One of the good things about my late-life dalliance with drifting – and the greater drift world – is that I find myself knowing as much about the kids’ cars of today as I do the cars of my own youth.
Given the opportunity, in fact, I can bore – for Africa – anyone within ear-shot about Nissan’s Silvias and Skylines and Mazda’s various RX7s as much as I can the Minis, Ford Anglias, Cortinas and Escorts I was fixated with in my early teens. Not to mention the Datsun 1200s, 1600s and Mazda RX2s, 3s & yes even 4s, my car-owning mates (I was more into motorbikes at that stage) owned and I often drove through my High School and Uni years.
What got me thinking along these lines for a column was a recent Facebook post from old mate Wade Henshaw. ‘Just bought back my original RX7,’ he said, attaching a pic of the car in its original dark blue livery at an early round of the Pyrotect South Island RX7 Series at Wigram.
Let me be perfectly clear here, I have neither the space nor the spare $$$ at the moment to ‘buy back’ ANY of my old road or race cars. BUT that hasn’t stopped me keeping an eye out for my ‘own’ old RX7, or any of the original Series 1 ‘Pro 7’ cars with the idea of either returning the original to its ‘rightful’ Fuelstar/SpeedSport/PAD Racing livery (pictured above in 1997), or creating an as-near-as-dammit replica which I can pull out of the shed and have the odd, nostalgic run in.
For others, of course, RX7s (or any rotary-engined Mazdas) are a bridge (port) too far, being all too (let’s see), noisy, finicky, fragile, expensive to maintain and run, prone to rust etc etc to be considered ‘classic,’ let alone a suitable ‘club’ car. Things might have changed now, for instance, but I know, when I tried to enter the Fuelstar RX7 in a Country Gentleman’s Classic meet (the very last one) at Wigram I was (very im) politely told that cars ‘like that’ (i.e. Japanese and rotary) were ‘not and never will be’ classics. Therefore I wasn’t, er, welcome!
What the silly old bugger who told me that would make of the four-door Aussie-assembled Nissan R31 Skyline I now own and originally set up as an all-purpose ‘club car’ I don’t know. At least a Series 1 Mazda RX7, a) looks the part, and b) has a stack of pukka period race history thanks to the exploits on tarmac of the likes of the late Tom Walkinshaw in the UK and Europe, and Allan Moffat across the Tasman, and on gravel in the hands of our own world-ranked rally ace, Rod Millen.
Each generation, of course, has its favourite, be it based simply on availability, power, or cost.
Way back in the misty days of beach racing in the 1920s it was all about what you could get your hands on, which meant big sellers like the Ford Model A and Ts. Ford’s flathead V8 was a game changer in the late 1930s, and Ford, Chev and Willys coupes were still in use well into the 1960s.
It was the Mini which ushered in a sea change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, joined soon after by that slew of small Fords, starting with the 105E Anglia and taking in the MK 1 Cortina and Mk 1 & 2 Escorts.
This is arguably the era most current motorsport tragics (don’t worry, I’m one) identify with. This was also the era when motorsport at club level first split into two distinct camps, race and rallying. Though you would never pick it from the cars, because – until the arrival of the first Subaru 4WD models – the pool of suitable ones remained the same…Minis, Anglias and Escorts.
The on-going success of aftermarket-modded versions to this day is proof (if any is needed) of just how good the basic Escort (Mk1 or II) blueprint was. You only have to flick through the results of the last Silver Fern Rally, or check out any video of an Irish tarmac rally on You Tube.
Try to find a decent, rust-free donor Escort these days, however, and the law of supply and demand means that you will inevitably be outbid by someone with deeper pockets. It would be the same, I’m sure would be the same if you went looking for a Datsun 1200, 1600, or worse, one of the gorgeous but fatally rust-prone 120Y SSSs. Your chances of finding one of those, let alone at the ‘right price’ are about the same as seeing a Unicorn on your way to work tomorrow morning.
In theory Toyota’s AE85/86 twins and KP-line of Starlets took up some of that slack, but again too few were originally sold to adequately seed the local club car market for any length of time.
Fortunately this was about the time that the used imports from Japan were running at their peak with the local market literally flooded with cheap 2.0 litre 5-speed-manual RWD Nissan S13 and 14 Silvias, and R32 Skylines. With many – most in fact – turbocharged these proved the perfect platform for club level competition – or would have had not drifting come along to further fragment the market.
Or at least the traditional rear-wheel-drive market.
If the televising of the British Touring Car Championship in its bang ‘n crash heyday of the late 80s and early 90s did anything it was to legitimise in the eyes of keen ‘clubbies’ what once they would have rejected carte blanche, front-wheel-drive.
Check out any 2K Cup grid these days though and the majority of these ultimate cheap-to-buy/affordable to run ‘club cars’ (and here I’m talking about Honda Civics and Integras, Toyota Levins, Currans and Celicas and various Nissans) are front-wheel-drive.
But that’s more than enough from me. Now it’s your turn. What do YOU think is the ultimate Kiwi club car? Don’t worry if you don’t own one either. I’d like to know whether I’m barking up the right tree. To help I’ll narrow down your options and let you vote.
1939 Ford V8 coupe
1959-64 Mini
1965-68 Ford Anglia
1969-73 Mk 1 Ford Escort
1975-1981 Mk 11 Ford Escort
1978-84 Toyota Starlet P60
1978-2002 Mazda RX7
1989-1994 Nissan Silvia S13
1994-2001 Honda Integra DC2
Either respond with one of the above list or one of your own in the Comments section. And let’s see if we can find out which is NZ’s most popular club race, rally, drift (or whatever) car!
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