Originally posted by Graham Clayton
Doug McDonald - Bugatti/Dodge - Leyburn, 1949
L Robinson - Bugatti/Dodge - Nuriootpa, 1950 (are these two entries the same car?).....
No, they're not the same car... the Leyburn car was a car that remained in Queensland...
Others... oh, there are others:
John Cummins' independent front end (Bellamy) Bugatti with Holden engine.
The Jack Saywell
Nomotore Alfa Tipo B had a succession of engines in the fifties, the heavy and useless Bill Murray Alvis 4.2, then a slightly more successful GMC truck engine inserted by logging contractor Ray Wamsley. Finally it really got cracking when Wamsley slipped a Corvette into it.
Aussie Miller's Cooper Corvette, which held the Australian Land Speed Record for a while.
When Alan Jones (
The Alan Jones, Austin Healey officianado and sadly killed c1978 in a road accident) bought his Austin Healey 100S from the US it came with a Corvette in it. I don't think it was the only 100S to get this treatment over there either.
The Petticoat Special, based on a 1935 Terraplane, reverted to its Propert sports car body in the sixties and grew a 292 Ford V8. That was a bastardisation further bastardised, I guess.
The Graeme Lowe Alta spent some mid-fifties time with a Peugeot 203 front suspension and an Austin A90 4-cyl engine on board.
John Schroder squeezed a BOP aluminium V8 into the ex-Leaton Motors Lotus 15. This is the car Paul Samuels later raced in Historics, it only ran a couple of times with the V8 circa 1965/6.
Whether or not you consider it 'bastardisation' is a matter of personal choice, but the 1922 Targa Florio Ballot that ran at Phillip Island blew its engine while being prepared for Lake Perkollili in 1936. It had already had its chassis replaced with that of a Chev 4 after killing its owner at Phillip Island and several other changes had been made. A Ford V8 was added, then it was twice rebodied before a succession of other engines found their way into it. Finally it was Chev V8-powered when it flipped on the straight at Caversham and killed its final owner.
There's a Bugatti that lived on with an Anzani engine... a lot of Bugattis had transplants because of the frailty of the original crankshafts. Ford V8-powered examples include the T39 that became Jack Murray's Day Special... Jack Day had fitted the Ford but I believe Murray refined the car considerably. The Mackellar V8 is another such.
Just where you draw the line to consider a car 'bastardised' is quite a question. When Rex Law bought the 1911 Regal Underslung-based Special built by Herb Avery it already had Austin 20 running gear from the engine back. He later fitted an Austin 6 ohv engine from a truck, but when he was unhappy with that and found himself in the possession of some Cadillac V8s to run in his fleet of 'buses had Allen Larsen fit one to use in the 1949 Australian GP. The Caddy engine remained for the life of the car, until about 1953, but a succession of rear axles and gearboxes followed depending on whims and where he was racing and a more streamlined nose was added. I'd call that 'ongoing development'.
And did Eldred Norman 'bastardise' the 6c Maserati he had? Purchased with a blown engine, he cast a fresh one in bronze. As winter encroached, Nancy begged him to stop working on it in the cold nights in his shed, to 'bring it inside'... so the kitchen window was removed to crane it inside and the French Polished dining table received as a wedding present was used as a bench.
Whatever bits were needed he made, but con-rods were more difficult... he found that some late model (in 1951) Singer rods were the right size so tried to buy some. None were available locally, so he had a friend then in England get some and post them to him. I seem to recall he also increased the level of supercharging, maybe double-staged it? It certainly wasn't any longer as it left the factory.
John McCormack's M23 could hardly have been said to have been 'bastardised' when he put the Leyland P76 V8 into it, the thing flew, it was all done with a view to being able to reverse the process and the car was returned to Cosworth form in the end.
Allan Hamilton's M26, however, was seriously altered to take the Chevy. It also had much in the way of additional 'ground effects' work done on it.
Many air cooled Coopers grew a range of engines that were no longer air cooled. I feel sure that the Cooper Minx was among them (McGuires'?), while one of these cars probably proved to be one of the most 'bastardised' cars ever.
Take a Cooper, cut the chassis and lengthen it, move the driver back to where the engine was, slip a supercharged MG engine up front, add an early Peugeot 203 steering rack and rebody... a very rapid motor car!