Innholdsfortegnelse for #243 16-10 i Just Cars

Chevrolet’s latest, sixth-generation Camaro has been selected to pace this year’s 100th running of the Indianapolis 500, with the pace car carrying features that’ll appear on a special 50th Anniversary Edition of the Camaro due for US release later this year. Driver of the pace car will be Roger Penske, who is celebrating his own 50th Anniversary – as a race team owner – in 2016, but is better known here as boss of the DJR Team Penske V8 Supercar team that took a majority stake in Dick Johnson Racing in late 2014. Chevrolet has produced four identical Camaros for pace car duty, based on the upcoming 2017 Camaro SS 50th Anniversary Edition, but finished in exclusive Abalone White paint, with Indianapolis Motor Speedway wing-and-wheel logo on the rear quarter…

US fast car specialists, Hennessey Performance, have set a new record for the World’s Fastest Convertible, when their Venom GT Spyder hit 265.6mph (427km/h) this past March. The open-top version of the Venom GT beat the existing record, set by the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport Vitesse, by more than 11mph (17.6 km/h). While the record was not Guinness recognised (neither was the Bugatti’s), it was certified by US company Racelogic, an independent speed-testing firm. The Spyder record comes on the back of a 270.4mph (435km/h) record set by the hardtop Venom GT in 2014. There’s some dispute over this record, though; it was not Guinness-recognised as it did not consist of an average speed from a two-way run, or come from a minimum production car run of 30 units. The…

Amid the packed fields of JUST CARS Historic Touring Car racing, it’s rare to find a car competing that actually raced back in the day. However, there is one original racer that has not only survived for 50 years, but remains highly competitive – with groaning shelves of trophies to prove it! The car is, of course, the well-known blue 1958 FE Holden of Eddie Dobbs. “After fiddling around for 30 years with ride heights and rates, front coils, rear leafs and shock absorbers, we have it handling pretty well on the right tyres.” BLUE BEGINNINGS In its early days, this car famously raced in Appendix J and early Holden series at the hands of Graeme Blanchard. For a teenage Eddie watching on TV, as a fan of the FE/…

When it comes to hire cars for weddings, formals and other special occasions, the stretched Hummer or Chrysler 300 has become the norm. While there’s nothing wrong with these, there are some occasions that call for something with a little more discretion and class. In these instances, a classic Rolls-Royce, Cadillac or Mercedes comes to mind, but how about a Packard? Granted, a Packard isn’t the first make that comes to mind when you think of classic hire cars, but this trio, currently for sale through Adam’s Prestige & Classic Motors, shows Packards can make a real impact! Before they came into Adam’s possession, these Packards – two 1938 models and one 1940 - served with Elite Bridal Cars in Sydney for many years. The history of the three cars…

More than 200 collectable, special interest and other historic vehicles are to be auctioned at a major clearing sale in Geelong this June. The result of decades of collecting, this true ‘barn find’ collection consists of a wide variety of cars and trucks in varying condition and degrees of completeness. Some are accident-damaged, too, but a number of the vehicles that have been kept in undercover storage are solid enough to serve as good bases for restorations or custom projects. There’s a broad spread of makes, models and years in the undercover vehicles, while those stored outdoors are mainly utes and trucks. Many of the lots on offer, all to be offered at No Reserve, consist of ’60s, ’70s and ’80s-era Fords and Holdens including: • Ford XW Futura sedan…

The hyper-realistic renderings of artist Bruce Kirby came to JUST CARS’ attention earlier this year. Bruce has only been drawing in this detailed black & white style for a little over a year, and the Aston shown is his first car-based piece. Using a photograph as reference, Bruce starts each piece in pencil, then works up the depth and detail using architectural fine-liner ink pens. “[The Aston] was my first crack at a car and was quite difficult,” Bruce said. “Just to get the perspective in light pencil took three solid days before I even started with the ink. Once I got going, I was OK, but still aware that I couldn’t make any mistakes once I started with the ink!” Large formats are a feature of Bruce’s work, too,…

After a massively successful Melbourne debut in 2014 (which attracted a record crowd of 28,400), Meguiar’s MotorEx is heading back to the Melbourne Showgrounds this July 16-17. For 2016, MotorEx is pulling out all the stops to create the biggest and best show in the event’s 16-year history! MOVIE MANIA As a tribute to the late George Barris, a dedicated group is putting together what they hope will be the world’s biggest gathering of TV and movie cars. Taking centre stage for the Guinness World Record attempt will be David Scott’s jaw-droppingly-gorgeous DRAG-U-LA replica from The Munsters – which Barris himself described as the best one he’d ever seen. Alongside will be another incredible Barris tribute machine, Andrew Hopkins’s equally-faithful 5.4-metre-long Munster Koach, as well as a stunning Monkees Monkeemobile…

The Historic Touring Cars, supporting the Bathurst 6 Hour at Mt Panomara this past Easter, saw a bumper field of 45 cars line up, including a bunch of HTCAV member cars. The touring car grid, which ranged from Minis to Camaros in size and capacity, was fattened with five Group Sc Porsches and an Sa Austin Healey. Nine HTCAV members took part: John Harrison, Andrew Whiteside, Bill Trengrove, Brent Trengrove, Chris Stern, Stuart Barnes and John Clarke all rode Mustangs; Tony Gilfuis cantered his Capri; and Nathan Gordon hoofed the Holden Torana. For Chris, Tony and Nathan, it was their first pilgrimage to the Unholy Mount. QUALIFYING Vince Macri took pole in his Camaro from the similarly-mounted Dean Neville, with Harrison waving the HTCAV flag in third. Whiteside qualified 7th,…

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But if it was the late 1960s and you were Bruce Meyers, imitation was actually the severest form of frustration. Meyers pretty much invented the dune buggy phenomenon that exploded in the U.S. in the 1960s. Meyers’s design for a light and nimble fun buggy - dubbed the Meyers Manx – was defined by a fibreglass body attached to a shortened Volkswagen floorpan. Sold in kit form, the Manx’s basic two-piece fibreglass body proved easy to copy, which many unscrupulous operators did, flooding the market with cheap and poor quality knock-offs. Fighting the cloners in court for patent infringements proved expensive and unsuccessful, so Meyers brought out new, harder-to-copy designs. The first was the “Tow’d”. Launched in 1967, this dedicated…

In conjunction with Prancing Horse, Shannons’ latest promotion is a weekend of “pure indulgence” in Sydney. The package includes 5-star accommodation at Sydney’s Park Hyatt for two and dinner at award-winning restaurants in the harbour city. Prancing Horse Driving Experiences are providing an Aston Martin Vantage and Jaguar F-Type for the winner and their partner to drive along the Old Pacific Highway on the NSW Central Coast to Bells at Kilcare Hotel. On top of this, there’s seaplane and luxury speed boat experiences, plus a tour of Sydney’s finest shopping precincts with $5,000 spending money and a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce convertible. To enter, get a quote on your car, bike or home insurance. Take out an eligible new policy to get five entries. Terms and conditions apply, so call 13 46…

This past April saw the first ever FPM Expo (Factory Performance Motoring) – a showcase of all sorts of performance machinery, from cars and bikes, to boats and go karts. According to event organisers, AP-E, the three-day expo (8, 9, 10 April), held at Melbourne’s historic Royal Exhibition Building, scored a big thumbs up from attendees. And while crowds weren’t big, there was enthusiasm for the show. While high-performance road and race cars made up the bulk of the machines on display, there was a selection of racing boats and performance motorcycles, too. The welcome inclusion of karts saw an impressive display of new and old karting technology on show in the National Karting Expo, held in conjunction with the main show, in the upstairs section of the Royal Exhibition…

The fourth instalment in Richard Calver’s continuing ‘History of Jensen’ series, Original Interceptor & FF is the world’s first reference book devoted the original features of the Interceptor and FF models. Calver, recognised worldwide as an authority on these British GTs, describes and illustrates key production changes made to both the Interceptor and FF (the Interceptor’s AWD sibling) from 1966 to 1992. Over 384 pages, the features and changes found in the Series I, Series II, Series III and S4 models are documented, illustrated throughout with around 500 colour and B&W illustrations. Numerous charts, graphs and tables spell out the factual basis on which the changes are documented. While the text runs to more than 100,000 words, this is no dry reference book: it can be studied in its entirety…

For a bloke who’s owned a string of classic American pickups, a roadster may seem like a weird diversion, but for Ray Rust, it’s been a perfect fit. In Ray’s garage, a ’48 model Chev C3100 (that’s currently for sale) sits alongside the hot rod featured, but before that, Ray has had a ’69 Chev C10, ’65 Chev longbed, ’52 Chev, ’51 Chev and ’57 GMC pickup in the fleet, as well as a ’66 HR Holden ute. So, given that history, why purchase the car featured? “The Model A was all about owning an old-school hot rod,” Ray explained, adding that the car not only had to look good, but needed to be easy to drive and cruise in, too. The New Black Last year, Ray started scouting for…

If variety is the spice of life, then the JUST CARS Historic Touring Car racing at Historic Winton this 28-29 May is going to be very hot indeed! A packed field of almost 40 cars will face the starter’s flag on Winton’s tight ‘short track’. With cars ranging from 1958 to 1972, and from 1-litre to 7.5 litres, it’ll be game on. Will big cars like Darryl Hansen’s Mustang, Tony Hubbard’s Camaro, or Les Walmsley’s Valiant Charger dominate? You might be tempted to think so, but the short-track format suits little cars - Minis in particular. The newly resurfaced track now has tons of grip and two Mini heroes from South Australia, Justin Elvin and Jason Armstrong, are bringing their super-quick bricks over. If they can…