion by Chris Amon at Ohakea while in the hands of Bob Smith, it is claimed also by Bruce McLaren, but I am not so certain about that.
Tom Clark in Australia.
As the Bob Smith car near the end of its single seater days.
The Ferrari engine on display at Southwards.
Excellent post there Gavin.
Thanks Gavin
Thats a great post and certainly helps clear my confusion
I tried to email you last week about Morrari photos to see if you had anything in your archives
No longer with xtra. gj.evitt@orcon.net.nzOriginally Posted by Greg Stokes
I have none of my photos from back in those days. Checked with a few mates to see if they had any of mine in their collections without any luck. Will keep tryng though.
Thanks Gavin - we appreciate that.
Just heard from a mate after I sent this link to him: "My 2 bob's worth is that the 327 sbc ended up in Wairoa powering Peter Blunden's ski boat called 'Little Squirt'. Don't know if it had the 3x2's or not as I never saw the boat. I met him later when he had a bigger boat with an LS6, 454 big block in it he called 'Big Squirt' Don't quote me as it's only what he said. Think he said he bought it in Auck, was sitting in a shed and told it was the Morrari mill. Fits the time frame if nothing else"
Well we have had a very special morning this morning as both Dad and myself met with Hayden Bennett who bought the Morrari from Garth Souness in 1967 and sold it back to him before Gavin Bain bought it minus the body and Corvette engine. Bennett had a range of photos and clippings and remembered a bunch of great details on the car.
When he had the car it was blue with black stripes and the steel wheels. When Bain bought the chassis, the Borrani wires were back on it. Bennett also raced it once at the Kopuku drags against Keith McQuade's V12 roadster. We were able to view a small pic that showed the chassis but still no closer detailed shots. What a great morning on the Morrari trail......
Thats great news Greg, keep the updates coming. Maybe not of much use, by my boss several years ago was the hot rodder Paul Rose (Rosey) and he told me once that he also had some indirect involvement with the car when he was a teenage living in Auckland. I think he might have been mates with someone who owned it, or who knew someone who owned it, or something along those lines. He lives in Palmerston North now I think, may be worth asking at least. I thought he said he drove it at one stage, possibly on the road, but like I say, it was a few years ago we talked about it.
I thought I remembered it in blue, and running at Kopuku, but I wasn't sure if my memory was playing tricks.
Early HRM photographer Doug Harris would have been covering the Drags at that time, may have some photos if you can track him down.
scanned from some mag somewhere... lol
Hi Steve - yes Paul Rose's name has popped up in discussions too. We have just found out more info regarding the car turned into a dirt track racer using the body only after the chassis had been sold to Bain. http://bringatrailer.com/2010/01/07/...comment-227726
Pallmall - any idea how to track Doug Harris?
I haven't seen him in many years. Rob or Owen may know where he is.
Don't know where you got the b&w photo of Morrari with #122, "Pallmall", its one of mine! The young guy with the hat and a 1965 NZGP programme in his hand is my young brother (then 12 yrs). Somebody must have "borrowed" picture from a magazine or forum.
I also have a photo from the same time of a Borrani wire wheel with the Girling disc brake mechanism showing through the spokes. I didn't even notice the discs until a few years ago when I sent both photos to NZ ClassicCar with a letter about the Morrari.
Several years ago forum contributor Gerard Richards wrote an article on Johnny Riley in "Classic Kiwi Motorsport Vol 2" in which he quotes Riley as buying the Super Squalo Ferrari (minus engine) to remove the (drum) brakes to put on the Monza Ferrari, which he also owned at the time. The Monza's original brakes were apparently terrible, and the Squalo was then passed on around the dealers until Souness bought it.
That explains the disc brakes perhaps. The wire wheels were replaced shortly after, in the interests of getting more rubber on the road, as Bob Homewood says.
Stu Buchanan
The Super Squalo sat forlornly outside at Johns yard in Otahuhu for sometime,some years afterwards I came across the temperature guage that somebody told me they had pinched out of it while it was there,it certainly was the right size and had the prancing horse on the clock face,would have been easy as it sat there 24/7
Here it is racing at Pukekohe [ A Jack Inwood photo ]
The Borrani wheels on it in that photo,have a good look at the rubber on the road in that photo on both cars,by the look of the photo I think the Anglia is on the Firestone F7 road tyres we were using back then
Great pic Nigel! Cop the windscreen wiper! And the lean on the driver swinging off the steering wheel!
Greg ,that was before seat belts or harnesses ,thats Garth in that photo ,bet he had to work hard on replacing the fluid loss in his body after that meeting,the poor old wiper had no chance, they would'nt even stay on the screen in a normal split screen Morrie
Hi Bob, sure is a comparison to todays racing isnt it????????? We still would like to catch up some time. We are just toward the end of completion of a project and then things will certainly pick up with regards to making a serious start on the Morrari. It was Dad's birthday last week and we gave him an Offenhauser tri carb intake for the SB Chev. I have been getting in his ear as to how cool it would be as a roller for the NZ Motor Racing Festival at Hampton Downs in January but I am not sure about that.......
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