One of George Begg’s men writes
I was very interested in the article on the McBegg Sports Car, Issue 45, as I had helped George Begg with that car from the day it arrived at the Drummond factory, December 1968. I started working for George in February 1962 after 5 years with John Chambers & Sons, Invercargill, as a motor parts Salesman.
My job with George was making Begg Sheep Handlers, Front End Loaders, etc. I boarded at the Drummond pub and after tea I would go to the workshop and help George cutting steel tubes and making brackets as he was starting to build a small motor bike powered race car.
The Begg 650 had its first run at a hill climb, less any bodywork in October 1964. Barry Keen was the driver and he still owns the car. We made an alloy body for it and I built the trailer, the first of many. The car got a quick spray paint with Royal Red paint, the same paint we used on the Begg Bale Clamps. George Begg and I took the car to Wigram in January 1965 and that was the start of my Christmas holidays car racing for the next few years.
All the next race cars were built at night after working in the factory all day. In 1966 we build the first Begg Sports car and Barry and I towed it to all the race meetings around NZ, living in an old brown tent in camping grounds. Barry and I still have fond memories of that car.
George met Bruce McLaren at Wigram and got talking race cars. Next meeting was Teretonga and George met up with Bruce again and asked him if he had a job at his Colnbrook factory. George got a job so packed up his family and headed off overseas.
At this time I was living in the Begg caravan parked on a section next door to his house. Come the winter and it can be a bit cold in Central Southland and as the toy shop was empty, I shifted the caravan inside. It was very cosy and handy to the workshop. George came back from McLaren’s late 1968. He had a hut built for me behind the Top shop and I lived there for a number of years.
The first car build on his return was a lightweight monocoque 1600 twin cam. We learnt to rivet and glue alloy as he had at McLaren. The day before Christmas and the workshop had closed for the holidays, George came back from Invercargill with the Thames trader truck with a large ply crate on the back that he had shipped out from England. I unloaded it with the forklift and opened it. George thought all his Christmases had come at once.
We sorted all the parts on the workshop floor and I took photos of them. I still have a copy of the McLaren Chassis, the rest I lent to a guy in Auckland who never returned them. George and I had Christmas and Boxing Day off then started to build a race car for Wigram races but time was against us. Instead we had it going the following weekend for Teretonga. It was there that the car was named the McBegg, I think by Donald McDonald the track announcer.
We had some good racing with that car as we were now in the big boy’s class. I enjoyed that car as we had now started to go away from racing in the NZ special built class. Barry decided to retire from motor sport and Geoff Mardon took over. I towed the car to Auckland for Geoff to race as in the photo on page 84. Barry Keen’s name was still on the body but taped over. In May that year George was in Christchurch and was told there was to be an attempt on the NZ land speed record the next Saturday. He came back to Drummond on the Wednesday night and we decided to have a go at the record.
Bryan Taylor came out from Invercargill and we worked overtime to get the car ready. Geoff wasn’t keen on driving so George rang Lawrence Brownlie and he said “OK George”. Bryan Taylor and I left Drummond about 5.00pm on Friday and picked up Lawrence at Waipahi and drove all night to Christchurch where we had a couple of hours sleep then out to East Eyreton Road for 6.30am. Lawrence did a couple of runs to get the feel of the car. After we had altered the rear toe in and I had used a roll of duct tape to hold the body down, Lawrence did two good runs and broke the old record of 173.8mph by 4.1mph. It was then back on the trailer and to Christchurch to celebrate and rest.
Fred McLean came to Drummond from England to work for us; he was George’s first paid employee to build racing cars. I helped Fred at night after a day’s work as Fred never knew when to go home.
Favourites for me were the McBegg, FM4, FM5 and I have many good memories of Barry Keen, Geoff Mardon, Dave Oxton, Fred McLean and later Jim Murdoch plus all the guys who worked on the cars, who like me were never paid for all the hundreds of hours we worked as we all enjoyed being part of the Begg team.
I got married in 1973 and shifted to Invercargill but I continued to work at Drummond. George bought a ’63 Bel Air nine seater station wagon and I would drive the 25 miles to Drummond each day with the men who worked in the factory. He also built a new factory in Invercargill and I took over management of this. On October 1st 1984 George arrived from Christchurch and told me he was either shutting down the Invercargill branch of Begg & Allen or I could buy it. Three hours later it was mine. I have a photo of George and me shaking hands on the deal.
I carried on for the next twenty years under my name and in 2004 sold the business to semi-retire. So for 42 years I made Begg Farm equipment and I was George’s longest serving employee. Brian Nicoll