CLASSIC KIWI RACER GETS GOODWOOD CALL-UP
One of New Zealand’s most iconic classic-era race cars, the Corvette V8-engined Austin-healey originally built and raced by Christchurch man Arthur Kennard, is set to shake-up the annual Goodwood Revival meeting in September this year.
The car, only recently rebuilt after languishing for almost three decades following a road accident in 1967, is now owned by Christchurch businessman and keen classic and historic driver and enthusiast Lindsay O’donnell.
Earlier this year, O’donnell received an invitation much coveted in the classic racing world from the man behind the Goodwood Revival meeting, Lord March, to take the car over for the event. And he has enlisted one of the best young Uk-based classic and historic racing drivers, Michael Lyons, to drive the car. Lyons has raced F5000 singleseaters here as well as at home in the UK.
Kiwi speedway great Geoff Mardon bought the car in the UK and used it as a road car there. Christchurch garage proprietor Arthur Kennard bought it in 1955, shipped it to New Zealand, and raced it for the next two seasons in factory standard form. Then he took the unusual step of buying a brand new 283-cubic-inch V8 engine built for the then-all-new Chevrolet Corvette from local General Motors dealer Blackwells. To stop it, he also bought a set of Dunlop disc brakes as fitted to the Aston Martin DB2.
With way more power and torque, and brakes to match, Kennard won the Ken Wharton Memorial Trophy sports car support race at
the 1958 New Zealand Grand Prix meeting at Ardmore on debut.
Just before selling it in 1959, Kennard ran a standing quarter-mile in the car at Ashburton in a time of 14.5 seconds and achieved a top speed over a flying kilometre of close to 150mph (241kph).
The ‘Healey-corvette’ was used as both a road and race car for the next seven years until its then owner crashed it on his way back to Timaru from the Lady Wigram Trophy meeting in January 1967.
Though obviously repairable, the insurance company wrote the car off and Christchurch craftsman panel beater Dave Bunn eventually acquired the wreck in the mid 1980s. Bunn spent the next 10 or so years carefully returning the car to better-than-new condition, before accepting Lindsay O’donnell’s offer to buy it and use it in the Arthur Kennard way.
O’donnell sent the car to Naseby, where noted classic and historic car race engineer Eric Swinbourn set it back up as a race-spec road car.
Receiving an invite to ship it back ‘home’ for this year’s Goodwood Revival is obviously a bonus, and one that O’donnell says he grabbed with both hands.
“For those who turn up to watch Michael driving it, it is obviously going to be something special,” he says. “There will no doubt be plenty of V8 AC Cobras there, but I’m fairly sure there will only be the one Austin-healey V8. We believe Arthur was the first Healey owner in the world to do a V8 conversion, so there will be a lot of interest in the car from that perspective as well.”
O’donnell’s not doing things by halves either, taking both Dave Bunn and Eric Swinbourn with him to fettle the car while it is at Goodwood.
This year’s three-day event will kick off on Friday, 13 September and finish on Sunday, 15 September.