Top Car

January 2016|TOPCAR.CO.ZA 95

outing was the Governor General’s

Cup meeting at Lourenço Marques in July

1966, where He ttema finished third behind

Doug Serruri er’s 4.7 Lola T70 and Steve

Mellet’s 4.2 Mirage.

Following this encouraging result, a Citroen

’box was subsequently fitted to the car but it

never race d competitivel y again and its

history from that point is unknown until

Cape Town vintage and classic car

enthusiast Dickon Daggitt acquired the car

about 10 years ago. The body and chassis

had beenrescued off the ba ck of a truck en

routeto a scrapyard and the parts passed

through a couple morehands before

Dickon gave the Duphet a home. Since then

he has found authentic repl acements for the

missing items, save for the suspension

parts, so would make an interesting

restoration project for an enthusiast.

These cars repres ent just an inkling of

the enterpri se that ex isted in the automotive

field in South Africa in the latter half

of the last millennium. Of these four, that

only the Dart can be considere d a

production success is to miss the point: all

symbolise a level of engineering expertise

that, given the limited resources available to

this countr y at the time, deserve to be

looked upon with th e ut most admiration.

Proudly South African! tc

The authorwishes to thank the

Franschhoek Motor Museum Legends

Trust and Bernie Koch for providing

their cars and Dickon Daggitt for the

use of hi s premis es.

Clockwise from

top:hugeair

intakedominates

Protea’sface.

Woodgrain

dashboard

a period

‘luxury’item.

Amplerubber

contributesto

excellentride

andhandling

Clockwise from

top:Caracal’s

headlights neatly

mountedbehind

a Perspex

cover. Crackling

exhaust note

fromVWGolf

GTi 16v motor.

Alloy wheels an

obviouschoice

for the time