Over December I went to visit my dad and he had a box of magazines that his brother had gotten from his son, who in turn had gotten it from a friend.
And in this magical box of magazines was a collection of a magazine by the name of technicar. I have issues ranging from December of 1969 through to December of 1973, unfortunately with a few issing in between.
The 1969 December edition will have set you back a whole 25 cents, with subscription rates of R2.50 for twelve issues.
The editorial highlights the fact that many South African motorists do not take advantage of the fact that their cars are fitted with safety belts, it goes on to refer to safety belts as an accessory, accessory? Seems in 1969 not only was wearing a safety belt not compulsory, but cars did not even come out with them as standard equipment, can you imagine!?
New cars that got a quick review were the Alfa Romeo Spider 1750, a VW campmobile, which is based on a Kombi but made for people who go camping and a quick overview of the Porsche 911 Series – which was imported by Lindsay Saker Motors and if you wanted info on getting yourself a Porsche, you had to send them a letter.
There is also a reprint of an article on maintaining the ignition and fuel systems on a car (no electronic ignition or fuel injection mind, this was 1969), the article was first published in a Shell technical bulletin.
A Ford 2M 2500S was reviewed after it had tuned by Superformance, which I gather was run by Basil van Rooyen. The modified car got top marks with the modification costing R253.40 excluding fitting. I guess that the Rand was worth a whole lot more back then.
On page 20 and 21 there is an article asking if supercharging is the answer.
Yes all that and we are only on page 20, I can’t help but feel that this magazine has a great deal less ads than modern motoring magazines.
That’s about as much as I can squeeze in now, I will try and cover the rest of the December 1969 issue soon.
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This post was written by Shaun on February 15, 2010
Hi Shaun, With regards to your post on 15 Feb. Do you by any chance have a copy of the July 1973 edition of Technicar?
Hi,
Unfortunately not, for 1973 I have the following months;
January
March
April
May
June
and December.
As you can see there are a few gaps, whats in the July edition that interests you?