If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
We’re at Croft circuit, the north of England UK. An early spring day, one of the first fine days of the year and it’s the media day for the forthcoming season. We’re strolling along the pit lane, peering into garages. Gearbox karts, fast Japanese saloon racers and other machinery noses out. But just after the main office block, I stop and backtrack. Beetle? Big slick tyres? Huge rear wing? Crikey, a Super Saloon…
And not just any Super Saloon, it’s the Mick Hill / Doug Niven Beetle Chevrolet. It took me a moment to figure it out, I was just a kid when Super Saloons were all the range, wild silhouette bodywork, big slicks, American V8’s. Hairy chested racing cars. Haven’t seen one in years, though I’d heard that they were emerging back into the sunlight. Where’s the owner?
[quote]The 5.0 litre Chevrolet engine runs mechanical fuel injection and back in the day ran with open exhausts[/quote]
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
David Taylor owns the Beetle Chevrolet today. He found her via ex-F5000 racer Keith Norris in Cambridge and took four years restoring her. Built in 1974 by Mick Hill, the Beetle was based around the engine, suspension, uprights and gearbox of a Trojan Type 102 F5000 car, but running on a chassis of his own design. The 5.0 litre Chevrolet engine runs mechanical fuel injection and back in the day ran with open exhausts. Here at Croft, she’s wearing a pair of huge silencer cans, sadly something that’s required pretty much everywhere the car goes these days. Mick sold the car after a couple of years to Scotsman Doug Niven who raced the car with considerable success for quite a few years. There’s a silver haired guy standing beside the car, slimly built, a pair of old and faded race overalls on and equally well worn race shoes of the type that have slid down onto many sets of pedals over the years. It’s Doug Niven. Where’s my camera?
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
Doug’s here at the invitation of David to have a run in the car he used to race. “I had a run at Knockhill last year and David promised me another drive, so here I am.” We chat about the car and Doug’s success with it. It’s been a hard working machine all it’s life, at one stage in 1978, Doug drove 48 races in her, trouble free. Indeed, Doug and the car still hold the lap record around the old Croft race circuit. In the 1990’s she disappeared. Many Super Saloons were broken up in that period as people sought to restore old single seat race cars and reverse the process, robbing them of running gear to put back onto original chassis tubs. The Beetle had a torrid time, passed from one owner to another but she’s survived, despite being crashed on occasion. “I don’t really know too much about the many owners she had, Mick, Doug and Jeff Wilson were the most successful with her.” David even managed to obtain the original body moulds as part of his purchase, returning her to active duty with some very popular runs up the Goodwood hillclimb course in 2009. He’s strapping in to warm her up for a few laps. Snap goes the master, fuel pumps whirr and the engine cracks into life. Even though the decibel count may be a little lower these days, the pressure wave still hits you in the chest and I’d defy you not to smile. We head to the pit wall, Doug Niven leaning out, surveying his old car as she climbs the gear ratios down Croft’s start finish straight. Three laps later, it’s his turn.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
Doug dons his old balaclava, bright blue eyes shining out through the aperture, then a faded old open face helmet that would make a modern scrutineer have a fit. David helps with the harness, switches on, starter in. First gear, some snappy blips of the throttle and he’s away smartish down the pit lane. Back to the pit wall. Four laps later, Doug’s clearly not forgotten what to do, hard on the power, sharp, crisp gearshifts down the straight. He peels off into the pits. The car’s lost drive. Turns out to be the input shaft. Something that’s never failed in all the years, either with Doug or David driving it. Fun’s over for the day. We remove the bodywork and take a look at the old seventies racing technology, shiny aluminium tub, mechanical fuel injection, huge rear slicks that you’d think would snap a driveshaft when connected to that 5.0 litre V8.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
The Beetle doesn’t race these days. “She’s had a pretty busy life and at times not much sympathy, so I figure she deserves a happy retirement”, says David. But she’s no static museum piece. Hopefully the car will be running again soon and perhaps might make an appearance at the Croft Nostalgia meeting in August. They never die, these old racers. They become a little faded. The cars acquire what’s known as ‘patina’ while the drivers obtain gray hair. But the racer is never far from the surface.
Words & Photography Neill Watson
Thanks to David Taylor, Carl McKellar and Croft Circuit
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
If you reuse this image, please credit and link back to historicracer.com.
