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Thread: Photos: The Perry Drury Collection

  1. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by Ray Bell View Post
    I think they might be Cairns wheels...
    Thanks Ray, they're neat looking wheels.

  2. #42
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    Upon further review, my photo of the Seton Torana was probably taken at the May 17th 1970 race meet at Oran Park not in August.
    Sorry for the mix up.


    (Ken Hyndman )
    Last edited by khyndart in CA; 09-04-2015 at 07:10 AM.

  3. #43
    Here is Brian Foley's beautiful little Alfa GTAm, which appeared in Australia for the 1971 ATCC, in Improved Production form. It replaced Foley's Porsche 911, which incidentally, went to New Zealand to be raced by Jim Palmer.

    The Alfa wasn't successful in Improved Production, with Foley scoring points only twice; picking up a 6th place finish at Surfers Paradise, and 5th place at Mallala.

    For 1972, with the fast growing emergence in Sports Sedan racing, and the rich prize money being offered, Foley fitted the GTAm with an alloy quad-cam Alfa V8 motor, sourced from Alec Mildren. It looked incredible, with its inlet stacks poking up through the hood, and it did notch up some good results, but was sold at seasons end. Its now been restored back to its 1971 Improved Production guise.

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  4. #44
    Prior to racing the ex-Bob Jane two-timeATCC winning Camaro, Jim Smith raced this very special Rover P6.

    Its one of two Traco powered factory cars built by Bill ShawRacing for British Leyland, as part of a large-scale plan to enter the BritishSaloon Car Championship. The Rovers were built to FIA Group 2 rules. They werewild looking cars. To homologate them, BL needed to build 1,000 units, but thisnever happened, the project was canned, and the two prototypes were sold off, with this one making its way to Australia.


    Where is it now?

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  5. #45
    Pete Geoghegan's mighty HJ Monaro SportsSedan. Financed by Laurie O'Neil, designed and built by John Sheppard, itfeatured a mix of exotic Ford GT40 parts, fuel-injected small block Chevy, andHewland trans-axle. It was a winner straight out of the box, and alwaysspectacular with big Pete at the helm.

    This is the way the car looked during is first season, in 1975,before the bulky box-flares were added. Note the lack of racing numbers.Perhaps the cars first event?

    The team fought with CAMS throughout 1975 over the HJ nose, as CAMS wanted it gone, replaced by an HQ nose, because the HJ was never made available with a Chevy motor. CAMS eventually won.

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  6. #46
    That Alfa was a pretty wild car...

    I have a story about it I did some time ago:

    Fast That’s Past – Brian Foley’s Alfa V8 - As published in Motor Racing Australia


    After making his name in a Sprite and climbing to the top in a Mini, Brian Foley went racing in Porsches. But he always loved Alfas, so when the fastest Alfa he could get wasn’t fast enough he added a (rather different) V8.


    The breeding was good – Alfa Romeo’s GTAm, or GT America, where the Trans-Am series was big news. But there’s a lot more to it than that, and it starts back in the early sixties when Alfa Romeo brought out the original 1600cc GTA.

    This was an alloy-bodied car built as a specific model for Group 2 FIA touring car regulations. These specified 1000 units, but there’s little doubt that only 500 were ever built. They were caned in racing against Lotus Cortinas and suchlike all around the world.

    A rule change led to the GTAm coming into being. The dimensions for cabin space and seating were increased, and Alfa were able to cater for the increase by reducing the thickness of the seat padding. Porsche, on the other hand, having really stretched the previous rules to get their 911s homologated as Touring Cars, were left out.

    This, ironically, was the immediate reason Foley wanted to change cars. Or one of them.

    Bearing in mind the production figure requirement, and the fact that a closer scrutiny of the numbers would be expected, Alfa couldn’t justify doing another car like the GTA with a number of alloy body panels.

    So the GTAm was heavier, though its homologated weight was nicely optimistic at 920kgs. The American version of the 105 coupe was the car that was homologated, using mechanical fuel injection. A further improvement over the GTA was the bulging of the mudguards to cover the much wider tyres that had been introduced during the second half of the sixties.

    The rules allowed replacement cylinder heads and enlargement to the class displacement limit, so cars coming from the production line that were earmarked for conversion to GTAm were sent to Autodelta and taken out to 1985cc.

    They had some lightweighting done and did have alloy doors, boot lid and bonnet. Some cars had fiberglass doors instead of alloy, but even with these changes it was unlikely that the true weight came down from the original 1020kg to 920kg. Not without further help, anyway.

    Brian Foley had been in the car sales business for a long time, operating in the southern suburbs of Sydney and selling BMC products. When it was obvious that he should move on from racing Minis, he had many and varied thoughts about what he should do.

    That he went with the Porsche was almost out of character. Colin Devany, who helped prepare Foley’s cars for years, recalls that prior to going for the Porsche Foley was “muttering about a Rambler,” but the Porsche won. It might not have been a bad choice, Roger Penske ran them for a year or two and Mark Donohue won the Trans-Am in one.

    But he bought the Porsche (maybe not enough money in the tobacco tin?) and before too long he hated it, so he transferred his interests.

    The move to Alfa Romeo was a change that he liked and the prospect of racing a car with the Alfa’s heritage appealed to him greatly. That it was an inherently more stable car than the Porsche was no doubt a part of that appeal.

    A part of the Alfa heritage he didn’t like was the fact that the car arrived in a very worn out state and needed a lot of time spent on it before it could be race-ready. This caused him to miss the start of the Australian Touring Car Championship series.

    The car first appeared at Oran Park on March 28, 1971. It tailed Ian Geoghegan’s Mustang in a Sports Sedan event on that day after working its way up from fifth place and passing the Jaguar-Ford V8 of Barry Sharp. Not bad for a 2-litre 4-cylinder car!

    The next four meetings at which it ran it trailed Jim McKeown’s Porsche home – Warwick Farm, Surfers Paradise, Mallala and Lakeside, the latter three being ATCC rounds. It was only scoring minor points.

    The results weren’t spectacular, and then Foley agreed to lend the engine out of this car to David McKay for the Dulux Rally and missed a couple of meetings.

    When he got the engine back the car went better. He beat McKeown at the AJC Trophy meeting at Warwick Farm and came in second to Geoghegan. Then at Lakeside’s September meeting Foley wrapped up the Gold Medal events for the day with a pair of wins.

    The final 4-cylinder outing for the car was again at the Farm, where Foley was the first non-V8 again, but this time taking a fourth and a fifth place.

    It was the disappointment that the car had little outright potential that caused Foley to cast his mind towards an engine change. There were wholesale changes taking place in the racing categories and Sports Sedans had reached a point where they were a serious and competitive racing category.

    It was necessary in those times to retain the same brand of engine as the chassis, so Foley approached Alec Mildren about the V8 engines that had powered Kevin Bartlett to much success in Gold Star racing in 1968 and 1969. An engine was acquired and the job of installation was put under the guidance of Glenn Turner.

    Oh, yes, along with the engine change, Foley had casually asked Turner and Colin Devany to ‘move the steering wheel to the right side of the car.’ “That part of the job caused us more trouble than fitting the engine,” Turner remembers. And so does Devany.

    But they followed through on it because it would make Foley more comfortable than he had been in nine months running the car so far.

    In moving the steering box to the right, they found that they either needed a RHD steering box or to mount the LHD steering box outside the engine bay, under the wheel arch. With room for the V8 and its extractor exhaust system at a premium, this was a logical way to go.

    The workshop where the job was done was Ray Morris’ place at Taren Point. Convenient in a way – Morris made his living those days converting American cars from LHD to RHD! In these circumstances, making the two required idler arms and an additional link in the steering was easy. But when it came to moving the pedals there was strife because the footwell differed from right to left in this car.

    An adaptor was made to fit the 300bhp 2.5-litre engine to the original gearbox, the engine was centralized in the engine bay (unlike the 4-cyl engine, which was biased to the right) and all the details worked out. They had a range of diff ratios to suit different circuits.

    It was also necessary to build the engine up from the pile of bits that arrived from Mildren’s. New pistons were required with reduced compression ratio and some welding was required to repair the block.

    In discussions with Mildren’s chief mechanic, Glenn Abbey, there had been talk of low oil pressure that the engine had suffered for a long time. “We found a split in the oil gallery in the block,” Devany recalls, “we welded that up and got the right oil pressure. It had been leaking into the crankcase ever since the block was damaged.”

    So there was fabrication and fitting going on in the chassis to one side of the workshop and engine building and repair on the other. When then new pistons arrived they had to have the tops machined to drop the compression ratio. Then they needed balancing, so Colin took them and a file and a little grinder to the local pharmacy. “I borrowed their scales and weighed them, then I worked on them till I got the balance right, thanked the chemist and took them back to the workshop. They weren’t far out.”

    When the engine was finally assembled, it was set up on a stand with a 44 gallon drum of water providing the necessary coolant. The trial running was satisfactory so the job of installation went on to completion.

    A radiator was specially made for the job, a hole was cut into the bonnet for the intakes and the whole lot was completed in time for the May 7 Amaroo Park meeting.

    There Foley met Bill Brown’s Porsche, a car with enviable speed around the hilly circuit. After taking pole, the Alfa wasn’t as fast off the grid as the Porsche so the first lap of each of the two races saw Brown in front. But up the hill the Alfa swept by both times, and with a lap record of 55.6 seconds Foley notched up two wins.

    Two weeks later at Surfers Paradise he was unable to match the speed of the imported V8 tourers – Moffat (Mustang), Jane (Camaro) – or John Harvey in Jane’s Repco V8 powered lightweight Torana.

    Hume Weir in June, however, showed what the car was capable of, running between Hamilton’s and Brown’s Porsches for a strong second place in the Riverina Trophy over 20 laps and a win in a handicap. His lap time in the handicap was 49.1 seconds, the best class time of the day.

    There was a two month gap before the car got another airing. It had been running well and showing good speed allied with good handling and braking. The original GTAm brakes were well and truly up to the task, no small number of top line drivers having found themselves outbraked by the aggressive Foley.

    Power was good for what it was too. The little V8 had given Bartlett and Gardner 300hp to tackle all comers in Tasman and Gold Star racing, and after this rebuild Merv Waggott’s dyno showed 305bhp. More than that, it sounded crisp and sharp, the flat plane crank giving it a very non-V8 note and twin megaphone exhausts creating sounds that enthusiasts of the day loved to hear.

    And others heard it too, Devany told us. “You can’t do it today, but we used to cover up the numbers and sling trade plates on it to take it for a test run up the street. Brian’s first drive of the car was along Parraweena Road.”


    Cont.

  7. #47
    cont...

    One characteristic of the car from the driver’s point of view was the engine’s willingness to rev. Glenn Turner remembers this well, having warmed it up at circuits like Oran Park when Foley took it out for testing. And also when Foley came back into the pits after practice or races.

    “The tell-tale would show 11,500 revs,” he says, “Foley would just say ‘I don’t know when that happened!’ and we’d just zero it again and wait for next time.” The engine never gave any trouble because of it, but frequent trips over the 10,500rpm red line were a part of the car’s life.

    Foley had a medical problem that kept him away from the circuits for a few weeks in the winter of 1972, but when he returned for the August 6 Oran Park meeting he had to show all his old skills. Spinning in the 8-lapper, he fought his way back to seventh, and in the main race he was third behind the Porsches of Brown and McKeown – Porsches which were by now getting bigger and bigger engines.

    Four weeks later at Warwick Farm the car had one of its major triumphs. There were two 10-lap events, the revvy little Alfa V8 took the car across the line first in the opening race by two tenths of a second from Allan Moffat, but the Mustang won out in the later race. By one tenth!

    It wasn’t so good at the November meeting at the Farm, fourth place behind Moffat, Geoghegan and Jane in the first race, Moffat, Harvey and Geoghegan in the second. There was some consolation, of course, that all these cars had engines almost or over twice the size of the Alfa’s.

    “We had bought the most powerful Alfa engine we could find,” Foley says, “but in the end it wasn’t enough to be with the 5-litre cars.”

    A week later they were at Symmons Plains running in supporting events for the Sports Car Championship race. John Harvey was winning that series in Bob Jane’s McLaren, so Jane had his Monaro there too, Foley was the only possible challenger. The weather was bad.

    “The engine never gave us a moment’s bother,” Glenn recalls, “despite its complexity – twin spark plugs, for instance – it was good to us. But if it started to misfire you’d slash your wrists!”

    And this was what happened at Symmons – the race combining Sports Sedans with Touring Cars saw Jane win, but Foley was right on his rear bumper at the finish line.

    “Then we changed the plugs,” says Glenn. They missed the later races altogether as they just couldn’t sort out the miss. Maybe this was the catalyst that led to the sale of the car. Foley says he got word while at that meeting that someone in Western Australia wanted to buy it, so that was the last time it ran in his hands.

    The car went to Frank Cecchele, who gave the driving chores to Gordon Stephenson initially, then Max Fletcher. But the long arm of the law caught up with that complex engine, it was ruled ineligible for Sports Sedan racing and Frank entered it in Sports Car races for a while.

    In the mid-eighties, after the car had for some time been lying inactive, Frank formed an alliance with Gordon Mitchell. Gordon had bought a Morris Marina that had been prepared for the 1974 London to Munich World Cup Rally. It had been set up for a Rover V8 engine, but Gordon went a step further and turbocharged the Rover engine.

    But some of the car was beyond further development by the time Frank and Gordon started talking, and the result was that Frank took over the development of the Rover engine and stuck it into the Alfa. The Cecchele-Mitchell-Alfa V8 combination swept all before them in WA racing before it was all put out to pasture.

    So what ultimately became of it all?

    “We sold the engine many years ago,” says Frank Cecchele, “it went to the man who has the Brabham that Alec Mildren fitted it to. I think it won’t be long before he has it ready for Historic racing now. The body we sold to someone in Melbourne who has got the original type of Alfa engine and who will make it original again.”

    Ray Bell

  8. #48
    [Originally posted by Steve Holmes
    Pete Geoghegan's mighty HJ Monaro Sports Sedan. Financed by Laurie O'Neil, designed and built by John Sheppard, itfeatured a mix of exotic Ford GT40 parts, fuel-injected small block Chevy, andHewland trans-axle. It was a winner straight out of the box, and alwaysspectacular with big Pete at the helm.[/FONT][/COLOR]
    [FONT="]
    This is the way the car looked during is first season, in 1975,before the bulky box-flares were added. Note the lack of racing numbers.Perhaps the cars first event?

    The team fought with CAMS throughout 1975 over the HJ nose, as CAMS wanted it gone, replaced by an HQ nose, because the HJ was never made available with a Chevy motor. CAMS eventually won.

    [/FONT]
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    I never knew about the argument with the CAMS over the model...

    It actually had two LG500s, didn't it? One as a gearbox behind the engine and another with just the differential in use?

  9. #49
    Brilliant story on the Alfa Ray, thanks for sharing. Interesting point about the 'Rambler'. It jogged my memory to look up a small comment in my old Australian Touring Car Championship book, in which a planned Javelin is mentioned, but for whatever reason, not allowed under the rules. I could never understand quite why this would be.

  10. #50
    Quote Originally Posted by Ray Bell View Post
    Actually... a story...

    At the time Bruce McPhee was tied in with Ford. Talking about the upcoming Bathurst race with the XU-1s having been released, he said to us one night, "They should have it pretty right, they had their test mule at Bathurst at Easter."

    He was referring to Bo's car.
    I refer to your statement that the Seton Torana was the test mule for HDT at Bathurst. This is completely INCORRECT.
    I quote Harry Firth’s exact words on this:
    “For racing purposes, we first trialled a 186 engine in a road registered GTR (Vic reg: KLD-158) and it immediately proved my theories correct, by matching the lap times of the Falcons and Monaros at selected circuits. This GTR became the XU-1 prototype. In February 1970, Brock drove it in the first rallycross event held at Calder and won on debut. I then gave it to Tony Roberts to drive in a sports sedan race at the 1970 Easter Bathurst meeting in March, because he was very hard on cars and I figured if he couldn’t break it driving around The Mountain then no one else would!”

    It is interesting that in January 2013 this same poster in an Autosport TNF post incorrectly referred to Seton’s car as Firth’s prototype of the XU-1 for testing at Bathurst.
    He was told shortly after that that was NOT the case.

    Why then do you repeat the same incorrect statement almost three years after you were told the facts?

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by Ray Bell View Post
    I never knew about the argument with the CAMS over the model...

    It actually had two LG500s, didn't it? One as a gearbox behind the engine and another with just the differential in use?
    Yes thats right, two trans-axles, although the first was just an empty case. The rules stipulated the original engine and transmission sequence be retained.

    CAMS eventually won the squabble over the HJ nose. The HJ Monaro was only ever made available with a Holden V8, unlike the HQ which also offered a Chevy. The argument went on throughout 1975, with CAMS eventually winning, and the car reappearing in 1976 fitted with an HQ front, as it would retain throughout the rest of its career.

  12. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
    I refer to your statement that the Seton Torana was the test mule for HDT at Bathurst. This is completely INCORRECT.
    I quote Harry Firth’s exact words on this:
    “For racing purposes, we first trialled a 186 engine in a road registered GTR (Vic reg: KLD-158) and it immediately proved my theories correct, by matching the lap times of the Falcons and Monaros at selected circuits. This GTR became the XU-1 prototype. In February 1970, Brock drove it in the first rallycross event held at Calder and won on debut. I then gave it to Tony Roberts to drive in a sports sedan race at the 1970 Easter Bathurst meeting in March, because he was very hard on cars and I figured if he couldn’t break it driving around The Mountain then no one else would!”

    It is interesting that in January 2013 this same poster in an Autosport TNF post incorrectly referred to Seton’s car as Firth’s prototype of the XU-1 for testing at Bathurst.
    He was told shortly after that that was NOT the case.

    Why then do you repeat the same incorrect statement almost three years after you were told the facts?
    Thats OK Terry, facts and details can sometimes be forgotten.

  13. #53
    He's very nasty towards me, Steve...

    Okay, my memory might have failed me, but I'm fairly sure this was what Bruce McPhee led us to believe.

    As for being told the facts two and a half years ago, I don't remember that either. Sometimes things need to be jogged a bit, but there's never any need to be so bitter and nasty about things, is there?

    I agree that this makes more sense than Seton's car. I'll try to remember it in future. But as for Terry, I'm still awaiting his apology for his outburst in the other thread. Do we really need to go on having all this bitterness thrown around?

    What have I ever done to harm him? Why is it important to him to try to make me look small? Is there something he wants of me? Can his posts please be deleted?
    Last edited by Ray Bell; 09-07-2015 at 05:44 AM.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Holmes View Post
    Thats OK Terry, facts and details can sometimes be forgotten.
    For the benefit of Aussie posters, is your policy then to be that we are not to point out errors in this guys posts because his memory is fading? If this is your policy then we can accept it. As long as we know where we stand.

    On the top of this page it states its a forum for "Historic motor racing and motorsport history". How creditable will the site become if errors can not be noted.

  15. #55
    By all means point out errors. I accept that I can make mistakes.

    But why so nasty? Why make out that I'm the devil incarnate?

    Why post things such as this?

    Originally posted by Terry S
    I see that this forum is no longer a Ray Bell free zone. What a pity!

    On each thread he seems to have put 3 or 4 posts today. Must have run out of sparring partners on Autosport forum.

    I hope he doesn't descend this forum to his levels on Autosport.....
    I don't have 'sparring partners' on any forum, or at least not that I know about. I try always to raise the level, as I have tried to do on this thread.

    And I use my real name... no hiding behind an alias, no secrecy, no sly shots at others.

  16. #56
    Semi-Pro Racer Spgeti's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Holmes View Post
    Brilliant story on the Alfa Ray, thanks for sharing. Interesting point about the 'Rambler'. It jogged my memory to look up a small comment in my old Australian Touring Car Championship book, in which a planned Javelin is mentioned, but for whatever reason, not allowed under the rules. I could never understand quite why this would be.
    As an Alfisti I enjoyed this article Ray. Information on a famous car that I was unaware of. It is my understanding that approximately 32 GTAm's were build and I will accept corrections. All built by Autodelta and some to customers orders. Truly a famous and rare car.
    Last edited by Spgeti; 09-07-2015 at 07:39 AM.

  17. #57
    Thank you...

    I have a host of those stories that I've written over a long period. I'm happy to post any up here as they might be appropriate.

  18. #58
    Thanks, Ray, your contributions over a wide variety of topics over a number of eras are much appreciated, and your work in research and publishing speaks for itself.
    Drop in anytime, son

  19. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by Terry S View Post
    For the benefit of Aussie posters, is your policy then to be that we are not to point out errors in this guys posts because his memory is fading? If this is your policy then we can accept it. As long as we know where we stand.

    On the top of this page it states its a forum for "Historic motor racing and motorsport history". How creditable will the site become if errors can not be noted.
    Terry, if you spot an error on someones post, then, by all means, feel free to correct it. But be very careful about how you word it, because to me your response in post #50 is quite aggressive. If you have any further questions regarding this subject, feel free to message me personally.

  20. #60


    Fast that’s Past – Malcolm Ramsay’s HQ 4-door


    When Holden racers everywhere chose the Monaro, Malcolm Ramsay’s sponsors said “We sell Kingswoods – that’s what we’ll race!”

    The introduction of the HQ model Holden came at a time when General Motors-Holdens had swung the competitive side of their image away from the bigger cars. They were racing and rallying Torana GTR XU-1s and the bigger cars were filling another role in their marketing strategies.

    Of course, there was a need for them to be considered. While the Toranas could go head to head with the Falcon GT HOs at most circuits in races for unmodified cars, in the Improved Touring category there were Mustangs and Camaros to contend with.

    But the HQ was quite a change from previous models in an important way. The location and springing of the rear axle was no longer the simple old leaf spring arrangement, but now it had coils and four trailing arms. And lateral location came from the angling of the shorter top arms inwards to their anchoring point beneath the rear seat.

    So development would be along different lines, something to daunt the ones who wanted to upgrade to the General’s latest product.

    That didn’t stop them altogether, though. Bob Jane had his Southern Motors dealership selling Holdens and was racing a Camaro. The HQ Monaro offered the 350 Chev engine and more or less everything else that a Camaro had. That being so, he set out to develop a Monaro so that it would better reflect the cars his salesmen were putting before the customers on the showroom floor.

    In Adelaide there was a team that was fielding a wide range of cars. The amalgamation of City Motors and State Motors had created City-State Motors, the biggest Holden dealers in South Australia.

    Malcolm Ramsay and John Walker were running Elfins and then fielded a Torana under their banner, racing all over the country and achieving more than just a modicum of success. Radio station 5AD gave additional impetus to the sponsorship package.

    In 1971 Malcolm put a proposal to City-State to expand their budget to include a V8 Touring Car, offering to build a Monaro 350.

    “They told me that the Monaro was only a small part of their sales, that they sold lots of Kingswoods and that’s what they wanted to race,” Ramsay recalls.

    This put a whole different slant on the proposal. Instead of going the well-established route with the very well-developed 350 Chev, they were limited to the 308 Holden V8. Little else was affected, however, and they were to smile a little when they found that the 4-door body weighed in about 32kg lighter than the Monaro’s 2-door.

    The people behind the car were many. Malcolm’s father, Aub, had been a speedway racer many years before and was a part of the team, but the principal ingredient was the suspension design work done by Tony Alcock.

    Malcolm had got to know Tony well when he was having a car built at Elfin a year or two earlier. Tony was building the Niel Allen Elfin ME5 at the same time and they often discussed their ideas together.

    Later, Malcolm had wanted Elfin to build him a monocoque racer and found Garrie Cooper reluctant. Tony had gone to Sydney with Allen’s team, and then built the first Birrana Formula Ford their, but was enticed back to Adelaide by Malcolm’s offer to have him build a monocoque F2 car and set up a production facility to market them.

    City-State were funding this effort too, so Alcock and his wife returned to Adelaide and set to work, Birrana becoming a partnership between Ramsay and Alcock.

    So while Birrana was becoming more firmly established, Tony drew up a tubular double wishbone front suspension and then attacked the rear suspension. Like the Bob Jane team did later, he fabricated new links to replace the original rear axle trailing arms, using spherical bearings throughout the suspension. Armstrong adjustable dampers were fitted.

    At the same time, the issue of the power unit was being resolved. Repco were asked to supply one of their F5000 engines, but with the underbonnet space limitations it had to have different inlet trumpets for the fuel injection. It was the only Repco F5000 engine built with these curved trumpets.

    While the engine was smaller, Repco had managed to create a very torquey power unit, so although it might have lacked some top end power compared to the 350s it was not lacking in the mid range at all.

    Malcolm considers it had plenty of power. “We had 530bhp when we got it, then we gave it to Peter Molloy and it came back with 550bhp.”

    The body was further lightened, as well as being seam-welded to improve rigidity. At the time, Peter Brock told me that going this route was smart because of the weight and also because the body was more rigid than the coupe with its wider doors.

    With the power taken care of, the next thing was the brakes. 4-spot Girling calipers were fitted to the front end and the backing plates of the rear drums liberally drilled for ventilation.

    “The Archilles heel of the car was its brakes,” Malcolm remembers, “the rear brakes never lasted.”

    The rules of the time insisted on these cars retaining the original mechanical parts, though modifications could be allowed. Hence the gearbox was as supplied from GM-H.

    There were many changes made, however. The boot was loaded down with a 16 gallon (72 litre) fuel tank packed in above the rear axle, a collector tank for the pump to send the fuel to the fuel injection, the dry sump tank and lines and the battery.

    Inside the cabin there was an alloy roll cage made by Bond Roll Bars and attached to the floor and rear deck behind the back seat – no thought of using the cage to strengthen the car at all. The driver’s seat was from a then-new LJ Torana XU-1 and there were additional instruments to inform the driver of vital functions.

    Under the rear floor ahead of the axle they fitted an oil cooler for the differential, the flow of oil being pushed along by an electric pump.

    Wheels were 10” x 15” ROH mags, which required a neat bit of flaring of the mudguards both front and rear. The front guards were also modified to allow quick removal so that the crew could more readily get in to service the engine and suspension.

    Though John Walker was a regular driver of the team’s XU-1, this car was to be for Malcolm to drive. He tested it at Adelaide International Raceway in January, 1972, where problems with the fuel injection pressure led to tests being abandoned.

    They had proved, however, that the car was inherently ‘right’ and that only minor sorting and finishing would have it race ready. Ahead of the team lay a programme of events that included all rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship.

    But first there was the supporting races at the Sandown Park Tasman Cup meeting, two eight lappers that saw the car spin on the first lap and scatter the field. A charge back through the field ensued, enlivening proceedings after Moffat had crashed. In the second of these Malcolm ran just off the pace to fill fourth spot.

    The following week at Adelaide there was a win from the back of the grid, brake problems having slowed the car in practice and threatened to force its withdrawal from an event that was obviously important in the shaking down of the car for the longer title races. The second race saw the car third with the engine off song, the shaking down was producing results.

    For the third weekend in a row the car turned out at Symmons Plains for the title opener. But not in time for practice, the transporter blowing a head gasket en route! Starting from a lowly grid position, then, the car did well to finish third, a lap down on Allan Moffat and Bob Jane.

    A break of a fortnight in this heavy schedule must have been most welcome. Calder’s second round saw the car sitting pretty for fourth on the grid until Rushford’s Escort pipped its time. In the race, however, it was to chase Norm Beechey’s Monaro and Pete Geoghegan’s ‘Super Falcon’ before various travails among the opposition left the HQ in second spot, again a lap down, but this time on Jane.

    Acknowledging the sponsor’s need for local exposure, Malcolm won two races at the ASCC Adelaide meeting in April, setting a new Touring Car record as he went.

    Cont...

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