In about 1975 Brent Bullivant purchased a Capri 1600 road car in Napier and built it from there. Brent did an apprenticeship with another local motorsport identity, Murray Ravenscroft and was quite a capable mechanic.
Brent’s band of enthusiastic helpers, including Noel Martin-Smith, helped with the fibreglass bodywork. The car was sponsored by Brendon Addis Motors in Hastings (no relation to Graeme Addis). The car was painted yellow, but the colour was changed to bright green after Brent sold it.
The car had a very narrow track, which made it very twitchy.
Graham Baker (of PDL Mustang fame) took over the car and enjoyed much success with it, often beating Wayne Huxford and Inky Tulloch (ex-Fahey Cologne Capri with Chev V8 engine), which were the gun cars at the time.
After Baker, the car was driven by others such as Bob Cullinane and Brian Friend.
It was in the Brian Friend period that the car was featured in the 1985 movie “Shaker Run”. The plot called for the car to be stolen from a car showroom. The Wellington Archer and Lupp Jaguar dealership was used. Sybil Lupp was a famous NZ women driver in the 1940’s and 1950’s and later married Lionel Archer.
The car was used in a car chase over the Rimutaka Hill between Wellington and the Wairarapa and ended up in a ditch.
The “Trans-Am” which was the star of the movie was a fibreglass replica body fitted to a HQ Holden chassis, which was a popular 1980’s kit car in NZ.
The motor from the Capri ended up in a boat on the South Island and the car was last raced in the mid 1990’s.
The car vanished for several years. Graham Barnes raced a basic self-built Capri V8 and around 2001 took a trip to Auckland to buy a small block Chev V8. The guy selling the engine also happened to have the “Bullivant” Capri sitting there in bits. Graham was not aware of the history of the car at the time but beautifully rebuilt it and now runs it in OSCA.
The Kiwi Sports Sedan web site www.kiwisportssedans.co.nz has a couple of pics of the car at Taupo in 2003 and 2004. It is the red Capri #18.
Video footage of the car at Ruapuna in 2007 here.
Thanks go to Steven Holmes, Noel Martin-Smith and Bruce Thompson for providing information for this profile.