Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 137 i Australian Muscle Car

Holden’s 253cid V8 today is the forgotten man in Holden’s V8 history. Not only was it overshadowed by its larger capacity, more powerful 308 V8 brother, but it was barely on a par performance-wise with the big sixes from Ford and Chrysler. To be fair, that was probably to be expected given the larger of Ford’s two six-cylinder engines was 250cid (4.1-litre) in capacity, just a tad smaller than the (4.2-litre) 253 V8. And the Valiant’s big six was even bigger at 265cid. But therein lay the dilemma of the 253. It was never meant to be a high-horsepower ‘hero’ V8: from the beginning it was aimed at taking on the big Ford and Chrysler sixes. Planning for a bespoke Holden V8 engine began back in 1963. At the time,…

While rummaging through the AMC photo archives we stumbled upon a pic of Pat Peck’s Torana XU-1 from the 1971 Bathurst 500. What attracted our attention was the additional driver’s-side mirror mounted up high. The same unusual style mirror placement also featured on Peck’s XU-1 Sports Sedan (which we featured in AMC #117). What was this about, we wondered? Pat Peck sadly is no longer with us, but Ron Gillard was closely associated with Pat and her husband Darcy Peck back then, and he also raced the Torana Sports Sedan. The additional external mirror, Gillard says, was fitted at Pat’s request. “She was a bit worried about who was behind her all the time,” Gillard says. “She tended to drive in the mirrors a bit too much. I tried to…

It’s been over 40 years since I’ve been to Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud. I remember as a pimply teenager that going to New Zealand was like stepping back into the 1960s. The roads seemed full of Ford Zephyrs and Morris Minors. Of course, things are very different today. The roads are a hotchpotch of obscure Japanese models we don’t get back home, the ubiquitous SUVs and dual-cab utes, though not in the plague proportions that we seemingly have, plenty of wagons (be still my beating heart…) and more Suzuki Swifts then I’ve seen in, well, a lifetime! The roads, as a general rule, were better, too, with barely a pothole in sight. We travelled on motorways in Auckland and Wellington; otherwise it was single carriageway roads…

Ford Australia boasts a rich heritage of premium long wheelbase V8 models, from the 1955-58 Customline to the 1959-61 ‘Tank’ Custom/Fairlane/Ranch Wagon to the 1962-64 ‘compact’ Fairlane and Falconderived 1967-2007 Fairlane/LTD. Those old enough to remember, though, would argue that the blue oval’s most luxurious and prestigious LWB offering was the full-size US-sourced Galaxie, available in local Ford showrooms from 1964 to 1972. It also set new benchmarks for local Ford V8 muscle, aided by memorable race outings by motor racing luminaries like Lex Davison and Norm Beechey that enthralled Aussie crowds (above). However, only a handful of industry insiders would be aware that in the new millennium serious consideration was given to the return of the Galaxie to the Australian market, in the form of a high-performance flagship created…

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and we desperately needed to do something to promote this new sports car which really wasn’t that sporty – or popular. So there we were at our advertising agency, Mullins Clarke and Ralph (MCR). We’d decided not to go ahead with the rally program (for a whole heap of reasons) but we had to come up with a way of projecting some sort of sporting flavour into this car, the Triumph TR7, which was really just a two-door version of the Triumph Dolomite. Jack Heaven was there, the director of sales and marketing, along with Bill Nolan, the account manager for Jaguar Rover Triumph, and Malcolm McFee, who was head of the agency. And our marketing manager, Russell Turnham, and me. And…

In a small workshop in Australia St, in the inner Sydney suburb of Camperdown, lies the birthplace of the first V8 challenger for the Bathurst 500 title. Before Ford fired its first shots with the Falcon GT, Studebaker dealer Bert Needham Snr oversaw the preparation of a series of these V8-powered cars from the Indiana-based, but now defunct, American car maker. Bert Needham Snr had been involved with Studebakers from the time he was 17, as a mechanic and engineer. Then immediately after WWII Bert Snr made some serious money by buying up war-surplus Studebaker ‘Blitz Wagons’ and reselling whole trucks and parts into an industry starved of tough, reliable trucks, to service post-war Australia. Needham Snr became quite wealthy, and was appointed an official Studebaker dealer by NSW distributor,…

Maniac The Catalina Park circuit in the 1960s was a bit like a mini-Mount Panorama: fences and earth/rock verges close to the road – and where there weren’t, some steep drops offs. Like Bathurst, it was situated in a mountain setting (it was also close by – less than 100km from Bathurst), and almost as fast. Pete Geoghegan set new touring car lap records in his Mustang at both tracks early in 1969, and his Catalina average lap speed of 143.4km/h was just 5km/h slower than his Bathurst record. The track closed in 1970, but reopened within a year or so for rallycross. The made-for-TV rallycross boomed for a short while before petering out towards the end of the decade, leaving the circuit to lay largely idle. It’s still there…

A modern HO Thoroughly enjoyed the article in Issue 135 on the ‘almost’ Falcon GT-HO. But surely to carry the badge the modern GT-HO would need to be what the original was – developed for the sole purpose of winning at Bathurst! It wasn’t about bragging rights for the most power on the street or fastest quarter mile times. And we still have a 6-hour production car race at the Mountain each year – the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour. What would a modern GT-HO look like? It wouldn’t just be more horsepower, but lighter weight, reliability, cooling, braking, corner speed, tyre longevity. It would start off looking very similar to a GT with most differences under the skin (special ECU map, 7500 rpm redline, 400+kW, HO camshafts, race manifolds,…

Back in the day Corporate hospitality in motorsport today means a day at the Supercars round where you’ll get to watch the action in air-conditioned and fully-catered comfort in a suite atop the pit complex. Things were different back in the ‘70s – the only way to go was to get yourself an old double decker bus, paint it up in your colours, drive it to the track and invite everyone aboard… With transport authorities starting to phase out the old double-deckers in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, they were as cheap as chips, and easily converted into a mobile party venue/viewing platform. As can be seen here, the trick was to cut the roof off (for better viewing) and replace it with a canvas awning. Then it was…

Muscle Man Robbie Francevic is well known to Australian touring car racing fans for his short but highly successful spell here in the mid ‘80s at the wheel of a Volvo 240T Group A car. He arrived in Australia as if from nowhere, and almost immediately proceeded to ruffle the feathers of the local touring car stars. But Francevic was much more than simply the only non-resident to win the Australian Touring Car Championship. So much more, in fact, that there’s too much to the colourful Kiwi’s career to fit in one issue of AMC. Here is part one of our Robbie Francevic Muscle Man feature. Early days Robbie Franičević (he dropped the ‘i’ early in his career, see Q and A breakout) was born in Point Chevalier in suburban…

Being Good Guys If you step back and take a look at our slot car hobby, it is easy to see there is much more going on than a couple of model cars going around a plastic track. Naturally, it’s difficult to call it a hobby without there being human relationships involved. And as we live in a time when relationships are automatically linked to good mental health, you could say that being part of the slot car community is a good way for some of us to stay healthy. Recently I did step back from slot cars and quietly observed some of the good things going on for us as people. Fundamentally, people getting together for race meetings or swap meets is going to get them out of the…

Holden VL Commodore SS Group A SV in Panorama Silver With its wild body kit and electronically fuel injected engine (a first for Holden V8s), this was the first post-Brock HDT Commodore Group A homologation special and the car Holden hoped would take the fight to those nasty Europeans at Bathurst. After an embarrassingly woeful debut in 1988, it ultimately it did trump the turbos two years later in the Great Race, in an against-all-odds victory that has to be Holden’s finest-ever triumph on the mountain. What you see here from Classic Carlectables is a model of the road car. The then-new SV logo adorns the steering wheel and glovebox, the two-tone five-spoke rims are wearing the factory supplied Bridgestone RE71. Look through the rims to see the etched metal…

We tend to think of the late ‘60s Dodge Challenger as the classic American Mopar muscle car. But the early-series Chargers (not to be confused with our down under ‘Hey’ Charger, of course), also had some serious high-performance credentials. The standout is the second-generation Charger (1968-’72) – and not just because it became immortalised as ‘General Lee’ in the classic Dukes of Hazzard TV series. Let us not forget the legendary streamlined-nosed, high-winged 1969 Charger Daytona/Plymouth Superbird race version. With that wild winged exterior combined with the choice of 7.0-litre Hemi V8 or 7.2-litre Magnum V8 power, the Daytona was late ‘60s classic American muscle on steroids. Unfortunately, it was not to last. At a time when the General Lee was wowing US TV viewers with its spectacular antics as…

Fancy a 2015 Falcon FG-X XR8, with only 460km on the clock? Australian Muscle Car Sales describes it as a ‘brand new’ car, and given that over the eight-plus years since it rolled off the production line its average annual distance travelled is barely 50km, we see no reason to dispute the claim. Here then, is effectively a brand-new six-speed manual FG-X XR8. It’s not the first example of very-low-km late model Aussie muscle to have come up for sale since the closure of the local manufacturing industry, but this one is certainly a rare beauty. It’s finished in Kinetic with black leather trim, and as the final XR8 model it’s powered by the FPV GT-spec 335kw 5.0-litre supercharged V8, with track-tuned RSPEC suspension, Brembo brakes, 19-inch wheels and a…

Sport Adelaide is ‘alive’ once more. Not just because of the return of the Adelaide 500 Supercars race, but also with the rebirth of the Adelaide Motorsport Festival (AMF). This unique event was last held in 2018, slipping off the motorsport calendar the following year with the shutting down of the Adelaide 500. The AMF is dependant of the Adelaide Supercars round, as it uses not only a shortened section of the street circuit but also ‘piggy backs’ off the Supercars race by utilising some of the Adelaide 500 event’s temporary facilities before they’re dismantled and packed away for another year. It’s essentially a historic event commemorating the city’s glorious 11-year spell as host of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. But in addition to the star F1 cars and…

I f the stuffed-shirts at GM would come down from their conservatively decked out boardroom high-horses, and mix with a couple of milkbar racers, they’d discover that all the bits they’d just added to their beloved bestseller have been bolted, tacked on or sprayed-on for years by dear old Frantic Fred the Street Racer. That was journalist Rob Luck’s bitingly-harsh assessment of the HQ Holden SS in the October ’72 issue of Modern Motor magazine. Luck lampooned the new Holden as a ‘middle-of-the-road’ model that will ‘stir little interest in any quarters’ (and presumably least of all with ‘Fred Frantic’!). At best, by not being a GTS, and with Holden’s smallest (253cid) V8 as the only engine option, the ‘Strictly Standard’ (as Luck’s article described it) SS, might not attract…

GT4 might just be the next big thing in Australian motorsport. That might sound like a bold statement given the category’s struggle for numbers in its first decade on the local scene, with barely more than a handful of GT4 cars having ever assembled on the same grid. Nonetheless, several movers and shakers see a big future for it down under as it takes important steps this year towards becoming a standalone category. The first of these came over the 2023 Easter weekend in humble fashion. Three 40-minute races in support of the Bathurst 6-Hour, mostly for production cars which didn’t contest Easter Sunday’s increasingly popular showroom showdown, included a quartet of GT4 machines. Significantly, two of those four cars each emerged victorious across the landmark weekend. Never before had…

February 4, 1973, at Surfers Paradise was a landmark occasion in Australian touring car racing as it was the first race outing for the then-new Group C rules. Holden took opening honours with a pair of wins for Peter Brock in his HDT Torana XU-1, while the Fords struggled with tyre wear on the abrasive Surfers surface. Here Fred Gibson’s XY Falcon GTHO Phase III heads the new McLeod Ford XA Hardtop GT of John Goss. Gossy was quick out of the blocks with the newer model – the factory Ford team was still running its old Phase IIIs six months later.…

He probably doesn’t know it yet, but Greg Modra’s grandson Oscar – who is about to turn four – will inherit the LX Torana V8 Hatchback his grandfather has just finished restoring to its original condition. Let’s hope Oscar and the rest of us will be still allowed to drive petrol cars by the time he takes possession of his inheritance! Based in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and not far from the former GMH plant at Elizabeth, Greg explains why young Oscar will be the beneficiary of the restoration: “I would have liked my grandfather to have given me a car that could also be shared together, so I decided this would be a car for Oscar, part of his inheritance. I hope he maintains the dream and when…