In 1956 two brothers travelled to Italy intending to purchase a car to race back home. They returned with three: two Indy cars and a 1930s 6CM. The first part of this paper covers the modest race history of these cars in New Zealand.

The second explores an identity policy that popped up while exploring the role of the engines in setting the Tipos and the individual identities of these cars. The policy did not set chassis numbers, nor even engine numbers. Rather it set out to describe the features of the engine as used on a particular car, for instance as applied to the 1938 8CTFs.

The 8C part of the description tells us that these are 8 cylinder engines and the TF bit that these particular engines had fixed Cylinder Heads (Testa Fissa). Taken together we get an 8CTF car. But 8CTF is an engine description, not a car one, a conundrum to be explored in this presentation.

Bio

On leaving high school at the end of 1966, Trevor Lister was apprenticed to an engineering company that designed and built all types of materials handling equipment, along with road and farm vehicles. He was employed primarily in the drawing office, along with stints on fabrication and assembly in the workshop.

Lister entered the University of Canterbury on a Public Service Scholarship, graduating with a double degree in Physics and Mechanical Engineering. On graduation he worked in the Ministry of Transport in the setting and administration of Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. This led to a secondment to a national research and development organization where he was responsible for research on a wider range of alternative motor vehicle fuels, and also to an International Consultancy in that area. On completion he returned to his foundational automotive design skills and motorsports hobby. In semi-retirement Lister took up teaching and tutoring pre-apprenticeship students in mathematics, and the science behind automotive engineering. In full retirement he took on the role of Classic Motor Racing Club of New Zealand newsletter editor.