A MISTRAL MIRAGE

Very interested in your recent article on the Mistral kit car [Issue No. 347]. It brought back memories from over 50 year ago when I sold my first sports car, a much abused 1939 MG TA, to invest in a kit from Emslie and Flockton in Dunedin, it must have been around 1964. The complete body was as described but also a chassis designed to take an E93A Ford 10 donor car; essentially a two-tube ladder frame with outriggers and mountings for front and rear suspension. As part of the deal they undertook to shorten the Ford torque tube and drive shaft and cut and bush the front axle beam. It all arrived courtesy of NZ Rail and I set to work in a rented garage with a nice inspection pit full of water. I was studying towards a science degree at Canterbury University on what was then called a Division U scholarship. The Education Department paid very good money if you were willing to attend a year at training college and do three years’ teaching after graduation. Living free at home, the Education Department’s investment went straight into the car. The only photo I have is of the rolling chassis, but I got the car close to finished before, completely brassed off halfway through the teachers college year, I headed for Canada to become a lumberjack or something. I sold the car for a fraction of the money I had invested [you mean that the Education Department had invested — Ed.]. Skip forward about 30 years and I spotted a Mistral sans motor in a farm shed south of Hamilton. In a mistaken effort to recapture my lost youth I made an offer and carted it back to Rotorua. It sat outside under a tarp for about three years before I was given the word by the other half to get on with it or get rid of it. It went south, supposedly to be built into a club racer. Great magazine, keep up the good work. Gordon Hosking

Mangawhai