06/02/2026
Fact
Given that I could choose from any and all saloon cars raced in SA since 1964.....how do I end up with those three?? Well...it has to do with the hidden significance of the cars. Each carried a unique message around tech achievement that perhaps gets missed. All three were class leaders and quite frankly performed well above what normally could be expected. Let's go with the 4100 first and this is going take the whole post today..... Never in the history of South African motoring, has the potential for a race car been so directly ignored by a manufacturer.... and the loss to SA motor sport is significant. Lets deal with Ben's 4100 exploits (still looking for a good pic)... because that car not only opened a few eyes but more importantly, rubber stamped and validated an earlier attempt to do something with the car on a much bigger scale.....&......which unfortunately never materialised. For those that may not know this, that yellow monster lapped Kyalami not far short of the times run by the post '71 Capri Peranas.....put that into context......a relatively bulky 4 door sedan running a 4.1 'Six', running times similar to a smaller 2dr 5.0 Litre V8 Coupe. Even more staggering, the Capri had some race intent about it, both from the fact it was a Ford and it made no bones about the fact it was going to be a racing car....the Chevy not a single component on the production car could be linked to performance...let alone racing. The mastermind behind the car.... Roger Taylor. The ironies that surround this machine are staggering. The cylinder head is a 9 port siamesed-inlet design which, if one compares the bare casting to the hardware available on both s/block V8 Fords and Chevy's of the time, could be considered a joke. It is not. Had GM shown any support for this project it could have gone on to even greater things. One needs to talk to Roger on the detail.....but his flow-bench work indicated air flow numbers approaching some of the best performance V8's. The project stopped.....sadly, abruptly.... after good success over a year or so racing, the engine let go in a big way at the exit to the 2nd S at Kyalami...a conrod snapped and pretty well cut the engine in half. That happened at a time of flux for Ben and he decided to use the opportunity to move on.... The Irony?? GM had available at home base, upgraded EN23 rods from the Thomas days but no-one looking after the private racers. That may seem like an insignificant comment but carries with it a powerful message of disinterest during a time where the General was into a second generation of a Dealer Team. The next irony... at the exact time that car won its first race at Kyalami (late 70's) the 25/38/4100 range had just terminated production at the factory. Here's the final irony......Six years earlier in 1972, there had been a glimmer of hope down in PE and a bit of a lone stand-off as to how to go about motor sport. What I reveal here is absolute fact. I was a very young somewhat naive, though very vocal engineer at the time and, when the decision to go the Can Am route took hold, I had very serious misgivings. These were not about the programme, racing or the tech brilliance of the cars.... but to me, no matter how successful it turned out to be in terms of racing.....it would not help GM in any other way. This had only to do with the fact that the General had no Streetcred...and no seriously positioned performance car product on the street. Who were we going to impress by blowing the doors and bootlid off the Capris???...the racing community yes.... but would it change a purchasing decision by a customer looking to buy a quick Ford....to cross he street and buy a relatively mundane 2.5 Firenza..... absolutely not. In fact I used the phrase "Putting a 302 into a Firenza would have about the same effect as stuffing a 302 into a Trabant"...that did not go down well....but I continued to push for a programme delivering proper performance product to the street. My bosses at the time relented and I was given free reign to build a performance "1245"..... the code name for the 25/38/4100 range which had just been newly launched. Gert (RIP friend), my ace fabricator and I built the car shown in this pic after about nine months of various engine and sedan prototypes. We were building the machine at exactly the same time the Can Am was being developed by Jonny Pittaway and the rest of the engineering team. The result....the project was fully approved and on the product plan scheduled for production in 1974. This car was fractionally slower than a stock Perana ....0-100: 6.9 sec and Vmax 220 Kmh incl a 5 speed ZF. That six port head machined (not ported) to deliver ponies (stuff we learned from the Ranger 1/4 mile car) two Twin Choke downdraughts and a very cool set of headers. compression ratio 9.5:1. We were forced to use the 'lighting plant' stock 'HO' camshaft profile...but...with the help of our engine plant men using offset keys in Cam Grinder closed the lobes for more overlap. The project died on the face of it because of the fuel crisis...but that is not the truth....it died because GMSA had no performance car or racing DNA. Bob Price our dynamic leader had left the building to run Vauxhall in the UK....and the Fuddy Duddies took over. The significance of Ben's 4100 is massive and sadly underlines a lost opportunity not only for GM but a competitive 38/4100 during its full production years would have changed the face of SA motor racing in ways most would never appreciate. I almost neglected the most important issue....GM would have built massive streetcred with this and one other project. This chassis is the exact package that initiated the big saloon racing in Australian touring cars after the departure of the Torana era.
