Hulme SuperCar - the name behind the badge
from Inventors and Remarkable People (112 articles)
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Image Gallery ( 2 images )July 26, 2006 The Hulme Supercar proudly takes the name of the former World F1 Champion, international racing driver and one of New Zealand’s favourite sons, Denny Hulme. In doing so it also takes the name of Hulme’s equally famous father, Clive Hulme. Denny Hulme won eight F1 Grands Prix, two Can-Am titles, and the World Formula One Drivers Championship in 1967. His father Clive achieved war hero status during World War II for his exploits as a sniper-killer operating just behind enemy lines and Rambo-esque, one-man forays behind enemy lines saw him kill 33 snipers before he was seriously wounded and a living legend to the folks at home. For his “outstanding and inspiring qualities of leadership, initiative, skill, endurance and most conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty,” Clive was awarded the highest medal of military valour, the Victoria Cross. The parallels between father and son make interesting reading.
Hulme raced for and against race team owners Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren and along the way regularly beat the likes of Jim Clark, Chris Amon, John Surtees, Dan Gurney, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart in Formula One and international sports car racing. Unfortunately, Hulme lost many close friends to the sport he loved and helped to prematurely end his international career.
When he first journied to the home of motor racing to compete on the highest level, he was the joint winner of the New Zealand Driver TO Europe scholarship, and he shared the award with another very promising Kiwi driver in George Lawton.
Their European debut year ended when Lawton crashed - he died in Denny's arms. Another close friend, Bruce McLaren was killed whilst testing the Cam-Am McLaren M8D, which also had a profound effect on Denny’s career and it was the accident that claimed the life of his friend Peter Revson whom he pulled from the wreckage that caused him to announce he would retire at the end of the 1974 season. He won one more Grand Prix before the end of the season, hence showing he could still do it, but his heart wasn’t in it and he retired.
After leaving the sport, Hulme headed the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers' Association) for a period then went into semi-retirement but was regularly coaxed into racing in many forms of the sport, including even trucks, was a regular in big touring car races in Australia and New Zealand, and eventually died while competing in one of the great antipodean races, the Bathurst 1000 – 18 years after his international racing career finished. At a track where driver heart rates approach 200 as they enter Skyline corner (a blind, drop-away corner entered at high speed which signifies the edge of Mount Panorama), Hulme suffered a heart attack at the wheel, his car simply slewing into the Armco and coming to rest.
Denis Hulme was the son of Alfred Clive Hulme, born in Dunedin on January 24, 1911, who married Rona Marjorie Murcott in 1934 and had a son (Denny) and a daughter. Hulme was physically strong, a keen amateur wrestler and worked as a farm labourer. At the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted, reached the rank of corporal during training and embarked for Egypt with the 23rd Battalion, being promoted to sergeant while at sea.
Clive Hulme’s son inherited some remarkable qualities and it’s hard to tell whether the behaviours were learned or just some genetic quirk , most probably a tad of both. Whatever the reason, the behavioural similarities of Clive Hulme and his male off-spring are interesting. Hulme senior made himself a national hero as a sniper-killer during the Crete-campaign where his continual Rambo-esque, one-man forays behind enemy lines saw him kill 33 snipers before he was seriously wounded. The parallels between father and son make interesting reading.
His somewhat unique solo special-forces-on-the-fly skills no doubt were grounded in living in the New Zealand countryside and working on the land, but they were first recognised when he chose to wait behind his retreating unit and take on the enemy with stealth and marksmanship and he was found to be very successful at shooting pursuing enemy from hiding.
Hulme senior was reportedly a very calm man and became quite comfortable operating on his own inside enemy lines, and soon turned his skills to stalking the most feared opponent – the other side’s specialist snipers.
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