Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 77 i Australian Muscle Car

V8 Supercars is facing a public relations disaster early in 2015 over its decision to schedule its pre-season test on the same weekend as the resurgent Bathurst 12 Hour. Months after the 12 Hour’s date was locked in, V8 chiefs took the decision to use the same weekend for its annual test and season launch. V8 Supercars maintains it was forced into running its Sydney Motorsport Park test earlier in February based on the timing of big sporting events, including the Cricket World Cup and Australian Open Tennis. V8 chiefs say they approached 12 Hour organisers about integrating the two events at Bathurst over February 7-8, with the event shown on V8 Supercars’ new pay TV partner Fox Sports. Understandably, the 12 Hour declined, having partnered up for 2015 with…

The final Falcon model has officially gone public. Mark Winterbottom took an XR8 for a romp at Bathurst during the pre-race festivities for The Great Race on the second weekend of October, building the next level in the teaser campaign for the car. His lap at Mount Panorama follows the early announcement of the price position for the Falcon, which reflects a major boost in value and a massive cut in the showroom stickers. Ford Australia has slashed as much as $9685 from the pricetags for the new model; and a basic FG X Falcon is just $35,900, down by $1335 from the outgoing model. But it’s actually the XR6 which opens the action at $35,590 – a reflection of Ford’s positioning of the X-car range. “We have had an…

Sir Brian Inglis, a fighter pilot in World War II before heading Ford Australia, has died at the age of 90. Inglis was the first Australian to take the top job at Broadmeadows and his time at Ford Australia from 1970 to 1981 was one of the golden eras for the company in terms of taking ground off market leader GM-H. Working alongside livewire sales chief, Max Gransden, Inglis helped take the company to the top. One of his less conventional roles was to mentor Edsel Ford II, son of Henry II, during his time as deputy managing director. Brian Inglis was born in Adelaide, but became a Geelong boy when his father, Scott, joined Ford. His brother Malcolm was also a senior executive at the company. He studied at…

Charger wins at Bathurst Greg Crick posted the highest profile victory for a Valiant Charger in the model’s 43-year history in claiming the Touring Car Masters’ honours at Mount Panorama. Crick’s VJ E55 won Sunday morning’s curtain-raiser for the 1000 in fine style, securing the round and giving himself a massive confidence boost for a serious title tilt in 2015. Unfortunately for Crick, the horse, quite literally, has bolted in 2014 championship-wise, with Mustang driver John Bowe and Jim Richards (Falcon Sprint) set to battle it out for this year’s crown at Phillip Island’s series finale, over November 14-16. Bowe and Richards each won a TCM race over the Bathurst weekend. The victory is not the first by a Charger at Bathurst – John English has won in Group Nc…

Last edition’s ‘Falcon from the ashes’ feature told the life story of the Fred Gibson/Bo Seton XT GT that was Ford’s frontline fighter at Bathurst 1968, the Blue Oval’s final year with Harry Firth calling the shots. We’ve since spotted an advertisement for this car, now owned by Rob Macedon, in the July edition of Racing Car News. What is now the oldest surviving ex-works Falcon GT racecar could be had in 1983 for a measily $3600. It was then a Sports Sedan with an eye-catching rainbow warrior paintscheme.…

Apart from spending weekends cruising Las Vegas Boulevard or the beachside roads of Malibu, Pontiac GTOs also did service until recently with the United States Air Force. The Aussie-built, rebadged third generation Monaros saw duty as runway chase cars, based at Beale Air Force Base, near Sacramento, California, helping U-2 spy-plane pilots return safely to terra firma. Landing a U-2 aircraft requires equal measures of finesse and brawn. The plane’s fickle landing manners are a direct result of its focused military purpose. Long thin wings, coupled with a slender truncated body, serve up perfect aerodynamics for ultra high altitude – operating at twice the height of a commercial airliner – but also make the U-2 a difficult and clumsy bird to land. The centre-mounted landing gear and exaggerated wingspan mean…

PRODUCTION OF 1700 PIECES WORLDWIDE The 1993 Tooheys Bathurst 1000 touring car race, with some of the wettest conditions, suffered a restart at the beginning and many losses during the race. But it turned out to be a race between the commodores of Perkins/Hansford and Skaife/Richards. It was exciting, Hansford holding his nerve against Richards to keep car 11 in the lead to the pit stop on lap 130 where Perkins re-entered the race to carry on the battle. Richards pitted on lap 147, he rushed back out but the task seemed hopeless, only a slip from Perkins would offer him a chance, but it never came. Perkins’ claimed a remarkable victory along with co-driver Hansford winning the 1993 Bathurst 1000. Item No.18486 Available Now! The full race cockpit interior…

Was this the oft-maligned Leyland P76’s finest hour? In his book, Leyland P76 anything but average, author Gavin Farmer tells the remarkable story of Evan Green and John Bryson’s adventurous (but farsighted) choice of the P76 as their entry in the World Cup Rally of 1974, running from London to Munich, via North Africa and Turkey. Chosen for its size, lightness, durability and performance, Big Brut, as the car became known, proved the naysayers wrong in locations as rugged as the Sahara desert and as challenging as the famed Targa Florio rally circuit. Not only did Green and Bryson finish, when half of the WCR entries didn’t, but they were also fastest around the narrow Sicilian circuit and finished a creditable 13th overall. If it hadn’t been for an undetected weak…

Was there really a purpose-built NASCAR-style paved oval with 24 degree banking built on Melbourne’s outskirts in the 1980s? Or did we just dream it? Frankly, if we didn’t see it with our own eyes we wouldn’t have believed the Calder Park Thunderdome ever came to life. Of course, the facility is still there today, a reminder of when a little slice of the US of A came to Australia. The first superspeedway built outside the States stands as a monument to creator Bob Jane’s commitment to the project and his self-belief. His hard-nosed business style and what one journalist called “his crash-or-crash-through ways” also helped enormously. It’s impossible to put a figure on what Jane spent on the Thunderdome. Bob himself refuted Fairfax media’s claims in an interview last…

Be warned, there will be quite a few ‘last ever’ stories on these pages over the next few years. Mark down October 8 as the date the last ever Ford Falcon GT rolled off the Broadmeadows production line and more than 600 workers gathered for the emotional send-off. It also marked the beginning of the countdown to Ford’s factory closure in October 2016. Ford will keep building the Falcon sedan and ute – and Territory SUV – until then. GT F number 500 from a batch of 500 sold in a charity auction last month for three times its RRP, $236,100, to Steven Clarke, from Melbourne, who briefly owned one of the very first Falcon GT sedans, and has regretted selling it ever since. Steven got to select the colour…

The Ford Falcon workforce has been celebrated and saluted in a unique artwork based on the car that was once Australia’s favourite. A total of 380 company employees were photographed for an installation that sees their pictures plastered over a Falcon body. The Falcon Art Car was created by Peter Watson, a senior clay modeler in the design studio at Ford, who worked for four months on the innovative project. It was eventually transferred to a pair of ‘body-in-whites’ at the You Yangs proving ground. “Otherwise, they would have been scrapped,” says Watson. The Falcon Art Car was displayed in Melbourne during October, at the first public showing of the Falcon XR8, and is expected to continue its run at a number of art shows. He says his inspiration for…

How would you feel about liberating 500 kiloWatts – that’s 670 horsepower in the old numbers – and 800 Newton-metres from your 6-litre VE or VF Commodore? What about 550 and 980 if your current drive is a 6.2-litre HSV car? Those are the numbers touted by Walkinshaw Performance for its latest force-fed upgrade, limited to just 50 packages. Officially developed to celebrate 30 years of motorsport success in Australia, since Tom Walkinshaw conquered Mount Panorama (for Jaguar in 1985), it’s known as the Walkinshaw Racing Limited Edition Supercharger Package. “From the beginning of this process, our goal was to engineer the most powerful upgrade to date for a road car from WPP without compromising driveability,” says company boss, Tony Harris. “It produces a level of excitement never felt before…

The most famous Torana in history doesn’t wear #05. Nonetheless, Australia’s most recognisable Torana, to the general public, at least, is a LX hatchback. It’s also now a museum piece. The National Museum in Canberra has acquired the famous Absinth Yellow 1977 hatchback which featured at the original trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain following the disappearance of their baby Azaria at Ayers Rock in 1980. Usually described as a Sunbird, this is in fact the SL version, fitted with the 253ci V8 motor. Michael Chamberlain, then a minister of religion, jokingly describes himself as “a bit of a revhead”. Parts of this car were submitted as forensic evidence when it was claimed that human blood had been found in the interior. Subsequently, this was found to be a mixture…

Letter from a PNut On behalf of all the ‘PNuts’ [ED: Translation P76 enthusiasts] I would like to thank AMC for the fantastic story on the Force 7 in issue #76. Yes, I got the connection! I cannot tell you how much it means to people like me and many others who worked at Leyland Australia and were involved in the development of the Forces 7. The fact the story was published in AMC has allowed it to go to a much bigger group of classic car enthusiasts [ED: Biggest selling issue of 2014, but the cover story may have contributed too!]. The stigma associated with the P76 has mostly disappeared now, as people are now realising it was a great design and years ahead of its time and that…

Port Melbourne was a hive of automotive activity in the late sixties. Apart from the locale being Holden’s epicentre, there was another operation producing cars from marques that could not be more different. At a massive factory complex bordered by Cook Street, Graham Street and Bertie Street, Australian Motor Industries built Toyotas in large numbers, plus a smaller quantity of Ramblers imported as CKD (complete knocked down) kits from the American Motors Corporation. They were assembled here using enough local components to meet Australian regulations. This included Rambler Rebels and Javelins, sold here with V8 power, which slotted them into the same category of the market as Falcon GTs and Monaros. The Javelin holds a unique place in Australian muscle car history – as AMC outlined in a story on…

Australian Trans-Am. The name says it all: an Aussie category open to two-door, four-seat, rear-wheel-drive V8-powered American production vehicles built between 1963 and 1974. The Tenkate Plant Hire Australian Trans-Am evolved from a racing series that was established in 2009 to celebrate the golden era of Trans-Am racing during the late 1960s and ’70s. Australian Trans-Am races predominantly at Queensland Raceway and the historic Lakeside Raceway. However, the category is continually expanding and held its first ever interstate round at the Australian Muscle Car Masters at Sydney Motorsport Park in September. The Australian Trans-Am machines have already raced abroad, having an association with a category in the land of the long white cloud. The New Zealand Historic Muscle Cars are a similarly-based category that celebrates the period when the cars…

Holden’s styling studios must have been a hip and happening place to work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As conservatism gave way to free expression, the designers at Fishermans Bend went to town, conjuring up such creations as the Hurricane concept car, the two-seater GTR-X sports coupe, various lairy-looking muscle cars and, ultimately, the Sandman. Motor racing’s popularity was also on the rise, with the company finding a way to circumvent GM’s no-racing policy, via the Holden Dealer Team. This provided a further and welcome creative outlet for the fertile minds that populated Port Melbourne. One of the studio’s junior stylists tasked with brainstorming and rendering HDT paint and graphic concepts was Paul Beranger. A number of Beranger’s stillborn Sandman sketches were published in AMC #75. These were…

You’ve probably already recognised the common denominator of the trio of cars displayed on this page – V8 Supercar involvement. Either as official safety car or model campaigned by one of the two new factory teams to join the category. AMC was keen to sample the cars to see if their high-profile on-track role drew comments of recognition from those I came in contact with in my daily life as a magazine editor and, more importantly, ‘taxi driver’ for my kids. Would the other soccer dads say, “Hey Luke, isn’t that the car (insert marque) races in V8 Supercars? I wanted to get a feel for whether Volvo, Nissan and Chrysler had achieved the desired profile boost from their motorsport involvement. Volvo S60 Polestar Our quest: Would anyone recognise it…

Eric Waples Saturday, 12 October 1974. It’s six days after the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 and John Goss is still beaming as he gracefully accepts the adulation of his adoring fans who have gathered in McLeod Ford’s Sydney showroom. Present at the Rockdale dealership to see the winning car and driver is Eric Waples, who recalls JG declaring, “We stuck it up the General!” Forty years on, Eric also remembers that the XA GT was one very tired looking car, especially the interior. He swears the bonnet was matte black, despite Goss’s current-day tribute XA (and 1:18 models) sporting midnight blue paintwork. Next edition, we’ll show you Eric’s slides from visits to the Mountain previous years. AMC will also feature one of JG’s earlier Bathurst Falcons that has survived, and which has…

Mission brown Elsewhere in this edition you’ll find a story on early Holden Dealer Team livery concepts that didn’t make it onto the grid. These came courtesy of former GM-H stylist Paul Beranger, who was kind enough to share his recollections and imagery with AMC. While interviewing Beranger, we learned of his Series Production race starts in 1972 aboard a LJ Torana GTR XU-1. This included the opening two rounds of that year’s Manufacturers Championship, August’s Chesterfield 250 in Adelaide and the Sandown 250. Neither big-time outing yielded a result, with a blown tyre at Sandown sending the Torana into the fence, ending Beranger’s day prematurely. The Hardie-Ferodo 500 entry list shows he and co-driver George Reynolds as reserves for the big race, but the battered Torana never made it…

The Ford Mustang has received a rousing reception during the early test drives of the hero car set for Australia in the third quarter of next year. “It was surprisingly good. Very good. So much better than any Mustang you’ve ever driven,” according to USA’s Autoweek magazine. The praise continues with Australian motoring writers. “This is a Mustang that drives like no pony car before,” says Jez Spinks on Caradvice.com.au For Joshua Dowling, the hard-nosed car critic at Carsguide, the car definitely made an impact. “To paraphrase Crocodile Dundee, “Now, that’s a Mustang,” he says. “I can’t repeat in front of a polite audience the exact words that came out of my mouth having floored the V8 Mustang for the first time, but suffice to say I said it a…

The reign of the Porsche 911 as the world’s go-to sports car could soon be over, as Mercedes-Benz unleashes a new-age muscle car. Its AMG GT is a condensed and improved version of the SLS gullwing, with shorter and more muscular bodywork wrapped around an all-new four-litre twin-turbo V8 engine. It’s the second road-up project by the AMG go-faster division, but this time the engineers from Affalterbach have been given free reign instead of trying to reinvent a car from the past. The GT has a claimed top speed of 304km/h with a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.0 seconds, thanks to a relatively light weight of 1570 kilograms and a power output of 340 kiloWatts and 600 Newton-metres of torque, although the figures jump to 375 and 650 for the…

Even though it’s a sellout, Holden Special Vehicles has still used the announcement of its GTS Maloo to scoop up some kudos. “Every time we launch a vehicle is an exciting time, but we believe the GTS Maloo is something special and sets a new benchmark in the performance market,” says Tim Jackson, managing director of HSV. The only ‘new’ news is the arrival of two new colours for the HSV range: ‘Some like it Hot’, a rich bronze-red, and ‘Jungle Green’, an iridescent olive green. The specification of the ultimate Maloo matches the GTS sedan, which means 430 kilowatts and 740 Newton-metres from the 6.2-litre supercharged LSA engine, HSV premium brakes and – what is claimed as a world first for a ute – torque vectoring of the drive.…

The first Holden Premier was introduced in 1962 as part of the EJ series, promoted as the most luxurious of the three sedan models: Standard, Special and Premier. It used the same body and range of engines, but featured such cosmetic improvements as leather-covered bucket seats, wool-pile carpets, whitewall tyres, metallic paint and additional trim and badges. This was the first Holden to have automatic transmission and a heater fitted as standard. A few manual Premiers were built for export. With the following EH series, the 179 motor was fitted as standard and a Premier station wagon was also available. With the HR series Premier, the 186S motor was available and, starting with the HK series, Premiers became available with the V8 option. The Holden Premier lasted for nearly two…

Shannons Spring Sale, Melbourne, September 29 The 1975 ‘John Goss Special’ Ford XB Coupe is a relatively rare beast at auction, especially ones in largely unmolested condition. With realistic estimates of $45,000 to $55,000 there was a lot of interest in the result. These cars were released in relatively small quantities – as few as 260, although nobody knows the exact number – to celebrate JG’s victory in the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 the previous year. They were fitted with the GS Rally Pack option and powered by the Cleveland 302 V8. This one has the three-speed automatic transmission and a Ford disc brake 9-inch rear end. It currently sits on a set of slightly wider 15-inch, 12-slot colour-coded rims. Built in July 1975, it has been restored in the correct factory…

Surging ahead – Part 2 Last edition we started the story of Ford’s Phase III GT-HO Falcon, the ill-fated Phase IV and the transition to the two-door. My business at the time, Road and Track, working with Waggot Engineering up in Sydney, was playing quite a big part in helping Ford with engines in the context of the new 1973 regulations, but I was doing a fair bit of other work for Henry as well. Much of it centred on development for the two-door Falcon, which was going to be homologated with disc brakes on the back – the first Falcon that had disc brakes as standard on the rear. It went through the range eventually, but the two-door got discs as standard. That meant you could modify the brakes…

Max speed: 120 mph Fuel consumption: 16 mpg or 23 mpg (at cruising speed). Acceleration: 0 to 30mph, 3.4 secs. 0 to 50, 7.1 seconds. 0 to 80, 14.2 seconds. Standing quarter mile: Best result, 16.4 seconds (average 16.7 seconds) Born in the USA When first released in the United States in 1968, the AMC AMX was claimed as one of the more spectacular muscle cars in America. Car and Driver magazine tested one of the 390 V8 versions (not available here) in standard form and recorded a quarter-mile time of 14.8 seconds, with top speed of 196km/h. In February 1968 the AMX was launched with a 24-hour, non-stop speed test on a banked track, setting 106 new national and international records. Two cars were used, the smallest 290 cubic…

XT GT argument settlers Following on from the XR GT Falcon, and with more Mustang-bred influence, the XT GT, despite not winning at Bathurst, became a worldly success in its own right. The XT Falcon GT won the teams’ prize in the London-to-Sydney Marathon and was also exported to a number of overseas countries that you wouldn’t expect. Rapidly developed for release in April 1968, the XT version of the GT gained the more powerful 302ci Windsor V8, a beefy new three-speed automatic transmission option, wider 6-inch rims, lower suspension and heavier shocks. The XT GT was the first Aussie performance car to offer headlights to match its extra performance with the new grille-mounted Lucas driving lights. It was also available in a variety of colours with black-outs and colour-keyed…

The Australian Muscle Car Masters reached double figures at Sydney Motorsport Park in September. So it was apt, if a tad disappointing, that the Masters’ 10th running was held in conditions that mirrored the soggy inaugural event in 2005. Dodging showers didn’t seem to faze spectators, though. Not with big fields of classic muscle putting on a great on-track show. As AMC has always said of motorsport: when the rain falls the spectacle rises. Cars slid their way around all three layouts that hosted the packed programme of racing. That’s right, three tracks. Sunday’s racing commenced on the 4.5km Brabham Circuit (the longest track), before switching to the 3.9km Gardner Circuit late morning. Then, from mid-afternoon, the trophy races were held on 2.8km Druitt Circuit. The idea was to mix…

1989 ATCC-winning Ford Sierra RS500 As you will have read in this very issue of AMC, Dick Johnson became the master transformer, and driver, of the British-built Sierras. In 1989, on top of winning the Tooheys 1000, with co-driver John Bowe, he also took out the Australian Touring Car Championship in this version of his red rocketship. Apex’s 1:18 scale diecast model is highly detailed with many opening parts to show off the unique features of the winning car. Picking up this model is a great way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of quick Dick’s fifth and final ATCC crown. No one, at press time, has won more! Visit www.apexreplicas.com.au 1971 Byrt Ford XY GT-HO Phase III There’s something very special about the Wild Violet privateer Phase III that twice…