Coppins Pontiac, come on Bruce!!

[aussiemonza]

When the Firebird came back to NZ it used the green paint to underscore sponsorship from Monaco Motors in Greenlane, They specialised in prestige and performance cars.

The wheels are Auckland made 'Span' brand, Dave Wallace was the mane behind that venture. Red Dawson ran the same items on his Camaro.

This photo was kindly loaned by Ross Walker, well known Mustang owner and top class auto painter.

Hi Bruce,

I am "aussiemonza" on this Forum cos I don't (currently) have a Camaro but I do have a Monza!

Re the Green paint scheme, it was green when I got involved with Rod and the Firebird it arrived in Melbourne in 1974 for the "Buckleys-Toby Lee Series" for Sports Sedans that was run primarily at Calder and Sandown as well as the "Toby Lee Series" at Oran Park. The car and "Jandells" set up in the basement car park at Bob Jane's Southern Motors (SM) through Graeme Sellers (another kiwi) that worked for Bob at SM. Graeme organised the "Motor Truck Finance & Insurance" support and Sam King at Signcraft (did all of Bob's and Calder Park signwriting) pitched in a bit as well. Rod ran at Calder for the first time in the green livery as per the previous photo. I then organised sponsorship for Rod for the rest of the Toby Lee races with "Trans Tours", a NZ Company operating out of Melbourne. The car was repainted white with red Trans Tours incorporated into a full length red body stripe down the sides. We had presented the colour scheme as an artist impression as part of the proposal to Trans Tours, it looked the goods and I reckon got us over the line. The car was painted and signwritten at Signcraft but preparation of the car then moved to Bob Jane Racing in Brunswick. We ran at Sandown, Calder and Hume Weir and we were due to do a round at Oran Park when there was an engine problem so Hume Weir was the last time the Firebird ran here! Rod then got an idea to run at Bathurst in a L34 Torana with one of his Kiwi mates etc, etc.

I am still searching for an image of the Firebird in the Trans Tours livery, it looked really sharp!

CCC