Flashback 011

When I first started this website one of the original postings was to find out what happened to one of my favourite cars, the 'Ladder Tank' as it was known of 19s John Mercer. I put a post on Macgors MIA board and had a few responses but the trail went dead after Dayne Condor of Huntly had owned it, see below:

It's under the thread about Steve Malaquin with someone asking did he build the space frame 'ladder tank' as it was called, but as another person correctly pointed out John Mercer had it first... after Steve Malaquin had that tank Red Jones, Ross Bryson raced it as a std stock out of Rotorua, then raced by Dayne Condor out of Huntly, I haven't seen this car 4 a while..."

After I mentioned the Tank of John Mercer, I received a few photos (below) from Gavin Evitt (Pallmall) who must surely have the largest collection of historic photos around and has become the major contributor to the Missing In Action section on Macgors.





Then a while later another posting on Macgors, gave us hope we might see the tank out again soon, see message below:

"...Went around to hillbillys house last night to look at this car, it was ex Dane Condor and the motor is now poked (heads). Rather than spend time to repair the old 221 ford V8, it will be replaced with an EA Falcon 6 and will be back racing before the end of this season. Hillbilly was surprised to see the photo of what this car use to look like in 1986 as the car has had some major changes over the years (front nose change, side rails and bumpers). Chassis still looks mostly original.

Then Pallmall posted some more old photos on Macgors (from the Francis Bros collection of photos) which showed the car had changed quite a bit after John Mercer had sold it on...







I found this shot in a Northern Teams Classic programme from Rotorua when the car had been downgraded to a standard stock in the hands of Lawrence Newton 66r.



Then last week a posting from Lionel Halse (cuzz12h, the owner of the awesome new Bridge Tank) mentioned that the car was in Hamilton in the hands of Mike Henry who would be doing some major work on it soon to get it back to the track in the future for the current owner. I emailed Lionel and asked if he could get some photos of it and he did. Thanks heaps for that, it's really appreciated.

So here they are, my first thoughts are that it's amazing that a car that was so radically different in 1986 could morph into something so standard, although it must be at least 22 years old and been through many owners it was never going to be original. It will be interesting to see what Mike Henry does with this car, and hopefully we will see it back on the dirt in the not too distant future.











If you have any more info or corrections to my ramblings, just email me at gregobro@xtra.co.nz. If you have an old car or photos you want to share of what's in the garage you can always email them to me or put them on Macgors site as he is more than willing to post them for you. There is a lot of interest in these cars. Cheers!