Katipo MJ70A history
Robbie Booth in the Katipo during the 1976 New Zealand Grand Prix. Copyright Milan Fistonic 2025. Used with permission.
The Katipo MJ70A was a one-off Formula 5000 car built in New Zealand on a Matich sports car chassis. It had a very short-lived career in 1971, raced again briefly in 1976, and later had success as a hillclimb car.
Mark Petch and John Ohlsen formed MJ Racing at Marave Automotive in Auckland, New Zealand, and built a short series of Katipo Formula Ford cars for 1970. The cars were named after New Zealand's only native venomous spider. Ohlsen had worked for Carroll Shelby as crew chief and main fabricator on the original Daytona Coupe prototype in 1963/64, and then worked for Willment in England before returning to Shelby to fabricate the FIA Cobras in 1964. He then worked as a Jaguar specialist in California before returning to New Zealand in 1969.
Petch also acquired a Matich SR3 or SR4 sports car chassis, either from Frank Matich or from famed fabricator Bob Britton, and Ohlsen used this as the basis of a Formula 5000 car, the MJ70A. This car retained the offset seating position of the Matich, with the fuel tank on the driver's left, in the passenger seat position. The suspension geometry was designed by Tony Kriletich following McLaren principles, and used uprights designed by Petch and cast locally. The main water radiator was mounted on top of the engine in front of the rear wing, and an oil cooler was mounted on the left of the chassis. The car's wedge bodywork was fashioned by Ken Platt. It was powered by a Bartz Chevrolet engine running on downdraft Weber carburettors, driving through a ZF gearbox and running on American Halibrand wheels.
The car was due to be campaigned in the 1971 Tasman series by Robbie Francevic, the 1967 NZ Saloon Car champion, and his mechanic Tony Kriletich, but it did not start any of the races, and its first race was at Timaru at the end of January. After its rear suspension broke when it was going well in its second race, Francevic acquired a McLaren M10A from Frank Radisich and the Katipo project was abandoned. The car was later rediscovered and tried out again in 1976, but its handling left a lot to be desired. It found a better home in New Zealand hillclimbs. It still exists today, but dismantled and incomplete.
If you can add to our understanding of these cars, or have photographs that we can use, please email Allen at allen@oldracingcars.com.
The brand new Katipo at Pukekohe in January 1971. Copyright Milan Fistonic 2025. Used with permission.
Dennis Phillips in the Katipo-Matich at Anderson's Farm. Copyright Milan Fistonic 2025. Used with permission.
New for Robbie Francevic to drive in the 1971 Tasman series. It first appeared at the Lady Wigram Trophy in January 1971, but engine problems meant he did not start. It made its race debut in a New Zealand Gold Star race at Timaru at the end of January 1971, qualifying well in third place on the grid, and finishing fourth. He also raced it in a Canterbury Car Club race for single-seaters at Ruapuna on 7 February where he was running in second place when the rear suspension collapsed. Francevic then acquired a McLaren M10A, and the Katipo was abandoned. The Katipo was then fitted with a Gemco sportscar body and offered for sale as a “McLaren replica”. Barry Algie owned it during this period.
The car was rediscovered in 1975 by Greg Sheldon in a barn near Matamata. He returned it to single-seater configuration, fitted a Chevrolet engine built up from a block donated by Graeme Lawrence and persuaded Robbie Booth to race it. Booth had been racing the Begg FM4 for the preceding two seasons. It was entered by Michigan Motors Ltd for Booth as the "Matich-Michigan". Booth drove it in the New Zealand Grand Prix and Manfeild International in early 1976, but found it was "a terrible handling device and dangerous", and declined to drive it again. After Booth, it was owned a second time by Ian Algie, who transferred the transaxle into a Sports Sedan.
According to Vercoe, it then went to Dennis Phillips, who used it in hillclimbs as a Matich. It was used by Russell Greer to win the 1980 South Island hillclimb title. It then went to Murray Morrison in 1981, and his brother Dave Morrison (Timaru) had it on his farm for some time. Nigel Barclay said on theroaringseason.com in 2012 that he believed Morrison had a new Matich frame built. In 2011, John Gobbe (Christchurch) bought "all the remains", including the original chassis from Morrison.
Gobbe died between 2014 and 2019, and the remains of the Katipo moved to Noel Atley (Invercargill, New Zealand). He has the bodywork, both front uprights and one rear, some of the suspension, and the original Matich SR3 chassis.
Driven by: Robbie Francevic and Robbie Booth. First race: Timaru (Levels) (NZGS R5), 31 Jan 1971. Total of 4 recorded races.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the late David McKinney, the expert on New Zealand motor racing, to Milan Fistonic who has taken on David's project to document Kiwi motor racing, to Mark Petch for his comments about the car on Facebook in September 2023, to Noel Atley for the latest news on the car, to Graham Vercoe for his seminal 'Historic Racing Cars of New Zealand', and to Nigel Barclay and Paul Lancaster for their useful comments on theroaringseason.com. If you're noticing a lot of Croatian surnames in this story, it's worth adding that Frank Matich, Robbie Francevic, Frank Radisich and Tony Kriletich were all part of the Dalmatian diaspora from what was then Yugoslavia, now Croatia.
Period articles used for this history include New Zealand magazine Motorman in February and March 1971 and Gerrit Berda's "...and a single-seater Matich" in "The New Book of Autosports".
If you can add to our understanding of these cars, or have photographs that we can use, please email Allen at allen@oldracingcars.com.
These histories were last updated on .