Dastles and Westfields

[kiwikid34]

Does anyone have an idea how many Dastle and then Westfield midget cars may have been built over the years?

[weewillie]

Geoff Rumble both built and raced a Dastle with some success in the late 1960s and start of the 1970s revival of midget car racing by Spedeworth stock car company. I think he built the lastone at the start of the eighties but have no idea how many there were overall. They were a good car and more like a midget than some of the rear engine monstrosities that compete these days IMO.

[ovaltrack]

No idea how many were built in total but if you check out the Dastle web page there are pictures of the various models which graced both the long and short circuits. The Westfields were originally called GP Classics. All the factory bits were bought up and the resulting cars are now known as Gazelles.

www.racecar.co.uk/dastle/sales.htm

[ezwalk43]

Dastle numbers are very hard to gauge accurately as so many copies have been built since both in the UK during the 1970'/80's and also abroad - of the two cars I own the Mk7 was built in Germany in the 1990's and has never raced whilst the Mk18 raced by Steve Piggins was originally built by John Lowe. Ben Pashley owns and original Mk7, a wideboy replica, an original Mk18 sandracer plus another Mk18 chassis, the Steve Young Suzuki Mk18 is a replica, the Mk18 Chris Phillips had was original in the end but can't vouch for the chassis he wrote off at Birmingham. There are two original Mk3's or there were - the one I sold went to Italy to be stretched to a circuit racer but I do know of other original Mk7's in Germany,Sweden and London. I did keep a register of old midgets at one time and there were probably 20 Dastles on it - maybe someone on here would like to take up the challenge again

[ovaltrack]

Shame about the Jenks Mk3. Are you in touch with the guy who bought it? The cars we refer to as Mk18s are labelled as Mk14 or XIV on the Dastle site by the way. Did you mean wide body or was wideboy a reference to someone???! I guess you're talking about the Alf Oldfield > Barry Phillips car. It would be nice to get a dozen of them out on circuit in one go but I don't suppose that will ever happen.

[rodpashley]

The "Mk28" dastle, as far as we can accertain, turns out to be the "Mk14" pictured on Dastles website, and was their show car. we think that only two were built. It is not much different to a Mk18. Yes, Ben owns the Oldfield wide Dastle, it handles much better than my Mk 7 ever did. Westfield Classic was sold as a Hillclimb car, Westfield Midget for the ovals The only difference was the roll cage.

[ezwalk43]

When I spoke to Westfield they were cagey about how many they built and told me they sold 20 for a one make series in Spain? which I think may be a bit of an exageration as none of those have surfaced since - one went to the USA and ran a Pinto (as i found out when I picked up an Auto Trader while on holiday over there). In the Uk there were at least 2 hillclimb cars, one of which I believe is now with Ben Pashley, The Tony Jenkins car I raced is now with Toni Scheepens in Holland, The Eddy Ricketts car is with John Lowe, The Andy Collins world final winner was cut up by some guy trying to build an outlaw stock car, Another one hung from the wall in a Wolverhampton sports bar before vanishing, John Lowe bought I believe 5 chassis and called them Gazelles, one is with Paul Turricki, one was an orange show car for a while and a third should be raced by Pete Dorrell in 2010. Finally the Dicky Loosby Evo that I recently bought is based on a much modified Westfield chassis with inboard suspension, rear mounted Hewland etc. Be interesting to hear if anyone knows of any more

[ezwalk43]

And here's one I owned earlier - Never expect to find a midget in the Auto Trader especially at £350 but this was my first Dastle - Emery colours and badges plus European racing stickers and you could still make out #6 under the paint so possibly once a Tony Stubbs car. Wide body so presumably once fitted with a V8 - when I had it there was a VW with twin downdraft Webers and a rear mounted transaxle. Guy I sold it to never even came to see it - said he had read a book on Mario Andretti and was it similar to the cars he drove. Sent a truck to pick it up and was planning on putting it in his hallway. Suprisingly enough he didn't and the car passed through the trade before ending with a dubious car dealer who reported it stolen and never seen again - maybe 8 years ago. Hopefully this car still exists out there somewhere - has anybody seen it?

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[danhornby]

EZ
That is a picture of an Emery built V8, converted from a Dastle.. I drove a few times both in the UK and Europe. It had 3.5 litre Rover V8 with a manual box (think it was from a buick) and an E type rear end, all bought from a scrap yard. The wider body was needed to get your legs around the engine. Emery fitted the engine with a single dellorto carb with the longest inlet manifold you have ever seen, which made it a bit like the old turbo cars with tubo lag, you had to hit the throttle a bit before you needed it, which caught me out a couple of times. It was very cheap to build and no tunning was done to the engine. It was very fast and fun to drive. It could have been a developed into great low cost formula

[martinslyon]

Hi Ez,

When you bought your Westfield off the Jenkins, did they still have an old red Mk V11 Dastle that I gave them?
It had Triumph front and alloy FJunior rear uprights with a triumph diff?

[ezwalk43]

Thanks for filling in the history Dan - I remember seeing Paul Emery and a couple of other V8's at Hednesford, maybe you were one of them. When I got the car it had been unraced for about ten years and was fitted with a laid over 1600VW and a rear mounted transaxle ( thought I got a good price for it but would hate to think that I let it go with a Hewland!). Shame the car passed into dubious hands as finally all that was found was the nose cone.
And Martin, when I bought the Jenkins Westfield they wanted to hold onto the Dastle - eventualy I pursuaded them to let it go but by then it had received some truck racing technology at the rear (new chassis in 4" box tube or thereabouts!) though still had the triumph diff. Spent ages trying to find the origin of the rear uprights - Martin Cowell at Trimstone, Hereford had a similar pair and reckoned they were Alexis - who knows... I eventualy sold it as a job lot of three Mk7's which went to a scrap dealer in the east of the country who also claimed to own a Skirrow in addition to the remains of the Pan-Am flight blown up over Lockerbie.

[corsa61]

can anyone shed some light on where the mk 3's are as my dad raced one in 72 it was an ex chris davies car

[gpmidget03]

Hi Guys

shed some light onmy cars for you all, i have as follows :-)

1 Dastle Type 7 (genuine) dont know who raced it as havnt been able to find anything out about it.
1 Dastle mk 7 (built by Alf Oldfield) 3" wider then a genuine one raced by Alf Oldfield, Barry Phillips and me.
1 Dastle Mk14 (genuine) Was sand racing in guernsey I think this is the origanl daastle show car.
1 Dastle mk18 (copy) Built/Raced by Eddy Rckets, Andy Collins, Steve Terry & Geoff Bunn
1 Westfield (genuine) origanaly hill climb then raced by Gary Jones, Mark Hodges and Me
1 Westfield (Genuine) Built by John Lowe raced by Andy Collins, Martin Lamb then sold around while people stole parts from it till i bought it from some guy who was going to turn it in to a 2 seater road car.

as for other Dastles that i know of:
Trudy Sayells Brother still has there dads car and is keeping it nice and safe
1 guy has a genuine Mk7 with a imp engine in it that when i spoke to him was planning on rebuilding it to come out racing again havnt seen him yet tho. thast was about 6 or 7 years ago tho.
One mk3 is currently being hill climbed as it was origanly built .
Chris Phillips mk18 was sold to some one who has never raced of been heard of since.
One of the Gorden pooley build dastle mk18's is with a collector.
there is a mk7 kicking about europe that was up for sale on race cars direct.
Dave Hunt use to have a L/H/D mk7 but i have never been able to trace him down to find out if he still has it or not.
the mk7 gordon pooley raced in the 90's was sold to mark Hodges and i thnik he cut it up to fix a arrow (what a waste)
Klaus Kilanski has a mk18 who is back out racing with us (go Kluas)
Jeremy Bouckley has a Fireball Mk3 (newcomer to the midgets this year) ex Toni Scheepens, Cliff Bunn
Derek Hawes has a mk18 that looks like a weastfield was raced by Steve Young, Steve Terry and gary Granger.
Toni Scheepens has th ex Ez Walker, Tony Jenkins Westield and also has a copy of it.
Pete Dorrel has whats been called a Gazelle (new Car)
Clive Silence has a Fireball Mk3 (no longer racing and wont sell it) ex John Salter

there the ones off the top of my head some whre i have a list will dig out and let you know who has what.

Ben

[administrator]

Here is an original Dastle Mfg Co. sales brochure:
Dastle 1.jpeg[/img]

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[administrator]

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Dastle 2.jpeg[/img]

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