1965 Mystery Car

[HughH]

Bruce
it would be great if you could find that
i recall a yellow 65 for sale in NSW in the early 2000's but I thought it was LHD?

[e72phil]

Hugh, you get the Sherlock Holmes award for this detective work.
Great research !

regds,
Phil

[silbere]

Hugh,

I will have a look.
That lhd comment has me thinking,
regards
Bruce

[HughH]

I spoke to the third owner who had it until about 1975 or 76. However she did not recall exactly when she sold it, only that she traded it in on another car, but not even who with. For a while I thought the trail had gone very cold again, but one of the people who had provided me with information on the car provided me with a new, crucial, lead overnight. It was the contact details of a person in Adelaide who he said had used a part of the/a “Casey car” that had been written off in a rollover to repair his 67S.

I made contact with him today and he has provided the end point to the search.
He said that the car was owned by a person from Whyalla in South Australia in the mid 70’s so I presume he was the 4^th owner.

The person I spoke to said he was looking for parts to do a rust repair on his 67S (being ex UK it was quite rusty in the usual places in the front) in about 1979 and stumbled upon a write off in a car scrap yard. It was 301504, and he still has the vin plate and promised to send me a photo of it. He found out that the car had been extensively damaged with the roof and rear end caved in after a rollover while the owner was driving from Whyalla to Adelaide and it was scrapped. However, the front (where he wanted the parts) was almost untouched. So he got it (or probably only the front part) and used the parts and the rest was literally scrap.

That means that it must have been destroyed no later than late 1978 – probably within 3 or so years from when the third owner sold it.
So, unfortunately, this particular car is no longer with us (AND there are not any remains to “resurrect” it even though by today’s standards it probably would have been repairable when rolled over, but the values at that time made it uneconomic)

As an aside however I did get a message overnight from someone in Europe who had been asked if he would repair the “Lord Casey car” ex the UK a few years ago and he was shown pictures of a rather beaten up shell and the newspaper article from this thread . However it had the vin number of a slightly later UK delivered car. I hope having this on the public record will ensure that no one tries to pass off another car as this one in the future.

[e72phil]

Good work Hugh. Nice to have an ending to the story with the facts now on record. with the values of very early cars increasing, I am sure some people will go to a lot of trouble to "rebuild" these early cars. Did they use the section of the front cut with the VIN stamp or did the owners of the 67S retain his original VIN ?? Some people have been known to rebuild a car around that VIN stamping. Kinda like Grandfathers axe............

[HughH]

Phil
I have photos of exactly which parts were used but am not posting them for obvious reasons and the 67S retained its original vin stamping etc. It was a very special car as well, as it was picked up at the factory and was one of a small group (I think probably all picked up at the factory) with sports purpose equipment fitted when new and then raced. That is why I have decided not to put any other details of it on the board.

[MrUpwey]

Fascinating Hugh. To think I once sat in this car in the late '80s at George C's workshop without realising what it would be worth today...............but how many times does that happen in life
Just reading Hugh's final posts, I wonder if the car at George's was the same car as in this thread, but I'm sure at the time, George referred to it as once belonging to Lord Casey .

[HughH]

no Pete that one was long dead at that stage. Casey had a number of them. The one you sat in was probably the yellow (?) 68 (S?) that he traded the first one on

[MrUpwey]

no Pete that one was long dead at that stage. Casey had a number of them. The one you sat in was probably the yellow (?) 68 (S?) that he traded the first one on

Thanks Hugh. It was the yellow car.