April 2015 Joy’s Zephyr Mk3 at McLaren Vale Vintage & Classic. Photo by G McPherson In This Issue President’s Report/Shoot the Breeze, Crank Tales, Driving Etiquette Part 3, Upcoming Events, Photos & Notices CLUB MEETINGS: SECOND TUESDAY of every month (except January) SHANNON’S INSURANCE HQ Corner of Neville Ave and Main South Road, Clarence Gardens Starting at 7-30p.m. 2014/2015 COMMITTEE PRESIDENT Dave Henley 0407 702 012 VICE PRESIDENT Ashley Hobson 0409 743 219 SECRETARY Joy Nieass 08 8536 4914 TREASURER Gordon McPherson 08 8386 1087 EDITOR Kerry Dillon 0447 880 277 PUBLICITY OFFICER Peter Dillon 0427 802 971 Ex Officio Officers - VEHICLE REGISTRAR Barry Goddard 08 8288 0393 SOUTHERN INSPECTOR Ashley Hobson 0409 743 219 WEB MASTER Ashley Hobson HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS Dave Henley, Ashley Hobson, Steve Dawson, Joy Nieass ZZOC SA CLUB WEB SITE http://zephyrsa.webs.com/ Join us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/zzosa/ DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the views of the club or its members
Transcript
April 2015
Joy’s Zephyr Mk3 at McLaren Vale Vintage & Classic. Photo by G McPherson
In This Issue
President’s Report/Shoot the Breeze, Crank Tales, Driving Etiquette Part 3,
Upcoming Events, Photos & Notices
CLUB MEETINGS: SECOND TUESDAY of every month (except January)
SHANNON’S INSURANCE HQ
Corner of Neville Ave and Main South Road, Clarence Gardens
Starting at 7-30p.m.
2014/2015 COMMITTEE
PRESIDENT Dave Henley 0407 702 012
VICE PRESIDENT Ashley Hobson 0409 743 219
SECRETARY Joy Nieass 08 8536 4914
TREASURER Gordon McPherson 08 8386 1087
EDITOR Kerry Dillon 0447 880 277
PUBLICITY OFFICER Peter Dillon 0427 802 971
Ex Officio Officers -
VEHICLE REGISTRAR Barry Goddard 08 8288 0393
SOUTHERN INSPECTOR Ashley Hobson 0409 743 219
WEB MASTER Ashley Hobson
HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS
Dave Henley, Ashley Hobson, Steve Dawson, Joy Nieass
ZZOC SA CLUB WEB SITE http://zephyrsa.webs.com/
Join us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/zzosa/
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily the views of the club or its members
Hi all. I’m glad that these winter days come along as it forces me to go inside and get things done on this time eating
device. Last Sunday the McLaren Vale classic car run was held which attracted 540 entrants of which 5 Z cars turned up
including Joy, who managed to get her grandson to do the chauffeur duties in her MK3. After the street parade we were
directed to Fox Creek winery where we spent a very pleasant afternoon with the Mustang fraternity.
I noted that there was a fair bit of interest in the Z car engine bays. Probably because they couldn’t tell them apart from
the pony cars. I could never figure out why Ford had to wait for Ash and me to show them how to do it?
At the last meeting we set the date for the AGM for Sunday 5th July. Starting at 11 am for those who have to present for
the club historic inspection and 12 noon for the members coming along for the AGM. The venue will be at Shannon’s and
the club will be catering for lunch. All kids associated with members are welcome so give Joy or myself a call to indicate
numbers for catering. As usual we won’t be bogging things down with unnecessary business so the afternoon will be
spent on the social side of things.
For those of you who have cars on Historic Rego don’t forget to come along with your updated stat dec and if the car
can’t be presented, at least recent dated photos of its complying condition.
Of course club fees are due at that meeting and we need to be aware that the Rego is only legal when the club
membership is current. Yes, we have become an extension of the DPTI book keeping and policing duties.
Hey it’s still raining outside so I’ve got time for a bit of a whinge.
A couple of years back I remember the life span of a light bulb was so short that every week they had to be included on
the weekly shopping list. I had to leave the step ladder inside as it was forever needed to change bulbs.
So I have noticed something with car tyres. I don’t mind so much if I wear the dam things out but, in the last couple of
months I’ve had to buy 5 sets of new tyres some of which were a pre winter tread requirement, but tyres on two of my
trailers (8 in total) even though they have plenty of tread, also have deep cracks in the tread and sidewalls. Something has
changed in the material or manufacture because I still have some tyres that are much older that do not suffer from the
same problem.
The light bulb problem went away with the invention of the better LEDs and small fleuros and the ladder is now back
outside, but what are we going to do about this tyre thing? On some of these low mileage and occasional use vehicles I
strongly suspect that we will get really p----d off when the tyres get rubber cancer before the tread wears. Ah! Do I smell a
dirty rat coming or am I becoming a suspicious cranky old geezer? Or is this where the authorities and manufactures are
leading us into the tyre (use by date) mind set?
I suppose we will all be safer on the roads if we put new tyres on the annual shopping list?
Dave Henley
April is already gone!! The weather is cooler, nature’s time of year to green up and grow. I've been fossicking through the
sheds and collecting anything I no longer need to keep, selling stuff at swap meets and helping other collectors find their
missing parts. Making more room in my shed to give me extra space to get at other projects, Zephyr or others, I will
“soon” make a list of Zephyr only spare parts to share around.
I've been replacing tyres and wheels on some of my cars, swapping steel rims for “mags” or chrome wide instead of trims
and caps etc. The age of tyres is now a factor in your choice with 5 years the oldest that tyre places will fit or fix whether
new or second hand!! So if you get a puncture they won't fix it even if the tread and condition is as new, like an unused
spare on a 5year old car won't be fixed when flat. Wheel alignment is part of any cars maintenance, once the rims are
spun to check for runout and bearings condition or adjustment, then check for wear / visual movement or tell-tale signs
of deterioration-cracks-perished bushes etc. Shock absorbers should be dry and bounce/rebound to match the springs
travel without binding or bottoming out. Tyre selection and pressures correctly set will ensure the best resulting wear and
handling characteristics of any vehicle.
Our classic Zephyrs, Zodiacs and Consuls all respond well to this formula, older cars with a bit of fine tuning, drive better
than days of old when conventional/rag tyres and alignment settings were far from perfect. Now with good tyres and
settings correctly done it's making them more responsive and safer driving into the future for years to
come……..zzzzzzzz….
Yours sincerely Steve Dawson
F.S.M. zzzzzzzz
Members’ Z cars at the McLaren Vale Vintage & Classic. Photo by J van der Linden
Driving Etiquette and other things (Part 3)
(Continued from last month)
The noise that first night (and every night the skuds came) was not so much the skud missiles themselves, but the American Patriot missiles being shot up to intercept the skuds. You see, they
would fire off probably four or five of these for one skud and each one would break the sound barrier within seconds of being fired. So it was BOOM, BOOM, BOOM BOOM, and the last one was the skud
missile with the Patriot probably both hitting the ground at the same time. The first one was aimed at the American base near the centre of Riyadh, probably 6 kms from our compound, and it transpired that our compound was right under the flight path as it were.
So within a few days, our company made arrangements to evacuate women, children and non- essential personnel to the company's compound at Jeddah. We hired an old Boeing 707 and I was one
of those evacuated to Jeddah. There – due to limited space in the Compound – I was put up at the Red Sea Palace Hotel (probably 4 star) from where I operated for the next 6 weeks.
I always regretted one aspect of this: my staff of 2 Filipino and 2 Egyptian accounting clerks were not given the option to evacuate from Riyadh by the Saudi partner of the Joint Venture company running
the contract, so I felt quite bad that they had live through the skud attacks on Riyadh. Fortunately none of them were ever close when a missile struck: which they did on a number of occasions.
As the fighting wore on, the Australian women and children were sent home from Jeddah, just like they had been in July 1990 when Kuwait was first invaded. Only after the war was finished were they
able to return. After about 6 weeks in Jeddah, and with the Americans getting stuck into the Iraqis, it was deemed safe for me to return to Riyadh to work during the day, while at night our company had
arranged to rent a large farmhouse some distance (50kms?) from Riyadh.
Each evening there'd be a cavalcade of cars racing out of Riyadh on the Jeddah freeway heading to
this farmhouse, and every morning we would all race back to work. At our desert 'resort', the mostly guys – both junior and very senior -all slept on mattresses on the floor, each night after organising a
communal BBQ, washing up and games. I have a photo somewhere taken of a wall on which were butchers' paper notes regarding odds taken on when the next skud missile would land; when the yanks would take Iraq, and a number of other typical things that Aussies in their imagination would
bet on.
While we were some distance from Riyadh, the lights of the city could be seen projected up against
the sky, and on at least one occasion, some of the guys saw skud missiles high up coming in to land in Riyadh. I never saw a skud missile, but did see the devastation one caused demolishing several
classrooms of an unoccupied school that was on my route between the compound and my city office.
It was not long before we were permitted to return to stay in our Villas in Riyadh, as the end of the
war was only a couple of weeks away. Life returned pretty much to normal. We were able to eat out again, go shopping, drink Swan Special Light cans of something not called beer, but which supposedly
was 1% alcohol. This was also the main ingredient of the home brews that some Aussies tried to make. While it was difficult at first, I was readily able to live without alcohol while I was there. I'm not
sure I would be able to do so 25 years later.
Pretty soon, the end of the first Gulf War came, and most of us thought they should have kept going
all the way to Baghdad. But as we know, that did not happen until some years later when Bush and Howard & Coy convinced only themselves that there were 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' that had to be eliminated.
Before that would happen,
in the last of the battles in early 1991, the
American air force massacred
the fleeing Iraqi troops, and my
boss was able to take some photos of burnt
out vehicles on the highway
north of Dammam to
Kuwait. The devastation depicted in some of those photos was truly dreadful, and I'm pleased I did not get close to that.
Some weeks after it was over, a couple of us travelled to Dammam where we saw hundreds of American tanks being services by soldiers in preparation for them to be shipped back to the US.
My twelve months in Saudi Arabia was well and truly up, and though they tried very hard to get me to
extend my contract, I quoted my promise to Robyn that I would only take it on for 12 months, and by mid May, 1991 I was back home and back in my old job.
If arriving in Riyadh 15 months earlier had been a culture shock, I now had another one. I missed Saudi Arabia! I wanted to go back again, and it took me another 3 months at least to get that out of my system. It took me another 3 years to realise that I could not achieve what I wanted within
Telecom Australia, and that I wanted to try working in private enterprise, which eventually became working for myself.
I hope Club members have enjoyed reading about my foreign adventure, even though there's not a Zephyr mentioned anywhere. If people have any questions, email me: [email protected].
Jerome van der Linden
UP COMING EVENTS IN SA
12th May Club Meeting at Shannons 7.30pm
23rd May Adelaide Van Show and presented by Dogmans Panelvan Club
Wigley Reserve, Glenelg at 10.00 am – 3.00 pm
24th May Copper Coast Classic Cavalcade of Cars & Motorcycles 2015
5th July ZZOC of SA Annual General Meeting and Luncheon at Shannons
11am Car Inspections, 12 noon Lunch, AGM after lunch.
RSVP: Dave Henley or Joy Nieass
IMPORTANT REMINDER
Membership Fees are now due for the next financial year
(July 2015 to June 2016).
Single Membership $50-00
Couple Membership $50-00
For Members who have vehicles registered on Club Historic/Conditional Registration it is necessary to be a
financial Member of a Club which is also a financial member of the Federation of Historic Motoring Clubs of
S.A.
(Maximum penalty for misuse is $750 see Registration Notice).
Please forward your subscription to:
The Treasurer,
Zephyr and Zodiac Owners’ Club of SA Incorporated,
PO Box 318 Morphett Vale, South Australia 5162
All Cheques are to be made payable to the Zephyr and Zodiac Owners’ Club Of SA.
Please note that fees must be paid by the due date (1/7/2015) or your membership will lapse.
INTERESTING EMAILS Welcome to the May 2015 edition of Retroautos online. Click on this link: http://issuu.com/retroautos (or go to www.retroautos.com.au)
When they wave the green flag across the starting line up of this year’s Indianapolis 500 it will be the 50th anniversary of Jim Clark’s historic win in the 500 mile event. His rear engined Lotus, pit crewed by the famed Wood brothers, changed the direction of Indy racing forever. We take a look at the race and Clark’s V8 Ford powered race car.
Our features about the Ford Capri and Opel Manta provide a rare opportunity to compare and contrast the European versions of the Mustang and Camaro. Plus, we have searched the secret corners of GM and Ford and showcase the styling proposals and prototypes of both vehicles. The Capri is owned by Ian Wilson, a member of the Hunter British Ford Group, and the Manta, possibly the only one in Australia, has been Stan Miller’s since new.
We also take a look at the career of Franklin Hershey, who influenced the design of many cars from the 1920s to the 1950s that we now consider classics. And please linger a while over the Retro Advertisements. The Duesenberg and Fiat artworks are stunning.
We hope you enjoy this 44rd edition of Retroautos.
Cheers….David
Coffee in Paris. Photo sent in by R Peck Home repairs. Photo sent in by J van der Linden
