Classic Race Car History

[Firenza GT]

Here yet another Sierra V8 in the nineties. This the Sierra V8 of Mike Forsythe who previously raced the ex-Keith Schenk Firenza V8. The Sierra went very well and sounded good. Alongside Mike is the ex-Hennie Van Der Linda 300 ZX Nissan which was converted to V8 in cape Town before sold to East London where I took this photo. So that's quite a few Sierra V8's besides the scrapped original ex-Willie Hepburn Sierra XR8. There is still one more I must find a photo of which was also a Cape Town based car belonging to Leon Booysen.

[henryk]

The Leon Booysen car was the ex Zu Bentheim car, but not the Animal !

When Zu Bentheim stayed in Windhoek he built his own version of a racing XR8. The car was apparently quite successfull up there but never ventured to the Cape.

Zu Bentheim then moved to Paarl, bought the genuine Animal from Hepburn and sold his old XR8 to Leon Booysen who if memory serves me right is a protea farmer.

Booysen attempted to race the car a few times but had no success. This car is probably still standing in a shed on his farm.

[henryk]

Lino

You are posting some really historic pictures on this site which I cannot see due to the firewall thing.

Would you mind sending them to me via E mail please.

.

[Firenza GT]

Ok, now I understand it very clearly. And let me tell you many people are miss-informed about this. This was recently debated namely after the fact that it is known that the original car was very much cut and changed and hardly an image of it's early form or even restorable. hense this again leave the door open for the "Animal" to re-apear again. To add to that I was told that the one that was dumped the original one was a "spare" car, in other words one of the other Group 1 XR8's of which one became the original "Animal" XR8.

Which leads to this Henry, was it not two Group 1 XR8's raced by Serge Damsaux and John Gibb ? I have photo's of the two racing together somewhere against the Alfa's. Reason I ask this is that a couple of years ago there was an anouncement that one of the Group 1 Sierra XR8's surfaced in Bloemfontein I think. Car was aparently by Deon De Waal. It was in one of the local tabloids here. It must then have been Serge Damsaux's one as I remember Serge ended up with that car which later he had for sale.

It's amazing how anything can be put down as "fact". I'm beginning to think this could make a good novel !

[Firenza GT]

There are a few hundred photo's which I hope to scan everything sometime. I spotted some very interesting photo's of which at the time I would have discarded to pay less at the developer. Two I have spotted so far with friends in the background. others just of drivers standing around in post race paddock etc. Moments in time. Some people carry a gun, I always tried to carry a camera of sorts already from the days when I used to buy a 6 photo black and white spool because I needed the change for my little 50's petrol to get around !

[Perana]

I remember going to Killarney in the early 90's and was taken back by the racing Canam. Does anyone in this forum know the whereabouts of that car?

[henryk]

Yes we know part of the story. The car was built , prepared and raced by Keith Schenk. It was originally a normal red and white Firenza Coupe with a 2.5 4 cylinder engine. This was subsequenlty upgraded to a 350 V8 engine, appropriate gearbox and I know Keith used an old solid axle Jaguar rear axle as a cheap way to find a strong enough Limited Slip diff. The car was then sponsored by Peco Formance who were importers of V8 engine and performance parts at the time.

With the demise of Peco (as I recall) the car was sold to Mike Forsyth in East London where it was raced for some time.

Does anyone have an idea what has happened to this car?

Locally the car was very quick and reliable and Keith won many races in it.

[Firenza GT]

Henry, thought you were an Escort encyclopedia ? Seems you know too much about our Chev's too ! You're now really testing my old photo archive capacity. Cheap camera this time, early nineties Killarney pitlane. This is Keith Schenk in the 2,5 Firenza before they converted to V8 if I remember correctly.

[vanz2]

Found this in my scrapbook 1992 /1993

Henry jy is 100% reg !

[Firenza GT]

Yes vanz, same car. Going to go dig in the archive for some pics I may have. Note there it says it managed 1min24's for a lap that is very good as the ones running now are about that but the circuit is better and technology etc all more advanced. However I must point out that Basil Van Rooyen and Nol's Nieman both managed under 1min 23's qualifying for the Cape Three hour in November 1973. Consider that the circuit was narrower, bumpier and the cars had full interior etc, just over 400 horses only, that was incredible. BvR managed 1min22,5 and Nieman 1min 22,9 in the ex-Van Rooyen Can Am. By then Basil Van Rooyen was driving the flag coloured Can Am which would have ben his car for 1974 the one that had 15 inch rims, the one that went to Des Ally after the team split up. Incidently both these specic Dealer Team cars were broken up for Chevair V8's for the Manufacturers Challenge. The third one went to the UK of which it's where abouts today are just as mysterious.