This one’s for dreamers who believe that the long-gone Atlantis really was a super-intelligent island community before it resurfaced as an industrial town on our West Coast, that crayfish were originally seen as undersea vermin not fit for human consumption and that the Mk 1 ox wagon was the first convertible to offer commuting with the top up or down.
The good news for motor nuts in that fantasy land is that the past is closing in on them. The international historic Anniversary Meeting at Killarney on February 5 and 6 is going to be populated by a variety of cars and motorcycles from the golden age of motor racing, as it commemorates a half-century of competition on the “new” circuit.
But of course, that wasn’t how it all started. Killarney had provided a haven for enthusiasts for almost a decade before the first of the 50 - and on a variety of less practical layouts.
So much so that, providing they conduct the necessary research, budding motorsport archaeologists will still be able to uncover traces of them strewn over various areas of the complex.
Then, in 1960, the Metroplitan Motor Club that had originally had the foresight to drop anchor on a disused section of the main drag to Malmesbury (now Killarney, although originally known as the Potsdam Outspan), secured the services of local competitor Edgar Hoal - who was also a leading roads engineer - to design and supervise the construction of a circuit to the 1500cc Formula 1 standard of the time. The finished product doubled back on itself and, to this day, remains particularly spectator-friendly.
The overseas sports-car invasion of this country began when David Piper and his wacky mechanic, Fax Dunn, disembarked - with a Ferrari GTO - from the mailship in Cape Town harbour in 1962.
After driving to Johannesburg, Piper and co-driver Bruce Johnstone overcame a series of tyre problems and went on to win the Nine-Hour Endurance Race at Kyalami. That victory signalled the start of an avalanche of superlative performances from a selection of the top sports car drivers in the world. Sadly, it was all brought to an abrupt halt by the Opec-inspired oil crisis in 1974.
Before that, Killarney fans fared particularly well and were able to see drivers such as like Piper, Mike d’Udy, Brian Redman, BRM F1 exponent Richard Attwood and Australian driver Paul Hawkins at their best. The aggressive Aussie won the Cape South-Easter in 1967, but had to work hard against spirited opposition from the Piper/Atwood Ferrari before he was able to repeat the result the following year.
Several of the events on the Anniversary Meeting programme also qualify for the 2011 Springbok Series that is due to finish at Killarney after rounds at East London earlier in January and Zwartkop on Saturday.
With so many high-quality replicas of famous models on the market, entries continue to pour in. However, it appears the only Ferrari that may start in the Cape, is Ferdi van Niekerk’s 330 P4. Although particularly valuable because only four of these classics were ever built, the difference between one of them and a replica often amounts to little more than a chassis plate and an authenticated history.
However, one of the genuine factory-built cars that is here from Europe is Michiel Campagne’s McLaren M8F.
The brainchild of New Zealand’s Bruce McLaren, whose original claim to fame was that he was once the youngest driver to win a F1 Grand Prix, he progressed to building and racing his own brand of high-powered sports cars later in his career.
The M8F was designed for the lucrative CanAm Series in the Americas, where it fared particularly well and, until the arrival of the awe-inspiring, twin-turbo Porsche 917 it was able to see off the best from Ferrari and Lola.