Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 97 i Australian Muscle Car

It’s not yet 8am on a mid-winter Canberra morning as we pull up beside Lake Burley-Griffin for this issue’s cover story shoot. My car’s dash displays an outside temperature of 2 degrees Celsius, but that does not take into account wind-chill. Stepping out of the cosy cabin, the first significant gust nearly slices me in half. Each icy blast feels like it originated in the Snowy Mountains, gathered bite through the Brindabella Ranges, then gained additional sting crossing the lake from Parliament House. That’s because it had. Still, I’m feeling rather pleased with myself. Before leaving home in Sydney I’d remembered to toss in a bag of assorted winter-woollies: an old 2001 Canberra 400 beanie, Wests Tigers scarf and plain-black fleecy gloves. Then I discover that, somehow, I’ve got two…

Tickford’s tweaks rearrange the numerals to take the Mustang GT’s 5.0-litre V8 from 306 to 360kW while ramping up torque from the standard 530Nm to 585Nm, increases of 18 and 10 percent respectively. The additional outputs come via improvements to intake and exhaust flow. The overhead-cam bent-eight retains the standard headers, the 3.0-inch, mandrel-bent stainless steel exhaust running cat-back to a pair of dual carbon-wrapped outlets nestled in a Tickford quad-outlet diffuser. A cold-air intake frees induction flow and noise and teams with a throttle body spacer designed to boost torque, along with a specific tune lets the V8 make the most of its newfound ability to breathe. The package is covered by a driveline warranty that extends to the remainder of the Ford new-car warranty, and a numbered built…

Reader: Wayne Hicks Cars: FPV GTP and XY GT tribute Hometown: Melbourne, VIC What are they? “A 2007 GTP brought from Castle Hill (Sydney) and a XY Falcon GT tribute in Yellow Glo.” When did you purchase the cars? “The GTP I purchased four years ago with 15,000 kilometres on the clock and the XY I had purchased 10 years ago.” What do you know about their lives? “The GTP’s previous owner had brought the car from Sydney brand new and mostly the car was in a shed covered with a dust cover. The GTP was advertised on carsales.com and I contacted the owner and made arrangements to have a look at the car. With the car being in pristine condition, a deal was completed and I brought it back…

Former Great Race winner Barry Seton was the undisputed king of the giant-killing Ford Capris when the A9X Torana first lobbed at Bathurst, in 1977. For the second consecutive year Seton and his trusty sidekick Don Smith won class B and finished well inside the top 10. The Seton/Smith Capri finished an incredible sixth outright in the ’77 Hardie-Ferodo 1000, four laps ahead of their closest class competition, led home only by the Moffat team XCs and a trio of the new V8 Torana hatchbacks. So what tempted him back into the outright ranks for the 1978 season? Was it purely the obvious potential of the new Holden hatches? “I got the A9X for nothing,” Barry Seton deadpans when AMC called him for this story. “[And] I got $20,000 to…

Keith Trotter Fresh imagery of Bathurst 1977, especially the 1-2 ‘form finish’, is hard to come by for mags like AMC. So it was like a breath of fresh air when we first clapped eyes on Keith’s pics. “It would be good to see the old photos in your magazine. They have lived in a cupboard for too long now, and I would love to see them brought to life in AMC.” The Victorian described himself as something of a mug photographer who borrowed a good camera for his ’77 pilgrimage to the big race. “I used to go to all the tracks in the seventies: Calder, Sandown, Oran Park, Amaroo Park, Surfers Paradise, Lakeside, Castlereagh and Heathcote, but only ever took a few snaps. Bathurst was my big day…

For the last two decades Adelaide International Raceway has been something of a Clayton’s circuit – the racetrack you have when you don’t have a racetrack. It sits there on metropolitan Adelaide’s sparsely vegetated northern fringes, out past the salt pans that hug the coast, in its original form and open for business. Yet the level and frequency of activity inside the gates suggests it’s somewhere between operational racing facility and time-warped ghost circuit. True, cars regularly hit the track, but it is donkey’s years since AIR hosted a motor racing meeting that most other Australian racetracks hold nearly every weekend. Racing, that is, involving more than two cars on the track at once. This is in sharp contrast to its first two decades, when it was the epicentre of…

Last year in the pages of Australian Muscle Car magazine we brought you the story of the Allan Grice Craven Mild Torana A9X racecar that ended up in the hands of Frank Gardner’s chiropractor and continues to race on today in Historic competition. While penning that story, one thought constantly crossed our minds: what happened to the other ‘replacement’ A9X that Grice and his team used late in 1979? There have been plenty of theories abound relating to that car in recent years. Some say that particular car was dead and buried; others have allegedly claimed to have it tucked away in a shed as it last raced. But some email correspondence that came across this reporter’s desk a little while ago appears to have finally answered the question as…

Update! Hodgo recreation Not only will the 2017 Masters recreate on site the famous Ron Hodgson promotional transporter (pictured) from 1973, but the actual Bob Morris XU-1 Torana racecar will be on hand at Sydney Motorsport Park, too. The fertile mind of ‘creative director’ Todd Martin has dreamt up some funtastic – now there’s a ’70s word! – static displays including a beach scene. Contact him via 0428 487 981 or todd@musclecarevents.com.au if you have a Torana hatchback, Sandman Ute or Chrysler Drifter and want to be involved. He’s also after a Surferoo and several gold XR GTs for a dedicated and prominent paddock area display. Cool cars confirmed The two recently auctioned Group C Falcon coupes purchased by Neil Schembri (see Auction Update p19 will be on display and…

Holden is set to include enthusiasts and the community in a celebration of seven decades of manufacturing in Australia, with a ‘Dream Cruise’ scheduled to take to the streets of North Adelaide on Sunday, October 15, the weekend before the Elizabeth vehicle operations plant closes. With the plant closure on Friday, October 20 set to be a very personal affair, this is the chance to give the brand’s local manufacturing chapter the send-off it deserves. “The final day of our local manufacturing will be a strictly private event. That last day is for our people – there will be nothing public happening on 20 October,” said Holden executive director of manufacturing Richard Phillips. “The best way to help celebrate Holden the brand and your personal association with it is to…

Last issue we outlined Gallaher International (Australia) Ltd’s efforts to ignite sales of its failing cigarette brands through sponsorship of motor racing. That effort included title-sponsorship of the fledgling Bathurst 500 production car race in the mid 1960s and the accompanying sales fleet of Gallaher Falcon XR GTs. Ordering eight XR GTs in its corporate silver and applying Gallaher GT King Size Filters signage ensured its sales reps stood out on the road. But it couldn’t save Gallaher’s Aussie operations, with the company stubbed out in March 1968, just six months after the ’67 Gallaher 500. We put the call out in that story for ex-Gallaher employees, ideally one of the reps entrusted with a silver beast back in ’67, to contact us with his recollections. Truth be known, we…

Elsewhere in this edition you’ll find a story on Allan Moffat’s very own keepsakes from his ultra-successful 1977 season. For every other Blue Oval enthusiast in this country, items dating back to Ford’s supreme Australian motorsporting moment are among the ultimate collectibles. That’s especially the case with the 40th anniversary of the 1-2 form finish upon us. AMC contributor Paul Tilley is no exception. His collection of ‘Fordifacts’ includes a signed certificate presented to Ford dealers to officially thank them for their largesse. This carries the autograph of Ford Australia’s then sales and marketing director Max Gransden, highlighting the role he played in pulling together factory funding for the ultra-successful Moffat Ford Dealers Team squad. Tilley’s collection also includes the certificate sent to supporters’ club members and a signed race…

Bathurst 1977 is a day largely erased from the memories of all Holden fans. It was on that day, Sunday October 2, that Ford came home with a crushing 1-2 form finish with the pair of XC Falcons piloted by Allan Moffat and Colin Bond crossing the line side-by-side. The vision of the two cars running together down Conrod Straight at Bathurst has been played literally thousands and thousands of times over the years – it’s footage Ford fans never get sick of seeing! Because of this sea of Ford success on that day, anything from the Holden side of the fence relating to Bathurst 1977 has largely been forgotten. And the car that started from pole for that race – the Peter Brock-driven Bill Patterson Racing Torana A9X –…

Dick Johnson famously once said that the only thing you get from looking back is a sore neck. Not all retired drivers subscribe to Dick’s philosophy on the past, though. Indeed, some do see worth in the little things, the flotsam and jetsam items of memorabilia from their time in the sport – the newspaper clippings, the contracts, invoices, letters and even (in the pre-internet age), the telexes. Documents which, of their own, might seem of limited value, but which in fact tell a story of their own. And for us, the fans, these items are little snapshots that provide a wider picture – a glimpse of the inner workings of a star racing driver and his race team. We are fortunate that Allan Moffat is one such driver who…

Everyone needs a project to crack on with, right? In the case of the Kaleda family, the recently completed project car you see on these pages serves several purposes. Among them was the family’s desire to highlight the racing achievements of patriarch Ray to Chrysler enthusiasts and the wider motoring public. You see, Ray is one of the fondly-remembered giant-killing Bathurst privateers of days-gone-by. His is a name that has popped up regularly in the pages of Australian Muscle Car but, truth be known, we’ve never really stopped to tell his story. Until now. And what a story the Kaleda clan had to tell us, too. It’s not just about Ray’s time in racing that hit its heights with eighth in the 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500 and going two better the…

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…

Holden will adopt its sister brand’s VXR high-performance nomenclature for the hottest variant of the forthcoming Opel-derived Commodore. The high-performance hero of the next-gen Commodore line-up will feature a 3.6-litre V6 with 235kW, 381Nm sent to the wheels via a nine-speed automatic and torque-vectoring all-wheel drive. Brembo brakes and continuous damping control adaptive dampers, meanwhile, will give it a sporty streak, and switchable drive mode system unique to the VXR will allow adjustment of the CDC damper rate, steering weight, transmission response and the behaviour of the AWD system. Front and rear sports fascias, a rear spoiler and premium VXR sill plates set the VXR apart, along with unique 20-inch alloy wheels. “The next-gen Commodore VXR offers a different execution of performance to the outgoing SS but make no mistake,…

Hunkered down over black 20-inch alloys, single GT stripe running its length and a quartet of bigger tailpipes sprouting from its rear diffuser, this is patently no stock-standard Mustang. Even standing still, the Tickford Mustang 360 Power Pack winds up the Mustang GT’s styling punch to deliver a knockout in terms of visual impact. There’s also visual wow at night, from the Pony greeting projected onto the road alongside to the illuminated scuff plates and the cabin’s mood-lit strips. There remains more than a whiff of the donor’s built-to-a price North American plastics, but unique leather trim, a big, smooth three-spoke wheel and a legs out coupe driving position cement the high-performance coupe’s overall appeal. Kick the engine via red-ringed starter button and it settles into a burbling, motorboat idle,…

Hardtops are hard to top as hot auction items right now. Most significantly, two Group C-era racing coupes from the Harris collection went under the hammer at Lloyds Auctions on the Gold Coast in late July and found a new home. Former V8 privateer Neil Schembri picked up the pair for his growing Sydney collection. Schembri, head of Bettergrow fertilisers, was the winning bidder of the ex-Bryan Byrt Ford Racing #32 hardtop campaigned by Warwick Brown and John French at Bathurst ’78. This car, formerly Jim Richards’ white Melford XB, was bought for $430,000 plus buyer’s premium. Schembri also purchased the orange ex-Bill O’Brien Everlast coupe, originally built by Allan Moffat’s team, for $400,000. The Moffat connection proved the lure for Schembri. “As a kid [Moffat] was my idol –…

t took over 40 years but Bathurst legend John Harvey was finally presented with a plaque for finishing runner-up in the 1976 Hardie-Ferodo 1000. The presentation was made at a function at Walkerville RSL in downtown Adelaide that honoured not only ‘Harves’ but several of the major players in that year’s ultra-dramatic race, when the winning Ron Hodgson Racing L34 limped over the line to take the chequered flag first, chased by the Holden Dealer Team example. AMC #95 carried a preview of the evening, highlighting that the Harvey/Colin Bond combo were second in the Great Race that year to Bob Morris and John Fitzpatrick. Our story explained that while Bob, Bondy and Fitz all received their rightful trophies post-event, Harves missed out. Torana enthusiasts righted this wrong at the…

wE Last in-house homologation special The LX Torana A9X was the last race homologation special designed and built in-house by Holden, ending an incredible bloodline of genuine factory-built racecars that started with the 1963 EH S4. Homologation was effective from 1 September, 1977. Sedan and hatch The A9X was the only Aussie muscle car and only homologation special in both sedan and hatchback form. Just 100 hatchbacks and 305 sedans were made as road cars. Production commenced in August 1977, with the last cars rolling off the production line in January 1978. A true muscle car The A9X is the epitome of a muscle car in the traditional sense: big engine and strong driveline in a lightweight body. Six lap Bathurst victory Winning Bathurst in 1978 was sweet, but the…

When it comes survivors from the golden era of production-based touring car racing, A9X Toranas are seemingly over-represented. More A9Xs with Bathurst and ATCC history live on today – be they hatchbacks or sedans – than any other famous muscle car nameplate from the 1960s and ‘70s. Our list includes vehicles from the 33-strong batch of holier than holy GMP&A chassis. Then there are L34s that were upgraded to A9X sedan specs. And we’ve heard stories about a car that raced in period as an A9X that started life as a humble four-cylinder Sunbird! Who knows, it might be one of the cars on our list. If true, that’s certainly a Sunbird on steroids. This is not meant to be definitive list of A9Xs, moreso a catalogue of interesting survivors.…

The (Slot) Cars of Jacky Ickx With Jacky Ickx featuring elsewhere in this issue due to his win in the 1977 Hardie Ferodo 1000, what better subject to feature in this month’s Slot Machine Addiction than the Belgian ace? The cars from Jacky’s extensive career have been abundant and extremely popular in the slot car market. Arguably, the car he is most readily associated with is the Gulf-sponsored Ford GT40 from the 1969 Le Mans 24 Hours. That race was famous not only for its dramatic final laps, where Jacky had to use all of his racecraft to beat the Porsche 908 of Hans Herrmann, but also the start. Jacky staged a protest against the dangers of the traditional Le Mans start where a cross-track sprint resulted in many drivers…

1965 XP Ford Falcon Futura The XP was the last of the first generation Australian Falcon introduced in 1960. Ford had struggled with perceptions that their car wasn’t up to Aussie conditions and the XP model went a long way to rectifying this. Classic Carlectables’ highly-detailed 1:18 scale model is in Futura two-door hardtop form and is finished in Red Satin and features detailed interior, undercar and engine. After a quick search through Classics’ website this appears to be their first model of this shape of Falcon. There are just 750 of these being made, see more at www.classiccarlectables.com.au. No release date yet, so check back often. 2016 Holden VF Commodore II SSV Redline T- . That’s possibly the saddest thing I’ve ever written about a car. Commemorate this end…