Classic Cars in
South Africa
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- Last update:
23 Feb 2016
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Quick
overview of South Africa
Car of the Week
1948 Renault 4CV
Luis Renault was a mechanic with De Dion when he started playing around with
his De Dion motorcar. He built a new chassis with seperate suspension on all four
wheels and mounted the engine in front instead of the back and replaced the chain
drive with a cardan shaft.
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Dixieland Band arrives in
Style
Our regular Dixieland Band arrives in style at one
of our Crankhandle Club meetings in Cape Town
First Car in Southern
Hemisphere
As early as 1896, in what is believed to
have been the first car in the Southern
Hemisphere, Mr John Percy Hess of Pretoria made the decision to import
a Benz "Velo" from Benz & Co of Mannheim Germany to South Africa.
During
the same year this car was shipped to Port Elizabeth and then transported to
Pretoria. It was the start of a business relationship which lead to Mr Hess
becoming the sole agent for Benz & Co in South Africa.
On Monday, January 4th at 4pm.1897 at
Berea Park in Pretoria, in a widely
advertised event, Mr John Percy Hess first drove the car with a Mr A.E. Reno
(his business Partner and co-founder of the Pretoria News), and a Dr W.J.
Leyds,
then State Secretary of the Transvaal, as
passengers. President Paul Kruger
was also invited to ride on the car, but he
preferred to just watch the event.
In honour of President Paul Kruger
attendance a "vierkleur" flag was attached
to a pole on the carriage and a gold medal was
minted to commemorate this
occasion. A large number of spectators who came
to see this spectacle had to
pay an entrance fee of 2 shillings and 6
pennies.
The following week, the Benz was shown at
the Wanderers in Johannesburg
and then sold to Mr A.H. Jacobs, a coffee importer. Every customer who
purchased 500g of coffee from his shop in
Pritchard Street was allowed to see
his car. Unfortunately, some months later, this
car was destroyed in a fire.
First Ford exported to a
country outside North
America
The first Ford to arrive in South Africa
was a 1903 Ford Model A, which was
imported by Mr Arthur Youldon of Johannesburg.
In September 1903 Mr Youldon, an
importer, was in New York where he saw
Henry Ford demonstrate his new car. He immediately placed his order with
Henry Ford, who informed him that it would be the first Ford to be sold
outside North America. The Ford Motor Company
was founded earlier that
year, on 16 June 1903.
The car only arrived in February 1904 in
Port Elizabeth from where it had to
be transported by train to Johannesburg. This car survived to this day and
can be viewed at the Franschhoek Motor Museum in the Cape, which has a
large display covering 100 years of motoring in SA.
The first two Ford agents in South Africa
are believed to be Arkell & Douglas
of Port Elizabeth and Georges Chapart of Durban. Mr Chapard, a Frenchman,
travelled throughout Natal and later also the Orange Free State, selling the
popular Ford Model N, the predecessor of the Model T.
Other early Ford dealers followed such as
Mr H.G. Holmes of Kimberley who
later moved to Cape Town and Atkinson's Motor Garages of Bloemfontein,
which much later were incorporated in the McCarthy Group of companies.
Since
Ford's inception in 1904, Ford of Canada was given the task by Henry
Ford of supplying right-hand drive vehicles to all the British
colonies,
possessions and protectorates. Ford
the US factories were geared solely to lhd production.
During July 1923 Mr Charles Holmes and Mr H.F.A.
Stockelbach visited the
Ford factory
in Canada to investigate the possibility of starting an assembly
plant in South Africa, as preferential tax and duty applied to Commonwealth
Countries, it was advantageous to assemble Canadian kits in South Africa.
This was realised in February 1924, when
an old wool packing shed in Port
Elizabeth was used to start the assembly of the Ford Model Ts.
Oldest Cars in South
Africa
South Africa's Own Successful
Cars
GSM Dart & Flamingo
Bob van Niekerk, Willie Meissner and Vester
de Wit conceived and designed this
car during 1956. Then they formed the GSM company and started
manufacturing
the first two prototypes during 1957. The car proved to be almost unbeatable
in
South Africa as well as various racing circuits in Europe.
The
cars were launched as open cars and a removable hardtop only followed later.
The Flamingo was a further development and differed in many respects.
A good number of these cars have survived
in South Africa, as well as in the UK,
USA and Canada!
Protea
This Ford engined sports car
made its first official appearance at the Spring Motor
Show at Milner Park Johannesburg in 1957. The
car was conceived and developed
by
John Myers, Robert Hudson and Dr Alan Roy.
Caracal Sports
During the 1970’s, a Cape Town firm called InterMotorMakers (IMM) became
known
for the assembly of Lamborghini and Lotus cars from CKD kits.
The main driving force behind IMM was an archtect named Gerrie Steenkamp
who,
together with well-known National Rally driver Nic de Waal (an Engineer
who
today practises
as a naval architect) set about to create a two-seater
sports
car.
This is known today as the Caracal.
The car is built on a VW Golf GTi 16V platform and uses VW mecanicals. An
interesting
fact is that the Caracal is built “back-to-front” – i.e. the Caracal’s rear
end
was the Golf’s
front end before the “conversion” – resulting in a mid-engined
lay-out.
The cabin is also done with the
Golf’s interior (seats, dashboard, etc)
resulting in
a truly professional, market-ready product.
I believe that some 4 of these beautiful cars were made: one was destruction-
tested by Volkswagen,
one was sent off to VW Germany, one was destroyed in
an accident and the “show-model” survived.
When I bought the Caracal, it was in a fairly good, road-going condition.
Because
of the car’s huge
importance
to South Africa’s motoring history however,
I decided
to put the car through a complete
restoration. This, regrettably, turned sour and
I have to re-do almost the entire job!
Currently,
I’m hoping to get the restoration
done soon – and properly this time!
Old Car definitions
Antique Cars - Built before 31st December 1904
Veteran Cars - Built between 1st Jan 1905 & 31st Dec 1918
Vintage Cars - Built between 1st Jan 1919 & 31st Dec 1930
Post-Vintage Cars - Built between 1st Jan 1931 & 31st Dec 1945
Post-45 Cars - Built between 1st Jan 1946 & 31st Dec 1960
Post-60 Cars - Built after 1st Jan 1961
Renault obtained a patant on this configuration and in 1899 he started building his
own cars. Business was good and in 1900 Luis managed to sell more than 200 cars
which was quite an achievement.
France was the largest car manufacturing country in 1903 with 30‘000 cars, 780 of
which were built by 600 workers in the Renault factory. Only ten years later in 1913
more than 10‘000 cars were built by 15‘200 workers. Renault expanded into building
of buses and trucks and during the first world war they also built small tanks and
aircraft engines.
1939 the company introduced self supporting bodies with independent suspension.
In 1940 the company employed more than 40‘000 workers. The Renault Company
was expropriated in 1945 by General de Gaulle.
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