The Protea was the first of a number of South African-developed production cars over the post-war years, the backgrounds to which have been well-documented elsewhere.
There is no real argument that the most famous of these home-brewed motor vehicles was the GSM Dart, but this iconic sports car was not the first. It was just beaten to pole position by the Protea, which was developed on the Witwatersrand by a trio of enthusiasts: Dr Alex Roy, John Myers and Bob Fincher.
Myers was the only team member to work on the project full time and lived in the flat above the workshop in Booysens. “We used to put in about 16 hours a day working. It was a dream – we had the dream, but we knew we couldn’t keep on with it. We were all bachelors at the time, working all hours of the night; we couldn’t do that when we got married,” he is quoted as saying.
The Protea – named after South Africa’s national flower – was powered by the Ford 100E 1 172 cm3 engine and gearbox, in this application positioned 200mm behind the front axle line, but the three forward ratios were less than ideal because the cars were lighter than an all-metal 100E saloon. Nevertheless, 136km/h was achievable and 0–96km/h took 14.5 seconds. A Willment overhead inlet/side exhaust valve cylinder head conversion upped power from 27kW to 52kW, and a close-ratio gearbox with the option of a Murray mechanical overdrive operating on all the gears – including reverse – could be fitted, all of which helped propel the Protea to over 150km/h.
The prototype took six months to complete and it appeared at the Milner Park Motor Show in 1956. Husband and wife business owners Robert and Miriam Hudson were so taken with the car that they donated £10 000 to the company to help with production startup.
According to Protea expert Leon Joubert, 14 cars were built with the 100E engine, plus a similar number with other engines and/or bodies lengthened by 180mm for mounting on a VW chassis. The basic list price was £659.
The Franschhoek Motor Museum (FMM) is the proud owner of a Protea chassis No. 4, one of the few cars that were bought initially for the intended purpose of racing. It was first sold to a university student named Robbins, for whom Myers had modified the engine and fitted a Buckler close-ratio gearbox. Robbins and a team of students raced the car in the 1958 6-Hour at Hesketh, but it was retired after oil pressure problems led to big-end bearing failure.
In later years, No. 4 was owned by Piet Bezuidenhout and fitted with a Borgward engine in 1967. It then moved on to another owner who fitted it with a Volvo engine before Bert Broune bought the car and stored it for 20 years. However, the Heidelberg Motor Museum, the foundation of FMM, acquired the car in 2000 in near-original condition. The full story of the Protea’s conception, development, manufacture and fate is given in Ian Schwartz’s book, Protea: The Story of an African Car.
Visit the Franschhoek Motor Museum to view the Protea chassis No. 4 and other unique and exciting vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles and memorabilia.