Jim Richards’ relationship with Sidchrome predated the Mustang that bore the tool company’s name.
A few years earlier, it entered a small deal to back the Hillman Imp (below) that Richards was racing for Brian Patrick. It gave Richards an introduction to the advertising agency executive in charge of promoting the Sidchrome brand, Phil Mark, and the chief of its New Zealand arm, Stuart Innes.
If finding a sponsor was straightforward, so too was finding someone to build a Saloon Car capable of beating New Zealand’s best.
“I met Murray Bunn when I was an apprentice motor mechanic at Speedway Auto Services,” Richards recalls.
“Murray was working for an engine reconditioning firm called H. A.
Wallace & Company, he was the sort of leading man in their business. We’d started saying hello to each other every now and again at race meetings when I was there with my Anglia and he was working on a
