G'day from NewZealand: New Terrapin Nut

[myothercarsamorrie]

Hello to all from down under in NewZealand. Frank is my name and I've been bitten by the Terrapin bug. Let me give you all a quick run down on how I came to acquire my new toy. My daily drive is a Morrie Minor. Here in NZ we have an internet auction site called Trade-Me, very similar to e-bay but NZ & Aus specific on which I regularly run a 'BMC' search as I am always on the hunt for Morrie bits. One of these searches recently turned up a very sweet looking little space frame type single seater, to my eyes a shrunken F1 car, mid engined, discs on all corners, adjustable suspension, and would you believe it, powered by a 1275 mini engine. Cool I thought, asking price NZ$750.00, about 300 of your British pounds. This pretty little thing was called a Terrapin (I knew instantly that it was just the toy/project for me). Got in touch with the seller, made a cash offer on the phone (having not yet seen the vehicle), my NZ$500.00 offer was accepted. It was mine...YES.... Got it home and decided to do a little research. Ran a google 'Terrapin' search and got a whole bunch of results for Turtles, then narrowed it down, found a few more specific references, and finally a link to this site. Wow, there are more of these little racers. Anyway, here I am with my unclothed (no body panels) Terrapin, it's basically all there and in nice condition. My plan is to fully strip it down and do a complete re-build, replacing and improving as I see fit, while retaining the historic BMC based integrity of the car (thanks to my Morrie, the 'A' series engine is familiar and I like the thought of a fast version), and finally fabricating a suitably svelte and slippery body in aluminium. OK, my basic story told, I would like to ask a couple of very general questions. I think I have attached an image of my toy (not sure if I got the image uploaded properly). Firstly, is this indeed a Terrapin, or at least suitably Terrapin in concept. Secondly, as I understand it, there have been over the years a good number of build plans, where does mine fit in, ie, approx year and model type? I have already started pulling it apart, and am eagerly anticipating every step in the process to follow, and at the end of it all, motor racing, we have a strong racing culture here in NZ with a good number of events annually for all types and classes. So, from a newbie to you all, nice to join the ranks, I look forward to keeping you posted on progress, hope my rantings don't bore you, cheers for reading my first post .............Frank.

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[MiNiTiCi]

Hi Frank,
Welcome to the forum.
Looks like a real bargain
Not sure if it is exactly all 'Terrapin' but has the general configuration.
Front suspension wishbones don't look quite like the plans I have and the rear shock mountings appear to come from the lower wishbone or low on the rear upright (rather from the top wishbone).
May be an 'inspired by' creation or an iteration of the original design.
The builder may have got carried away by adding lots of extra tubes outlining the body shape.
Alan's design certainly only had the minimum of tubes and each one was sized, triangulated and positioned for it specific purpose.
Doug.

[divebomber]

As he says, the Terrapin is the sourdough bread in the open wheel racing sandwich. This looks like it would be less than 25 years old, I'd think from the sidepods, though it's a small picture so hard to have a strong opinion. I have the second edition of the book and there are so many pictures on the back cover that I can guess which major F1 or Indy car influenced them, and what year. Such is the world of Terrapins.

I think I'm familiar with that particular car, been for sale several years and me 7,000 miles away, darn it. Wish it was for sale around Disneyland for what would be about $500 American. I'm discussing steel tube with someone who has done this sort of thing and he says I should be looking at $300 just for that.

I would be curious to see some closeups on those sidepods, seems like a useful variation. But I'm wondering even more now after seeing your pictures if they were added later, strikes me as not a match to the original framebuild.

-DOUG-
(Perhaps a NON Doug would like to weigh in.)