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Paul (right) - Bill Hunter (left)
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"I spoke to you at the Haunted Hills Hill-climb Circuit at Bryant Park on Saturday the 2nd of October this year and you asked me for a short history on myself and my Hill climb car the JINX 500.
I took up motor racing later in life than most of my contemporaries at about the age of 55 years when I was able to afford the cost of the vehicle and assorted running costs.
I had been interested in classic motor racing for years and my start came when I visited my wife’s cousin and her husband Glen Bishop.
Glen was working on a number of potential Austin 7 race cars at that stage and I was able to help him prepare the A7 W.A.S.P. And I eventually was able to run that car in a body less form at The Mount Tarrengower Hill Climb in 1994 or 95. I was hooked at that stage and when I had a run in the same car at Rob Roy later on that year that sealed my fate and I began to plan to build an Austin & race car.
This was accomplished with an enormous amount of input, guidance and sheer hard work by an Austin 7 Guru, one Stan Rodda who lived quite close to me at Mooroolbark. Stan and I spent several months working nights and weekends and the Silver Fish was born.
I spent about 4 years with the silver Fish doing regularities, hill climbs and sprints and managed around 12 competitive events each year. This car was eventually snapped up by Max Robinson, yet another Austin 7 tragic and I bought the Austin 7 known as the Red Carrot from Graham Burnam from up Ballarat way. Graham had rolled the Carrot at Winton earlier on that year and had just finished restoring it when I was able to wrest it from his grasp.
I continued on unabated in the Red Carrot for the next 4 or 5 years until I too rolled it. It managed to roll 4 times at Sandown Race Circuit on the 22nd of October 2000. This resulted in a headache and a rolling pin from the Austin Seven Club and a lot of late nights from me to turn the car from a banana back into the Red Carrot. I continued on with the carrot for another couple of years doing hill climbs at Rob Roy, Arthurs Seat, Mount Tarrengower and Morwell. I competed in sprints at Mangalore, Eddington and Heathcote. I was able to run in regularities at Sandown and Phillip Island even taking it to Mallala and the associated hill climb in the Easter of 2003. This was pretty much the routine that I had established with the Silver Fish.
I sold the Red Carrot to Noel Stevens of the Austin 7 Club a short time later and he has run it in several regularities and hill climbs and at the moment it seems to be resting in Noels rather large garage in company with several other Austin sevens.
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The JNX in its new home
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Waiting for the Kawasaki to engine be fitted
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I was then able to buy the Buchanan Cobra and the Falkenberg 'Jinx 500' from a work colleague who had been carting them around from home to new home for about 5 or 6 years. He had not managed to do a great deal of work on either cars, and his wife was getting sick of the sight of both of them, the cars I mean. I brought both cars home together with a trailer load of spare parts and so began another era in the Schilling historic racing story.
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Paul's other racing car - the Buchanan Cobra
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The Buchanan Cobra
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I managed to get the Buchanan Cobra going and log booked as an SA car, the story of that enterprise is on the VHRR web site under Members cars and also on the Buchanan Cars site under cobra. I have been running the Cobra at every event that I can in the past 5 years, and have maintaine a photogrphic history of the car's development with a competion history of every event entered."
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The JNX has a good start at Haunted Hills, 2010
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