Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 155 i Australian Muscle Car

I was a teenager sitting on the hill at BP Bend at Oran Park the first time I saw Allan Moffat race. I remember it not for what happened in the race, but for the way the crowd reacted when Moffat came around on the warmup lap. He wasn’t the only big-name touring car star there that day, but when Moffat’s Ford came into view as it crested the rise across the dogleg, you could feel the crowd suddenly bristle. You could feel the tension, and then you could hear the cheers and muffled, grumbling boos as the big Ford slowly rumbled past our vantage point. It was an electric atmosphere, and it was all about one man. And the race hadn’t even started yet. Sitting there as a wide-eyed…

Anyone who knew George Shepheard would have described him as a lovely bloke. He was also possibly Australian motorsport’s most versatile bloke, because Shepheard could do just about everything: driving, navigating, car preparing, team management. His record of success across all these fields in a career spanning six decades is probably unparalleled. His father, Reg, owned the RedeX company that’s best known today for the Redex Round Australia Trials of the 1950s. So rallying was in George’s blood, and he began competing in NSW in rallies and hillclimb events alongside a schoolmate by the name of Colin Bond. With Bond driving and Shepheard in the navigator’s seat, the pair won their class in the 1964 Round Australia Trial in a VW Beetle. It was the first big win in what…

Allan Moffat was working as a test driver for Ford’s racing skunkworks Kar-Kraft in America in 1968 when he received a call from Bob Jane’s chief mechanic John Sawyer, who Moffat knew from when he raced a Cortina in Australia. Turns out Jane was sick of being constantly beaten by fellow Mustang racer Pete Geoghegan in Oz and wanted a better mousetrap. Allan Moffat: “John Sawyer called and asked if there were any Trans-Am cars around. Long story short, I do some introductions in Detroit, the deal’s done and Bob gets a ’68 Shelby car. And there was another warehouse there next to Kar-Kraft that was bigger than Texas and full of ex-Trans-Am parts. I organised for them to throw in a bunch of stuff... they filled the Mustang up…

The Boss Back in AMC#152, I listed the BRM 1/24 Allan Moffat Mustang as an upcoming release for 2025, and I am pleased to say it has finally arrived. Following on from doing a review of the RevoSlot Mazda RX7, I thought it was appropriate to do the same with the Mustang. BRM are one of a handful of manufacturers now tackling the ready-to-run market. Ten years ago there were almost none. If you wanted a 1/24 car, you had to buy a model kit car and place a race chassis underneath it. These days Carrera, Scaleauto and now BRM are producing a plethora of different models. Now when I say ready-to-run, I mean that they will run as they come out of the box. But if you are intending…

He was best known for that cheeky, infectious grin, and that trademark Garry Rogers offbeat sense of humour. But in Australian motorsport he was much more than just a loveable larrikin. So too as a driver, Garry Rogers was more than the sum of his achievements. He never won any major titles or races, but across a four-decade career he was widely respected as fast and capable driver. From his beginnings in early Holdens in the ’60s to a rapid BDA Ford Escort Sports Sedan in the ’70s and then the ex-Ian Geoghegan ‘Craven-Mild’ Monaro GTS 350 Sports Sedan, it wasn’t until 1978 that Rogers transitioned to touring cars. In the late 1970s and early ’80s he starred at Bathurst in Torana A9Xs and Commodores, finishing fifth in ’79 in…

For Ford aficionados in this part of the world, it’s the great ‘what if’? What if Ford had continued with a two-door with the XR Falcon and beyond? Who knows, but one thing’s certain: the XW/XY Falcon GTs and GTHOs we know today as four-door sedans would have been available as two-door coupes. It’s possible the GTHOs would have been exclusively two-door Falcons. Ford itself fuelled speculation of just such a car when it displayed a two-door XT Falcon at its stand at the 1969 Melbourne Motor Show. This was just two months before the release of the XW Falcon. That XT coupe show car was a sensation, almost overshadowing Holden’s wildly experimental Hurricane supercar (which also debuted the new Holden V8 engine) and sparking speculation that the new XW…

The introduction of International Group A in Aussie touring car racing in 1985 was quite a culture shock. The big front and rear spoilers, bulging guard flares and super-wide rubber of the previous year’s home-grown Group C machines were all gone, replaced with cars that looked little more than hotted up roadies. For Holden fans, it was a far cry from the ‘Last of the Big Bangers’ dayglo HDT Commodore VKs that had scored a decisive one-two at Bathurst just months earlier – the new Group A Commodores not only were lugging 180kg more weight than the old Group C cars but also had 75kW less grunt. And without the spoilers and flared guards, they looked like lowered Berlinas… When the season kicked off with the ATCC opener at Winton,…

GET YOUR FREE CLUB LISTING in the Club Directory and What’s On... www.musclecarmag.com.au/resources A9X Torana Club Australia Inc. Established to assist all its members identify and preserve genuine examples of the A9X Torana by providing assistance with information, parts, and services. WEB: http://a9xclub.org.au Brock Commodore Owners Assoc. of Australia Inc The Brock Commodore Owners Association of Australia Inc (BCOAA Inc) endeavours to bring together owners of Brock/HDT Special Vehicles built Commodores (VC-VL) and WB Magnums (Statesman and utility variants), produced and issued with a build number during the period that Peter Brock owned and traded under the HDT Special Vehicles Pty Ltd company name from 1980 to 1988. WEB: https://bcoaa.com Canberra Torana Club (CTC) The CTC was founded in 2003 with the goal of preserving the history and experience of…

Adelaide is the birthplace of the Australian Valiant, and therefore it’s the spiritual home of Chrysler down under. So it’s the perfect place for a Chrysler celebration, which will happen over the weekend of March 20-22 next year with the running of the annual Adelaide Chrysler Festival. It starts on the Friday (March 20) with a cruise from Adelaide to The Bend Motorsport Park for laps and lunch, and culminates in the All Chrysler Day at Gaza Oval, Klemzig on the Sunday (March 22). It’s being put on by the Chrysler Car Club of South Australia, one of the biggest and oldest (established in 1984) car clubs in Australia. For more details on the Adelaide Chrysler Festival, go to www.cccsa.net.au…

Allan Moffat died on November 22, 2025. He was 86, and had suffered from the debilitating effects of dementia for many years. It was tragic, and ironic, that a man who had bestrode the Australian motor racing world like a colossus could fade away to a shell of the man he had been in his prime. Because in his heyday, he was one of the most significant – and always the most compelling – figures in touring car racing. Other drivers may have been faster on occasion. Other drivers may have won Bathurst or the Australian Touring Car Championship more often. But no other driver had the burning intensity which Moffat carried around him like a shield – or sometimes a sword. He was a complex, determined and driven man.…

Following an impressive career around Ford in Britain, Europe, America and Australia – as detailed in the previous issue – Nissan Australia tapped Marsden’s experience, ability and salesmanship, appointing him Product Development Manager in early 1976. He would also be responsible for the company’s Datsun Rally Team, which would become a full factory effort after years being run by a subcontractor. The new relationship turned Datsun into a powerhouse of rallying, a category at its zenith in the late-1970s. Together, they won six Australian Rally Championships (with drivers Ross Dunkerton, George Fury and Geoff Portman) and, in the face of stern opposition from Ford, the highly prized (by the Japanese) Southern Cross International Rally, making him the darling of head office in Tokyo. So when he suggested quitting rallying in…

With the passing of Allan Moffat, many have reflected on his career achievements and his place in the history of Australian motorsport. But one of the things that made him unique was his public appeal and commercial bankability. After his breakthrough season in 1969 with the Trans-Am Mustang and his debut at Bathurst in a works Falcon GTHO, things just took off. With success piling on success, Moffat was a virtual household name by mid-1970. With his distinctive Canadian drawl and forthright personality, Moffat emerged as something completely different, a compelling new presence on the Australian sporting landscape. Off the track he could be combative and outspoken, on it he led the Ford charge at the wheel of arguably the most imposing touring car racing muscle we’d ever seen in…