South African tour by forum members?

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 03:02 AM

How about a visit to South Africa by US forum members?

First some background to what motivated this idea. My old English Porsche buddy, Roger Holliday and his wife Claudia, from Bowling Green in Ohio, will be staying with us in November. Roger and I were the only two English speaking foreigners working for Porsche in the early 1960s and we shared an apartment in Stuttgart. Yeah, some of those pretty German secretaries were excellent cooks! The Germans taught us to plan our lives well!

Roger and I both left Porsche in 1964 to conquer other worlds. I moved to London and he moved to Bowling Green and joined Owens-Corning on the marketing side. Some of the older motor cycle boys out there might be interested in the fact that Roger's father, Bob Holliday, was for many years editor of the London based 'Motor Cycling' magazine.

As an aside, on February 19, 1964 I delivered Stirling Moss's Porsche 904 to his team manager, Ed Rossler. In the following pic Roger can be seen on the right. By a remarkable and unplanned coincidence Ed and his wife Marion stayed with us in February and Ed and I were together on the 19th, the 40th anniversary of the handing over of the 904. By another lucky coincidence The Rossler's visit coincided with David Piper's classic race series and I organised a barbeque at Jimmy's GT40 factory for David and fellow competitors. It was fun having a barbeque in between GT40 monocoques and other bits and pieces. The photo of me showing David a dummy of my book on the history of the Kyalami circuit was taken by Marion. On David's right is Norman Lewis, car builder and former RAF jet aircraft electrician and on David's left, with far away look in the eye no doubt planning some fibreglass design, is Keith Bright.

As usual I digress, so let's get back to the tour idea. As Roger and Claudia are experienced tour operators we could plan a US GT40s forum members tour, that is if there's an interest in the idea.

There are direct flights from Atlanta to Cape Town.

There are nine provinces in South Africa and Cape Town is the capital of the Western Cape province. The Cape region offers many attractions - the Waterfront, the Table Mountain Cableway, historic wine farms, excellent restaurants, great roads and mountains passes, mountain walks, whale watching and much else besides. Due to a weak rand the US dollar goes a long way.

Jimmy Price's Hi-Tech Automotive factory is in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province, 500 miles due east of Cape Town. That would be a must see as part of a tour.

The drive from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth is scenic. Much to see on the way. Riding and ostrich at Oudsthoorn, stopping at the railway museum at George, visiting the quaint town of Knysna famous for its oysters, a steam train ride between George and Knysna, a visit to Monkey Valley and more.

When Roger returns I'll ask him to register on the forum and he will then be able to give an unbiased opinion, as a US resident, of his South African experience. I'm sure that with Roger and Claudia's experience in organising tours and with our help we could put a great package together.

A good time could be February, our last month of summer, when David Piper and friends return again with an even bigger field. That leaves just over three months to plan the tour!

Looking forward to seeing you!
Andre 40

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 03:13 AM

The Porsche 904 hand over. Roger Holliday is on the right.

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 04:25 AM

The barbeque for David Piper and classic racing friends.

That's me showing David a dummy of my book on the history of the original Kyalami Circuit (1961 to 1987). In 1988 the circuit was drastically changed and to run in an anti-clockwise direction. It's never been the same since.

After 20 years of writing, the bemused look on David's face is quite understandable - 'Good heavens, Andre, are we seeing it at last!' I think that fate has been kind to me as there's no better time to bring the book out than now when everything retro is so important. Carroll Shelby recently said it is as if 40 years went away and suddendly came back.True!

There is a section in the book called 'Kyalami Characters' being interviews with several main players, ie David, Jody Scheckter, Jochen Mass, Sarel van der Merwe, winner of the 1983 Daytona 24 Hour, etc.

David won the Kyalami Nine Hour six times:

1962 - Ferrari 250 GTO with Bruce Johnstone
1963 - Ferrari 250 GTO with Tony Maggs
1964 - Ferrari 275LM with Richard Attwood
1965 - Ferrari P2 with Richard Attwood
1966 - Ferrari P2/3 with Richard Attwood
1969 - Porsche 917 with Richard Attwood.

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 04:34 AM

In case the Piper pic doesn't open, here goes again.

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 04:43 AM

Cape Town

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 04:47 AM

Cape Town Waterfront

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 04:51 AM

Table Mountain Cableway

David Morton · 10-29-04, 05:56 AM

Andre,
UK contingent as well?
Book me a room at the Lord Charles in Somerset W.
Dave M [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 08:15 AM

Hi David,

I did think in terms of forum members from other countries but as Roger and Claudia are US based tour operators I thought that it could make sense if they could gather the flocks there like good shepherds and herd them towards Atlanta Airport.

Members from other countries could find their own way to Cape Town and then join the tour.

If it happens, boy, will we have a PARTY! You could then cast your eyes skywards and tell us if the weather will be OK. I'll 'lean heavily' on my mates at Audi/VW SA to lend you an Audi for your stay. You did after all contribute to one of their victories at Le Mans, the very wet one. It could make a good story for our local 'CAR' magazine.

Wonder why you chose the Lord Charles at Somerset West. Obviously nothing to do with the fact that it's in the heart of the winelands!!Good hotel.

Best wishes,
Andre

David Morton · 10-29-04, 09:39 AM

neetlingshof ? kanonkopf? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 01:35 PM

I didn't mention it but Auto Futura would of course also be included in the tour.

The factory is about one mile from where we live.

The pic shows Jean's personal Cobra in front of the factory which looks more like an apartment block than a typical factory. The stunning Cobra has since been completed.

Andre 40

Andre40 · 10-29-04, 01:43 PM

Wrong pic. That was a Porsche Speedster that Jean built.
Try again.

Lynn · 10-30-04, 01:37 PM

Andre,

Thank you very much for the invitation to visit in the other thread. I will give it very serious consideration. During my interactions with John Donnolley, builder of the Sabre, he told me many stories of his South African days which made me quite interested in visiting there. A tour of the Auto Futura site would be a must, of course.

The one possible conflict I see is the 24 Hours of Daytona which historically takes place during the first two weeks of February. I have become a loyal fan of the Crawford family and their cars, Crawford Composites & Race Cars, which run in the Rolex GrandAm series.

Regards,
Lynn

Andre40 · 10-31-04, 08:32 AM

A recent newpaper article.

Lynn · 10-31-04, 02:09 PM

Andre,

I have tried to open this (46130-Untitled-2.jpg) with 3 different graphics packages. Looking at the raw file, it appears to be a jpeg file created in Adobe Photoshop. Internally to the file, it is getting a file extension of .jpeg which is generally only used in Unix, I am a little confused by that. You might want to try re-saving as a .jpg after checking the file properties being used in the save.

Regards,
Lynn