Jim Culbert of CAE in San Diego used to make an annual trip to South Africa in the 1960's as it was a hot bed of circle track racing. A lot of CAE's products were used on hot rods all over the world.
interesting to me is that there is a Shelby South Africa business. an extension of Shelby Las Vegas. during Carroll Shelby's time away from the car building world he lived in South Africa. in early 50's started out drag racing a flathead powered 30's Hot Rod.
Man the more I zoom in the more I find. The head light bar goes through the grill shell and mounts to the center of the front cross member, the turn signals are mounted to the perch pins, and it appears it’s running the heads on the opposite sides from stock. Follow those radiator hoses! Also the drivers side steering arm is pretty wild looking. bet you could look that car over in person for hours.
A lot of early RHD cars from South Africa end up in Australia, especially the U.S. bodied versions that weren't available there.
I've had a few opportunities to outline the local history over the years, though I knew little about the early years except the bits I'd picked up from my dad and uncles: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...od-hamb-friendly.1032489/page-3#post-11691884 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...do-you-come-from.1135472/page-3#post-12909537 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...e-colors-on-cars.1235742/page-4#post-14133511 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...are-sight-in-your-town.1273196/#post-14598234 https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/jaguar-ife-irs.1334905/#post-15579017
This was at the 2019 South African Street Rod Nationals in Cape Town: https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/cape-town-2019.1153257/ It rotates anually between cities. It was back in Cape Town in 2024, but it was so disappointing I didn't even bother posting.
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