“Dripfeed” NEWSLETTER OF THE BANKS PENINSULA BRANCH OF THE VINTAGE CAR CLUB OF New Zealand (INC) VOLUME 44, No 1february 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 11th of February. • We look forward to seeing you there. Supper is provided.
From the Editor: Welcome to 2021, and another year of motoring and more slanderous editions of Dripfeed. Our motoring year has been very busy already, with three of our main events happening in the first five weeks, and with our usual calendar to follow. But this year is Rallye Monte Carlo year, and already enquiries are flooding in from as far away as Dunedin, as the Boyd Wilkinson, Paul Coghill, David Hunter team seek to improve on their previous humiliating failure. Boyd is attending remedial reading classes, so that he can actually read the instructions this time, and in a rare perceptive moment, has realised that even if his team does read the instructions, chances of success in a British car are limited, so he’s taking his Peugeot 205 GTi this time. But alas for French hopes, there is a new organising committee this year, lead by Giles Gill, lifelong Morgan tragic, Don Gerrard, MGB owner, and Brian Smith, Morris 8 owner, so for the first time, British car owners and their stiff upper lips dominate the committee, thus giving Mini Coopers with dodgy headlamp bulbs a chance of victory. I’m sure this will inspire Bruce McIlroy and Ramon Farmer to get out their tweed jackets and re commission their Rollers, and even some MGB owners might form the Abingdon Alsorans in a quest for victory. For Monte Carlo virgins, it will be held at Canterbury Show Weekend, which is the 12th, 13th 14th of November, finishing at Akaroa. Now that Michael Pidgeon has retired from Auto Restorations, he has decided to have a career change and has become a very specialised Social Worker. He’s become a car rescuer. Sort of like a horse whisperer really. This little known job involves feeling sorry for a car that’s in a nearly terminal state, and also the owner, who invariably is too after they hear what the repairs will cost. So that’s how Michael came to be the proud owner of a1968 Mercedes 280 saloon, which he cunningly put in
Louise’s name to get around the ”don’t you dare buy another car” rule. It is now in multitudinous bits all over various workshops in Christchurch, as Michael the compassionate discovers the true horror of reviving a Stuttgart taxi. It’s been named Janice, for those of you of a certain age who are musically inclined. So if you have an “interesting” heap of metal sitting round the place, practice some broken sobbing and go and see Michael. But make sure Louise isn’t home.
Future Events: Saturday 27th of February. An All British Car Day at Oamaru, featuring Vauxhall this year, so expect massed Victors and Vivas, a tantalising thought. It’s also the 60th anniversary of the North Otago branch, so it’s a full day of a display, a drive and a dinner. Contact derekbrehaut@gmail.com 021390518
Saturday 20th of March. The annual West Coast Scenic Land Rally, this year called the Timber Trail Rally. It was cancelled last year, but is always a popular and well run event. Get in touch with Lynda at Kevinandlynda@callplus.net.nz 037684847.
Wednesday 24th of March. A trip to North Canterbury to see Rodin Cars, which is the track, cars and workshop facilities created by David Dickie in recent years on the Inland Kaikoura Road near Mt Lyford. It’s an extraordinary facility and we are limited to forty people. The guided tours are in groups of twenty and will be at
1.00pm and 3.00pm. It’s first in first served, so if you are keen to attend, get in touch with Ron by the 10th of March please. Further details, including an interesting route there and back, will be in the March Dripfeed.
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.
Highland Fling, 24th – 26th of April Contact Kaaren Smylie kaaren@smylie.co.nz 021 664341 07 5764180
Past Events. New Years Day Picnic at Little River. Shock Horror Gasp!! Proper vintage cars seen at Little River!! Veterans too! Clearly, the thought of Peter Croft at the drafting gate was too much for some, indeed Colin Hey and Malcolm McGibbon from the Canterbury branch confessed to me that they were so worried that they might not make the cut that they both came in their veterans, a Wolseley and a Renault. Other proper cars were Ansaldo, Hupmobile x3, Hispano Suiza, Buick, Ford, Sunbeam, Essex, and so on, the best vintage turn out we’ve had for years. That hapless youth, Thomas Palmer, still smarting from the family Fiat failure on the Peninsula Run, was determined to make amends, and set off bravely for Little River in the family Unic. However early clutch failure meant another ignominious outcome, and poor Thomas was reduced to borrowing his surprisingly tolerant father’s MGBV8, which equally surprisingly, got there and back. James Palmer, ever the pragmatist, and with little faith in his nephew, actually biked to Little River, thus securing his Green credentials for posterity. So in spite of the Triumph Club’s efforts to take over, it was a day of quality and quantity and one of the best attendances ever.
The Pomeroy Trophy. The Year of The Suitcases. That venerable institution, the VSCC of GB website tells us that “The car that wins the Pomeroy Trophy is always a true all rounder driven by a great driver”, and so it came to pass that thirty aspirants to that description gathered at Ruapuna in mid January to contest the Pomeroy Trophy, one of the most irritating and fascinating events on our motoring calendar. As many of you are aware, The Pom is about driving skill, knowing the limits of both you and your car, and crucially, accepting the distinctly odd rules that Mr Pomeroy decided to impose. One of the oddest is the one about suitcases. Dear old Laurence P thought that an ideal touring car would be touring, with the occupants staying somewhere overnight, so naturally they would need luggage. And he decided in his wisdom that two suitcases would be needed, and would measure 60 x 40 x 20. For many years, the BP branch had two such suitcases, specially made to the exact measurements, but they came to a sad end at the bottom of the Fazzaz building in the February 2010 earthquake, and subsequent Poms have been decidedly slack about whether a car could fit the two cases. This year a zealous committee member decided to uphold Proper Standards, and two suitcases of a correct size and vintage were found.
So when it came to scrutineering, and the zealous committee member politely asked the competitors to show him that their car could stow the suitcases either in the boot or safely fastened on a secure luggage rack, reactions were, to say the least, varied. You lose twenty points per case if it can’t be stowed, and that many points can make a big difference at the end of the day. You’ll be interested to know that an E type can only store one, but a 1938 Citroen L12 can store two, which means of course, that the E type owner would have a lonely trip round Europe, while the Citroen owner would have the delightful company of a companion. Shades of Brexit really.... After the 2020 Pom was cancelled for obvious reasons, there were lots of new entrants this year, and many of them were young. There were a brace of Mazda MX5s, Lyn Scott, a previous winner, was in a rare and very fast Sierra Sapphire 4x4, Craig Pidgeon came in a very original low milage Hillman Avenger Alpine. Craig is a very serious competitor, and the minute he removed the hubcaps and wheel trims, you could tell he meant business. There was a Mistral that hadn’t been seen for years, Steve Aldersley in the first track outing for his C type Bruin replica, Gordon Dacombe in his lovely series 1 E type roadster and the Yates Clan in the lhd MGB with three wipers, a very hot Mazda MX5, and Dallis in the VW Karman Ghia. Kelvin Brown was there with his very historic Buckler, which has a significant racing history. Craig Keenan gave his Jaguar XJ a run, and Fraser Kear was in a multi coloured VW 1600 auto fastback. Not the fastest VW ever made. Giles Gill was in his four wheeled Morgan, the Barretts were in a Lotus Elan and Lotus 7 and first time entrant Mark Cumming was in his Mazda MX5.The most interesting car for many was a De Lorean, driven down from Nelson by Jared Dacombe. Fascinating to see one, especially one that actually went. John Crequer, the previous winner, was in his ominous Porsche 944 Turbo , and seemed quietly confident The on track activity started with the usual standing and flying quarter mile sprints, and George Kear in the Kato Special flew through the standing in15.94, followed by the Dacombe De Lorean in 16.78 and the C type in 16.84. In the flying, the C type proved the cubic inches theory with 9.90, the Kato second and the Porsche third. So far, so predictable, as it’s hard to make a mistake in a straight line. But it’s quite easy to make one in the slalom/wiggle woggle, especially if it tightens up considerably towards the end, and quite a few of the faster cars hit a cone or two, thus losing ten points a cone, so suddenly, the tortoises were getting better scores than the hares. The same could be said of the braking test, often the graveyard of expectation for the fast cars, but with the exception of Rick Jones in his hot MGA, who laid down a smokescreen that had the local fire brigade worried, most people managed to stop correctly. So with the twenty minute reliability trial, run in two separate sections, the Kato, the C type, the De Lorean, the Sierra and the Porsche were looking dominant, but the formula can be cruel, and although quite a few got close to their allocated lap scores, and a select few did achieve them, the suitcases could not be ignored. But everyone finished, with no mechanical mishaps, and drove to a Prebbleton hostelry to nervously await the results. And so what is the ultimate touring car? Incredible though it might seem, it is a 1972 Citroen D Super, driven by Michael Williams. The Parisian taxi, as Tony Haycock rudely calls it, recorded its fourth Pomeroy win, proving yet again that a long distance between the clutch pedal and the rear axle is more important than outright speed. Second was Lyn Scott in the Sierra and third was Jared Dacombe in the French engined De Lorean. The Haggit Trophy for cars under two litres went to Dave Provan yet again in his very quick supercharged MG TF. To quote Dave, “I either blow up or I win The Haggit”. Pothunter Dave also won the Top Scoring English Car award, which is presented by the VSCC of GB. Second was George Kear in the Kato and third was Dallis Yates in the VW Karmann Ghia. The Spirit of the Event award, which is an enormous Bentley carburettor presented to the BP branch by the Sharpe Family trust, was rightly awarded to Jared Dacombe and his De Lorean.
Anyone that can drive to and from Nelson and be so competitive in such a famously unreliable car is to be admired. Thanks to Ron and Craig for organising such a successful event, and to Ramon Farmer and Peter Croft for help on the day.
Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite; Parisian taxi storms to victory
Chariot of Fire Photography by John MacDonald
De Lorean with aftermarket nosecone
The Blue Brick (The Buckler)
VW Ditchfinder