Quote Originally Posted by John McKechnie View Post
Duh, I feel silly over this oversight.You are right Gerard, I remember Clyde racing it at the time.My only excuse for this senior moment was that I was thinking about Coupes.I have a high opinion of Clyde in any car he drove and my apologies on this oversight.Also there were XU1s being built up with v8s. Ron Sylvester built 2 Monaros , one for him the other for Steve Dymond. Grant tells me one ended up at the dirt track , the other disappeared.My own fascination with the Monaro was that friends and families had them so they were a real family car at the time.Not many Mustangs, Firebirds, Camaros around then.As a teenager you could look at your neighbours road driving Monaro ,dream of Beechey and Thomson, and know there was a Q ship waiting to happen.Gerard ,you are more than welcome to come round the see this car which is actually in quite good condition
No worries an easy oversight. I think the Collins Falcon often gets forgotten, because it was a such utilitarian looking car, though as Steve pointed out it looked much more purposeful in its second season, though was more unreliable with overheating problems. With a Fahey sourced Shelby 289 Ford V8 in 1969-70, it was a reliable and effective trouper, if slightly underpowered compared with the Coppins/Dawson/Fahey brigade. I'm afraid to say I've never been a great fan of the XY Falcon GT shape, just my personal preference though.
The Monaro was much more evocative and certainly in the Grady era, it was a colourful entry into field of '69-'70 NZ Saloon Car Champs as was the Falcon. Thompson was undoubtably a hairy driver and cemented that reputation with his almighty spin at Bombay Bend at Wigram when he lost the Monaro on the "bump" and with sublime luck planted it right between the hangars, instead of into them as several unlucky punters had done in the past...
Prompted by Grant Ellwood's little aside of repossesion in the early posting, reminds me of an aside that Spinner Black told me about the slightly hairy antics of Grady on a parts buying episode to the U.S. around 1969-70. Quoting Spinner from the article I wrote: "Grady was a bit of a crazy dude, impetuous and a little bit chaotic. He was visiting the West Coast of America for the first time. He'd never been overseas before and had a very quick and sobering lesson on how to gravely upset the cops. We were stopped by the Californian Highway Patrol, and the protocol is that you stay in your car, and don't move a muscle until you're told. What did Grady do, he leapt out with his bag, then committed the ultimate sin of reaching into it, for his passport or licence I guess. The cops figured this cowboy was going to pull a piece on them and in a nanosecond Grady was up against the car, a gun pressed at his temple and he was being frog-legged and searched. He was totally freaked and so was I! I thought that was the end of him!"