Lyn Archer raced against some of the best drivers in Australia and the world during the golden era of Tasmanian circuit racing in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

During a career that spanned more than 20 years, he won numerous State championships and established lap records at Baskerville, Symmons Plains, and Longford circuits as well as records at the Hobart Domain, Trevallyn and Penguin hillclimbs tracks and even the standing quarter mile at Richmond.

Lyn started racing in 1953 and won his first ever race – the flying quarter at Valleyfield in a Jaguar XK 120  - it was a preview of things to come.

Only two years later, he started his amazing run of breaking records, setting a new lap record in his class for sports cars at Longford. 

Lyn’s first major success came in 1960, when he won the Tasmanian Road Racing Championship at Symmons Plains in a Cooper Climax – a feat he repeated again in 1966 at Baskerville, this time in an Elfin Cortina - this was to become a famous car and his trademark mount.

Lyn went on to record 45 class wins and 36 outright wins from 69 starts in is trusty Elfin, including three Tasmanian hillclimb championships in the same car, at the Domain course in 1964 and 1965 and then at Penguin in 1967.

The 1964 championship was against a quality field, including four-times Australian champion John Fysh.

Lyn also competed interstate with distinction at Bathurst, Calder, Albert Park and Warwick Farm.

In 1958 he finished second in the 1100 cc class in the Australian TT for sports cars, which was on the support programme for the Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst.

He finished second again in the same event the following year at Longford and then two days later finished sixth outright in the Grand Prix itself.

At the opening meeting of Warwick Farm circuit in 1959, Lyn set a lap record for under 1500 cc class and won the supporting event for racing cars on the same programme.

In 1968 Lyn set a record for the Waterworks Road hillclimb that stood until 2001 – an amazing 33 years !

He used to also regularly compete in slot car racing during the sport’s craze in the 1960s, claiming the competition helped keep his reflexes in trim for the real thing.

Lyn was also an active committee member for 12 years of the Hobart Sporting Car Club, which owned the Baskerville circuit, and he wrote a regular column in the Tasmanian Motorist magazine from 1964 to 1967.

It must have therefore been of some slight embarrassment when he won the magazine’s Tasmanian Racing Driver of the Year Award in 1966.

While Lyn enjoyed many highs in motor racing, he also experienced several lows – most notably at the famous Longford circuit.

In 1961 he crashed heavily during practice, leaving the track at more than 140 km/hr, taking out 31 panels of fencing but escaping with a bruised arm and a slightly more damaged car.

In 1965 at the same circuit he was leading the Australian Grand Prix in the 1500 cc class by half a lap when the gearbox in his car broke.

While he was watching the race finish from the side of the track, the car moved and ran over his ankle.

Whatever Lyn Archer raced, he made an impression with it and at various stages during his career held records for racing cars, sports cars, and even saloon cars.

The array of cars he raced was almost as impressive as his career and included a Jaguar XK 120, Ecurie Van Diemen Austin Healey, Cooper Climax, Cooper Hillman, Elfin Ford, Mini Cooper S, MG TC Special, Buchanan MG and an Elfin Formula Vee.

Lyn retired from competitive motorsport in 1976, but made a brief comeback in 1978 in the Elfin Ford that brought him so much success in his heyday.

Written by Martin Agatyn & Andrew Lamont