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PO Box 3485 MELBOURNE VIC 3001
Reg.
No. 57/001
NEWSLETTER
– July 2003
COMING
EVENTS
July
26th-27th
Queensland Historics
August
10th Date
Change Morwell
Hillclimb Club Day
John d’Asques 9766-1013 AH
Ray DaCosta 5940-1647
August
12th
J,K,Pre
War Regularity & Group L
Meeting @ Clubrooms.
August
26th
Annual General Meeting
Sept
6th-7th
Eastern Creek Historic Meeting
Oct
4th-5th
Australian Historic Motor Festival, Winton
Oct
26th
Morwell Hillclimb
October
28th
General Meeting
Nov
8th-9th
Sandown Historic Meeting
Nov
29th-30th
Wakefield Park
VHRR
Clubrooms are situated at 30-32 Lexton Rd. Box Hill
LUNCH MEETINGS WEDNESDAYS (NOT CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS)
RED PLATES SCHEME Our club Volunteer doing
this task
is Lloyd Shaw. Contact him on ………0415.351.164
ALL
THE ABOVE CLUB ACTIVITIES INCLUDING THE WEDNESDAY LUNCH ARE
DESIGNATED RED PLATE ACTIVITIES.
Visit
our website: www.vhrr.com
Tour
de Central Victoria June 22nd 2003
Roger James
In
a setting of open green plains, mounds of mining rubble, empty
dams but beautiful fields and Victorian historic towns such as
Clunes, Smeaton, Guildford and Newstead, 18 VHRR crews set off
for a most enjoyable Sunday drive.
Challenging
questions quizzed the eyes and the brain but all agreed the
tour was good fun and a great winter event to be with fellow
car “nuts”. The winning team was the McDonalds, Helen and
Ian. The run finished at the Welshman’s Reef winery. The
aromas from the open air wood fired pizza oven meant the meal
and wine were savoured with glee in a very convivial
atmosphere. Thanks are due to the organisers John and Cherie
Lawton with the assistance of Ross and Margaret Williams.
Plans are afoot for a similar event in the Yarra Valley next
year.
ROGER’S
TRIVIA QUIZ.
Answers
at end.
Test
your knowledge…as used on the “Tour de Central
Victoria.”
1.
What are the origins of the Castrol Oil brand name?
2.
What do the three points of the Mercedes-Benz badge stand for?
3.
Name the symbol common to the cities of Stuttgart and Ferrari?
4.
Describe the symbols of the BMW badge?
5.
Name the famous icon of the Coventry Climax logo?
6.
Which manufacturer uses Viking symbols on its badge?
7.
What year was VW landed in Australia?
8.
Name two brands of car currently on the market that show a
lion?
9.
Which car manufacturer uses a serpent as part of its logo?
10.
Nominate the animal used on the logo of the Italian Oil
Company AGIP?
J,K,Prewar
Regularity & Group L Meeting 7.30PM 12th August
The club being very pleased with the support of these
groups and wanting to ensure their appearance into the future
a meeting has been organised. An open forum will be conducted
along with Eligibility officers to answer any queries.
Any
owner or interested party is invited. A light supper will be
provided.
Sandra
Caffin 9744-1807 PH or Fax: 9740-5769 or caffin@alphalink.com.au
VHRR
SMALL ADS
1.Appeal
for the Club Library.Any books or videos and old race
programs, Copies of AMS, Badges and any other racing
memorabilia would be appreciated. See George any
Wednesday or club nights or phone Lloyd Shaw on 0415-351-164
2.
Security Storage/Parking: Fully enclosed lock up facility, 24
HR access, Full lighting & Electrical power points. Less
than 1Km from Sandown. For your solution to Car/Trailer needs.
Chris Giambertone 0410-547-347 or 9540-3999 BH
or
vplino@netspace.net.au
STILL AVAILABLE:
Tapes
of Sandown 2002 Patrick Ryan on 9335-4666 BH email ryansbus@ozonline.com.au
GroundSky
Photography are selling a Cd of over 1200 photos from the
Shannon’s Phillip Island Classic. www.groundsky.co.nz
VHRR
Web Site
Members
are invited to visit our recently updated whiz-bang site.
David Doubtfire’s foundation has been added to by our new
Webmaster Ken Anderson. Thankyou to David and Ken for bringing
our historic members into the 21st Century.
Annual
General Meeting.
24th August……..Please Attend and put your hand up for
a job. All positions are vacant. We need you as without
assistance no club can function.
Morwell Hillclimb 10th August 2003 club cship
After considerable shuffling of event dates, August 10th
2003 was identified as being the only date available in the
busy motor racing calendar for the VHRR annual hill climb.
This popular event usually takes on the persona of picnic with
noise. Historically a fairly unhurried affair, drivers get 3-4
competition runs, and there is often time at the end of the
meeting, for unofficial-official runs.
This year a class for Regularity has been included in the
format. This gives drivers, who do not wish to push their cars
too hard, a chance to run at this terrific venue. Other
classes envisaged to run are: J, K, Lb, Sa, Sb, Sc, M, O, P,
Q, R, Formula Libre, N, Marque Sports and Road Registered.
Austin 7's can run as a separate class, if sufficient numbers
enter. A7 competitors naturally have the option of competing
in another applicable class should they desire to do so.
However, they would not be eligible to compete in both
classes. So please support the hill climb - come along and
have a great family day out at Morwell. The noise is very
pleasant by the way!
For those who are Internet active, Entry forms and
Supplementary Regulations are available on the club site: www.vhrr.com.
Otherwise an entry form is attached to this newletter, and on
return on the entry form the Supplementary Regulation will
sent to the entrant.
John-David d'Asques (03) 8605 1319
THE HEWLAND GEARBOX-The Beginnings
It seems nobody has written a book on the complete history
of the Hewland gearbox despite the fact that it is a critical
component of racing cars from the late 1950’s to the
1980’s.This lies in complete contrast to the numerous
shelves of books providing even the smallest details on most
racing engines ,marques and courses.
However,
what technical data that survives is sourced from magazine
articles especially from the English magazines including
Autosport and Motor Sport. Never-the-less an Authoritive book
on Hewland gearboxes would be very helpful to restorers of
historic racing cars and especially members of eligibility
committees.
The
trustworthy author, Doug Nye, did write the Hewland Gearbox
story for Autosport magazine in 1968 and covers the technical
details of the development of the transaxle from its origins
in 1959. This newsletter item is
a summary of that and I thank VHRR, member Ken Zinner for
assisting with the research.
Mike
Hewland ran a small engineering business at Maidenhead in the
UK and his range of specialties was gear cutting. By chance,
the head of a racing team (UDT) running Cooper F2 cars, Bob
Gibson-Jarvie, sought some help from Hewland as significant
gearbox trouble was being experienced. The results of this
request were two-fold with six successful gearboxes being
designed and built in 1959 and Hewland finding himself in the
gearbox business.
It
is interesting to note that at this time the Citroen box in
the Cooper Climaxs in Australia were also giving trouble as it
was designed to “pull” the car along and in this
configuration was used to “push” the car along with
reverse stress loads splitting the alloy case. Bill Paterson
attmpted to solve the problem by employing extended external
bolts and Austin Miller disgarded the Citroen boxes and used
the VW based Porsche 356 box with great success.
Meanwhile,
Eric Broadley of Lola Cars was impressed and commissioned
Hewland to build a gearbox for his new rear-engined Formula
Junior cars. This was the first Hewland transaxle being VW
based and 12 were made during 1960-61. The VW box was well
made in a cast magnesium and with it’s strength and
lightness was chosen over the Renault and Citroen. Known as
the Mark 1, the VW bearing carriers , selector rods,
differential, crownwheel and pinion were retained however
straight cut gears and a removable cap-end allowing a quick
interchange of gears were introduced. Of course, it went into
rear engined racing cars upside down and was strong enough to
service the tranformation from “pusher” to “puller.”
MORE
NEXT MONTH ON THE HEWLAND MODELS AND THE “ERSA KNIGHT”.
Roger
James
Roger’s
Answers.
1.Castor
Oil. 2. Land,sea and air. 3. The Prancing Horse. 4. An
aircraft propellor flying through a blue sky with whit clouds.
5. Lady Godiva. 6. Rover. 7. 1952 VW celebrated 50 years in
Australia last year. 8. Holden and Peugeot. 9. Alfa Romeo 10.
Six legs on a dog.
STOP
PRESS…….ENTRIES ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR SANDOWN
HANDICAP
EVENTS WILL BE HELD ….More information next month.
Or
visit our website for entries.
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