Classic auto news - new zealand

Written by Allan Dick

​Because of its geographic isolation and economic policies that often saw New Zealand described as the “Albania of the South Pacific”, when motor racing was being established in New Zealand after WW2 importing new racing machinery was both too difficult and too expensive. But we were still a young country and had a strong Do-it-Yourself thread running through the national psyche, so many people built their own competition cars. The most popular contributors to this home-grown industry were pre-war Ford V8s and Ford 10s. 
Largely the cars were not sophisticated and some could be accurately described as crude. In some cases they were basically pre-war saloons, stripped of bodies.

Two Christchurch engineers, Hec Green and Jack Brewer had other ideas and by mid 1949 they had designed and built three customer cars, RA1, RA2 and RA3 which are still extant in New Zealand. Beside customer cars they also had a notion to build an advanced car for themselves to share as they were both more than competent behind the wheel.

The basis for this car, RA4, was a bundle of technical papers they bought from the British government which had been seized as part of the war reparations programme.  These papers looked at the prewar Auto Union Grand Prix programme and became the inspiration for RA4 — it would be rear engined and far more advanced than anything that had been built in New Zealand at that time. In fact it could be claimed that in terms of “concept” it was almost a world leader when you look at European Grand Prix cars of 1949. While there had been the pre-war Auto Unions, it really was 1960 before “rear engined” became the standard for Grand Prix cars.

Although New Zealand had race meetings from one end of the country to the other Green and Brewer confined most of their competition outings in the car to events close to their hometown of Christchurch.

They seemed to have been pleased enough known their design worked and the car was competitive and really raced infrequently.

I saw the car for the first time at the Dunedin Festival Road Race in 1958 — it was then eight years old! 

Green had already started to design and build a smaller and lighter version of RA4 and both he and Brewer had decided they really needed another driver for Dunedin and employed the services of noted speedway rider, Geoff Mardon who was back home in Christchurch from the cinder tracks of England for a holiday. 

In 1958 my passion for motor racing had well and truly ignited which, in 1966, developed into a professional career writing about the sport, something I, in fact, still do.

I remember than day I 1958 very clearly with this radical looking car that looked so much like the rear engined Auto Unions of the mid thirties, thundering around the narrow, rough, road circuit in third place behind Ross Jensen in the ex Stirling Moss 250F and Bruce McLaren, who would leave for the UK in a couple of week’s time, in a Cooper Climax.

It was a drive of heroic proportions but unfortunately the RA4 shed a wheel just four laps from the finish and that was that.

The partnership of Brewer and Green dissolved, the latter continuing part-time with the development of RA5 while RA4 was laid up until 1962 until it was sold to Les Moore, father of another speedway ace, Ronnie Moore.

Sadly, Les Moore died when he rolled RA4 at a race meeting at Timaru in 1963 and then, the car, not badly damaged at all, virtually disappeared.

I often wondered what had happened to that car that was so radical, so advanced, so unusual and so fast that had captured my attention in 1958.

I got my answer in 1994 or so when I went to a firm of Auckland engineers to look at a replica Ford GT40 and, in a corner of the workshop, I saw a car I recognised immediately as the long missing RA4.

From here the car went to Richard Anderson who took several years restoring it before it was bought by some “investors” and sent to the UK where it was bought by Ian Jones.

So, how important is the car in terms of New Zealand motor racing history?.  Well, as a motor racing journalist I have long held the view that in a country of home-made racers RA4 is the most important. It was certainly the most creative and, in its time, was light years ahead of anything else that was built.
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Simply the best and most advanced New Zealand race car of all time. It is fantastic to see it being recognised at an event such as Goodwood. The innovative efforts of Hec Green and Jack Brewer foreshadowed the achievements of Bruce McLaren.