The 1972 Knox Mountain Hill Climb, Kelowna, BC, Canada

The 1972 Knox Mountain Hill Climb, Kelowna, BC, Canada

A 16mm film I recently restored in 4K, a now historic little gem.

The Leavitt Machinery Knox Mountain Hill Climb is an annual event at Knox Mountain Park, in Kelowna. Originally named the Okanagan Hill Climb, it was first held in 1956 in Penticton on Crescent Hill Road, it moved to a 1.1 mile course on the Old Okanagan Highway in Westbank from 1957-59. In 1962 the event was held on Camp Road in Winfield and finally made its way to Knox Mountain in 1966 where it has been ever since.The 2.2 mile (3.5 km) paved road to the summit is narrow with off-camber corners, steep grades, and climbs approximately 800 feet (245 meters) in elevation for an average grade of 6.7%. The current hill record is 1m:34.903, held by Aran Cook of Edmonton, Alberta

This hour-long film is a delight to watch, now historical, it’s also a slice of culture and fashion as we’ll see. Amusingly, the hosts fudged a wee bit on the descriptions of the event, with rain on the first day and sunny conditions on the second day, they took liberties describing the "unusual" weather as each car’s coverage from the two days were edited into one pass. As well, the audio clearly does not match on several corners as the editor appears to have taken even more liberties with sound, as a rule, a Lotus Cortina does not sound like a big V8 powered Mustang of the day, again quite amusing but likely a result of no sound captured on the corner. It features: Porsches, Datsuns, Fords, a real Shelby Cobra, a rare Chevron B8, MGs, Lotus, and an AMC Gremlin. Despite the minor inconsistencies, it's a wonderful piece of BC history.

There are interviews including overall fastest time, Jerry Olsen aboard the McLaren M8 with a 1:59:815 and Gordie Monroe 2nd with a 1:59.915 in his Brabham BT 21. Both these drivers also raced at Westwood in these cars.