by Stan Benbrook

Ron Frost and Arnold Stafford, who raced as Ecurie Pomme, imported two new 1954 Cooper Norton powered Mk8 cars to use during the 1955 New Zealand international motor racing season. Ron Frost raced this car Mk8/26/54, and Stafford the sister car (Mk8/27/54) which was campaigned for many years by Graham Brayshaw and was recently sold to an English owner.

The first race of 1955 was the NZ Grand Prix at Ardmore and Ron completed 89 of no less than 98 laps before retiring with gearbox failure. With no Wigram Trophy race in 1955, the next race was at Mariehau, a road course in suburban Christchurch. Frost was in the lead when his engine seized on lap 25 causing another DNF. The Ohakea Trophy was the next round with Frost finishing in 4^th place, a great result amongst almost 60 cars entered. The NZ Champion Road race followed on the streets of Dunedin. Both Coopers qualified on the front row but a first corner pile up ended Frost’s Day while Stafford went on to finish second.

Both Mk8s were then sold to make way for two new Mk 9s that were on their way from Coopers. Bob Hugill was the next owner of the Mk8 and he entered but did not finish the 1956 New Zealand Grand Prix. He raced in the 1957 and 1958 international support races along with many Auckland area races and hill climbs over the next seven years.

Bob then sold the Cooper in 1962 to Maungaturoto farmer Ian Cullen with a Triumph motor fitted. This proved troublesome on the Northland hills (the far north of the North Island) and he set out to find a more user-friendly engine and settled on the newly released Hillman Imp in 1965 as today shown below. His first event under Imp power was Northland Car Club’s Gold Star hill climb at Puhi Puhi in October 1965. At his next event at Maungatoroto he set FTD. He ran the Northland Car Club events until selling the car to myself in 1972.

I ran the car on the Northland hills and sprints (above) , also venturing down to run at Auckland University Car Club’s Anderson Farm Hill climbs through 1972-73 before selling it to Les Brown who ran it in Northern Wairoa Car Club events for 8 years.

Colin Waite was the next owner and he owned it for over 40 years. Along with his good friend Alan Woolf he ran the car throughout New Zealand just as historic racing was taking off. With his health declining Colin asked me if I would like to buy it back.

I certainly did, and ran it at Taupo, Pukekohe and Hampton Downs before a complete rebuild which was completed to a very high standard this year. Having settled-in south of Brisbane I have now brought the Cooper to Australia where it will be used in GEAR Queensland events such as the photos below.