Hi Bob and all,
Bob, I was going to post this as a reply to your GT40 Xmas story but for some reason it would not connect. I am therefore doing as new post.
That was a good Xmas story, the naughty guy in the JWA GT40 doing some wickedy speeds in Essex.
As the world is a bit stressed at the moment (perhaps it has always been!) - Iraq, international terrorism, Ian Huntley, AIDS, high crime levels everywhere, etc. I thought now what stories regarding SPEED could I come up with to bring smiles to your faces this Christmas season.
In the mid-1960s an AC Cobra Daytona was trapped on the MI, somewhere near Luton as far as I can remember, at 190 mph. I still do not know whether it was driven by Jack Sears or my fellow countryman, Bob Olthoff, but whoever there was a huge outcry throughout England. In his end of the year famous cartoon book Giles recorded this dastardly deed. On British motorways there are or were signs reminding one of what was not allowed on motorways, ie pedestrians, bicycles, etc.Giles did a drawing of the sign and at the bottom it read, 'No AC Cobras'. Great sense of humour (humor!) the Brits have!
Today Bob, who used to fling Cobras around British circuits in the 1960s, is the Superformance agent in North Carolina.
In 1967 my brother and his wife came to visit us when we were living in London. I had met Commander Harris, a golf course designer, who lived in Surrey and who owned a yellow GT40 with Borrani wire wheels. I thought I would impress my brother by arranging a drive for him in the car. So down to the Harris mansion we went and it was agreed that Harris Junior would show my brother what a yellow GT40 could do. The car was fitted with hard competition brake pads, which of course needed warming, a fact not remembered by the driver. At 120 mph down the Guildford bypass there was suddenly heavy traffic including a big truck in the way. When the brake pedal went down there was little response and my brother had visions of the GT40 going clean under the truck and coming out the other side as a GT20. Anyway, a big shunt was mercifully avoided and judging by his much paler face but big grin nontheless my brother enjoyed the experience. Until today he has a colour slide clearly showing the needle at 120 mph. Proof!
Been involved with the GT40 for so long now, cannot get the car out of my system!
Just wait until you see the new Mk11 with full monocoque next year from Hi-Tech Automotive/Superformance.
In 1970 Mike Hailwood brought his yellow Iso Grifo to South Africa as his personal transport for the Springbok Series which included the Nine Hour at Kyalami. Cape Town and Johannesburg are about 900 miles apart and in those days there were no speed limits in South Africa on the open roads. Speed limits in cities and towns were and are between 30 and 40 mph.
One day Mike left Cape Town to head to Jo'burg, a trip usually completed in 10 and half hours. The town of Beaufort West, in the middle of the desolate Karroo (not unlike parts of Arizona and Nevada and where incidentally heart transplant pioneer Chris Barnard was born) is 300 miles from Cape Town. As Mike drove out of the town on the outskirts he noticed a big black limo, a man with a gold chain around his neck (the Mayor), a traffic chief and others in the group. He then saw two black line across the road and being a motor cycle and car racer with quick reflexes realised that this was the official launch of Beaufort West’s one and only Gatsometer. Mike got the revs up and as he got over the lines he got wheelspin and he told me with great glee that as he looked in the rear view mirror he saw the Gatso lines arcing trough the air like snakes in their final death throes! The spinning rear wheels had completely severed the lines!
On a subsequent trip Mike was not so lucky. He and British driver, Peter Gethin, were also travelling from Cape Town to Jo'burg and they passed through the small town of Parys in the Orange Free State, about 70 miles south of Jo'burg. The name Parys means Paris in the Afrikaans language, one helluva stretch of the imagination!
As Mike left the town he accelerated to about 100 mph up a hill and wrong place, wrong time three cows were crossing the road just over the brow. Mike hit the middle one smack dead centre and the large animal literally decapitated the Iso. The A-posts were severed flush with the fenders and the roof was peeled back like a tin can. Luckily Mike and Peter managed to duck but their foreheads were cut by flying glass. The poor moo was stone dead. Mike also got a cut across the eye and as the doctor was stitching him up in the local little country hospital there was a power failure so Mike had to wait quite a while for power to be restored and the op completed!
At the time I was founder and MD of the Mike Hailwood Autospray System, with 17 branches across the country. Technically the Iso was a complete write off but I went down to Parys to help load it on rail truck to bring it back to the Jo'burg head office for repairs. We flew the parts out from Italy and actually managed to rebuild the car, which was built like a battle ship, no doubt a fact that contributed to Mike and Peter surviving. Wonder where the car is today. Perhaps a member of the Iso Grifo Club, if there is such a thing might know.
Sadly Mike was to be fatally injured in a car accident in England 11 years later. He hit a flat bed truck that was doing a u-turn in front of him and ironically the roof of the Rover 3500 was peeled back almost exactly like the Iso. I am in touch with Pauline Hailwood who lives in Spain and she has started writing a book about her life with Mike. As my book on the history of the original Kyalami circuit (1961-1987) will be on the shelves by March next year, after 19 (!) years of writing, I will be guiding Pauline through the minefields of getting a book published. There is no doubt that her book will be a top seller.
There was another funny story about Gatsometer lines across the road. In the 1940s to 1960s one often saw chains dangling from back of cars in South Africa supposedly to counteract car sickness. In one such case the last chain in the link had worn through to create an effective hook. You can guess what happened. In a million to one chance the car passed over the Gatso lines, hooked one, ripped the machine off the table, dragged it along the road and smashed it to bits. Bit like a Charles Bronson revenge story!
In Pretoria many years ago students from the Pretoria University were on a high after the year end exams so off to a local pub went some lads and girls in two cars and a pick-up. At about mid-night, a little tipsy and full of the joys of life, the convoy headed back to their homes. As they passed through central Pretoria a speed camera flashed so off they went to one of the student's homes and hatched a plan. They stripped stark naked and with two in the front of the pick-up and eight standing on the back they headed back to the speed camera. One must view that prank in the then conservative South Africa and in particular arch conservative Pretoria when sex scenes and nudity in the cinema, on TV and in magazines was absolutely verboten. If you were caught in possession of 'Playboy' you would be in big trouble.
The licence plate of the pick-up was covered with tape and the students then passed by the speed camera deliberately over the speed limit. As they went by they jeered, waved and pulled faces at the camera. However it was not their lucky night. The tape over the licence plate left shadows so that it could be read on the photo, which meant that the owner was easily traced. The Pretoria Traffic Chief (South Africa has separate police and traffic forces) blew the photo up on a large screen in his office. The quality was so good that every freckle, mole, hairs on chests and elsewhere were clearly visible. The wily old cop with some further detective work traced the students and their parents. He then invited the parents, all 16 of them, to tea to show them 'something interesting&'!
It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall in eight homes as the parents confronted their off spring about the 'incident'! As I said in arch conservative Pretoria! No speeding summons was issued!
The ultimate speed story was Jo'burg estate agent, Dave Sewell, who some years ago did Jo'burg to Cape Town in 7 hours and 37 minutes in a BMW 325i. That was an average speed of 120 mph for 900 miles on public roads and much of it at night! Very, very naughty! To see the time in perspective when Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the 1955 Mille Miglia in a Mercedes 300SLR their time was 10 hours 7 minutes and 48 seconds for almost the identical distance. I attach a newspaper report on Sewell's crazy trip.
Hope that these tales of speed bring smiles to your faces for Christmas and remember that when you next stand on the back of a pick-up please be fully clothed!
Andre 40
Bob, I was going to post this as a reply to your GT40 Xmas story but for some reason it would not connect. I am therefore doing as new post.
That was a good Xmas story, the naughty guy in the JWA GT40 doing some wickedy speeds in Essex.
As the world is a bit stressed at the moment (perhaps it has always been!) - Iraq, international terrorism, Ian Huntley, AIDS, high crime levels everywhere, etc. I thought now what stories regarding SPEED could I come up with to bring smiles to your faces this Christmas season.
In the mid-1960s an AC Cobra Daytona was trapped on the MI, somewhere near Luton as far as I can remember, at 190 mph. I still do not know whether it was driven by Jack Sears or my fellow countryman, Bob Olthoff, but whoever there was a huge outcry throughout England. In his end of the year famous cartoon book Giles recorded this dastardly deed. On British motorways there are or were signs reminding one of what was not allowed on motorways, ie pedestrians, bicycles, etc.Giles did a drawing of the sign and at the bottom it read, 'No AC Cobras'. Great sense of humour (humor!) the Brits have!
Today Bob, who used to fling Cobras around British circuits in the 1960s, is the Superformance agent in North Carolina.
In 1967 my brother and his wife came to visit us when we were living in London. I had met Commander Harris, a golf course designer, who lived in Surrey and who owned a yellow GT40 with Borrani wire wheels. I thought I would impress my brother by arranging a drive for him in the car. So down to the Harris mansion we went and it was agreed that Harris Junior would show my brother what a yellow GT40 could do. The car was fitted with hard competition brake pads, which of course needed warming, a fact not remembered by the driver. At 120 mph down the Guildford bypass there was suddenly heavy traffic including a big truck in the way. When the brake pedal went down there was little response and my brother had visions of the GT40 going clean under the truck and coming out the other side as a GT20. Anyway, a big shunt was mercifully avoided and judging by his much paler face but big grin nontheless my brother enjoyed the experience. Until today he has a colour slide clearly showing the needle at 120 mph. Proof!
Been involved with the GT40 for so long now, cannot get the car out of my system!
Just wait until you see the new Mk11 with full monocoque next year from Hi-Tech Automotive/Superformance.
In 1970 Mike Hailwood brought his yellow Iso Grifo to South Africa as his personal transport for the Springbok Series which included the Nine Hour at Kyalami. Cape Town and Johannesburg are about 900 miles apart and in those days there were no speed limits in South Africa on the open roads. Speed limits in cities and towns were and are between 30 and 40 mph.
One day Mike left Cape Town to head to Jo'burg, a trip usually completed in 10 and half hours. The town of Beaufort West, in the middle of the desolate Karroo (not unlike parts of Arizona and Nevada and where incidentally heart transplant pioneer Chris Barnard was born) is 300 miles from Cape Town. As Mike drove out of the town on the outskirts he noticed a big black limo, a man with a gold chain around his neck (the Mayor), a traffic chief and others in the group. He then saw two black line across the road and being a motor cycle and car racer with quick reflexes realised that this was the official launch of Beaufort West’s one and only Gatsometer. Mike got the revs up and as he got over the lines he got wheelspin and he told me with great glee that as he looked in the rear view mirror he saw the Gatso lines arcing trough the air like snakes in their final death throes! The spinning rear wheels had completely severed the lines!
On a subsequent trip Mike was not so lucky. He and British driver, Peter Gethin, were also travelling from Cape Town to Jo'burg and they passed through the small town of Parys in the Orange Free State, about 70 miles south of Jo'burg. The name Parys means Paris in the Afrikaans language, one helluva stretch of the imagination!
As Mike left the town he accelerated to about 100 mph up a hill and wrong place, wrong time three cows were crossing the road just over the brow. Mike hit the middle one smack dead centre and the large animal literally decapitated the Iso. The A-posts were severed flush with the fenders and the roof was peeled back like a tin can. Luckily Mike and Peter managed to duck but their foreheads were cut by flying glass. The poor moo was stone dead. Mike also got a cut across the eye and as the doctor was stitching him up in the local little country hospital there was a power failure so Mike had to wait quite a while for power to be restored and the op completed!
At the time I was founder and MD of the Mike Hailwood Autospray System, with 17 branches across the country. Technically the Iso was a complete write off but I went down to Parys to help load it on rail truck to bring it back to the Jo'burg head office for repairs. We flew the parts out from Italy and actually managed to rebuild the car, which was built like a battle ship, no doubt a fact that contributed to Mike and Peter surviving. Wonder where the car is today. Perhaps a member of the Iso Grifo Club, if there is such a thing might know.
Sadly Mike was to be fatally injured in a car accident in England 11 years later. He hit a flat bed truck that was doing a u-turn in front of him and ironically the roof of the Rover 3500 was peeled back almost exactly like the Iso. I am in touch with Pauline Hailwood who lives in Spain and she has started writing a book about her life with Mike. As my book on the history of the original Kyalami circuit (1961-1987) will be on the shelves by March next year, after 19 (!) years of writing, I will be guiding Pauline through the minefields of getting a book published. There is no doubt that her book will be a top seller.
There was another funny story about Gatsometer lines across the road. In the 1940s to 1960s one often saw chains dangling from back of cars in South Africa supposedly to counteract car sickness. In one such case the last chain in the link had worn through to create an effective hook. You can guess what happened. In a million to one chance the car passed over the Gatso lines, hooked one, ripped the machine off the table, dragged it along the road and smashed it to bits. Bit like a Charles Bronson revenge story!
In Pretoria many years ago students from the Pretoria University were on a high after the year end exams so off to a local pub went some lads and girls in two cars and a pick-up. At about mid-night, a little tipsy and full of the joys of life, the convoy headed back to their homes. As they passed through central Pretoria a speed camera flashed so off they went to one of the student's homes and hatched a plan. They stripped stark naked and with two in the front of the pick-up and eight standing on the back they headed back to the speed camera. One must view that prank in the then conservative South Africa and in particular arch conservative Pretoria when sex scenes and nudity in the cinema, on TV and in magazines was absolutely verboten. If you were caught in possession of 'Playboy' you would be in big trouble.
The licence plate of the pick-up was covered with tape and the students then passed by the speed camera deliberately over the speed limit. As they went by they jeered, waved and pulled faces at the camera. However it was not their lucky night. The tape over the licence plate left shadows so that it could be read on the photo, which meant that the owner was easily traced. The Pretoria Traffic Chief (South Africa has separate police and traffic forces) blew the photo up on a large screen in his office. The quality was so good that every freckle, mole, hairs on chests and elsewhere were clearly visible. The wily old cop with some further detective work traced the students and their parents. He then invited the parents, all 16 of them, to tea to show them 'something interesting&'!
It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall in eight homes as the parents confronted their off spring about the 'incident'! As I said in arch conservative Pretoria! No speeding summons was issued!
The ultimate speed story was Jo'burg estate agent, Dave Sewell, who some years ago did Jo'burg to Cape Town in 7 hours and 37 minutes in a BMW 325i. That was an average speed of 120 mph for 900 miles on public roads and much of it at night! Very, very naughty! To see the time in perspective when Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson won the 1955 Mille Miglia in a Mercedes 300SLR their time was 10 hours 7 minutes and 48 seconds for almost the identical distance. I attach a newspaper report on Sewell's crazy trip.
Hope that these tales of speed bring smiles to your faces for Christmas and remember that when you next stand on the back of a pick-up please be fully clothed!
Andre 40
