Car from first-ever edition of Macau GP for sale

Nicknamed “Betsy”, the 1953 Morgan +4, with the Hong Kong license registration XX2795, is on sale, the car owner – or how he prefers to be addressed, “Betsy’s Current Keeper” – Dick Worrall has told Hoje Macau newspaper.

Worrall, who is turning 80 years old, confided that, following a recent talk with a friend from the Classic Car Club of Hong Kong, it was “time to pass ownership of the car to someone else”. Worrall added that it seemed best to sell Betsy in Macau or Hong Kong, where the car enjoyed its brightest racing days.

Worrall noted in the same interview that Betsy is one of a few vintage cars that still survive from those that took part in the first-ever Macau Grand Prix in 1954. (The displayed Triumph TR2 from Portugal’s Eduardo Carvalho, winner of that first edition is, as many others are in the Macau Grand Prix Museum, a replica, not the original car).

“There is no doubt that Betsy will be around much longer than I will,” said Worrall, “and, therefore, I consider myself only her present guardian. I can’t help but think how great it would be if, one day, she returned to Hong Kong and Macau, where she spent so many of her 70 years. In fact, that’s where she belongs.”

In the first-ever Macau GP, the car was raced by its then-British owner, Gordon John Bell (“Dinger”), who was at the time the director of the Hong Kong Royal Observatory.

Although Dinger did not finish the race, he ended with a crash at the R Bend that sent him almost to the sea, history books, through documents and photographs, show that Betsy occupied pole position until the race’s final few laps.

Besides this first-ever race, Betsy took part in Macau’s classic car races on another four occasions, these times with Worrall driving, a former police official in Hong Kong who acquired the car in 1968 together with his wife. The couple used the gifted money they received from their wedding to finance the purchase.

Worrall’s first raced in 1978, during the GP’s 25th anniversary celebrations. His last was in 1985. Betsy is currently in the UK, since 1997, where it has been well kept and maintained, according to Worrall.