A 7 Enthusiast and Artist New Zealand

[Graham Barker]

A New Zealand artist, Richard McWhannell, has an exhibition entitled Motoring Art at Orexart gallery in Auckland.  He brings together his love of painting and car racing.   At the age of fifteen he bought his first car which was a 1931 Austin 7.  He sold the car when he took up a place at a school of fine arts, but never lost his enthusiasm for Austin 7's.  After becoming an established artist, in 2003, he bought a 1929 Austin 7 special and established friendships that led him to the New Zealand racing circuits.
His car is photographed below and also a painting that he made to advertise a motor racing event.  You can see more of his Motoring Art by googling Orexart.
I am hoping to see the exhibition tomorrow.
Graham Barker        

[Ian Williams]

Richard is a good friend of mine and very talented artist, the exhibition was dedicated to the memory of my other good friend Joss Campbell who recently lost his fight with cancer. Joss as some of you may know was a fellow A7 enthusiast and talented body builder, he had had helped Richard in the design and construction of the much admired Dieppe. When I started the Rycroft Trophy race series I asked Richard if he would do some poster designs for us, some of the art work here were the original's he painted, he also had an idea a few years year back to produce a calendar and the collection of twelve paintings with the beautiful women were the calendar paintings.  Here are a few more pictures for your pleasure. 
           

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PS Graham PM me, if you are in Auckland you should go and visit Richard not just the exhibition.

[Graham Barker]

Hi Ian, My wife and I enjoyed the exhibition today. Seeing the actual Dieppe there was an unexpected bonus. Great looking car.
Sent you a PM just now.
Cheers 
Graham.

[Anne Griffiths]

I'd love to include some of Richard's paintings in the exhibition I'm curating as part of theCentenary Event. Would it be possible for you to put me in touch with him, please?
I have managed to track down his home address, but would like to have a conversation with him, if at all possible, either by telephone, text, private messaging or by email.

[Graham Barker]

Anne, that's a great idea. Please make contact with Ian Williams who is a close friend of Richard.  I do not have Richard's address. 
Cheers 
Graham

[Ruairidh Dunford]

The paintings and the car are tremendous - what talent.

[Duncan Grimmond]

Agreed! I do hope the car will continue to be used and not languish "unplayedwith" in a museum.

[Ian Williams]

I can assure you that the Dieppe always has been Richards daily driver, they are a common sight on the streets of Auckland and I am certain he has absolutely no plan's to change that any time soon. I will alert him to this thread.

[jansens]

Wait, did he POLISH it for the exhibition?! I am not sure Joss would approve!

Worth pointing out Richard has a second Austin 7 special, The H Car which is like the red 120 car in Grahams top picture.

Also Ian, Richard and Joss built the body for the car that played Bruce McLaren's car in the recent film about him. And that body was put on the Dieppe for filming I believe.

Ian will correct me/tell the story much better as he was there!

Simon

[Ian Williams]

Yes Simon Car 120 is the H class special depicted next to the Dieppe, you are also correct about the McLaren car. We were only given three weeks to do the job and Richard had the body off the Dieppe chassis for a refresh, so rather than build another chassis up from scratch be put the body we created onto the chassis for the filming. Southward's then brought the body from us and put it onto another chassis for display at the museum, unfortunately they rather messed it up by using touring height springs which rather spoiled the appearance of their display but that's another story.
Richard is now aware of this thread and is happy to talk with Anne, being NZ based we are not sure how it could be made to work logistically to display the paintings at the centenary but he is open for discussion.
PS Simon, you know how much real patina the Dieppe now has from all the years of daily use, so I think Richard can be forgiven for giving it an occasional polish! Lol, Even Joss could very occasionally be caught with Solvol in hand.