Does anyone know what happened to the Barry Wearing 67 Z28 SS Camaro, sold in 74-75

[Steve Holmes]

This is really great info Nick, and really enjoyable reading. That lightweight motor is interesting. There was a small piece about him announcing he was heading to the US in early 1971 to buy a small block motor to replace the big block. But these wouldn't usually be considered a lightweight motor. The spare 520hp motor mentioned above would surely be a spare big block wouldn't it? The big block in this car was rated at 520hp in the Motorman articles from when the car raced at Bay Park. Then again, the Chaparral Camaros running the Trans-Am in 1970 were getting 470hp from their 5.0 litre small block motors with single 4-barrel. You'd think with a bit of work, and taken out to 6.0 litres, they'd be the equal of the big block for power.

I can see why he suddenly sold the car. It rarely finished a race. Must have been incredibly frustrating. Teams were still learning how to get both power and reliability from stock block V8 motors at this time. So taking a punt on a big block probably made sense, but you can see it can't have been much fun for him in the end with all those dnf's. And I hate to think how much $$$$$ he threw at it.

Bryan Thomson sold his Camaro to Don Elliot in 1971.

[nick_tassie]

This is really great info Nick, and really enjoyable reading. That lightweight motor is interesting. There was a small piece about him announcing he was heading to the US in early 1971 to buy a small block motor to replace the big block. But these wouldn't usually be considered a lightweight motor. The spare 520hp motor mentioned above would surely be a spare big block wouldn't it? The big block in this car was rated at 520hp in the Motorman articles from when the car raced at Bay Park. Then again, the Chaparral Camaros running the Trans-Am in 1970 were getting 470hp from their 5.0 litre small block motors with single 4-barrel. You'd think with a bit of work, and taken out to 6.0 litres, they'd be the equal of the big block for power.

I can see why he suddenly sold the car. It rarely finished a race. Must have been incredibly frustrating. Teams were still learning how to get both power and reliability from stock block V8 motors at this time. So taking a punt on a big block probably made sense, but you can see it can't have been much fun for him in the end with all those dnf's. And I hate to think how much $$$$$ he threw at it.

Bryan Thomson sold his Camaro to Don Elliot in 1971.

I think you might be right about the early (68) spare engine being a big block, the suggested 520 bhp if correct certainly indicates it was a similar spec to the main engine. What's strange is that I can't find any further reference to it throughout the Lindsay Ross material. With the big failures in 71, NZ (piston), Calder, (valve insert) there was no mention of a potential spare engine change. Maybe it had been damaged or sold off prior to then, there's no mention of a spare block in the 71 for sale advert, just 2 damaged crankshafts and spare pistons.

Ellis has passed on Don Elliot's contact details, I'll give him a call shortly to see what I can find out about this so called lightweight engine.

Terry certainly must have spent a fortune running the Camaro for the 5 years, Mum can recall Auntie Lucy telling her that she had helped Terry with 10's of thousands of dollars on his motor racing. What's interesting in reading the material over the 5 years is that when the Camaro and Terry were on song and reliable he was certainly capable of running with the big boy's, Jane, Beechey, Geoghegan and Moffat. He generally seemed capable of qualifying in the top 4-6 when things were going well. In the short 5-6 lap sprint event he ran really competitively with some top 3 finishes. The longer 40 50 lap races generally ended in retirement due to some kind of mechanical failure. He certainly had some hard luck at times as well.

I will post some more good and hard luck stories shortly. One thing for certain my desire to find this damn car is only getting bigger..!!

[nick_tassie]

Here's something for some discussion.

For the life of me I can't work out why he would have repainted and ran the Camaro blue in 69-70. It certainly didn't appear to be a sponsorship related decision because the car only ran with corporate sponsorshop in 71 with castrol, hense the repaint again to white.

The cost of repainting the car would have been a big expense and to do so without sponsorship reasons seems strange. The car looked pretty flash with the original paint so I would be surprised if it was just because he liked blue more than red.

As I've mentioned before Graeme Blanchard said the paint jobs on the car were top quality for a race car so he didn't just throw some masking tape at it and went crazy with the spray gun.

So I'm interested in peoples thoughts on this because I'm at a loss really.

[Steve Holmes]

Yeah good question Nick. Maybe it was just a personal thing. Did he crash the car at all around this time? Could he have damaged it and decided to go with a different colour scheme when it was being rebuilt? I think he did have the guards flared for wider wheels at one point, perhaps he decided to just have the whole car repainted at the same time? Race tracks at this time were pretty rough places, usually with gravel and/or dirt surrounding the track surface, and any off road excursions, or being behind someone else who was getting a wheel off the track usually resulted in a good sand blasting of the paint work. So cars often required a new paint job between race seasons anyway.

[nick_tassie]

Here are the three best shots from off the TV, best I could do with just an Iphone camera. Ellis doesn't think is is Wayne in the red hat.

You can just make out the left exhaust side pipe in front of the rear wheel.

Ellis has done some great work in identifying at least one of the blokes in this photo with the help of Wayne Mahnken.

The guy in the red shirt and black hat is the late Murray Batson, he was said to be a good friend of Terry's. Its a shame he is also not with us anymore because he could have had some interesting stories to tell.

Ellis also picked up some footage just a bit earlier than these shots that show Murray, Wayne Mahnken and Dave Price. Good work because I missed it completely until looking closer for it. I'll post some shots shortly once I resize them. There's also a seperate shot of a red racing car that someone might be able to recognise.

[nick_tassie]

Here are the shots Ellis discovered in the footage of the ABC doco Wide Open Road. Again taken with my Iphone directly off the TV so not the best quality.

Murray Batson has his back to the camera in the same red shirt and black hat as in the later shot kneeling beside the Camaro. Wayne Mahnken is in the black shirt with the cig in his mouth, Wayne was Terry's mechanic in 67 when he first ran the car. Dave Price is standing next to Wayne, I understand Dave was also a friend of Terry's and brought the ex Brian Muir EH S4 of him to race.

How cool is the Terry Allan team shirt Murray is wearing, looks like they had CAMARO written under the Chev badge, I can just make it out in the other shots of Murray next to the Car.

Thanks Ellis for letting me know about these.

[nick_tassie]

I thought someone might be able to recognise this racing car in the background which seems to be from the same film footage that shows Terry's Camaro. Might generate some interesting discussion.

I've contacted the ABC to see if they can send me the rest of the footage, might be some other good stuff in it, who knows!

[thunder427]

I thought someone might be able to recognise this racing car in the background which seems to be from the same film footage that shows Terry's Camaro. Might generate some interesting discussion.

I've contacted the ABC to see if they can send me the rest of the footage, might be some other good stuff in it, who knows!

......the 'good looking' bloke looks like a 'young' Norm Beechey,the red car looks like the ex-Lou Malino, Monza Special.......where is Ellis when you need him.......regards thunder427/MJ

[Steve Holmes]

Thats what I was thinking too Myles. And yes, where is Ellis?

[Ellis]

Nice to be missed...lol
Been away in 1929 A model. It was long weekend in N part of Tas

Agree with the Beechey ID

The Molina Monza had 2 fins...one each side..and a lot sharper
It was in Tas in this period and painted black . It also had a single loop behind driver as roll bar but some time later on its life and not the full width as on the pictured car.
I'll put a pic here later

Pic is Tassies Bert Howard at Longford in Mar 1967...car was black
The 3 stripes on the back indicate he was still a provisionsal race driver..(3 meetings ) so he hadnt had the car for long at this stage.

[thunder427]

......Ok!!!...strike two:how about Murry Carters Corvette powered sports special,it was 'red' and the timings about right???......ELLIS!!!!what do you think,close or no cigar???.....regards MJ/427

[Ellis]

Myles...
I dont think that opens the cigar box lid either....lol
It didnt have the same rear bodywork as that. No lump behind the driver .(or rollcage from memory at that time.)
I'll look at some old programmes and see if I can come up with a suggestion.
A car number would have been handy in the shot.
I have an old pic of the Carter car but it wont post. I have some in current restored condition which I have posted in the Corvette section I think.
Regards
Ellis

Pic added

[nick_tassie]

Yeah good question Nick. Maybe it was just a personal thing. Did he crash the car at all around this time? Could he have damaged it and decided to go with a different colour scheme when it was being rebuilt? I think he did have the guards flared for wider wheels at one point, perhaps he decided to just have the whole car repainted at the same time? Race tracks at this time were pretty rough places, usually with gravel and/or dirt surrounding the track surface, and any off road excursions, or being behind someone else who was getting a wheel off the track usually resulted in a good sand blasting of the paint work. So cars often required a new paint job between race seasons anyway.

I can't find any reference in the Lindsay Ross material to any major crash damage. There were a few minor hiccups such as the rear wheel going AWOL at Sandown 4th May 69 although the car does appear to already be repainted Blue by this stage anyway, its a bit hard to tell for sure from the B/W photos but the white stripes are gone which seems to indicate the repaint. Speaking of the left rear letting go, I did mention this in a previous post but was unsure of the exact cause, now I have that info.

Terry Allan drove the Camaro around for a look then screwed it up a bit on Mobil Straight to get a quick lap and the rear left axle flange let go. He lost the wheel and spun down through the Esses from the top of Lukeys.

So why the repaint to Blue? Maybe this could be an explanation, Bryan Thompson turned up in a newer model 68 Camaro big block in sparkling red paint, just maybe Terry needing to refresh the paint of his car choose to go with a different colour so the two car stood out from each other? As good a reason as any I guess.

[Steve Holmes]

Nick, do you think its possible he could have changed the colour just for the hell of it? A lot of teams changed their colour schemes every season, just to keep their cars looking fresh and interesting. The Trident team changed every season, from blue with white stripes in 1965, to black and yellow/red stripes in '66, to dark blue with white stripes in '67, then to blue with yellow and red stripes, then yellow with red stripes etc. Maybe he was just following the trends of the period?

[Steve Holmes]

Myles...
I dont think that opens the cigar box lid either....lol
It didnt have the same rear bodywork as that. No lump behind the driver .(or rollcage from memory at that time.)
I'll look at some old programmes and see if I can come up with a suggestion.
A car number would have been handy in the shot.
I have an old pic of the Carter car but it wont post. I have some in current restored condition which I have posted in the Corvette section I think.
Regards
Ellis

Pic added

Love the old photos of the Specials Ellis. What happened to the Molina Monza?

[Ellis]

Molina Monza...
After a few years use here in Tas (and some bad damage) it went back to the big Island and has been restored and runs at Historic meetings .
A pretty special car....Holden Grey engine.... Lou Molina passed away several years ago.
I think from memory the family may have some involvement with the car again.


Carter Corvette.....
Restored and running at Historic meetings.
Murray having a drive of it....


Better let Nick get back to his Camaro search eh...but its partly his fault as he asked what the red car was in one of the TV shots....lol

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Ellis. What powers it?

[Ellis]

The mighty Holden Grey...what else....lol ...Thats what it had so assume when restored they would have kept it that way.

[bry3500]

[QUOTE=Ellis;6857]The mighty Holden Grey...what else....lol ...Thats what it had so assume when restored they would have kept it that way.[/QUOTE


The Monza was featured in the 1959 Movie 'On The Beach'
Here is some info I found on the net
The filming of the race scene

Although the scene is set at Phillip Island, and Kramer spent two days filming there, very little of the final film shows the Phillip Island footage. The Island shots are quite obvious - the scenery is fairly flat. The other shots, which feature the various car crashes, clearly have some high hills in the background. All these stunt scenes were filmed in September 1958 at Riverside Raceway in California, and edited into the film later. The filming was described in some contemporary magazines. See copies of these on the Web, including photos taken during the filming, at Frank Sheffield's The Pits.

Philip Davey has obtained a complete list of the Californian drivers, along with their addresses and phone numbers, the cars and the value of each car! He even has details of an insurance claim for an injury during the stunts. There are 14 cars on the list. The drivers were paid $150 a day.

There does not appear to be an XK140 Jaguar anywhere in the race scene, but a Jaguar does appear at least twice in the California filming. It appears to be white, or at least a light colour, but looks like an XK120. Oddly, the only Jaguar that appears on Philip's list is a 1957 D-type, so there's another mystery!

There were no crashes at Phillip Island. Kramer hired the Phillip Island circuit for three days, at a fee of £A150 per day. It rained on the first day, but all the filming was completed in two days, although he paid for the third.

Philip also reports that there were a couple of people used as stand-ins for Fred Astaire at Phillip Island - Astaire wasn't allowed to drive around the track. One was English race driver Alec Menhinick (a personal friend of Norway) who did the actual speed driving for Astaire. Twelve or sixteen of Victoria's best racing drivers took part in the Phillip Island filming, including:

Aussie Miller .... Yellow Miller Special
Bill Leach .... Red Holden Special
Lou Molina .... Red Monza
Stan Jones .... Aston Martin
Len Lukey .... (Car unknown)

Peter D'Abbs states that the other drivers most likely included Doug Whiteford and Alan Jack. Ian McDonald was to appear, but was unable to make it on the day. Philip reports that these drivers apparently "did a wonderful job - they finished up doing what nobody had been able to do since shooting had started - they satisfied Kramer with one take." It was noted at the time that a Monza in the correct colour of red was available locally - not only did Kramer not need to bring one out from the USA, but it was the wrong colour anyway.

Lou Molina told me about taking part in the filming with Stan Jones (the late father of Alan Jones, world Formula One champion a few years ago). Molina also provided the racing sound effects. He took the sound recording technician around the circuit at full race speeds for some of the sounds. The technician was apparently terrified, and shook Molina's hand in thanks for a number of minutes afterwards. At another stage, they recorded the sounds of tyres screeching under braking.

The filming of the race scenes was also somewhat hair-raising for the drivers. Molina and Jones were coming down the main straight at 135 mph (about 215 km/hr) when the ambulance pulled out on to the track in front of them - a terrifying experience. Molina let Jones past him as they avoided an incident that would have required a real ambulance. The boom crane camera also caused a number of close encounters as it whipped up out of the way of the drivers at the last second. Molina recalls being close enough to "see the brand of cigarette the operator was smoking."

Molina and Jones' wives both appeared as extras in the stands, which required them to cross the track a number of times for different scenes. This accords with Peter D'Abbs recollections that the wives of some of the drivers appeared as extras in the movie. He particularly remembers the wives of Doug Whiteford and Alan Jack, and believes that they were used as models for some of the characters in the story of On the Beach. He remembers particularly their "beehive" hairstyles. Judy Miller, Aussie's wife, was also used as a stand-in for Donna Anderson at one point. This was done without any real pre-arrangement - she was just asked to walk away from the camera during filming.

A party was held at the Isle of Wight hotel in Cowes after the first day of filming, which continued all night. Molina remembers Fred Astaire as "fantastic" - the life and soul of the party, complete with tap-dancing. They drank the hotel out of champagne, then had to drive again for filming the next day, with Jones in particular somewhat ill! Molina claims that Jones spent some time in the ambulance that was on the set between takes, breathing oxygen.

Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson, with Lou Molina's red Monza.

[nick_tassie]

Better let Nick get back to his Camaro search eh...but its partly his fault as he asked what the red car was in one of the TV shots....lol

Yep my fault..!! But pretty cool stuff is coming out of it that's for sure.