Tuesday 23 September 2014

Australia's Broadspeed GTS is getting ready for action

It had been months since I heard of Jono Morris, the intrepid Broadspeed owner of Australia who is working hard to get his car - the only Broadspeed GTS that made it to Australia - ready. But he's getting there now. Jono wrote to me: "Hi Jeroen, I hope all is well, great to see you have a new book and the regular Maximum Mini posts are great. Well done! You will be pleased to know that the Broadspeed GTS restoration is nearing completion. The engine is not quite finished so its not back in the car yet, but otherwise it is almost complete. See attached a shot of me with the car and my son at Eastern Creek last week. Next time I hope I am driving it rather than just displaying it!"

Meanwhile, Jono also put together a brilliant book about his car, featuring all the old pictures, newspaper clippings, advertisements, magazine extracts, programme booklets and other stuff he amassed. And believe it or not but this has become a truly fantastic document of the car's early life, counting no less then 103 pages and hundreds of historical pictures of it. It can be seen chasing other Minis, Alfas, Lotuses, big Fords and Holdens plus a JWF Milano at Oran Park, Warwick Farm, Catalina Park, Lakeside, Surfers Paradise and Bathurst. In complete anger. What can I say? Well done!

Jono and junior Morris with the Broadspeed GTS that's now almost finished
Picture courtesy Jono Morris

Jono has made a 103-page book about the Broadspeed GTS and its fantastic!
Picture Jeroen Booij

 Many, many previously unseen pictures (by me…) make it a document like no other
Picture Jeroen Booij

Clippings, ads, programme booklets describe the car's first racing seasons
Picture Jeroen Booij

I never knew Brian Foley had a brochure made of the Australian Broadspeed GT…
Picture Jeroen Booij

4 comments:

  1. "the only Broadspeed GTS that made it to Australia" , not quite right as this car was built/converted to GTS spec in Australia by Brian Foley & not by Broadspeed in the UK as your article suggests. As we all know Broadspeed only built one GTS.
    Well done Jono on your excellent restoration.

    Chris Wooden
    broadspeedgt@hotmail.co.uk

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  2. I already painted this car for the racing simulators (http://www.nogripracing.com/details.php?filenr=41249) and am now painting almost all the guises Ralph Broad's car had while racing in Holland in Tonio Hildebrand's hands. I'm working closely with someone VERY close to the car, giving me all the correct info on it... I'll release them soon.

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  3. I was the one that bought it from Laurie Stewart and had him convert the race car to a street registered car. Phillip Moore

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  4. We live in a world full of replicas and copies of hard to acquire "The real MacKay" things/boys toys and anything that can potentially produce a nice fat profit return during a potential future sale should one be successful in the end result .. however that never stopped people from trying to replicate, copy and do whatever it takes to recreate and stand out from the crowd promoting a replica or something else for obvious only reasons in mind = a fat profit gain. This practice has been happening for many years in many countries, starting with cars, airplanes and anything easier to copy than trying to create completely new and original. History reminds us of several major examples such as TU144 and Concorde, Gaz Volga 21 and Packard, and the list goes on. There are even companies which tried to "hop on a band wagon" by trying to replicate other brand names to mislead the public for profit gains of someone else world wide established reputation. For example: Panasonic and Palsonic, Sony or Sanyo and suddenly you get Sonya.. etc. So there is no surprise that here once again we are looking at another great copy of a Classic car (with great Australian history in the past) only to remember that it is still just a replica and not the original 1 of 1 car ever made in UK.

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