Graham-Paige

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Edited by Fafnir, 04 August 2020 - 15:19.

Can't help you there, but I'd be interested in the origins of this car. You say, "came to Zimbabwe" (let's call the country by its proper name, shall we?), so where did it come from? And, 1982 sounds pretty recent for a Graham-Paige special, do you know approximately when the car was built?

May give the answers you asked for when you stop being a clever so and so as the country was called Rhodesia at that time .

 

Michael may be a clever so and so but he is correct. Supporters of the previous regime no doubt still call it Rhodesia but it was renamed Zimbabwe when granted independence in April 1980. Which was before 1982. Are you sure you've got the right date? 

The editing that seems to have been done has rather destroyed the question which we were being asked. Can we have the question clearly stated please?

Something about a 5.4-litre V8...

 

Which sounds like a Cadillac size.

The opening post was asking if anyone knew the fate of a Graham-Paige V8 5.4 litre special racing car believed to have come to Rhodesia in 1982. I’m wondering if there’s any connection here to the 5.4 litre straight-8 Graham-Paige which G L Baker used to win the last-ever race at Brooklands in August 1939. In a letter in Motor Sport magazine for November 1982 Bill Little described how he bought the car in 1945 but couldn’t cope with its high fuel consumption in the days of very tight petrol rationing, so sold it six months later to a man who was emigrating to Rhodesia.

An import date of 1946 seems more likely than two years into the Mugabe era.  

... believe it recently sold for a large sum ...

This sale, maybe, or has there been one since?

https://www.bonhams..../11245/lot/706/

There’s another photo of the G L Baker Graham-Paige in this Motor Sport article on Bill Little and his cars, but it looks to be not much better quality than the one in WB’s Brooklands book:

https://www.motorspo...ith-bill-little

Michael may be a clever so and so but he is correct. Supporters of the previous regime no doubt still call it Rhodesia but it was renamed Zimbabwe when granted independence in April 1980. Which was before 1982. Are you sure you've got the right date?

Fafnir, for what it’s worth...

Michael can get misinterpreted, and I did that myself early on here before getting to know where he’s coming from. But he’s an asset of deep knowledge to these forums, and perhaps for your search as well — and a genuinely good guy.

No, I was not compensated for these remarks. ;-)

There are several pictures of the Graham-Paige in Graham Skillen's book on Captain Marendaz and his cars and also in an article in the the June edition of The Automobile. 

It was Marendaz who originally imported the car and modified it considerably (setting many records with it) before it passed on to G.L.Baker.