By John Oxley
New Zealand is known for its innovative thinkers and designers. Think Bruce McLaren, and you have the epitome of natural genius in racing car design. Think also Stephen Beattie. A man whose talent, at 70 years of age, continues to grow, and whose cars take your breath away for their styling simplicity combined with technical sophistication.
And it’s not just cars that capture and captivate Stephen Beattie, for he’s just come back to car design after a “sabbatical” where he focussed on yachting and off-shore yacht design.
Stephen’s “beauties”, as they are often called, are hand-built classics that create interest wherever they are seen – the Beattie stand at the Ellerslie Classic Car Show in February was the perfect example of this, with people standing in line to take photographs of the cars, and some even lying on the ground to try to get the right shots – but at the same time they can be (and often are) used as road-registered daily drivers that double as weekend competition cars!
In fact we’ve heard that the Mayor of Napier still drives his Beattie to work and parks it in the mayoral parking space.
Stephen’s “day job” is technical manager for Advanced for Ford and Holden, a parts company, in Avondale, Auckland, but his passion is designing and building his cars – as well as yachting, tennis, and playing the tenor saxophone – and he in fact lives on a yacht in Westhaven, Auckland, with his partner Rose.
Born and educated in Hastings, Stephen’s interest in cars was first sparked when he went to a race meeting in Levin as a boy and instantly fell in love with a Lotus 11. “This stuck in my mind, and totally influenced the design of my cars, with its focus on light weight and a high power-to-weight ratio,” he told me.
His first build was a Morgan-like “special”, but Stephen prefers to think of his front-engined Beattie Clubman Sports (or RS, as later versions were called) as his first real car. Its beautiful lines are evocative of the racing sports cars of the late 1950s and ‘60s, and more than 30 of these have been built by both professional builders and home enthusiasts in New Zealand and abroad.
Fancy one? Believe it or not, as I write there’s a pristine 2004 model, with hand-built Nissan dry sump engine, for sale on Trade Me, for the asking price of $65,000, although new the cars would have cost much, much more than that, with the construction time for a completed “turn key” car between 2,000-4,000 hours, equating to between $100,000 to $200,000!
The good news is that some of the models have been adapted for the creative home builder to complete, and that approximately halves the overall completed cost.
Stephen’s first racing competition was in the Te Onepu Hawkes Bay Car Club hill climb near his home town, and he went back several times over the years to race up the hill. In fact, he drove fastest time of the day in 2001 driving a Beattie SR, against very stiff opponents with very competitive cars. If you Google “Te Onepu Hawkes Bay Car Club hill climb” you’ll even find a Beattie RS among the images.
Stephen’s second design was the Beattie SR, a mid-engined development from the RS, and three of these were built, with two still New Zealand-owned, cherished and track raced.
And then came the Beattie LM. Built on a modified SR chassis, it provides exhilarating performance, combined with the looks of the Le Mans endurance racers of the late ‘60s, powered by a mid-mounted Cosworth-Subaru STi boxer engine producing a shattering 305kW for track use – or if you want to toodle along on the road, a flick of a switch “tames” this to 179kW. And all this with a dry weight of only 610kg, giving it an amazing power-to-weight ratio.
As we mentioned, Stephen “lost his way” for a while following the sad death of his son Paul, but a chance meeting re-ignited his passion for building cars – and surprised Rose, who hadn’t been involved in his earlier builds – and he decided to start up again.
“She didn’t quite know what she had signed up for,” says Stephen. “However, this build has restored me as a person – I had hit the wall somewhat.”
The result is the Beattie Paolo, named after Paul, and captures the spirit of the Can-Am racers of the 1980s.
Again, it’s mid-engined, but this time the power plant is a 1,712cc Alfa Romeo quad cam boxer engine. It’s been highly modified, not least being the switch from fuel injection to a pair of 44 IDF Weber carburettors, which help give the car its authentic racing sound.
Light weight, as with all of Stephen’s cars, is a major feature, with the bodies built of aluminium and fibre glass, mounted on complex tubular chassis (think Maserati “Birdcage”) to give the necessary torsional stiffness to cope with the sort of power these cars are pumping out.
And the future? Stephen has two projects in mind. One is a lengthened version of the LM to be fitted with a 5-litre BMW V12 engine pushing out 485kW (650bhp).
If all of the weight saving calculations are achieved then the completed dry weight of the Beattie LM V12 should be around 640kg, giving the magical number that you would expect from a hyper-car for power to weight ratio – 1:1 (650bhp/640kg). Compare this with the Bugatti Veyron EB, which is around 500 bhp/1,000kg.
Stephen’s second major project is Beattie Worx, in partnership with his friend and major supporter Christophe Christianson –a low volume custom-built Beattie manufacturing facility to produce Beattie cars in Russell, in the Bay of Islands.
“Christophe is all fired up, and although we haven’t got into detail yet he really wants me on board,” says Stephen. “And I’m happy to be included, even if its just design, support, and technical”.
Says Christophe: “Our new Bay of Islands Beattie Worx facility will be operational soon. All enquiries can be directed to beattieworx@gmail.com We are building the Beattie LM and are developing the new Beattie Roadster. Prices are between NZ$100,000 and NZ$200,000, depending on model and specification.
“All of our models have high attention to detail and are high specification road race automobiles, custom built to their new discerning owner requirements.”
In the meantime it’s back to the drawing board for Stephen as his creative juices once more flow, with more new designs on the way.
