The Meissner Thread

[Firenza GT]

My early photo's don't go that far back but of my earliest were also black and white as the spools were cheaper ! had to stretch the pocket money between buying a spool and fuel for my Suzuki 50 to get to racing. That is why sometimes we had to sneak in through the fence round the back bike and all.

Any photo is valuable as even without racing cars in view, just seeing the sections of the circuit and spectator cars is a moment in time captured.

Those old photo's are fantastic Hi-Fi, belongs to your personal CV today.

Lino

[ZA Perana]

Some amazing period photos here, thanks to all for posting its really great to see these images, especially for a youngster like me....

[Hi-Fi]

The thing is that as a kid I took a few pictures, but not enough. So, I have only got a limited amount. Today, I take tons of pictures and have also collected probably around 5000 worldwide through the internet on different forms of track racing. The hassle here is that I'm worried about posting a lot of them because of copyright issues, so I keep them in my private collection for now.

We need someone to post stuff that they had forgotten about. There is nothing more satisfying looking at the "evidence" on a classic car today from the original period picture.

[302]

Photos of a Meissner Corsair at Zwartkops legends last weekend, couldnt get a photo of the engine unfortunatly...

[Killarney Racer]

The Corsair in historics is a lovely re-creation of the original Corsair that was driven by Koos Swanepoel and Steve Botes. As I remember it was Botes who was the more regular driver and not Koos as many seem to depict. Koos had the Lotus Cortina then the Mustang around that time.

Now here is the problem! I don't think that the Botes Corsair was prepared by Meissner. I never remember Meissner being involved with Corsairs even in road going form. However I do know that Botes and Koos linked in with Meissner over years in racing. I just have an uneasy feeling of this car being Meissner prepared. The decals mean nothing. At Killarney there are a couple of historic cars with the Meissner decal on that have nothing to do with him.

[henryk]

Should be easy to verify who prepared the Steve Botes Corsair.

I always assumed the car was Meissner prepared as Meissner was a major tuning concern at the time and would not have linked it's name to a vehicle not prepared by themselves.

But to verify the facts just phone Oom Koos Swanepoel at KSD tel 021 949 4566.

[Hi-Fi]

Regarding the Botes/Swanepoel Corsair, I had an authoritive email from a guy who knows quite a bit of what is/has been going on in motor racing in this country. Apparently the car was a Ford factory approved Meissner conversion and was built at Dart Motors in Paarden Eiland. It was race tuned by Mollie Van Molendorf, who is still around with all the stories that go with the car.

Meissner did conversions on Corsairs for road use.

[TdL351GT]

I just have an uneasy feeling of this car being Meissner prepared. The decals mean nothing. At Killarney there are a couple of historic cars with the Meissner decal on that have nothing to do with him.

Hi KR,

You are right about the Meissner decals on the Corsair. There is no connection between Meissner and the Corsair. The Corsair was built for Gavin Ritchie by Johan Botha from Auto Touch here in Krugersdorp a few years ago. The car originally had a 1500 Cortina GT motor, 2 x 40 SD webers, cam from Roger Taylor, but the engine did not want to rev more than 6500 rpm. Johan then got a cam from Oom Koos Swanepoel in Cape Town with the correct advise about carb jetting, and then that thing revved to 8000 rpm.

The next problem was the large gap between 2nd and 3rd gear which Gavin solved by importing a bullit box from the UK. The Corsair ran out of revs and the 4.1 diff ratio was swapped for a 3.7 centre portion from Ritchie Jute, everything clicked together, and Gavin won the championship for that year.
Gavin used to drive that Corsair down to Cape Town, raced it at Killarney, and then drove it back to Krugersdorp. He did the same thing to East London and Durban.
He raced it for (I think) 2 years and then sold it to Graham Reid who raced it this year. The old 1500 got tired and was replaced with a 1600 Kent.
(Gavin is now racing the very nice Hilman Imp)

regards

Theuns

[ZA Perana]

Another Meissner creation....

Meissner Corsair V4 GT.....yes the famous or is that infamous V4...

As far as GT's go the Corsair is largely forgotten, its a standing joke in our household actually...my dad cant stand the Corsair and any mention if it bring about the usual...its a piece of.....

Neverthless back to the Meissner car....Firstly the conversion cost R333 quite a bit of money back them but it consisted of the following
-4 barrell Nikki carb
-Meissner inlet manifold
-Meissner MV1 high torque camshaft
-complete free flow exhaust system
-widened rims with radial tyres
-stiffened front stabiliser bar

All of this resulted in a top speed of 104 mph and acceleration that blew away the Galaxie and Fairlanes of the 1967 model year...pretty impressive..

[Killarney Racer]

Thanks ZAP for that. In an earlier posting I said I thought Meissner had never done a Corsair conversion. You jogged my old head and this now rings a bell. Are the numbers from a CAR test?

Yup the V4 was an engine Ford probably won't be proud of.