Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 129 i Australian Muscle Car

February saw the return of the Gnoo Blas Classic, retaining its status as one of, if not, the biggest regional car shows in NSW. Long-standing club president of the Gnoo Blas Classic Car Club (and entrant in the inaugural 1960 ATCC race) Denis Gregory sadly passed away in November 2021, and the 2022 event was very much a tribute to Denis. Held at Sir Jack Brabham Park within the confines of the former Gnoo Blas circuit at Orange, there was a great variety of cars, bikes and trucks in attendance. Over 600 entrants competed for the honour of receiving the Denis Gregory Trophy for the Car of Show. Grant Denyer presented trophies to the category winners, with Denis Gregory’s son Dean presenting the Denis Gregory Trophy to Peter Coterill for…

It’s 1987 and an Australian car manufacturer is setting up a new division to develop hot versions of its locally-built rear-wheel drive sedan. No, folks, we’re not talking about Holden Special Vehicles. While 35 years on HSV still exists, albeit as a shadow of its former self, the business we’re recalling here has long since passed into history. It was Nissan Special Vehicles Division. NSVD was only around for about four years, but in that time it was a hive of activity covering off all sorts of projects. Two runs of 200 Skyline GTS sedans was the undoubted highlight. Tuned-up and styled-up, they were praised at the time for their cohesive handling and performance and are now and rare and valued collectors’ item. Our guide for this deep dive into…

The Monaro What is it? “It’s a 2003 Monaro CV8 V2 Series II auto.” Why did you buy it? “At the time I had been driving a silver VT Commodore, the Olympic Edition, but the lease was up so I was in the market for a new car. Ever since I first saw the new model Monaro, the prototype at the 2000 Motor Show, owning one was in the back of my mind. To me it was as good a looking a car as anything you’d get out of Europe, for a half or a third of the price – and with at least as good a set of performance characteristics. “So I borrowed a road test Monaro from Holden for a few weeks, to see what the car was…

Back in 1988, Troy Perichon was a 15 year-old petrolhead. After school he would head over to the Melbourne workshop of legendary engine builder and crew chief Mick Webb to do some work and learn from the master. One of the cars there at the time was the XF Falcon which Webb built for the AUSCAR races on Calder Raceway’s Thunderdome and driven by Jim Richards. “Apart from hanging around Mick’s workshop and doing various odd jobs, I went to Calder with the team on race days to help crew the car,” remembers Troy, “and got to know Jim and others involved in the AUSCAR series.” For a youngster with a developing passion for motorsport, to get involved with a project like the AUSCAR Falcon and spend time with famous…

Lee Lazer Gordon (birth name Lee Gevorshner) was officially born in 1923 in Michigan, USA (though some sources say he was actually born in 1917 in Florida) and graduated in 1944 with a degree in business administration. He tinkered around with promotions on the fringes of the US entertainment world as well as the marketing of electrical appliances. In Cuba he became involved with promoting acts at the Tropicana nightclub at a time when it was being run by the Cuban Mafia, setting up a pattern of life that he later seemed to follow in Australia. Much of the Lee Gordon story is shrouded in myth and self-promotion by the mercurial promoter, so sorting fact from fancy is never easy. He arrived in Australia in 1953 at the suggestion of…

A pair of EH Holdens from Classic Carlectables – workhorses this time. The EH was, as I’ve said before, a world-class car from Holden. For what it cost, it was one of the best cars anywhere for its time. Plenty of space, comfort, power. OK, not so much in the braking department, but when you only have cross-ply tyres, you can’t abuse the brakes so much anyway. Particularly the van, with Arnotts Biscuits livery, the two cars capture classic brands and memories of days gone by. These are the first two of a new series from Classic Carlectables and we can’t wait to see what the future brings. Classics have gone to some lengths to try to capture the feel of the real thing. Opening the rear of the car…

When Peter Brock claimed an against-the-odds victory in the Bathurst 500 in 1972 in his HDT Torana LJ XU-1, a legend was born. The 50th anniversary of Brock’s first Bathurst win was celebrated at the Phillip Island Classic historic meeting in March with a huge display of XU-1 road cars, parade laps, and an on-track photo shoot on the Saturday afternoon. On the Thursday morning before the event an eager group of 33 enthusiasts, predominantly Sydney-based, assembled to begin their annual pilgrimage to the meeting. Eight LC and LJ Toranas (mostly LJ XU-1s) were joined by three LH/LX Toranas, a genuine Group C Escort, and a mild custom FC Holden. It seemed appropriate that we travelled via the Monaro Highway through Cooma, then on through Cann River to the overnight…

There’s a lot riding on next year’s introduction of the new Gen3 formula in Supercars racing. Will it deliver the promised cuts in operating costs so sorely needed by the teams? Will Supercars be able to maintain genuine power and torque parity between two very different configuration engines: the single-cam, two-valve 5.7-litre Chev versus Ford’s overhead cam, four-valve 5.4-litre V8? And will the hardcore Holden fans remain engaged with it: will they happily go along with the idea of supporting Camaros instead of Commodores? While all this is being played out, Supercars might well find itself looking nervously over its shoulder. Because if the future of touring car racing in this country is a control tube-frame chassis based around Chev Camaro and Ford Mustang silhouettes, there is already just such…

John Goss has both hands full in his McLeod Ford Falcon GT trying to keep Holden opponents Bob Morris and Allan Grice at bay at Honda Corner at Amaroo Park in 1974. This was round three of the Sun-7 Chesterfield Series, and while Colin Bond won easily in his Holden Dealer Team LH Torana SL/R 5000 (the L34 upgrade was not yet on stream), this tussling trio kept the crowd spellbound. Near the end Grice went down the inside of the Falcon at the stop-go corner but got it wrong and the two cars touched, allowing Morris through into second place. Earlier Morris had claimed an exciting second place in the heat race, too, sneaking ahead of Grice after the two Toranas rubbed panels side-by-side through the final corner. It…

Something for everyone The beginning of the year is always a time of anticipation in the slot car world, with the manufacturer plans being gradually revealed. Once again, the main event for announcements, the Nuremberg Toy Fair, has been cancelled due to Covid. Instead, the announcements flowed out over the internet during January and February, so now is a good time to go through those relevant to Australia. Naturally all of our attention was focussed on the Australian Scalextric releases that once again included six cars commissioned by Southern Models. There have been many calls for a Torana XU-1, and Holden fans will be delighted that there are not one, but two coming out this year. First up is the Peter Brock championship-winning HDT car from 1974, accompanied by the…

Downies have had its Ian Geoghegan Mustang in 1:18 scale for a while now, but here’s a trio of the car in 1:43. Big Pete Geoghegan won the Australian Touring Car Championships three times in a row, from 1967-69. Up until 1968 the Championship was decided by a single race, so you had to have all your ducks lined up and get everything right on the day. Then, in 1969, you had to be consistent and competitive over a series, another skill set. Geoghegan won both kinds of Championship, while being spectacular and generating huge fan support and popularity. Not only was this model Mustang the best-looking (in my humble opinion), but the simplicity of the livery and sponsor signage is so much nicer than some of the very busy…

Not even the March NSW floods could stop the mighty little Mini when the Mini Car Club of NSW held its 60th anniversary of the Mini celebration at Sydney’s Rosehill Racecourse. The event featured a huge array of Minis, including an early ’61 model Morris 850 with 5000 miles on the clock, a pair of Mini Monacos, the Brian Foley/ Laurie Stewart Broadspeed Mini that clocked 205km/h down Conrod Straight at Bathurst in Easter 1967, the Paddy Hopkirk/Brian Foley ’67 Bathurst and the Gary Leggatt, Peter Lander Cooper S class winner from the ’74 Bathurst race. A silent auction was held (with the winners announced by Will Hagon, seen here below, flanked by former Mini racers Lakis Manticas, on left, and Don Holland), with some $2500 raised from the event…

The cat amongst the Torana pigeons on the road trip from Sydney to Phillip Island was this neat looking Ford Escort Twin Cam. But it’s not just any old Escort, as this one competed in the ’74 Bathurst 1000, with Jim Sullivan and Ian White sharing it to fifth in class B, and 16th outright. We understand that the road trip was the longest trip the Escort’s had since that ’74 Bathurst! The owner is on the lookout for colour pics of the car from that event, so if anyone can help just drop us a line here at AMC.…

Melbourne-based Darren Forrest and Mount Gambier’s Paul Razum (‘Razz’ to his friends) made it to Bathurst in 2021 (and will again this year) after the original plan to run it in 2020 was thwarted due to the pandemic forcing the race’s cancellation. Their car is hard to miss. It’s painted in the colours and markings of a World War II Royal Australian Air Force P-40 Kittyhawk fighter operated by 76 Squadron in New Guinea and the islands to north. The reason? Darren Forrest’s grandfather. Darren describes himself as ‘a dreamer who always wanted to race at Bathurst in a Holden V8’ to pay homage to his late grandfather, Cliff Elms, who served with 76 Squadron as ground crew during the war. RAAF squadrons had their own two-letter code at the…

Here is a trivia question. Name a Tasmanian driver who made his mark in single seater racing cars before seeing the light (and dollar signs) and moving to a successful career in touring cars. He also fiddled with his year of birth to appear younger and appeal to sponsors and then went on to reinvent himself as a star of Touring Car Masters? John Bowe? No? How about his long-time adversary Andrew Miedecke? In many ways their careers ran in parallel, but while Bowe scored a number of national championships Miedecke always came up short. It was not through lack of ability, as he was an aggressive and hard-as-nails racer who never left anything on the table. Inevitably there were plenty of big crashes and blown engines and that took…

In the 15 years following the Second World War, Australia went through a massive cultural shift. What had been a heavily British-influenced society was transformed by the experience of war on its doorstep, and the arrival down under of many thousands of American servicemen. Then in 1956 came television – and with that an overwhelming flood of American programming to add a fresh layer of American cultural influence to the Hollywood movies we’d been digesting for the previous 40 years. With those heavily massaged images of folksy idealism and rootin’ tootin’ western tales came the more subtle and subliminal messages of American consumerism. And that included fast foods. Let’s not think that that automatically means McDonald’s, KFC or Pizza Hut, or any of the many other brands that today line…

Last issue’s cover story on ‘big banger’ stock block V8 openwheeler racing featured an Elfin MR8-Chev Formula 5000. Unbeknownst to AMC when we were putting the mag together, our Adelaide-based friend and master scale model maker Geoff Wood was in the midst of creating a model of that very MR8 in 1:18 scale – as well as the original Elfin Formula 5000 model, the Repco-Holden V8-powered Elfin MR5. These Elfin Formula 5000 models are Geoff’s personal tribute to Elfin founder Garrie Cooper on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his passing, on Anzac Day 1982. “I’d intended for many years to build a couple of Elfin Formula 5000 models and finally got started about 12 months ago,” Geoff told us. “To build them required large and equal doses of…