“Dripfeed” NEWSLETTER OF THE BANKS PENINSULA BRANCH OF THE VINTAGE CAR CLUB OF New Zealand (INC) VOLUME 44, No 3 april 2021. Editor: Michael Williams 10 Selwyn Parade Lyttelton Ph 328 8043, email mimiandmichael@yahoo.co.nz
Chairman: Secretary:
Club Officers: Craig Keenan 322 1006 Ron Hasell 942 1105
Branch Address: 27 Showgate Ave, ChCh 8042 E-mail: bankspeninsula@vcc.org.nz Noggin & Natter: 2nd Thursday of the Month • Noggin 7.30 pm at the Papanui RSA. Upham Room – enter either from 55 Bellvue Ave or the first entrance on the left on Harewood Road (Papanui / Main North Road) • Thursday 8th of April. • We look forward to seeing you there. Supper is provided.
From the Editor: A rather slim edition this month, with only one event on which to report, and no gossip or general slander to share. At least we do have a new member to welcome into our exclusive ranks, and he is Alistair Robinson from Auckland, with 2 1930 Talbot AO 70 s (ex Trevor Timms), a 1935 Talbot BA 75/95, and sadly, an 1929 Austin 7. Neale Elder recently lent me a very weighty tome, “Georges Roesch and the Invincible Talbot” by Anthony Blight. It’s 493 pages of action packed prose explaining why the Roesch Talbots were better and faster than their competitors. Neale even lent me a 1971 copy of “Vintage and Veteran” which has a review of the book, and has threatened to make me sit a written test to see if I read the book thoroughly. When I tell you that Appendix E is “A comparison in valve gear inertia between the twin overhead camshaft XK Jaguar and the pushrod OHV Talbot engine”, you might realise that the level of detail is quite overwhelming. The excitement continues in Appendix D; “Some power curves from the thirties”, comparing Talbot, Lagonda, Alfa Romeo and Delahaye. Surprisingly, Talbot comes out on top. Recommended for Talbot enthusiasts only. I expect Alistair has a copy. It’s good to see that the Irishman Rally this year, aka The Model A Club Winter Run, is to start in Alexandra. This will hopefully weed out the Austin 7 brigade, as the Saturday run will probably be beyond them. I wonder how many Model A owners will trailer their precious charges down to Central? Perhaps trailered cars should be banned. Vaughan Morrison is to be congratulated for providing a new starting point.
Interest in Rallye Monte Carlo continues, with many enquiries coming in from potential entrants. Look in the latest Beaded Wheels ad for more details, and book your accommodation, as Akaroa tends to get booked out over Show Weekend. From Dripfeed February 2000. “A Day in the Life of Malcolm” Malcolm Cameron was driving home along the West Coast Road from West Melton at the end of another busy day of retirement. He was piloting his wife’s Morris 1100, when all of a sudden there was an almighty crash, and banging from under the car. Malcolm screeched to a halt, fearing the worst. But he had not in fact run someone over, instead one of the drive shaft universals had disintegrated and the shaft was flopping about freely. Not one to fret about such misfortune, our man set off on foot for the long walk to the nearest person he knew, Geoff Owen, who assisted his passage home. Now Malcolm is not one to abandon an old car on the side of the road, (he has sheds to do that in), so he jacked up friend Clynt Inns to help him recover the car. The duo tied up the errant shaft with a bit of wire so the car could be towed. The wire broke. Not finding it particularly pleasant grovelling about on the side of the road in the pouring rain, a quickly arranged lasso arrangement was made with a bit of rope which loosely held the shaft, and off the pair went, with the car in tow. Things became really difficult when the rope, catching tightly on the driveshaft, started winding up tightly like a winch. This of course duly pulled with it the part that the other end of the rope had been attached to, namely the wiper motor. With the motor, now separated from its mounts, came most of the the wiper mechanism, which made an interesting sight for Malcolm as it was pulled down through the car’s bonnet in front of him. This wouldn’t have been so bad, except the now rapidly moving wiper assembly broke through one of the hydrolastic lines, causing the poor Morrie’s suspension to collapse on one side. Now an ordinary person could feel a little despondent at this stage but not our heroes. Years of experience with old cars breaking down had never beaten them and this Morris was not about to be the first. Our duo summoned forth friend Dowell McLeod who kindly went off to the city to borrow a suitable car trailer for the now immobile Morris. Back in good time, the trio went to put the car on the trailer, only to find the collapsed suspension made it impossible to fit the car up and over the edge of the trailer...... So if Clynt Inns offers you advice about mechanical matters, ignore it !!
Future Events: Saturday 17th of April, North Otago Motorbike Run. This is the memorial Gerald Lynch-Blosse Memorial Run, starting in Oamaru. For details contact Robert Hutton 03 4376774, northotago@vcc.org.nz.
Sunday 18th of April, Autumn Run. Meet at the Yaldhurst Pub car park from 9.30am, ready for a 10.00am start. A good chance to enjoy about 150 k of open road motoring, with quite a few shingle roads to test your driving skills. Bring your lunch of course, as our destination is a rural property somewhere in Canterbury.
Sunday 2nd of May. The annual Ashburton Classic Plains Run. Two hours of gentle tootling on sealed roads ending up in Tinwald., if you can stand the excitement. Get in touch with Owen at owen@moorepark.net 03 3083442.
Sunday 23rd of May, Hadstock Gymkhana. One of our signature events, this annual favourite is becoming more popular by the year. Let’s hope there is some grip this year, so that French FWD can perhaps find a way to beat John Foster on his hitherto invincible Triumph. Unless of course, the organisers (who enjoy a nice Cab Sav), come up with some devious anti motorbike rule....
August Mid year Lunch The date is yet to be finalised but will once again be at the Tai Tapu Hotel. Fifty year badges will be presented to George Henry and John Reynolds, who can now start preparing their speeches.
Past Events: BPVCC visit to Rodin Cars, Lyford Well; interestingly……a lovely cup of tea was enjoyed by all….the road was kind and many flies squashed….. ….but, seriously….. 41 of us were gifted an unforgettable trip through time to an unimaginable (to some, but not to the businesses’s founder David Dicker) collection of talent and tooling. He is from what he calls the prison state of Australia and Sydney where he still operates Dicker Data. Foolish understatement would call it a computer hardware distribution business. He came to New Zealand to escape the blinding bureaucracy espoused by many countries. Courtney Perry expertly guided us through the facility with a fine combination of eye dog and school mistress abilities. Her subtle hounding of a wide-eyed drooling gaggle of overawed students was as impressive as the outfit. This consists of a collection of buildings that some wrongly call sheds. No; they are state of the art including floor level car lifts, trying to keep up with an eye watering collection of tooling that includes items not seen elsewhere in Australasia. The carbon fibre autoclaves are the biggest in the region. The titanium three dimensional printers and plasma coaters are out-of-this-world class.
Mr Dicker employs a staff of talented young, highly intelligent, but very personable wide horizoned thinking people to pursue his project aptly described as Rodin Cars. This is founded on the belief that a car is the result of thought, clearly evidenced here. The jewels of the enterprise are the glittering collections of carbon fibre, titanium and a Chapmanesque bucket of lightness -the Rodin F Zero and road going but similarly achieving sister, the Rodin Fzed. They are lighter than modern Formula One cars, and outperform them. In 2016, when the first three employees joined, Rodin Cars bought from Lotus a container of parts from the T125 project, a Formula One-style “open wheeler” designed car. This was to be a learning project for Rodin’s young staff, and a workout for the titanium 3D printers. The plan was to first build the Lotus-based Rodin FZed, then transfer learnings to the fully enclosed Dicker-designed FZero. The two Rodin cars are beyond description that does them justice. Engineering sculptures from the ventilated carbon fibre brake discs, suspension struts upwards. Most of us continued to mentally process what we were so graciously shown in two, tiring but fascinating 96 minute tours. Mr Dicker’s private collection included a swarm of very contemporary Ferraris, a small clutch of Lotuses and a scintillation of McLarens. Lurking in there was a very competent looking go-cart, further testimony to Mr Dicker’s respect for speed. The purpose built test tracks were of a similar quality to the cars, tooling and enthusiastic, open-sky thinking personnel. The tarseal hid secure foundations, seamlesslessly repaired from the crippling Kaikoura quake. The grass: Testament to the thought and diligence applied, inversely proportional to the parsimonious precipitation of the area; a verdant flag proudly flying what is the courageous, deep thinking which epitomises high achieving Rodin Cars. We sincerely thank the generous privilege afforded us by Mr David Dicker, Courtney Perry and their colleagues at Rodin Cars. The route to the enterprise was beautiful, but it didn’t fully prepare us for the journey we were whisked through after entering by the understated sliding gate that protects the brilliance within. This was magical, galactic experience. We aspire to a return in due course since the demand for places on this experience unsurprisingly outstripped supply. Giles Gill
Rodin FZed
Rodin FZed
Rodin FZero
Rodin FZed
Rodin FZero
Wire cutter for removing base plate from a Titanium 3D printed item
The biggest Carbon Fibre autoclaves in Australasia....and probably the southern hemisphere
State of the art lathe
A selection of fittings made in house, one obviously plasma coated
Final picture our hosts play toys: 7 Ferraris, 1 Lamborghini, 1 McLaren, 1 Porsche, 1Lotus & Subaru WRX