Jim Richards (born 2 September 1947) is a New Zealand racing driver who won numerous championships in his home country and in Australia.

He left school at 16 to start a mechanic's apprenticeship at Speedway Auto Services in Manurewa owned by Brian Yates, who was a top midget-racer in New Zealand.

[5] In 1969 the patronage of amateur racer and fellow competitor, Jim Carney, allowed him to upgrade to his first truly competitive car, a Ford Escort with a new high-performance 1600cc BDA twin-cam engine, capable of 140 bhp.

The combination of Richards as driver and mechanic Carney with the funding, and Murray Bunn with reconditioning and tuning expertise, started to produce a number of victories.

Rushed straight off the boat, still in its original livery, he won with it first time out and then went on to win the class championship that year, and again in the following 1971–72 season.

[7] During this time, as in neighbouring Australia, big-engine production car racing was entering a golden age and drawing big crowds.

Competitive cars included, from Holden, the HQ Monaro, and new Torana GTR XU-1; versus the Ford Falcon GT-HO and Chrysler Charger.

For the 73–74 season, Richards and Carney had arranged to buy the John Fitzpatrick Ford Escort (with an 1800cc BDA engine) competing in the British championship to take on the big V8s.

Sponsored by Sidchrome in red and yellow, it was fitted with the hitherto unreliable, but powerful, Cleveland 351 V8 engine and extra-wide rear tyres.

[10] When Coppins wanted to upgrade his choice of car for the 74–75 racing season he decided to pick up a new Holden Torana L34 from the factory in Melbourne.

Recognising his talent, for the following year's Heatway, Leyland-New Zealand offered him and Jim Carney a team Morris Marina alongside works driver Andrew Cowan.

Having never driven on ice before his car caught an icy patch in the middle of the night and slid wide off the road and rolled down a bank for 100 metres.

But at the end of the 1974–75 racing season, with the opposition getting more professional, he needed to make a choice on one form or motor-racing – racetrack, rallying or speedway – to concentrate on.

Driving with essentially standard showroom kit, by the end, their front brakes were gone, but through attrition finished a very credible third place, five laps behind the winner John Goss.

[9] Arriving unannounced in Melbourne just days before the first round at Sandown in July, despite minimal preparation time, he won both races at the meet in pouring rain.

After this sensational start, he was immediately a popular choice for race promoters to pay appearance money to bring the Kiwi Mustang to take on Australia's best.

Wins were less frequent, however, the late-season arrival of Frank Gardner's all-conquering Chevrolet Corvair helped to limit his opposition getting too many points.

Allan Moffat won the series but Richards did get a big payday winning the $100 000 Marlboro sports sedan finals at Calder Park Raceway.

However, it proved difficult to get it competitive and as money dried up, the shell was successively leased mid-year to Goss and Johnson whose own cars had been wrecked in accidents.

With sponsorship from Melbourne's Melford Motors, Richards debuted the Falcon in September at Sandown, and then onto October's Bathurst race as a privateer with Coppins now as his co-driver.

[17] Brock later recalled that, at the time, he only knew Richards as a casual acquaintance and fellow driver, but after the Wanneroo Park round of the 1978 Australian Touring Car Championship, the pair shared a Ford Falcon panel van for the drive from Perth back to Melbourne (which they allegedly covered in approximately 24 hours for what is normally a 2–3 day trip).

After a strong comeback drive Brock got back into the lead before handing over to Richards who then drove matching lap-times to take a hard-fought third win.

Richards (co-driven by Gardner himself) qualified fourth on the grid but fuel –contamination issues immediately affected the car, retiring on the 6th lap.

The 635 CSi was replaced by the smaller capacity BMW M3 in 1987, and Richards would again come to the fore, winning the 1987 Australian Touring Car Championship.

However, as there had been a separate crash on that same lap (which Richards later became a part of while trying to drive back to the pits), the red flag was shown and the race was declared.

Richards was only informed of Hulme's passing just before he and Skaife took to the podium as winners, and as the unruly crowd below booed the pair (they wanted the second-placed Sierra of Dick Johnson and John Bowe declared winners as they did not like a Japanese car dominating as the GT-R did), the normally gentlemanly Richards let fly with his now famous speech:[24] "I'm just really stunned for words, I can't believe the reception.

[25] His final victory saw him become only the fourth winner of the event in a two-wheel-drive car, and is the last person to do so, holding off more fancied four-wheel-drive rivals over a wet Day 5 to win his last Targa Tasmania title.

* Super Touring races Due to extremely heavy rain, multiple cars had crashed and were stopped on the side of the track.

"[27] Podium MC and Channel 7 commentator Gary Wilkinson then suggested he could cool the crowd down with a champagne bath, to which Richards replied "I wouldn't bother."

Richards later apologised for the outburst, citing the fact that he had been told just before going out onto the podium that his longtime friend and former JPS BMW teammate Denny Hulme had died from a heart attack which he suffered while driving in the early part of the race.