During his long and illustrious career, Jim Richards had one race shy of a thousand competitive starts, of which he emerged winner of 211 races. He climbed onto the podium 516 times, an incredible race/ podium ratio of fifty-one percent. He was seven times winner of the Bathurst 1000 (the pinnacle of Aussie sports car racing), claimed four touring car titles and a stack of victories in almost every form of GT motorsport contested in Australia and New Zealand. Conquering Carrera Cup Australia at the age of fifty-six, he has also turned his hand to rallying Stuttgart's finest sports cars.
Jim was born in Otahuhu, located in the North Island of New Zealand, in 1947, but by the time of his twelfth birthday, his family moved to a town with the very English name of Weymouth. It was here he was attracted to karting. At the age of fifteen, he bought his first car, a 1934 Austin Seven. On leaving school, he started an apprenticeship at a local garage. A 1956 Morris Minor replaced the Austin, but both cars were eclipsed by a Mini. It was behind the wheel of the Mini he first tasted the thrill of competition, even if the diminutive racer was out-gunned by just about everything else it ran against in quarter-mile sprints.
Jim didn't give up. He found the money for a deposit on a shiny new Ford Anglia 105E. Although the car was uncompetitive, Jim wasn't. Enter the patronage of Jim Carney, who invited Jim to compete in a Mk1 Ford Escort which had just been raced in the 1970 British Touring Car Championship by Mike Crabtree for the John Willment Group. Straight off the boat, powered by a 1.6-litre BDA twin-cam engine and still in its BTCC battle dress, the blisteringly quick Blue Oval suited Jim (Richards) to a tee — man and machine went on to claim 1970's production car class championship against drivers of more powerful American muscle, including Ford Mustangs,
