Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 92 i Australian Muscle Car

Happy birthday to us! It’s 15 years since issue #1 hit newsstands in late 2001 and took the automotive publishing world by storm. The magazine some predicted would quickly run out of material is still going strong, 92 issues down the track. This despite modern media reportage sometimes being reduced, for those with the shortest attention spans, to 140-character Tweets. AMC proves there is still demand for long-form journalism when it’s done right. To celebrate our 15th birthday we’ve launched a DVD-based ‘Digital Magazine Library’ featuring issues #1 to #50. We expect it to be especially popular with those who missed out on those earliest issues and their reprints. We’ve disappointed many enthusiasts over the years who enquired about obtaining #1 as a back issue. Further reprints have just not…

The tenth season of Touring Car Masters competition wrapped up with John Bowe scoring his fifth title. The evergreen Bowe’s 50 percent strike rate as series champion is all the more impressive given he didn’t contest TCM’s inaugural season, 2007, his last as a full-time V8 Supercar driver. Bowe’s 2016 title backs up previous successes in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. Season 2016 was the first in TCM history that one model of car – a Holden Torana – won all three classes in the same season, with Adam Garwood and Jason Gomersall winning the Pro Sports and ProAm divisions respectively. Bowe won his fourth round of 2016 at the Sydney Olympic Park finale, despite Steven Johnson (XY GT-HO) winning two of the three sprints. Glenn Seton (Mustang) was second…

Super Cooper Many thanks for the feature articles on the Morris Cooper S (issue #91). I never thought I would see the day when this mighty little car would feature in such a muscular magazine. For four years I was the proud owner of a burgundy-over-white Cooper S, which I purchased in May 1968. I was an apprentice automotive spray painter earning $20 a week and paying my pride and joy off at the rate of $15 a week. Petrol was 20 cents a gallon with methanol 30 cents a gallon, one gallon of which went into each tank every time I filled it up. Out on country roads 42 miles to the gallon was achievable. Cortina GTs, MGBs and Valiant Pacers were lots of fun, as were V8 Falcons…

This is the Big Daddy of Sports Sedans. It was unlike anything that came before; it rendered most of its opposition obsolete from almost the moment it turned its first wheel in anger. This car changed the game; it laid out the basic drivetrain configuration blueprint for the next 40 years of Sports Sedans. Apart a exceptions (such as Frank Gardner’s Corvair and Allan Moffat’s Monza), every successful Sports Sedan to this day has followed the basic design philosophy John McCormack employed when he created the Valiant Charger Repco-Holden V8. It’s ironic that a car as successful and as influential as the McCormack Charger was in fact a kind-of publicity stunt. The Charger came about not because McCormack had any ambitions of becoming a sedan superstar. Far from it: he…

Bruce Gowans recalls the time John McCormack gave him some tips for finding time through the high-speed first turn at Surfers Paradise International Raceway. “John said to me, in his distinctive, quiet manner, ‘Bruce, you’re using too much brake into turn one. Dab the brake if you want to stabilise the car, but get your power on early.’ “That’s how he drove the Formula 5000 through there. “So I took all of that onboard... and promptly spun off the track there at something like 150mph! I ended up the embankment in the trees. Incredibly, we didn’t do much damage and I was able to race it the next day. “But I did exactly what John told me to do!”…

“I suppose we’re fortunate that the right people have the three cars. They are such enthusiasts.” John McCormack John McCormack is ever the pragmatic engineer and analytical former racing driver. Superlatives are not usually his thing – especially when it comes to racecars with roofs. That makes his thoughts on being united with the Charger, Celica and Jaguar he built four decades ago particularly notable. And why we started this issue’s cover story section with a ‘grab’ from his wider feelings on the matter. “There are so few surviving frontrunning Sports Sedans from that era, much less meticulously restored examples. That all three of the cars I was responsible for have survived is remarkable. “To have all three of the cars together in the one place for the first time…

Genuine Group C Holden Commodore touring cars from the mid-1980s are thin on the ground at the moment in Heritage Touring Cars competition where Group C and A cars live on. But Australian Muscle Car magazine can reveal another one has been found – and it’s on the restoration trail so it can take up a spot on the grid of the ever-popular tin-top Historic category as soon as next year. Privateer Fred Geissler was a semi-regular fixture on the touring car grids of the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. The Goulburn-based, Kiwi-born Holden dealer ran Toranas and later Commodores before disappearing off the scene in the mid to late 1980s. While Fred himself is understood to these days live back in New Zealand, his former Group C…

Robbie Francevic holds a unique record in ATCC/Supercars history. He’s the oldest driver (44 years old) and first non-resident driver to win the title. He talks to AMC about that momentous time. AMC: You’ve won a lot of races in NZ, but 30 years on what does it mean to you to have been Australian Touring Car Champion? Robbie Francevic: I was supposed to race for Tom Walkinshaw in Europe, but Mark had the Volvo and we came to Australia. First year was great, the second year wasn’t. But winning the championship was pretty sensational, being the only non-resident to ever do so. AMC: Your involvement with Mark Petch goes way back. Did you think that when he purchased the Volvo that it would take you…

Sharpe family archive The past two issues played host to images taken by the late Geoff Sharpe, a factory race team mechanic at Ford’s famed Lot 6. Geoff passed away aged just 39 in 1985. The pics we have run so far have taken us behind the scenes at the 1970, ’71 and ’73 Bathurstwinning Ford team. This time we show you shots Geoff took while spectating at Bathurst in ’74, while fettling the David McKay-driven Capri RS2600 at the Dulux Rally and other odds and sods of the era. And, yes, that is the Bruce Hodgson-driven works Phase IV rally car! Pat Battista Here’s a sequence from when Pat and his brother-in-law John were “mucking about in Fairfield Heights in the early ’80s.” Pat’s 1971 XY 302 V8 factory-spec…

1976 HDT Bathurst L34 Biante has unveiled a 1:18 scale model of the Holden Dealer Team’s entry for the 1976 Hardie Ferodo 1000. This is the LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 driven by Colin Bond and John Harvey that finished runner-up to the victorious Bob Morris/John Fitzpatrick example. And we won’t hear any rubbish about this car being the real winner, as that controversy was laid to rest recently with the release of the full race on DVD. RRP$250.00. See your Biante stockist or visit www.biante.com.au Holden VC HDT Commodore Biante is also responsible for a 1:18 scale VC HDT Commodore in Palais White, the first time this iconic car will be produced in this scale The VC HDT was a major success and filled a gap left in the…

Reverse direction reaction On this page in issue #89 we recalled Oran Park Raceway’s one-off reverse direction meeting, held on June 8, 1986. This truly unique occasion saw five racing categories race clockwise around the southwest Sydney venue’s short circuit – Group E production cars, the Laser Series, Queensland Geminis (making a NSW cameo), Appendix J (what’s now Group N) and Sports Sedans. On the same weekend, two other classes competed in the ‘right’ direction (anti-clockwise) on the full Grand Prix circuit – Formula 2 and Formula Ford. We called for competitors and officials to contact us to share memories. So you can imagine our delight when an email lobbed from the chief architect of the reverse direction meeting, then circuit promoter Jim Ferguson. “In the article it mentioned 30…

Holden’s next-generation Commodore has been officially unveiled in a series of images, revealing the styling of the fifth-generation but first-ever fully-imported Commodore range. The 2018 Commodore is essentially a rebranded Opel Insignia liftback that, according to Holden, was “designed in Germany by the Opel team with input from GM Holden’s team.” On-sale here from February 2018, the new-gen Commodore is a five-door hatchback rather than a four-door sedan. It measures 74mm shorter and 36mm narrower than the current locally-built road car. The next-generation Commodore will be built in Germany on GM’s global E2 platform. We can also expect a ‘Sportwagon’ version of the new Commodore and potentially a jacked-up, all-wheel-drive SUV-style five-door reminiscent of the VZ-based Adventra. Base models will use either a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol or diesel engine.…

Values of classic Australian muscle cars are again on the rise, if recent auction results are any guide. The standout result of 2016 came at Shannons’ Sydney Spring Classic Auction in November when $225,000 was paid for a one family owned 1969 Holden HT GTS 350 Monaro presented in unrestored ‘survivor’ condition. The Verdoro Green ‘Bathurst’ Monaro from NSW’s Riverina region surpassed its pre-auction $150,000 high estimate by a massive $75,000. On the Ford side of the ledger, a two-owner Yellow Ochre 1970 Falcon XY GT sold at Shannons’ Melbourne Spring Auction for $176,000, a price not seen for this model at auction since the pre-GFC days. Meantime, an Ultra White 1971 Ford XY GT Falcon 351 V8 automatic sedan presented in good, authentic condition exceeded its $100,000-$125,000 guiding range…

When Jim Richards captured the 1991 Australian Touring Car Championship, few would have predicted that it would take a quarter century for another Kiwi to win the title. The four-time champion and Touring Car Masters frontrunner was on hand to see Shane van Gisbergen win the 2016 Supercars title, joining he and Robbie Francevic as the only New Zealanders to win Australia’s premier tin-top crown. “[Shane is] one of the best out there for sure and we’ve seen it coming over the years,” Jim Richards told stuff.co.nz. Richards and Mark Skaife were announced on the same weekend as the next inductees to CAMS’s Hall of Fame.…

Life goes on Goodbyes can be hard work, so as I put pen to paper for the final FG column let me just say that it has been a pleasure for me to contribute, and I can’t believe three years have flown past already since we started. It’s been a challenge of a new kind for me to do what we’ve done in these pages, and I hope you have all enjoyed it as much as I have. So thanks very much for reading and for taking the time to share some of your thoughts about our motor racing scene with me. In fact, I thought it might be a good idea to finish with a brief Gibson overview of our national motorsport scene as I see it heading into…

The roll-cage in the Charger was something of a vexed issue when it came to the restoration. While it’s no secret that safety standards in motor racing have evolved quite some way since the 1970s, Trenoweth wasn’t prepared for the Charger’s rudimentary levels of driver safety. “I had a serious discussion with John,” he explains. “I said, ‘we’ve got to put a cage in it’. And he said, ‘why?’ Initially he wasn’t keen. “When I first had a good look at the car, how it was inside, I said to him, ‘You’re a brave bastard!’ And he said to me, ‘Ignorance is bliss!’ “All it had was a two-and-a-half inch aluminium roll hoop at the back of the driver. Nothing forward of that, and it was also set in about…

WBruce Gowans to the track at Sydney Motorsport Park at the AMC Masters, it was in fact the first time its designer, Simon Aram, had ever seen it run. McCormack had contracted Aram to handle the design and construction of the car. The brief from McCormack, according to Aram, was to build a Celica Sports Sedan with the engine ahead of the cabin. Aram takes up the story: “I really freaked because I thought it was a really hard thing to do, to build a high-horsepower sports sedan with such a short wheelbase, and so heavy in the front. “It was only my second design job, and I took it really seriously that I had to do something with the suspension design to make it not a wheel spinner –…

1. It existed for racing The Holden HDT VL Commodore SS Group A was created so the Red Lion could remain a force on the racetrack. Just 500 were produced – the number required for international Group A competition homologation as an ‘evolution’ special. Interestingly, homologation documents note that the approval excludes use for rallying. Although this probably didn’t upset anyone’s plans, the notion that the World Rally Championship, which moved to Group A rules for 1987, was robbed of the VL Commodore is certainly an intriguing one. 2. Plus Pack If you wanted Brock’s signature on the car, you had to opt for the ‘Plus Pack’. Along with the infamous Energy Polarizer (see below), this included revised springs and sway bars (painted purple), improved cylinder head cooling and a…

Keam as mustard Hailing from Gunnedah in northeastern NSW, Greg Keam and his father Russell are Heritage Touring Car stalwarts. Greg got it started in a round-about fashion a while ago. “I was a rally driver for about 10 years, running a Toyota Sprinter,” Greg says. “I first had contact with Bob Holden when he did me a massive favour, having never met me before.” Bob got hold of some much-needed parts for Greg’s rally car, in very quick time, for no reward to himself. After that, they had more and more to do with each other. Bob was organising for Greg to contest Targa New Zealand – at no cost; transport and entry paid-for – when he realised Greg had no tarmac experience. “Bob organised for me to drive…

The Fred Geissler VH Commodore Group C car actually made its racing debut as a VB model in 1980 Australian Touring Car Championship’s eighth round at Oran Park, where Geissler finished 10th from the rear of the grid in a race held on a Monday after the weather on the Sunday was deemed not appropriate for racing. Fast Victorian privateer Garry Rogers had been running his own Toranas in the years previous but those cars were redundant under the new ’80 rules. So he brought his sponsor Marac (formerly Greater Pacific) Finance along and combined with Geissler for the endurance races. Rogers drove solo in the Hang Ten 400 at Sandown (Geissler practiced but elected not to drive on race day) and finished a fine second between the Marlboro HDT…

T Group A era being a homologation minefield. Essentially an engine capacity/weight/tyre size formula, it initially favoured turbo cars like the Volvo 240 Turbo with its generous 1.4 equivalency ratio. To qualify, a manufacturer needed to produce 5000 of its designated model in one year. A minimum 500 ‘evolution’ models based on the standard cars were permitted to homologate new parts. In 1981 the Volvo 244 Turbo debuted with its B21ET 2.1 OHC four, updated with an intercooler for 1983. In the same year the mythical 240 Turbo Evolution was released. Why mythical? Well according to Mark Petch who now owns one, Volvo exploited the evolution rule. “FISA’s rule was poorly drafted from a legal perspective. Volvo’s legal opinion was you didn’t have to build 500 evolution cars, but merely…

Defunct metro speedways 1901-2000 Australian speedway has a long and colourful history, beginning on the night of Federation Day, 1901, when races for motorised tricycles were held on the concrete cycle track around the boundary of the Sydney Cricket Ground. The spectacle of motorcycles racing under lights – gaslight in 1901 – was seen as a symbol of the bold new century. Similar events were held around Adelaide Oval and the MCG. Since then this sport has taken place on a weird and wonderful assortment of tracks, from an indoor wooden velodrome in South Melbourne to a two-mile circle marked out on the red clay at Lake Perkolilli, near Kalgoorlie. Then there was the short-lived Olympia Speedway built in the sandhills of Sydney’s Maroubra Beach. By 1964 the Sydney Sun…

Holden took another step towards complete closure of its local manufacturing operations with the last Aussie-made engine built at its Port Melbourne plant in late November. In firing up the final V6 motor Holden ended manufacturing at the Fishermans Bend site which began in 1936. Full-scale engine manufacturing commenced there in 1948 with over 10 million engines built since. A total of 1,137,282 engines were produced at the HFV6 plant which opened in 2003. Of these, 699,806 were for domestic markets and 437,436 were exported internationally – to every continent around the world, except Antarctica. Holden said 32 different configurations were built for various General Motors vehicles. “The employees at Holden Engine Operations have made an enormous contribution to our company and the entire Australian motoring industry,” executive director of…

American Dave Roberts took more than memories and photographs away from his Touring Car Masters cameo at Bathurst in his own Camaro. Roberts, upon returning to United States, decked out his other racecar, a Pontiac GTO, in the colours of the Bathurst 1000-winning Tekno Commodore. Witnessing his first Great Race trackside clearly left a mighty impression on Dave. So how did an automotive products company CEO/chairman from NASCAR country, North Carolina, find himself racing on Australia’s most hallowed racetrack? Our story begins in February 2015 when Roberts, a racer whose credits include extensive experience in US vintage racing and the Pirelli World Challenge (a series akin to the Australian GT Championship) attended the Bathurst 12 Hour. While he was at Mount Panorama, he met local long-time racer and Prodrive Racing…

“There are so few surviving frontrunning Sports Sedans from that era, much less meticulously restored examples. That all three of the cars I was responsible for have survived is remarkable.” John McCormack…

For a Toyota dealer eager to turn up the excitement level on promoting his business in the mid 1970s, there was really only one choice of model and race category – a Celica in Sports Sedan competition. Bruce Gowans had established his first Toyota dealership at Devonport, on Tasmania’s North Coast, in 1969, in partnership with fellow racer and good friend, Alan Ling. History shows the pair backed the right horse, with Toyota’s slow march to market leadership well underway. Gowans kept an eye on the burgeoning Sports Sedan scene while the business grew. He was as gobsmacked as any other motorsport enthusiast when the John McCormack-built and driven Repco V8-powered Charger arrived in 1974 as the trailblazer for a new-generation of purpose-built, Formula 5000-inspired tin-tops. The Charger’s speed, coupled…

It’s not just the original Celica that’s come back into the Gowans family’s lives. Incredibly, the team’s original Dyna transporter is now again in their possession. They sold it in 1981 to John Bowe, who used it to lug his Formula 2 car to meetings. Bowe, in turn, sold it to a guy in Victoria, who offloaded it to a fellow in Hobart in the 1990s, who was not aware of its Tasmanian history. “When word broke that we were restoring the Celica this chap somehow became aware he had the old transporter and approached us,” Adam Gowans explains. “By this stage it was really ready for the tip, but we took it home and suddenly we had another project on our hands!” Fittingly, the old Dyna hauled the Celica…

VIP Automotive Solutions’ Collectable Car Index lists the following valuations for the 1986 Holden HDT VL Commodore SS Group A over the last 10 years. The figures presented are for cars with an overall condition rating of eight out of 10. Interestingly, these mid 1980s machines have steadily increased in value, seemingly immune to the post-GFC dip in values that afflicted highly sought-after muscle cars from the earlier, 1967-73, period. 2006 VL Group A (standard) $37,000 VL Group A Plus Pack $40,000 2011 VL Group A (standard) $50,000 VL Group A Plus Pack $55,000 2016 VL Group A (standard) $60,000 VL Group A Plus Pack $70,000…

The Swedish taxi. The flying brick. The North Shore Valiant. Call it what you will. Other suitable labels for the Volvo 240 Turbos include ‘ATCC title winner’, ‘Group A-era wildcard’ and ‘unlikely rocketship’. This is the story of how one New Zealand motorsport entrepreneur singlehandedly brought Volvo to Australian motorsport and helped secure the 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship for the Swedish marque. Then, no sooner had Volvo established its place at the table, it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. The white and blue 240 Turbos were despatched back to Sweden, not to be seen in these parts again... until this year, when that very same Kiwi entrepreneur, Mark Petch, bought back the only Australian-built factory Volvo 240 Turbo and reunited it with its original driver John Bowe at…

AMC: In 1985 you were the Gold Star champion looking into the abyss. John Bowe: My Gold Star sponsor wasn’t continuing. I wasn’t a great fan of touring cars at the time, but I realised it was a professional show. I made it my business to get to know everybody and I met Mark at Amaroo and stayed in touch. At Oran Park he gave me a test. It was quite a culture shock after an open-wheeler! AMC: In fact, your first drive at Bathurst was in the Volvo. JB: Co-drivers don’t get much driving up there. Allan Grice gave me a lot of advice. He took me around in a road car, which I will always be grateful for. The next day I…

Almost forgotten today is the existence of the fabulous Arthur Park speedway in a section of bushland near Beaudesert Road at Calamvale, on the outskirts of Brisbane. Does anyone remember going there? This unique track was built in 1966 by speedway promoter Frank Arthur, a champion motorcycle racer who made a fortune riding in England before the war. Old Frank had a hands-on approach. He personally drove the grader that carved this circuit out of the scrub. This was a new concept, a one-mile speedway including different radius corners and uphill and downhill sections. It was wide enough for cars to race six or seven wide. Some spectacular crashes occurred, notably a Mini which ended up upside down in a dam. The unconscious driver was rescued just in time. As…

Some muscle cars are bought by loving owners who pamper them like members of the family. Other muscle cars, though, aren’t so lucky. Some get stolen, smashed or thrashed. Some get parked and lost under a layer of dust in an old shed, others get left outside to brave the elements and slowly rust away. Sad, but true. We eyeball plenty of beautifully maintained and/or fully restored muscle classics in AMC, but as serious car pervs we have to admit there’s few things more intriguing – or exciting – than spotting an old classic in a paddock, or a shed, or under a shady tree, that’s seen better days and in need of some TLC. Some are beyond saving, but they all have a story to tell. So, get out…