Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 103 i Australian Muscle Car

Last year Tickford launched its Bathurst 1977 tribute package to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Allan Moffat’s famous win. Now the Blue Oval enhancer has unveiled its Tickford Racing Edition package. The new TRE package is now available for 2015-17 model Mustangs, while the version for the new MY18 ’Stang comes on stream in late August. The TRE package includes a full carbon-fibre aero package with front splitter, side skirts and customised rear-diffuser, coupled with a prominent rear wing and special stripe decals. There’s also forged lightweight Project 6GR 20-inch wheels fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 S tyres, Wilwood ‘Racing-Red’ brake upgrade and quad-outlet exhausts. Inside the cabin there’s Tickford Racing Edition perforated Alcantara and leather seats with ‘Racing Blue’ accents and Tickford Racing logo. Under the bonnet, the…

Elsewhere in this issue we recall Amaroo Park’s earliest AMSCAR Series, run from 1979 at the rustic Sydney track. It’s a fitting way to mark the much-loved venue that closed down in August 1998, the 20th anniversary of which falls while this issue sits on newsstands. That inaugural AMSCAR Series attracted all the major players on the touring car scene at that time, with the exception of the HDT. It also attracted at least one unlikely entrant... By 1979 Chrysler’s participation in touring car racing was a fading memory. It had exited the sport as long ago as 1972 – six years had passed since the last Charger started at Bathurst. But there was a Charger in the ’79 AMSCAR Series. Local club racer Jeff Henley-Smith, perhaps noticing that his…

Sudden impact No Aussie-built car since the very first Holden, the 48-215, has made a bigger first impression than the Monaro. It was a hit from day dot. Those aged 55-plus still remember where they were when they first clapped eyes on one in the flesh. First flex It’s the first Holden muscle car! And the first of many to wear the GTS badge. Special competition It s also the first Holden competition special that was widely available to the public. Super coupe It’s the first Holden-badged coupe. Interestingly, it’s not the first Holden-built coupe, as the bodybuilding company first produced a two-door body upon a Chevrolet chassis back in 1928. Landmark model It represented the red corner in the first serious head-to-head battle between Holden and Ford for performance…

Amaroo Super Cars. That’s AMSCAR for short. This was the marketing name dreamed up by Ivan Stibbard, the general manager of the Australian Racing Drivers’ Club, for rustic Amaroo Park’s touring car series in 1979. The AMSCAR Series would run to the end of the Group C era and beyond into Group A, all the way to 1993. It was even revived for a single season in 1997. With live television coverage of all rounds and a hefty prizepool courtesy of series sponsor Rothmans, the first AMSCAR Series rivalled the Australian Touring Car Championship itself for profile, field quality and on-track action. It actually surpassed the ATCC for dramatic incidents as the tight confines of the 1.9km circuit on Sydney’s north-western outskirts allowed no margin for error. By comparison, only…

A work of art In recent issues we have looked at some home tracks, including my own plastic-based track and the routed wood rally track of Gary Blayney. Well, two Melbournians have taken it to a whole new level with their routed race track – Dippa’s Raceway. Tony and Rob di Pastena are two brothers with a passion for doing it just right. Being in their fifties, they are pretty typical of the baby-boomers responsible for the resurgence in the hobby in the last 10 years. Rob is a professional fitness trainer with a string of celebrity clients, and Tony is a telecommunications specialist with a creative bent towards audio recording. Having spent 30 years of working corporate jobs, raising kids and paying mortgages, they felt it was time for…

T-cars were a familiar sight during practice at Bathurst in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s. These test/training cars – often bearing a ‘T’ instead of a number; a ‘T’ and a number; or sometimes a different number from the team’s main entries – gave drivers valuable extra laps in the lead-up to the Great Race. They were godsends for second-stringers and once-a-year warriors needing to blow away the cobwebs. T-cars were also vital for inexperienced youngsters and international imports who were unfamiliar with either car or track. Or both. T-cars were a way to give drivers these extra laps without putting unwanted mileage on a team’s main racecar. Their use was banned in the mid-1990s in the interests of saving costs, so we’ve dug into the files to recall…

Biante Model Cars has borrowed something from both the blue and red corners in creating funky new models with famous retro schemes to celebrate its own major milestone. Biante released the 1:18 scale 1971 Bathurstwinning XY GT-HO Phase III in 1998 and the 1972 Bathurst-winning LJ Torana GTR XU-1 the following year, so it’s a nice way for the company to celebrate its 20th anniversary of producing Australian model cars by replicating these famous liveries on the Supercars based off the last locally-produced Aussie cars. Both the Holdens and Fords pick up more than just the liveries from the originals. The Commodore has the worn-away bit of the windscreen sun-strip from the wipers that worked so hard in 1972. The Ford has a GT badge in the grille. We know…

A Track Red-coloured 1971 XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III sold for $1,030,000 at Lloyds Auctions in Queensland in late June. The previous record reported price for a Phase III was $683,650 for a sale in 2007. Top end Phase IIIs had been changing hands for around the $500,000 mark in the last few years, with little indication that the magical million mark – especially magical for the vendor – would be broken any time soon. But broken it was. Not bad for a motor car that sold for about $5000 in 1971. Bill Freeman, head auctioneer at Lloyds Classic Car Auctions, confirmed that the price achieved at the auction was a first for Australia. “Now we have taken it into the seven digits we expect to be inundated by Phase…

The 1960s was a golden age for General Motors-Holden and 1968 was undoubtedly its biggest year of that decade. Not only did the company release the latest generation of ‘all new’ volume-selling HK Holden sedan and wagon models, it launched what would become the company’s most iconic model: Monaro. Under the astute managing directorship of American Max Wilson, GM-H faced significant challenges with the bigger, lower and heavier HK. The new model created unprecedented complexity in the company’s widespread manufacturing plants, outgunning its crosstown competitor with multiple options, plus the addition of a prestige V8 sedan and two-door pillarless coupe, both of which were introduced six months after the high volume sedan and wagon. 1968 was also a career defining year for me. In February I completed my two years…

Gabe Fitipaldez Car: 2008 FG Ford Falcon FPV F6 MkI Hometown: Sydney, NSW What is it? “It’s a FPV F6. This car houses the iconic Barra four-litre straight-six turbo motor of the FG Falcon series.” When did you buy it? “I bought it in 2015 from a Sydney-based dealership. It was a very lucky find, especially now that Ford Australia no longer produces cars.” Why did you buy it? “I have always loved Fords. When I was in my early twenties I remember one afternoon a good friend of mine stopped by and picked me up in his Viper Purple XR6 FG Turbo Ute. The raw power and grunt of the car had me absolutely hooked, but what amazed me the most is how it could also be used as…

The first fully-imported Commodore is, quite simply, a bloody good car. Strip away any prejudice, patriotism or disappointment that there’s no V8 variant, and judge it on its merits alone – better still, actually drive the thing – and that’s the conclusion any open-minded ‘car person’ living in the real world will come to. Of course, the fact it’s an excellent car for the price doesn’t mean it will sell in the numbers Holden hopes. Yet, unlike other vehicles in the company’s 2018 line-up, the latest ZB Commodore deserves more respect that many want to give it. Before we go any further, it’s important to re-state all of the things this car is not. It’s not built in Australia. It’s not rear-wheel-drive. It’s not offered with a V8 option. It’s…

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…

AJ’s Monaro Twelve years before Alan Jones became the 1980 World Champion, he very nearly won the newly-released Holden Monaro’s first major race, the 1968 Sandown Three Hour. If not for releasing the HK GTS 327’s bonnet when he pitted mid-race in expectation of his crew checking under the hood during the stop, the then 21-year-old would have etched his name in the racing history books much earlier than he did. Instead, his efforts on September 15, 1968 have largely been forgotten – including by the man himself, as you won’t find this tale in Jones’ latest book. The much anticipated autobiography AJ: How Alan Jones Climbed to the Top of Formula One was one of the best reads of 2017. AJ, in typical style, took us on a rollicking,…

Ford Australia will keep the Mustang sales juggernaut rolling along when the first batch of the Bullitt special edition models arrive in local showrooms in October. The 700-strong shipment of Mustang Bullitts lob downunder in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the iconic Steve McQueen film that saw the Hollywood legend drive a 1968 Mustang Fastback in one of the silver screen’s most epic car chases. Bullitt will be the fastest, most powerful Mustang sold by Ford Australia, with each example individually numbered and finished in Dark Highland Green with gloss-black Torq Thrust-style alloys. Bullitt is based on the updated Mustang GT, manufactured in Flat Rock, Michigan, and is offered exclusively as a V8 coupled to a six-speed manual, true to the Mustang Fastback that hurled around the streets…

The Bluebird was bent. Everyone knew it, but no-one could prove it and nobody really cared enough to mount a full-scale investigation. After all, the first Nissan racer of its generation wasn’t badly bent by the standards of the early 1980s when Group C homologation always seemed to be creating some sort of controversy. Also, it was competitive but not dominant in the style of the Godzilla Skyline that would eventually ring the death knell for Group A touring cars in Australia. By modern standards, the Bluebird was a basic car. The racer was based on a car that was built at Clayton in Melbourne and promoted as ‘Australia’s first four-cylinder limousine, but its ace card was a turbocharged engine homologated thanks to Japan. It allowed the sort of creative…

It’s taken 30-plus years but the Group A touring category will finally race at Hobart’s Baskerville Raceway. The Group A and Group C machines of the Heritage Touring Car class will make their Historic Baskerville debut over September 21-23. The southern Tassie track traditionally hosted end-of-season ‘Winfield 25s’ invitational events for Group C touring cars and stars during the 1970s and 1980s. However, the concept died after the 1984 Touring Car Cup, which also marked Group C’s last on-track hurrah. Thus, by the time international Group A rules were adopted full-time in this country for the 1985 season, the era of Baskerville’s non-championship November meetings had ended. A big field of mainland Heritage Touring Cars are entered for the growing Historic Baskerville event, with other Group A cars like the…

Congratulations on an excellent magazine! I was delighted to receive my copy of issue #101 and read the ‘Holden V8 Til 98’ article featuring photos of the beautiful Bermuda Blue HSV VT GTS. I have a car that’s almost identical (build number 326) and the only difference is that my car is an auto and doesn’t have the performance brakes. However, it does have the premium audio with 10-CD stacker. [ED: CD stackers, we remember those!] I love the VT GTS as it is the perfect mix of old school and new school. Also a great looker with all those curves! I have owned my car for two years and enjoy taking it to car shows around the South Island of NZ and on the local Holden club’s runs. Ross…

Rice burners. Jap crap. These are the derogatory phrases some used to refer to the Mazda RX7 (and the Bluebird Turbo) when these cars took on the local Holden and Ford V8s in Group C touring car racing in the early 1980s. Some of the hostility no doubt came from anguished Ford fans dealing with the fact that Allan Moffat had done the unthinkable and abandoned Ford to race a Mazda, which ignores the reality that it was Ford which had abandoned Moffat. Looking back today, though, even the harshest critics of the RX7 cannot deny these sleek-lined little coupes were a colourful – and noisy, with that distinctive raspish wail of the rotary engine! – addition to our touring scene in the ’80s. Not that rotary Mazdas were a…

The holy grail of all Australian racing Fords is unquestionably the XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III that Allan Moffat drove to victory in the 1971 Hardie-Ferodo 500. Whether that elusive factory-entered machine, known to Blue Oval enthusiasts simply as #65E, the number it wore on October 3, 1971, ever pops back up remains to be seen. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that #65E will return to public view after a long, long period of hibernation. Indeed, rumours abound that an XY model Falcon purported to be the ’71 Bathurst winner will soon appear on the Falcon GT scene, inevitably to close scrutiny as to its authenticity. It would not shock us if the real #65E finally did reappear, as two genuine Phase IIIs with racing heritage have resurfaced…

Kevin Bartlett’s distinguished career spanned an incredible five decades. He considers himself a former open-wheeler driver first and foremost; one that just happened to move into touring cars. Bartlett’s 15 years pedalling ‘real’ racing cars netted a pair of Australian Drivers Championships (1968 and ’69) and took him to New Zealand, Asia and the United States. The latter included a drama-filled 242mph crack at the Indy 500 and a series of competitive showings in F5000 on the classic American tracks. The highlight of his time in tin-tops was an outright Bathurst victory in 1974 with John Goss. However, his touring car record includes ATCC round wins, two Bathurst pole positions and campaigning myriad makes and models over three decades. To most Aussie race fans KB was the courageous, tough-as-nails steerer…