Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 104 i Australian Muscle Car

Lee Iacocca’s original idea was simple enough: an affordable four-seat sporty car with European styling, available with six-cylinder or V8 power. Basing it on the Falcon chassis made it economically viable at a time when Ford was still reeling from the losses from the spectacularly unsuccessful Edsel model. But even then, in 1961, when Henry Ford II gave his approval for the Mustang project, Iacocca was warned that if it wasn’t a success, then he would be seeking employment elsewhere. But Iacocca’s job was safe. While Ford had originally figured on producing around 80,000 Mustangs in the first year of the car’s release, within the first 18 months a million Mustangs had been sold. A little over half a century on and the Mustang has reached the 10 million mark.…

Because of the stage it was played out on, so much bigger than Bathurst, there’s a myth that the London-Sydney Marathon was the greatest of all showdowns between Australian V8 power brokers Ford (with the Falcon GT) and Holden (with the Monaro GTS). In truth it was a one-sided contest. Ford Australia committed to it with a full works effort. Holden had to be brought, hogtied, into the ring. Ford won the team’s prize, against all comers from throughout the world, with its team of three coming home third, sixth and eighth. In the circumstances Holden’s 12th and 14th with their third car a DNF, was an admirable effort which could have been so much better. Just ask Bob Watson. The highly-talented GM-H engineer – along with Holden draftsman Tony…

Peter Brock was renowned for his good fortune during his halcyon days and, while his many admirers argue he made his own luck, former Marlboro Holden Dealer Team boss John Sheppard is here to present the case that his lead driver was indeed blessed. In recounting how they won their first Bathurst together in 1978, ‘Sheppo’ reveals how a random pre-race component selection ruined John Harvey’s race in the sister car while Brock cruised to a famous victory in #05. After the 1978 Hang Ten 400 at Sandown – in which the MHDT Torana A9Xs had finished 1-2 – the team sent its six alternators to an electrician to be race-prepared for Bathurst, the biggest event of the year. When they came back, one of those randomly selected alternators went…

Darren ‘Broady’ Broadbridge Car: Ford XW Falcon GT Hometown: Port Augusta, SA What is it? “My car is a September 1969 XW GT. It originated with a 351ci Windsor, four-speed Toploader gearbox and 9” diff. It is Candy Apple Red in colour with the factory vinyl roof and black interior. The car was actually optioned with power-steering.” When did you buy it? “I purchased it, I think, seven years ago. It must have been in September, as I remember flying up to Queensland to look at it on a Wednesday following an Aussie rules grand final win the Saturday prior and still not feeling 100 percent...” Why did you buy it? “Owning an XW GT was always a dream of mine and it’s the right GT for me. I have…

The AMSCAR Series tossed up some unexpected results, surprise entrants and unusual car/driver combos in the years of Group A. Like the day in August 1985 Allan Grice drove an Alfetta in the 155-lap Better Brakes 300. Yes, Grice in an Alfetta. How many readers remember that? This was the Paul Halstead-owned GTV6 run as a side-project to The Toy Shop’s more famous NatWest Finance Pantera GT. Grice lined up seventh on the grid but suffered gearbox failure after just three laps. Unsurprisingly, Gricey found another ride for Oran Park’s enduro two weeks later, a privateer Commodore. The main story outlines the day in March 1986 when Garry Willmington won a short and sweet five-lap opening heat during round two. This was probably the greatest four minutes and 38 seconds…

Adelaide custom model-maker and livery re-creator Geoff Wood has done it again, presenting one of his F5000 heroes, John Walker, with a one-off 1:18 model that looks as good as John’s aviator sunnies! Wood had previously created a model of the car that Walker drove to victory in Sandown’s 1975 Gold Star round. That orange Golden Breed-liveried Lola was a birthday present to the South Australian ace from his former mechanic and lifelong friend Rob Newman (Wood’s client), but Geoff wasn’t able to attend the handover. This time Wood was keen to present his second Walker F5000 creation personally to the man himself, who was so impressed with his first effort he commissioned Geoff to create mini replicas of his 1979 Australian Grand Prix-winning Magnum T332 for he and Newman.…

The classic Chevrolet Camaro versus Ford Mustang Australian touring car battles of the late 1960s and early 1970s could recommence as soon as 2020. That’s if Walkinshaw Andretti United commits to developing a racing version of the Camaro coupe for the Virgin Australian Supercars Championship. The plan is under confirmed consideration by the team and its parent, the Walkinshaw Group, as a way to promote a right-hand drive version of the V8 Camaro 2SS road car which sister company, Holden Special Vehicles, has just launched for sale here. It will take on the Ford Mustang road car, which has dominated the sports car market in Australia since its 2016 launch. If the Camaro does make it on to local tracks it will also line up against the Mustang coupe, which…

Once upon a time, Falcon hardtops had to be GTs or Cobras to command boom prices at auction. Not anymore. Now any XA-XC hardtop in good nick will bring eye-watering high four-figure results. Exhibit A, your honour, was a modified 1973 Ford XA Falcon Superbird Hardtop that almost doubled its estimate under heavy bidding at Shannons’ August 13 Sydney Winter Auction to sell with ‘no reserve’ for an auction record $86,000. This one-owner machine had been restored to GT appearance in the 1990s, changing its original colour of Lime Glaze to a dark metallic green and adding a rear spoiler and GT grille. Its original 302-ci V8 had been stroked to 351ci spec and matched to a four-speed manual transmission. It’s an impressive result for a stunning-looking coupe, yet a…

SELLING Who? Burns & Co What? VC HDT VC Commodore #157 Where? 4 Market Drive, Bayswater When? Sunday, September 9, 2018 *Part of the Phil Munday collection auction SELLING Who? Burns & Co What? VE HDT retro ‘Blue Meanie’ Where? 4 Market Drive, Bayswater When? Sunday, September 9, 2018 *Part of the Phil Munday collection auction SELLING Who? Shannons Melbourne Classic Auction What? 1971 XY Falcon GT Where? 40 Corporate Drive, Heatherton When? Monday, September 17, 2018 How much? $130K-$150K guiding range SELLING Who? Shannons Melbourne Classic Auction What? 1960 Holden FB Special Sedan Where? 40 Corporate Drive, Heatherton When? Monday, September 17, 2018 How much? $22K-$28K guiding range *Create your own ‘Galah’ replica, see p30.…

What made Amaroo special Having just read issue #103 of Australia Muscle Car, I really felt that I needed to write something. Seeing those old pictures of Amaroo and the AMSCAR series really brought back memories. I don’t think I missed a meeting throughout that time, living in Sydney, Amaroo and Oran Park were must attends. Sitting on the hill going up Bitupave was just an excellent viewing spot. Then a walk to Dunlop Loop although a bit isolated was still a great place to see the action. I have visited the old site and if you use your imagination, you can still make out where the track was. On my last visit the parking attendant’s shed for the carpark was still standing, battered, but still there. I could still…

Before Brock, Firth and the Holden Dealer Team there was Bruce McPhee. It might come as a shock to some Holden enthusiasts, especially those blinded by devotion to racing rock star Brock, but the marque’s long history of success on the Mountain began with a character far removed from HDT fold – in more ways than one. The fact Bruce McPhee was not based in the motor racing epicentre of Melbourne, nor the big smoke of Sydney, but in regional NSW meant he was largely off the radar. McPhee was entrenched on his beloved Central Coast, out of sight and out of mind of ‘the establishment. Even after he won the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500 there was no support from GM-H. Nor, as the years passed, was he widely known outside…

When Peter Brock rolled his #05 Commodore into the pitlane with a dead engine just eight laps into the 1983 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, fans of the Holden Dealer Team heartthrob thought the chances of him winning his seventh Bathurst crown had, quite literally, gone up in smoke. But the rule of the period (long since banished) allowing drivers of the same team to ‘cross enter’ and effectively switch cars mid-race provided the opportunity for Brock to claim victory in his second HDT-entered car, a result that seemed so unlikely 155 laps earlier in the day. Even more unlikely would have been that Brock would ever have thought he’d end up years later scaling the roof of a Melbourne Holden dealer to inspect the car for a buyer! But…

John Perry “I took this photo at the start of the Rothmans 500 at Oran Park in July 1978,” writes John of capturing a truly quirky moment in racing history. “I think it was the only time the touring cars did their warm-up lap in the reverse direction. The images of Moffat are of him turning right on the approach to [going over] the bridge and I think may be one of the rare times his cross-arm driving style was caught on camera.” The race was famous for the dramatic fightback victory of John Harvey and Charlie O’Brien, after their HDT A9X ran dry and was stranded on the far side of the circuit. Harvey ran to the pits for fuel, then back to the car. It’s likely John Perry’s…

Doubling-down on nostalgia When I was a little chap, I received the first slot car set that sent me down the road to my slot addiction. It was a modest but useful set, with a figure-eight track, a mechanical lap-counter and two Ferrari Dinos that eventually wore out. As a result, my father took me for a trip to the local hobby store, where we purchased a pair of kit slot cars to replace the knackered Ferraris. It was a long time ago, but I remember one was a Lotus, perhaps a 30, and the other was most definitely an E-type Jaguar convertible. Buying slot car kits that you assembled yourself was all part and parcel of the original slot car boom of the 1960s. Fast forward to 2008, and…

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…

An auction of the largest collection of Peter Brock racecars in existence, with the hammer set to fall at Bathurst on the Saturday night before this year’s Bathurst 1000 – Lloyds’ auction of 30 Brock cars from the Peter Champion collection is set to be an event of such significance that it might even overshadow the 2018 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 itself. The actual location of the auction was yet to be confirmed as AMC went to press. Lloyds hopes to be able to store the cars and stage the auction on site at the Mountain itself, probably in a marquee facility at Harris Park, but various issues (logistic, ticketing and OH&S) mean it may instead be held at Lloyds’ own facility at nearby Kelso, on Bathurst’s outskirts. The public…

Michael W. Jennings, promotions manager and so much more of Castrol in in the formative professional era of the 1970s, who passed away in July aged 90, was a hero of Australian motorsport, largely unsung. At a time when fuel and lubricant companies like Shell, BP and Total were more an integral part of the sport than even the car makers Jennings used a grasp of promotion well ahead of its time to thrust Castrol, a lubricants specialist without the big budget of a fuel company, into prominence. He turned racing drivers, the likes of the young Brock and Bond, Chivas and the Geoghegan brothers into brand ambassadors, long before the concept had been discovered by others (today everyone from soap powder suppliers to luxury goods manufacturers attach celebrities to…

There are still those who believe Des West’s Lorack Motors-entered GTS 327 was robbed of victory at Bathurst ’68. Greg ‘Pygmy’ Lynch is not one of them. Pygmy has much affection for the late West, but he doesn’t subscribe to the view car #14D was unfairly disqualified for oversized valves. “You know why it was disqualified?!” Lynch asks rhetorically during our chat about how Pagewood assisted race teams during the Series Production era. “When they [West’s mechanics] started to prepare the car for Bathurst, they were blueprinting the engine. They took the cylinder heads off and discovered that one of the valves in the cylinder head was very loose. “Des rang me first and told me about the problem and how the valve was jumping out of the seat. They…

Half a century ago a Holden won the Great Race for the very first time. No one back then could have known that it was just the start of a long and gloriously successful era in touring car racing for the General. But it didn’t start as expected, with a successful debut for factory-backed team cars. Rather, that first Bathurst victory went to a privateer Holden Monaro driver. Bruce McPhee’s achievements at Bathurst in 1968 do tend to get overlooked a little these days, which is a pity as it was a cunningly executed victory by a racer of which little is known by most people who closely follow the exploits of the Lion marque on the Mountain. Holden’s Bathurst history didn’t start with McPhee in ’68. It kicked off…

At the 1973 Easter Bathurst race meeting, Ron Dickson set a new class lap record in his black Holden EH Sports Sedan. As this was the last traditional Easter Bathurst meeting, Racing Car News declared Dickson’s machine to be the ‘fastest ever EH at Bathurst. It was certainly a quick car. That weekend it was clocked at 252km/h down Conrod. Such was the EH’s pace that its 202 Holden six engine had been plagued by a litany of oil surge problems, but this had been cured before the Bathurst meet with an intricately baffled sump designed especially for the car by Bo Seton. On the Sunday night at Bathurst, Dickson and a few mates were gathered round a big campfire at the back of the pits. Then someone came over to…

The 1980 CRC 300 was a ground-breaking event, on two levels. For one, it was the race in which Dick Johnson properly emerged as a serious outright touring car contender. The then-privateer fronted at Amaroo Park with a brand new XD Falcon and proceeded to make Peter Brock’s HDT Commodore VB look second-best until the big blue Ford cooked its tyres. This race, a couple of months before the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 and the rock incident, was a clear sign of what was to come from the Queenslander. The other ground-breaking aspect of the 1980 CRC 300 was that it proved that a touring car endurance race around the tight, twisty little Sydney circuit was actually feasible. Amaroo’s mid-year pre-Bathurst enduro would continue through most the rest of the decade,…

While the wet opening few hours of last year’s Bathurst 1000 were remarkably almost completely mishap-free, normally when the heavens open Mount Panorama transforms into Mount Pandemonium. Sometimes it’s a simple case of just surviving the conditions. The ’92 race had to be red flagged after a storm rendered the circuit unnavigable safely in anything other than a boat; in ’87 proceedings were almost halted when a downpour sent cars pirouetting into one another and into the wall at Reid Park – prompting the race’s first ever Safety Car period. Rain would make for a tough assignment in the old days of the ‘once-a-year-warrior’ co-drivers. They’d arrive at Bathurst maybe feeling a bit out of practice as well as being not totally familiar with what is someone’s else’s car, and…

The Bathurst 1000 is always a dramatic and memorable affair for Dick Johnson Racing – one way or another. The team somehow has a history of finding trouble and strife on the Mountain like no other, before bouncing back to competitive form to challenge for the win a year or two later. In truth, we could have easily filled a top 40 or 50 most memorable DJR Bathurst moments! The oldest squad in the Supercars paddock has experienced the full gamut of emotions and results since Dicky J first ‘rocked’ up to the Mountain with his eponymous team in 1980, having previously spearheaded Bryan Byrt Ford’s squad (and after having debuted at Bathurst in ‘73 in a Holden). In 2018 DJR Team Penske heads to Bathurst as one of the…

Bathurst ’63 survivors This issue’s ‘Galah Performance’ story reminded us that there are no known surviving cars from the first Bathurst classic, the 1963 Armstrong 500. At least, none known to us. Five years ago we put the call out for info on the whereabouts of any of the 57 machines that blasted off the grid on October 6, 1963. While we received a few snippets of info – including confirmation of the eventual demise of the race winner – none of it led to a positive identification a ’63 Bathurst survivor. So let’s have another crack at it and this time we’ll widen the request. We’re after any info on the cars or campaigns, as I’m sure we’ll uncover some other great stories to tell in future issues. On…