Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 115 i Australian Muscle Car

In the 1970s it was hard to think of anything more quintessentially ‘Aussie’ than the chorus line from that legendary Holden TV ad jingle – surely the ‘C’mon Aussie, C’mon’ of the Australian car industry. Except that this famous Aussie ad turned out to be a direct copy of Chevrolet’s 1974 campaign in the USA, with the chorus changed from the original ‘Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Apart from an example of what car companies could get away with in the pre-internet age, it shows how public perception doesn’t always reflect reality. Holden has been American-owned since 1931. For practical purposes, this ‘Aussie icon’ is no more Australian than Ford Australia was when both companies were still making cars in this country. The idea of Holden as ‘Australia’s…

Val Andrews has never worked as a paid photo model. She doesn’t even like having her picture taken. But back in the day, as a favour to a family member Val did agree to be photographed in front of a new Ford Falcon. Half a century on and Val found herself reenacting that photoshoot she did way back in 1969, as part of the ‘Back to Lot 6’ day held over the Bathurst 1000 weekend last October. Val is seen here striking a pose with Con Delaveris’ magnificently presented two-door XT Falcon replica (which we featured back in AMC #113) of the original show car. The special one-off two-door XT Falcon GT which Ford displayed at the ‘69 Melbourne Motor Show hinted at that the possibility of a two-door option…

Gary Chick is a Holden man. Over the years he and wife Karen have owned a succession of Holdens (including a unique VR dual-cab ute – custom-built years before Holden brought out the Crewman in 2003), and now they are the custodians of the Craven Mild Commodore VC which Allan Grice and John Smith drove to seventh place in the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000. Gary bought the car in 2012 and now, eight years later after an extensive restoration effort to return it to its 1980 Bathurst trim, it is ready to race once more. In a unique symmetry of scheduling, it hit the track at this year’s annual Phillip Island Classic historic race meeting almost exactly 40 years to the day since Bob Morris gave the car its race debut…

For many of us, this is unthinkable. Those old enough to remember how ‘Australia’s Own’ Holden revolutionised transport in Australia in the 1950s probably never would have imagined that it would ever come to this. And their children, the post-Baby Boomers, many of whom grew up in a suburban Australia where the family car was either a Holden or a Ford (and sometimes a Valiant), but mostly a Holden – for most of them, even those not interested in cars, Holden was such an integral feature on the Aussie cultural landscape that it would be hard to imagine an Australia without Holdens. Even those who did know that Holden wasn’t actually Australian-owned… The announcement by parent company General Motors to ‘retire’ its Australian brand shook the nation. It shouldn’t have,…

There’s no doubt we’re into a new Australian automotive era now. At Walkinshaw Park in Clayton, HSV is converting Chevrolet Camaros and Silverados from left to right-hand drive. Up in the northern suburbs of Melbourne at Premcar, they’re producing a higher performance version of the Navara pick-up for Nissan. Back in the day, HSV specialised in hotting up locally-built Holden Commodores, while Premcar – then known as Ford Performance Vehicles – did the same thing to Falcons.“ But perhaps the most poignant, interesting story right now might be what’s going at the old Ford plant in Campbellfield, where Falcons and Territorys were built until October 2016. A part of the assembly line has come alive again to build the Mustang R-Spec, a supercharged version of the iconic pony car. It’s…

Hatching a plan It seems to me that I plan ahead for these columns and just as I’m getting down to build a new project, someone reads my mind. A while back I had the Moffat XY GT-HO championship winner from 1973 ready to go, and then it pops up in the Scalextric catalogue. Now, just as I was planning to do a Torana hatchback as though Scalextric might do it, up it pops in their range for 2020! Not just the Bob Morris A9X, either, but also the Brock HDT car, as part of Southern Models’ range of Australian market exclusive releases. This project also comes at a fitting time to celebrate Holden’s legacy of motorsport involvement, which is about to draw to a close. No other manufacturer has…

Peter Taplin came to purchase his ACR Stryker through his friendship with Dennis Bedford. He’d already built one of Bedford’s kit cars, the Silverstone Roadster, and was intrigued by the idea of the Stryker. “A guy in America drew it up as a modern interpretation of a Cobra,” Taplin says. “As far as I know, he put it to Ford as a potential model to build but they didn’t pick it up. “Then the guys in Melbourne took it on, and changed it a bit.You can see the echoes of the original Cobra in it, but it does look genuinely new and different.” In addition to going to some lengths to individualise his Stryker, Taplin didn’t spare the expense with the build. His donor car was a 2010 Falcon XR8…

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…

In a deal that could be announced by the time you are reading this, the Walkinshaw Group is expected to represent GM in Australia. The plan was flagged when the axing of Holden was announced on February 17, with references made to GM Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) in a media release and during a press conference. “Although it’s not firmed up formally, our intent and our desire is to stay in the market, albeit in a different format and a different model with the GM Specialty Vehicles,” GM International Operations Senior Vice President Julian Blissett told the media. While the Walkinshaw Group wasn’t named specifically, the company itself and the family it’s named after have deep ties to both Holden and GM. The late Tom Walkinshaw created Holden Special Vehicles and…

Adam Bressington’s 2020 TCM Campaign could not have got off to a better start, the Camaro driver scoring overall victory in the season opener in Adelaide to grab the early series lead. To bag the points lead and victory in the first race of the season – Bressington’s first win in more than 12 months – was a case of perfect timing as the NSW driver is still to secure sufficient funding to complete the full season. It was an incident-packed opening round, the carnage commencing at the very first corner of the first race as John Bowe made a rare error under brakes that triggered a multi-car melee. Bowe apologised on national TV afterwards, and was docked 30 championship points. Jason Gomersall and Jim Pollicina made it a Torana…

The Gnoo Blas Classic Car Club commemorated the 60th Anniversary of the Australian Touring Car Championship on 15-16 February. Their car show, held each year within the former Gnoo Blas circuit at Sir Jack Brabham Park, Orange, attracted a huge variety of vehicles, with close to 700 cars, bikes and trucks on display. New this year was the hourly bus ride around the circuit with commentary providing an insight to the circuit, cars, and speeds in 1960. A unique feature of the event is the Saturday night dinner. Five original participants, Kevin Bartlett, Denis Gregory, Jerry Trevor-Jones, Charlie Smith and Charlie van Schaik were present, along with guest speakers Tony D’Alberto, John Crennan and Garry Rogers. The large audience enjoyed the motorsports stories throughout the ATCC’s history. For those wanting…

City-street motor racing events are hugely popular days. In the modern era it began with the ’85 Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide – on the same Adelaide streets where today’s Supercars season kicks off each year. But the concept of city street-circuit racing wasn’t an Adelaide invention. Their neighbours to the west had been doing it for decades. In Western Australia, there’d been racing around the houses in the 1960s at Bunbury, Geraldton, Collie and Carey Park, at Northam and Narrogin in the ‘50s, Applecross and Toodyay in the ‘40s, and Pingelly and Albany in the ‘30s. Albany first hosted racing in 1936, on a 4.0km circuit through the town’s central business district. That inaugural Albany race meeting is considered the first ‘proper’ European style motor racing event held in…

The critically acclaimed and surprisingly popular Ford v Ferrari film has shone the spotlight on the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hour race and the extraordinary lengths that Ford went to secure victory. Thirteen Ford GT40s including eight entries from three factory supported teams against a Ferrari team operating on little more than Ford’s catering budget! There were six antipodean drivers in the Ford camp. The Kiwis included the victorious Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon plus Denny Hulme (who drove with Ken Miles) both in Shelby American entries. The Australian contingent were Frank Gardner and Brian Muir in Alan Mann Racing GT40s and Paul Hawkins in a Holman and Moody Ford. But for the tragic fickle hand of fate there should have been a fourth Australian born driver at Le Mans…

The end of the 1970s were strange days for touring car racing in Australia. The 1980 season had been keenly anticipated, as it was set to feature all-new rules and new model cars, but best of all the return of Ford with an Allan Moffat-led factory team. Moffat’s works XD Falcons would face Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team, and top privateers like Allan Grice and reigning champ Bob Morris, all in new VB model Commodores, along with Kevin Bartlett in the Channel Nine Camaro. It was a tantalising prospect. But that’s not how it happened. Ford opted not to return, partly over its fear of a touted 350-Chev powered Commodore (which never eventuated). As a result, Holden also withdrew, the General concluding that there wasn’t much to be…

A couple of issues ago (AMC113), we took a deep dive into the first ‘non-Holden supported’ HDT road cars produced by Peter Brock. This is the car that stands on the other side of the divide. HDT 14 is the last race car built and campaigned by Brock’s Holden Dealer Team prior to its divorce with General Motors Holden on February 20, 1987. This car is also responsible for the squad’s last victory as a factory team, which came on the concrete-lined Wellington street circuit in New Zealand – barely a month prior to the split that shook Australia. While the separation of Brock and Holden marks a significant point in this car’s history, so too is there a remarkable union. Brock had recruited long-time foe Allan Moffat to be…

I just knew that Geoff Wood, our go-to man for model modifications, would have done some Nissan work (as per last issue’s column). And indeed he has. First, I was unaware that Dinkum Classics had modeled the Nissan Bluebird in 1:43 scale. In my defence, this was before I was much of a collector, so it flew under my radar at the time. Geoff took what was a pretty crude casting by today’s standards and cleaned it up and repainted it to order. “Your call out had me drawing a blank initially,” Geoff says, “until l remembered l once customised a Dinkum Classics 1:43 Bluebird. There’s an ad in the 1983/84 Australian Motor Racing Yearbook revealing how long ago Dinkums actually produced them, although l had never seen one until…

Back in the day, entering last year’s model in The Great Race was more often than not a recipe for… failure or disappointment. Sure, there were exceptions in the classic era, such as John Goss taking his XA Falcon GT to victory in 1974 when the XB was current, and our recent find; the Ken Stacey XR Falcon GT showing up the current XTs in 1968. However, 1971 was not the time to take a year-old XW Falcon GT-HO Phase II to the Mountain. Not when the recently released Phase III was thirteen seconds per lap faster in race trim. Better not tell Bert Fenton then… Bert Fenton was one of those guys that had been around the Sydney tracks for a few years. He wasn’t unfamiliar with Mount Panorama…

Tickford has become an official partner of American Ford performance tuning house Roush Engineering. The partnership sees Tickford now able to offer a variety of Roush Performance upgrades for the Mustang and F150 series through its Melbourne and Sydney locations, along with the additional five Tickford Enhancement Centres around the country. Tickford will also work closely with Roush in the development of new products for Fords. The two companies share a philosophy of only working with, and on, Ford vehicles. The Roush name is legendary in the US when it comes to racing and Ford road car performance enhancement Jack Roush’s career began as an engine development engineer at Ford in 1964, before forming Roush Performance Engineering in 1976. Apart from a brief spell with Chrysler in the early ‘70s,…

The threat posed by the Coronavirus was hit home in this country in spectacular fashion with the shock last-minute cancellation of the Australian Grand Prix. In a chaotic chain of events, as early as the Thursday evening before the AGP weekend the international motorsport media was reporting the event was set to be called off (reports that several prominent F1 drivers had already flown out of Melbourne turned out to be correct). In what was numerously described as a ‘fluid’ situation, events moved quickly after several F1 crew members tested positive to the virus on Thursday. For a while it seemed as though a domestic race meeting would go ahead featuring the local categories, including Supercars, S5000 openwheelers and TCR. As late as 8am on Friday morning the Australian Grand…

Elsewhere in this issue of AMC is a detailed introduction to the new Steven Johnson Falcon XD – a car which pays homage to the 1980 Group C XD racer of Steven’s famous father, Dick Johnson, who fittingly gave the big blue Ford its first shakedown laps at the Lakeside circuit ahead of its Adelaide TCM debut. But at Adelaide the Johnson Falcon wasn’t the only new 1980-model TCM racer with a father/son connection stretching back to the ‘80s. Gerard McLeod debuted his newly built Commodore VC, decked out in a livery reminiscent of the colours his father, Peter, ran on his Group A Commodore VK at Bathurst in 1986. (This was the car McLeod was to have raced at Bathurst in ‘87, but he ended up switching to the…

We’ve not seen much motor racing so far this year due to the Coronavirus, but we did at least get in the annual Phillip Island Classic. It featured the debut of our cover car, the 1980 Craven Mild Commodore, as well as the first appearance in historic racing of the other Bob Morris car from the same year, the Falcon XD, driven by Terry Lawlor. The packed PI programme featured a huge array of old touring cars – and drivers, including Greg Murphy in the Mark Petch BMW M3 from the ‘87 Bathurst 1000, and even Larry Perkins, back behind the wheel of the recently restored Castrol Perkins 2003-season Commodore VY.…

RIP Calais Once again well done on another issue. No doubt you will get a ton of emails about the article you wrote about the death of the Commodore (which by the time 115 gets printed the brand will just about be finished for good in the new car section). Wind the clock back and in regards to the deletion of Commodore from the lineup, one other thing that meant was the end of the Calais nameplate. While the Calais was a spin-off from the Commodore, it still had its own following and had its own unique history (without the Calais there would have been no Senator for HSV and no Director for HDT). While people will argue until the end of time if the ZB should have been called…

The overwhelming consensus amongst Supercars’ movers and shakers is that introducing Camaro-shaped cars to compete with the existing Ford Mustangs is the most logical next move for the category, which is facing a dilemma following the shock announcement that the Holden brand will die by the end of this year. But as the sport urgently debates its options, sharp divisions have emerged about how soo n to introduce the Chevrolets. The Walkinshaw Andretti United and Erebus squads want them fast-tracked onto the grid of next year’s Adelaide 500 but others, including Brad Jones Racing and leading Ford squad DJR Team Penske, would prefer Camaro’s introduction is delayed until the already-scheduled commencement of Generation 3 regulations in 2022. “I do not believe it can be done for 2021 in a way…

Dick Johnson wound the clock back to the 1980s when he hot-lapped his born-again Tru-Blu, a car that pays homage to Dick’s 1981 Bathurst winning XD Falcon, at Lakeside Raceway. The five-time touring car champion might be turning 75 in 2020, but the years fell away as quickly as his lap times tumbled. It took him only a couple of Lakeside laps to be pushing the car to its 7000 redline and punching out of the high-speed corners at the Brisbane circuit that has been his home track since the 1960s. “A big smile today. Bloody oath,” Johnson said after he climbed from the car. “I got in a groove. But I could never go through the stresses of being in battle with 30 others cars these days.” DJ ran…

You can no longer buy a new Falcon XR8. But you can buy a second-hand one – and turn it into a lightweight AC Cobra-style two-seater roadster. That’s the essence of an exciting new Australian-made sports car from ACR Industries. The body/chassis unit comes from ACR ready for you to add the Ford mechanicals. And by Ford mechanicals, we mean the lot: the entire drivetrain – engine, transmission and rear axle assembly – front and rear suspension, front and rear brakes, the dashboard module and all the related computer electronics you get in an FGmodel Falcon. The ACR Stryker will even accept the standard Falcon air conditioning. “In theory,” says Steve Seretis, one of the key men behind the ACR Stryker, “you could have a car rolling in three hours.”…

Craig Lowndes’ Holden Commodore VS ‘98 ATCC winner This new 1:18 scale release from Classic Carlectables features a highly detailed cockpit with a flat-bottomed race steering wheel, electronic dash instruments, switches, gauges and console. The highly detailed boot features twin fuel pipes, fuel swirl pot, oil catch can, fuel pumps, filters and the complicated plumbing. The engine bay has a removable carbon fibre engine cover. The canisters, bottles, leads, hosing, working bonnet hinges and struts are all well shown. Superb chassis detail with working suspension and steering, oil setup, hosing, anti-roll bar, brake cooling duct tubing, flywheel, gearbox and exhaust manifolds. Craig Lowndes has been and remains and enormously popular character in Supercars racing so the 750 examples of this model will vanish in a big hurry. Head over to…