About John Ballantyne

John Frederick Lawson Ballantyne is a retired engineer living in Nelson Bay, NSW. He is a life-long motor sport enthusiast, competitor and administrator.

His hobby is illustrating cars and bikes from the "Golden Era" of motor sport with a growing collection approaching 180 illustrations.

Motor sport from the late 1930s to the end of the 1970s was a period of innovation, when cars were very different from one another and the racing was exciting. John's was a family of engineers who built their own cars and motorcycles from the time when John's father raced at Bathurst in 1938.

John works in water colour and ink and is able to capture the details of the cars and bikes because of his close knowledge of the cars of the era. "They are like old friends" he often says reverently.