Dale Shaw, a name mostly associated with the building and driving ‘mud trial’ cars, built Trevor’s car in 1957/58 from a 1937 tourer. This was at a time when Austin 7 racing enthusiasts were seeing how far they could push the development of their racing cars but still stay within the 750 Formula specifications both in Australia and the UK. Dale’s car used the standard Austin 7 components in a lowered 6’9” chassis, the front axle being divided to pivot in the centre while still retaining the transverse leaf spring, the rear suspension used the trailing quarter-elliptic springs but the standard friction shock absorbers were replaced by trailing links and lever-arm hydraulic dampers. The chassis rails at the rear were extended by twin tubes and this formed the base for a space frame structure and roll bar. This structure was also extended at the front to lengthen the wheelbase to 7’10” and to provide a location for the radiator, the header tank being behind and above the cylinder head. The engine and gearbox were slightly offset to enable a lower driving position and was raced initially in this form without any bodywork on 13” wheels.

In 1960 Dale’s friend Barry Hudson built the body (Barry an industrial designer, later won the ‘Prince Philip’ Australian Design Awards for the GE plastic kettle,) and the split front axle was replaced with fabricated double wishbones and uprights made around Austin 7 stub axles with combined coil spring/telescopic shock absorbers units.
Dale Shaw and John Whitehouse who both at the same time had built similar cars formed a team, (John’s car is known as the ‘Carrot’ and is owned now by Noel Stevens,) John’s business was called Hi Speed Conversions so the team became known as ‘Team Hi Speed.’ Dale sold his car in 1964 to Len Shaw (no relation) who drove the car until 1967 when it was badly damaged. It was then repaired and sold to John Cross who replace the Austin 7 engine with a Renault 750 with twin Amal carburetors and competed mainly at Winton, Hume Weir and Calder. Some time later Trevor acquired the car still in this form from John Cross, at the time John had just had a particularly bad day at Winton, Trevor never being afraid of an opportunity said “I’ll give you $300 for it” and paid for it there and then before John could change his mind.

Trevor repainted the original yellow body to the green of today, replaced the twin Amal carburetors which were hard to tune with SU’s on a new manifold, in this form it was 4 seconds quicker at Lakelands hillclimb than previously.
Soon Trevor’s racing activities were somewhat curtailed by family responsibilities and financial constraints but through all this he still managed to hang onto his racing car. Then the Light Car Club of Australia held its inaugural historic racing event at Sandown and events for historic racing cars became as popular as they are today. Trevor’s first historic event with the car was at Winton still with the Renault 750 motor but he was keen for the Austin to be eligible to compete against other Austin 7s. So in 1978 the Renault motor was replaced with an Austin 7 and the 13” wheels were changed to 16” spoked Austin 7’s. Originally when the car was running in ‘Team Hi Speed’ its best time up Templestowe was 61 seconds, its team partner the ‘Carrot’ was the first Austin 7 to break into the 50s with a 59.99, twelve years later Trevor managed 59.92. Many engines later it is currently running with a 2 bearing crankcase with 1 1/2” pressure fed crankshaft which came from a batch of 25 manufactured by Don Frazer, an Adelaide engineer and purchased in 1980 for $450, the con rods are Renault R4 with offset pistons. The original alloy head was due to be replaced by a new one to be made by Dale Shaw but Dale died before it could be completed and currently has one manufactured some time ago by Ludgate in South Australia which runs on 8 1/2 to 1 compression. The inlet manifold was made by Nigel Tait for a Webber carburetor and was then modified by Trevor to suit twin SUs. The extractors were fabricated by ‘Schnapper’ Jack Mayes at great expense, ‘Snapper’ a plumber figured if he could do something that others couldn’t, he could charge accordingly, hence his nickname.

Trevor’s car has proved to be reliable and is still competitive today even without a supercharger, no doubt as a result of its very low centre of gravity and its well developed front suspension, (just like its driver.) Trevor could be persuaded to part with the car to the ‘right’ person and for the right money?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Text and main photo by Martin Stubbs, additional images by Trevor Cole