Bruce began racing Formula Ford in 1989 winning the New Zealand Class 2 Formula Ford Championship that year in the Christchurch-built Swift LM1. That same season, he met the late Ken White who asked him to drive the Dick Jones Special, which he later sold to Bruce in 1992. Bruce spent many years trying to track the history of his car, armed with a bad photocopy of a Road and Track article but it wasn’t until 2007 that he found Dick Jones in Colorado, and Lilo Ben Zicron in Los Angeles – the second owner of the Dick Jones Special. That’s when Bruce learned the story of the young guy who built the Dick Jones Special, went to Vietnam, and never returned.
Describing himself as “an average kiwi truck driver,” Bruce brings the DJ out for a run now and then.

Bruce Smythe - 1955 Dick Jones Special

Bruce began racing Formula Ford in 1989 winning the New Zealand Class 2 Formula Ford Championship that year in the Christchurch-built Swift LM1. That same season, he met the late Ken White who asked him to drive the Dick Jones Special, which he later sold to Bruce in 1992. Bruce spent many years trying to track the history of his car, armed with a bad photocopy of a Road and Track article but it wasn’t until 2007 that he found Dick Jones in Colorado, and Lilo Ben Zicron in Los Angeles – the second owner of the Dick Jones Special. That’s when Bruce learned the story of the young guy who built the Dick Jones Special, went to Vietnam, and never returned.
Describing himself as “an average kiwi truck driver,” Bruce brings the DJ out for a run now and then.

1955 Dick Jones Special:

This racer was built in Simi Valley, California, featuring a Dick Jones fibreglass Meteor body on a home-built chassis. It started life at Lions Drag Strip, then continued racing at Riverside, Willow Springs and Sears Point. It moved east to Milwaukee in the mid-1980s before it was brought to New Zealand in 1989.
Bruce bought the Dick Jones Special in 1992 and with his son, Stafford, campaigned the car in historic races with TACCOC and at the Auckland Domain Hill Climb – running the same 302 cubic inch Chevy, 4-speed gearbox and Customline rear end it arrived with. It’s a bit heavier now, with a roll cage added but it’s good for 150mph.
About thirty Dick Jones-bodied specials were built, with five known remaining bodies left. This is the only one in the world still racing.