Classic Cars in Rhodesia

This car was found upside down in a dam on a farm in Esogidini (Essexvale) by Frank Rundle when he lived in Bulawayo. It was recovered by Keith Stewart and later sold to the late Chris Kirsten c1980/1. In 1982 Brian Chadwick bought it off Kirsten and asked Viv Westbury to rebuild it for him, it took about 15years to get it as shown in the photo below. The axles that Kirsten gave were wrong, Viv found a front axle, wheels, gages, and some smalls in J'burg, engine parts were found off the shelf at Mike Appel in Harare. The rear axle that came with the car was Hudson 112 and was used. The bonnet and trim were hand made by Paul Machura, mascot and some other parts were cast locally. These parts were borrowed from Fred Holloway's car to copy. It was a nightmare to restore, Hudson built about 27 different chassis between 1936 and 1938. The chassis of this car was badly broken and after Viv recovered the remains of a 1937 sedan and a 1938 coupe and found neither chassis suitable, he eventually had Pete Nel repair the chassis for.There are only 3 known survivors of the custom series in existence, one in Portsmouth UK, one in Ohio USA and this one, which is the only one fitted with double sidemounts.

The car was sold to Dennis Aschmann in Johannesburg around 2012 years ago and has since changed hands to a new owner in Johannesburg.