Colour clips of 3 of the races; Minis (P. & R. Williams Mini Miglia), Holden Sedan Cars (Neptune Trophy race for Holden Cars), 1964 New South Wales Racing Car Championships.
Yet another priceless treasure trove of memorabilia & documentation. Some very rare footage of some significant cars & some drivers who went on to achieve great things when Australians elected to adopt sedan car racing as our number one & most popular form of motorsport. Red 48Series Sedan is Des West. Amazingly; this thoroughly developed car still survives in exactly the same state & configuration as seen in this wonderful footage. Olive green FE is Bruce McPhee who went on to win Bathurst in a 327 GTS HK Monaro in 1968. Bruce's win was the very first for a Holden at Bathurst & Des West very nearly followed suit in a 350 GTS HT Monaro with Peter Brock when they came home third at Bathurst behind Colin Bond & Tony Roberts who won on the day in their Monaro. I see Barry Seton also in an early Holden before he went on to campaigning V6 Capris & then V8 Falcons with Son Glen. Worth noting are the wild variations in cubic capacities of the Holden engines declared in the entry list. Both West & McPhee indicated their engines were out to nearly 160 Cubic Inches! This was really stretching things! Only a very few blocks could survive such a staggering overbore coupled up to the stresses associated with all the other modifications that went into these venerable little engines which started life at only 132.5 Cubic inches in capacity. A thoroughly race prepared Grey Engine could churn out 160 Brake Horse Power which is way more than twice the power these poor little things were designed to produce. I lived in the Western Suburbs of Sydney as a kid in the mid '60s. Occasionally you'd hear this roaring thing burst into life nextdoor on a Saturday arv. I was only 5 years old at the time & still hoping for a Malvern Star, but even then there was something about that growling coming from nextdoor that grabbed my attention. I used to climb up on the high paling fence & watch the guys nextdoor as they toiled away working on a fiercely hotted up FJ Holden WITH RACING NUMBERS ON THE DOORS! This was a very big deal for an infants school kid whose dad owned an FJ. I recall watching them replace a gearbox one weekend. No fancy ramps or expensive hydraulic jacks required! . . . A bunch of these blokes simply rolled the car onto it's side on a mattress to access the gearbox! It was like living right nextdoor to the Bathurst Pit Area. This "CUMMINS ARCHIVE" is truly golden. For those of us who incurably fell in love with adorable Early Model Holdens as kids back when they were often "the star of nearly every show", this material is thoroughly magnificent. The Red Des West 48Series Sedan was featured extensively in AUSTRALIAN MUSCLE CAR MAGAZINE upon rediscovery in a shed only a few years ago. As an old Early Holden Nut, I was pretty much stunned at how much thought & effort had been funnelled into the myriad modifications uncovered in that car. Des West was without doubt, a truly gifted engineer who fully understood exactly what was required to build performance & durability into what had started out as affordable, reliable & economical transport for average Australians. Most average Australian enthusiasts in the 1960s could not afford the purchase price or the high maintenance costs of even a Mini Cooper, let alone a Jaguar. Many cars raced on weekends were actually driven to work through the week. It wasn't until Holden Released the GTR XU-1 in 1970 that anyone in Australia on a fairly tight budget could drive out of a new car dealership in a properly developed & fairly fast "family car" which was backed up by a new car warranty & a service plan. Oddly enough. . . That first XU-1 with it's high compression Triple Carb 186 Cubic Inch Engine delivered 160BHP which was the best one could generally hope for out of a very highly modified Grey Engine as raced by the likes of Des West & Bruce McPhee. Countless thousands of Holdens were raced. Millions of spectators enjoyed this madness. Hundreds of them are still raced in Historic Categories like Group N & I encourage everyone to contact their nearest racing circuit & spend a weekend getting right up close & personal with the gifted mechanics & drivers who still to this day, put on a great show in racing these wonderful old cars as has been going on since the early 1960s.
Thanks John for your great synopsis and wonderful car related memories. Des West's surviving 48-215 is an amazing find and a credit to his abilities. We moved to Sydney in 1967. In Annandale there weren't many garages so greyhound racing was the chosen hobby of most around us. Dad (Ian) did regularly take us to Warwick Farm and Oran Park for the racing, then in the 1970s and '80s he got involved in Historic racing. I found the reels of film amongst his stuff, i don't know where they came from but after getting them digitally copied I thought they needed to be researched (to the best of my limited ability) and put up for prosperity. I was surprised that the ones from the 1950s were in colour. Unfortunately i don't have any more to upload but hopefully others may have more. Regards, Paul
That brought back some memories ! Was 15 years old then and to see all those names was fantastic. I lived near Katoomba and loved to go to that circuit. Visited the circuit several years ago and was disappointed at what state it was in.
" Catalina is now closed for a long time 2018 cobra club had a meeting to " walk around the track only " it rained in the morning I arrived lunchtime weather beautiful I was only one there so " I drove my ac cobra replica around the circuit slowly " then drove carefully but drove : fast on the straight 3 times !" Laugh 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 😂 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 ahhhhh
