Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 123 i Australian Muscle Car

Joey Mawson clinched the first Australian Drivers Championship held for the new Ford V8-powered S5000 openwheelers after a nail-biting final round at Sydney Motorsport Park. Mawson only needed to finish in the points in the final race of the four-round championship, but his hopes looked dashed just moments after the start when he slid off the road through the Sweeper.With car escaping a high speed strip through the outfield without damage, Mawson resumed to finish in an eight place that saw him home ahead of title rivals Tim Macrow and Thomas Randle in the points. Mawson, recently returned to Australia after an abortive European openwheeler campaign, said the win meant more to him than his victory in the 2016 German Formula 4 Championship – when he beat current F1 driver…

Former Formula 5000 racer Graeme Lawrence is a kind of Kiwi version of our featured Muscle Man this issue, Max Stewart. They were frequent competitors in openwheelers both here and in New Zealand (and in Asia) in the 1970s, and Lawrence was a regular visitor to our shores with his Lola T332-Chev Formula 5000 (Lawrence also dabbed in touring cars, with six appearances in the Bathurst 1000, four of which were with Murray Carter in the latter’s Falcon XC and XD. Interestingly Lawrence’s best Bathurst finish, third with Carter in 1978, exactly matches Max Stewart’s best in the Great Race, in 1967). Older Australian race fans will well remember Lawrence’s beautifully presented red/white Lola during the Tasman Series in 1975. The stunning looking machine can be seen here in side…

Preparing for Charger The Charger is unquestionably the most loved and best known of all Australian Chrysler Valiants. It’s probably also the best looking Aussie Val: while style and taste are subjective matters, surely few would dispute that the Charger was a thing of quite stunning beauty in 1971, and still looks good 50 years later. It’s a car that’s embedded in Australian pop culture history for the iconic ‘Hey Charger’ TV ad; it won the coveted Wheels magazine Car of the Year award in 1971, even if the R/T E38 version didn’t win that year’s Bathurst 500 (but it did represent an enormous step up from the previous VG Pacer Hemi 245, in performance terms as well as appearance). In R/T E49 form in 1972 it took the 265…

Revolution Fibreglass was a manufacturer of fibreglass boats. But in the late ‘70s the company’s chief Bill Kain saw what was happening with the proliferation of fibreglass bodies being made (and sold) to fit VW Beetles and decided to get in on the act – after all, making a fibreglass body for a car wasn’t all that different from making a fibreglass boat shell. They hadn’t had their Beetle-based Condor up and running very long when Kain and his team came up with a better idea: a Chev Corvette type targa-top coupe using the mechanicals from a Holden panel van, ute or one-tonner. It was a minor stroke of genius. In hindsight it’s surprising no one thought of it earlier, but then Holden’s humble commercial vehicle workhorse was hardly the…

While the Perentti was based on Holden mechanicals, there was a range of other ‘donor’ models from which parts were sourced. They weren’t all Holden – and some were Ford. The fuel tank was Falcon XA-XB sedan/ wagon. While the door hinges, latches and handles that came fitted with the Perentti were HQ-HZ Holden, on the inside of the doors the window winder handles were Falcon XA-XB. The rear number plate light was from an XE Falcon. Inside, Revolution Fibreglass specified a Commodore VB-VC dashboard and centre console. The Commodore dash had to be cut and modified on the passenger’s side where it mated to a HZ Kingswood glovebox. The Commodore rear vision mirror was used, but the sun visors were Torana LC-LJ or TD model Holden Gemini. Perenttis fitted…

Holden VS Commodore, 1997 Sandown 500 Not very often you’ll see a Holden with a Tickford sticker on the door. In 1997 Craig Lowndes went to Europe to try his had at F3000. We all know it didn’t go as well as it might have, and at the end of the Northern Summer, Lowndes came home and returned to HRT. The team paired him again with Greg Murphy and the pair picked up where they’d left off, winning the Bathurst pipe-opener. Sadly, the Bathurst race was not to be a repeat, the car crashing early and putting the young fellas out. Like the Falcon, it’s a great example of this earlier period of proto-Supercars, built from production shells and more closely resembling their road-going cousins. This 1:18 scale model is…

The C8 Chevrolet Corvette will go on sale in Australia toward the end of this year. General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) has confirmed the Australian pricing and specifications for what will be the first factory-built right-hand drive Corvette ever made in the near 70-year history of the Corvette model. The new national network of 50 GMSV dealers will be offering five different models (three coupes and two convertibles), starting with the ‘base model’ 2LT coupe, priced at $144,990 (plus on-road costs). The better equipped 3LT will sell for just over $160,000; pricing for the Carbon Edition is yet to be revealed. Tthe 2LT and 3LT will each be available in coupe and convertible form (an additional $15,000 for the convertible across the model range), while the Carbon Edition will be…

The National Trans-Am Series has been something of a revelation so far in 2021, with big fields, some great racing and a solid line up of driver talent that includes some of the hottest young prospects on the Australian motor racing scene. Aaron Seton still leads the way after the third round at Sydney Motorsport Park, and while the Mustang driver has been consistently the man to beat he has come under sustained pressure from Dodge Challenger driver Nathan Herne. Seton and Herne between them have won 10 of the 12 races run so far (the other two being won by Owen Kelly). The pair left Eastern Creek first and second in the series, with Seton on 722 points, a mere four ahead of Herne. Seton had looked set for…

As the XY model Falcon GT-HO Phase III approaches its 50th birthday later this year comes a new book on the legendary 1971 Bathurst 500 contender. The book, The 1971 Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III Register, which is officially licensed by the Ford Motor Company, is crammed with information on the iconic Ford muscle car known previously only to insiders. It contains a detailed history on every specific GT-HO Phase III built, and each car’s story of survival told. Included are how many are left, how many were stolen, how many were crashed or written-off, how many were raced, and how many are still missing in action. With this painstakingly researched book, mysteries are solved, myths busted, and secrets revealed. Among the myths busted/verified are: was there ever an…

While rummaging through our 1974 Bathurst photo archives we stumbled upon this rear-end shot of the Bob Forbes/ Wayne Negus Torana L34 that finished second that year. We were intrigued – we’d never noticed the signage on the rear bumper before, and it got us wondering: what (or who) was The Phantom Gobbler? So we asked Bob Forbes himself – but he was none the wiser! “I’m a bit annoyed at myself because I should be able to remember what or who that was,” Forbes says, “but I’ve got no idea!” Was the Phantom Gobbler the name of one of Bob’s sponsors (or a sponsor’s slogan) that year, or was it the work of a practical jokester? We’re reminded that this was the same year that one Peter Brock secretly…

You have to feel for the Chrysler guys back in 1971. They had done a pretty damn good job with the Charger E38, managing to deliver a Bathurst 500 contender that was such an improvement over the VG Pacer as to be something of a revelation – and they did it on the tightest of shoestring budgets. Wheels magazine waxed lyrical about the car, beginning its road test article with: As 179 became the catchcry in 1964, so too will E38 in ’71-’72. And you can bet your boots on that! A little over the top, maybe, but there was no denying the potency of the E38’s triple-Weber fed Hemi 265. With almost 300 horsepower on tap, the big Hemi six was some kind of engine – by far the…

Short and long wheelbase locally-built Fords weren’t the only models sold by FTE. The imported 2.5-litre V6 Cougar coupe also fell under its banner, if only for a short period as sales proved disappointing. But more significant was the fourth generation Mustang SVT Cobra coupe and convertible, which was imported form the USA in left-hand drive and converted locally by TVE. Like the Walkinshaw Group’s experience with the Chev Camaro nearly 20 years later, the conversion itself was of high quality, but the cost drove the price out of reach. The manual-only V8 coupe (with its silky-sweet 240kW 4.6-litre quad cam V8 engine) was priced from $85,000 and the convertible from $89,000. Sales were disappointing and lasted only a couple of years between 2001 and 2003. “I think it was…

Some kind of special If you are a regular reader of this column then you have probably noticed one of the ongoing themes is to build slot cars relevant to the muscle car world. The recent passing of John Harvey makes my project to build the Bob Jane McLaren Repco especially so – ‘Harves’ used this V8-powered beast to dominate sports car racing in ’71 and ‘72. When Italian company Thunderslot started making white kits of the McLaren M6 a year ago, my mind was drawn to thoughts of the Bob Jane/John Harvey McLaren Repco and I put my money down for one. After the postie dropped of the package, things got a bit more complicated. The McLaren Repco was a special car and I wanted to find out as…

Revolution Fibreglass’ main business was building boats but the company also produced a range of fibreglass accessories – for both land and sea craft. Eric Tattersall (the man who created the Perentti buck using Corvette C3 panels as a guide), says they did a lot of aftermarket car spoilers and body kits. “We used to do the fibreglass kits for Jim Faneco’s CDT – Geminis, Falcon XD XC body kits and other things. They’d bring a brand new car in and I’d tool up off that car and make the plugs for the spoilers, wings and flared guards that they wanted. Then we’d make those parts for them to sell. The craze back then was panel vans with Monza style front ends – we made them too. We did all…

Colin Williams became a Perentti owner almost by accident, after he and his wife couldn’t agree on buying a Ford Mustang. “About five years ago we were looking for a ‘67 Mustang,” Colin says, “but when she’d see one she liked, I’d hate it, and then something I liked, she’d hate. Then I saw this black Perentti. I just thought, I love this thing! It’s got everything I want: a classic V8 muscle car driveline and it’s all Australian, so I can get parts for it. I think I’d vaguely heard of Perentti before, but never seen one. The previous owner told me it’s got a rebuilt 350 Chev crate motor; the transmission is a Turbo 400 with a shift kit, Corvette solenoids and clutches. I fitted a nine-inch Eaton…

The SuperUtes returned to the track at the Supercars Tailem Bend round in May, having spent the entire 2020 Covid-affected year in hibernation. During that time they’ve had a complete makeover, with their former turbo diesel powerplants and four-wheel drive drivetrains making way for a 298kW 6.2-litre LS3 Chev V8, Tremec T6060 six-speed H-pattern manual gearbox and Detroit nine-inch rear axle. Remarkably, even with the larger capacity Chev V8 engine the new-spec utes weigh in more than 100kg lighter than the former diesel versions. In another plus, with what is effectively a control engine, performance parity is said to be more easily achieved than was previously the case with the variety of different capacity and specification turbo diesels from the various dual-cab ute manufacturers. The dual-cab SuperUte category was introduced…

Steven Johnson broke through to record the first race win for his ‘Tru-Blu’ Falcon XD in round three of the Touring Car Masters Series but it was John Bowe who left Sydney Motorsport Park with the series lead. Johnson won the third and final race of the weekend but a fighting third place for Bowe, coupled with second in the Trophy race after a troubled time in the first race of the weekend, saw him accumulate enough points to keep his title rivals at bay. Bowe was pipped at the post in the Trophy Race by fellow Torana LX driver Jim Pollicina, with Bowe earning the consolation prize of a new lap record. Earlier in the weekend Ryan Hansford scored in his Torana LX, going on to claim the overall…

Logan Village in Queensland will host a Car Show to Celebrate 50 Years of Valiant Charger. To be held on August 8 at the Logan Village Hotel, organisers are aiming to have 50 Chargers on hand to celebrate the 50 years, in what potentially could be the largest gathering of Chargers north of the NSW/Qld border. Any Australian-built Valiant Charger is welcome to go on display at no charge, but a local charity will be asking for a gold coin donation on entry. Event organiser (and Charger enthusiasts) Mike Norris says there will not be judging on the day, in order to maintain a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, but there will have a People’s Choice and Entrants Choice award. Entrants are asked to arrive between 7 and 8am, with the…

The Bob Forbes/John Millyard Charger met its end at Bathurst in ’71 when its engine failed. But the car had a narrow escape much earlier in the race, in a bizarre shunt the The Great Race – 50 Years described as the ‘fencing wire incident’. For the rest of its race the car bore the scar of a heavily stoved in driver’s side door, a tell-tale sign of an incident that easily have resulted in complete disaster, as Forbes explains: “One lap going up Mountain Straight, two cars ahead of me came together. It was just before the back entrance to the pits. They hit each other, and one of them, I think it was Scott McNaughton’s Torana, went off through the barbed wire fence and kept on going. “There…

At the end of 2019 the finishing touches were being applied to a restored HK Monaro GTS 327. It had taken some five years of slow, meticulous work to get this ground-up, nut-and-bolt restoration to the point where it was painted and almost ready to be started up and driven. But then came the fires. The bushfires in the summer of 2019/20 were unprecedented in their scale and the devastation they caused. Among the many parts of the country to be affected was the East Gippsland area in eastern Victoria. The fires there were among the first to start, late in 2019, and one of the last to be extinguished. In the three-plus months between November and February, more than 300,000 hectares of the East Gippsland region were charred by…

John Alcorn is well-known in motorsport circles. His company Alcair Airconditioning was a long-time sponsor of Bob Tindal’s Torana A9X and Commodore VL Walkinshaw Sports Sedans (featured in AMC #102), and he was a Commodore V8 Supercar team owner/entrant for much of the ‘90s. But in the late ‘80s he was the NSW agent for Perentti. Alcorn’s involvement came about via his eldest son, Sean, who initially was a Perentti customer. “Sean saw the Perentti and met up with Bill Kain,” Alcorn says “He bought a Perentti kit off Bill; I painted it for him and Sean put it together with a 350 Chev and Turbo 400 auto. “Then Bill Kain approached us to be the NSW distributor. So I financed Sean into doing it, and we set up the…

It may have been ‘hillbilly rules, as Allan Moffat once described Sports Sedan racing, but for a while in the early-to-mid 1970s it was hands down the best form of sedan racing in Australia – faster, louder, more spectacular and a more diverse array of machines than the then-new ‘Bathurst’ Group C touring cars. It gave us some amazing, legendary and even ludicrous cars: brutal beasts like Bob Jane’s Torana XU-1 with Repco-Brabham V8 power, and the HQ Monaro GTS 350, Bryan Thomson’s 5.0-litre Chev V8-engined VW Fastback, Ron Harrop’s wild EH Holden with Repco Holden Formula 5000 V8 power, and even the car they called the ‘Beast, Harry Firth’s lightweight 5.0-litre V8 XU-1. Firth’s ‘Beast’ was, despite its works Holden team status, a good example of the original ‘backyard…