Original Sidewinder rebuild (Read 44,057 times)

[grant]

Well after purchasing the original Ford v8 powered Sidewinder last October it finally arrived at my factory today.

To say that I now have a massive job to rebuild/ restore and have ready to race for the start of next season is an understatement.

We will now strip it completely and start from scratch with the rebuild.






Any information about it or any earlier pictures would be appreciated.

[TheFanVan.co.nz]

I was thinking it was the car that the "goose" Peter Drake had before going to Palmy - Pitcher?

[grant]

Apr 17, 2010 11:57:00 GMT 12 TheFanVan.co.nz said:

I was thinking it was the car that the "goose" Peter Drake had before going to Palmy - Pitcher?

It's one of the original 3 built Phil.

One was a holden ( Dave Tennant's 75a), one was a chev and this one a ford raced by Keith Simpson and took him to 1NZ.

That was the info from Cory baker who sold it in October 2007 to the guy I got it from last year.

I guess the real telling will be in recognition of some details of the chassis and I will have plenty of pics as we strip it.

[kale]

Im pretty sure Keith Simpson still owned the car when this pic was taken at PN .. John Lund was having a pedal in it at this particular meeting


Clinton Mc Donald was racing the car at this stage and Im fairly certain a bloke by the name of Woods from Taranaki was the owner

[gubby49p]

yip joel pitcher had it had a chev in it it was black and had a grey chassis then he painted it white and blue and then he striped it out and i brought bare chassis of him and tok it to huntly did a bit of work on it then sold it to dion in waitoa

[grant]

Apr 17, 2010 12:04:52 GMT 12 @kale said:

Im pretty sure Keith Simpson still owned the car when this pic was taken at PN .. John Lund was having a pedal in it at this particular meeting


Clinton Mc Donald was racing the car at this stage and Im fairly certain a bloke by the name of Woods from Taranaki was the owner

Its the same as the orange 73 in that pic, huge offset, same side rail and outrigger dimensions.

[pallmall]

I am not sure how many offsets of this style were built, possibly 5 or 6. The two originals have been on here before, and both had been partly rebuilt to a higher standard than the one pictured above, and both are MIA again after being for sale part way through their rebuilds.
The change to coils from torsion bars is pretty crude on this one, but the chassis looks to be a genuine Gordge if you look past the bodgy bits.

[grant]

Apr 17, 2010 12:07:40 GMT 12 pallmall said:

I am not sure how many offsets of this style were built, possibly 5 or 6. The two originals have been on here before, and both had been partly rebuilt to a higher standard than the one pictured above, and both are MIA again after being for sale part way through their rebuilds.
The change to coils from torsion bars is pretty crude on this one, but the chassis looks to be a genuine Gordge if you look past the bodgy bits.

Crude change to coils? well you definitely got that part right Gavin. The mounts and holes for the torsions have been cut off at surface level but you can see where they were.

And there are multiple bodgy bits.

[gubby49p]

im looking at the pic of wen joel had it now az i helped joel on it and the one joel had had a chev in it and paul perkens had one two but he built his one him self

[kale]

Found a couple more ... Lisa Harter


Keith Simpson

[thewatcher]

Pretty sure the orange 73 was driven by Paul Urlich and was around the same time as Clintons with is the ex simbo car. Also sure the orange one was blue chassis and dark purple body at the nz champs in stratford ...

will dig some pics up

Im sure 58v is one of the sidewinders but the copy one that Pitcher had or was is Perkins..

[Admin]

I was told that 58v was the original Simpson car a few months ago by a person I can usually rely on for such info.

[gubby49p]

na perkins had one two they were painted the same colours they were blue and white buget autowreckes colours and wen pitcher sriped his one out in a deal pitcher ended up with perkins witch was a copy and had a chev in it to

[jimmy82]

I think there where three originals built.

#1 Ford V8
-Keith Simpson (1+3=s)
-Clinton McDonald (5s) (and a number of guest drivers Lisa Harter, John Lund, John Booker to name a few)
-John Rice ?(5S?) possibly had it for a short time
-John Durning (71s)
-Peter Drake? (21H AVD team racing out of Huntly)
Gets a bit fuzzy after John During


#2 Holden V8
-Ron Butcher (6M)
-Dave Tennant (75A)
-Barry Boyce (69R)
-Jason Rees (69V)

#3 Chev V8
-Archie Millar (73s) (Paul Urlich drove the car to defend the 240's)

-Paul Perkins (7P)

Once again real fuzzy the history of this one.


Now somewhere in this lot Joel Pitcher raced one when both him and Paul Perkins had identical looking cars.Weather this was one of the above three , I don't know, was there a copy built by Perkins or Pitcher

Also the later history of Car #1 and #3 once been converted to stockcars is something that still needs to be fully worked out.

[The Observer]

Paul Perkins also built a new one for Joel Pitcher - it never made the track, but was swapped for the x dutchy kuriger.

Blair Ashton did race it as 22h, and had it for sale for a long time after an injury. Not sure where it ended up.

As for the one above - I guess given its a ford v8, and the copies had chevs in them I guess it would make sense to be the Simbo version.

Keith Simpson also never won the NZ Title - Bruce Simpson did however in a gordge.

Look foward to seeing more picture of the rebuild, and of course some more missing pics of this cool car.

Are you intending on staying with a Ford v8, or would you convert to a later model v6?

[grant]

Apr 17, 2010 13:05:20 GMT 12 @kale said:

Found a couple more ... Lisa Harter


Keith Simpson

It is this one

[Morpheous]

Grant what happened to the Tri-Rail you were building???

[grant]

Apr 17, 2010 19:44:30 GMT 12 Morpheous said:

Grant what happened to the Tri-Rail you were building???

Marriage breakup 18 months ago , everything gone

[poi]

are you gone keep the coupe body on it if not pm me i could be interested in it for the new project

[antzgofast2]

heres mine