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Australian Muscle Car Issue 143 (Digital)

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22 Articles

This issue we’re revisiting a car that occupies a special place in Australian motoring and (especially) muscle car history. The XW Falcon GT specially modified by Ford, complete with monster 428 V8 engine conversion, to serve as the company car of the then managing director of Ford Australia, Bill Bourke. Today the car is universally known simply as the ‘Bill Bourke Special’; our feature on page 16 sheds new light on the genesis of this famous Ford. Bill Bourke may be no longer with us, but the Bill Bourke Special remains not just as a magnficent and brutally powerful machine, but also a kind of mobile monument, a fitting tribute to a man whose role in the development of classic Aussie Ford muscle from the XR Falcon GT through to…

Howard Marsden and Holden

Howard Marsden’s first job when he arrived in Australia was not to head up the factory Ford effort, but as team manager of a Holden V8-based race team. What you’re looking at here (above pic) is the creator of the Falcon GTHO Phase 3 and 4 working on a Holden 5.0-litre V8 racing engine at the Sydney headquarters of Frank Matich’s racing team, which was Marsden’s first employer in Australia. In 1969 Marsden was working at Frank Williams Racing Cars. One of his tasks at Williams that year was to organise the sale of a new McLaren M10B Formula 5000 to Frank Matich (this was the first F5000 in Australia, powered initially by a 5.0-litre Chev V8 but soon to be installed with the new Repco-Holden V8). From that initial…

Howard Marsden and Holden

Donington at Amaroo

Hard to believe but it’s been more than a quarter of a century now since Amaroo Park Raceway ran its last race meeting. Unlike Sydney’s other closed circuit, Oran Park, which has been completely consumed by housing, the old Amaroo venue remains recognisable at least from the general terrain of the place. Today you can stand on the side of a street called ‘Amaroo Park Drive’, close to where the old control tower was, and imagine more or less where everything was. Still, it’s an eery experience, because even though the old spectator carpark behind the pits is, oddly enough, still there as a large piece of vacant land, and some of the larger rock outcrops and rock faces on the surrounds of the old track are also instantly recognisable,…

Donington at Amaroo

New look TCM for ‘24

The Touring Cars Masters category heads into 2024 under new management – its own management, effectively, with TCM now operating independently under new ownership with the newly founded Touring Car Masters Pty Ltd. Heading the new TCM company is one of the original category founders, Tony Hunter, and long-time category manager Rowan Harman. They’ll be assisted with the appointment of an experienced management team. This year the Touring Car Masters will feature at five Supercars events as part of a six-round calendar. It kicked off at the Repco Bathurst 500 Supercars opener, where Steven Johnson emerged with the points lead after a couple of wins in his Mustang Fastback. Not that the reigning series champ had things all his own way, with Camaro driver Joel Heinrich also scoring and Danny…

New look TCM for ‘24

Vale Bill Forsyth

Bill and I first crossed paths in 1962 when he was a young apprentice printing technician working on Woman’s Weekly and I was an ambitious young club racer. Bill’s weekend hobby as a photographer took him to a wide variety of motor sport events from club hillclimbs to Tasman Series races, Bathursts and many Australian Grands Prix right up to the late 2010s. Bill’s ability to produce fantastic, creative, action shots of cars and people-pictures marked him as a rising star early on. The big economic drawback was his overwhelming generosity in providing drivers, team owners and media with examples of his work and very seldom being paid for his efforts. His enthusiasm for the sport ensured he was welcome in any and every pit garage; he was that well…

Vale Bill Forsyth

AMC BEST LETTER

The Ford formula Just read your article on 50 years XB Falcon in issue #142. The photo, as you are aware, is in the sales brochure (below). I own the Formula Ford in the photo and also have the original trailer made by Ford in the background. Bowin made 11 FF P4as.This car was purchased by Ford in 1970 as their promotional car. I have a letter signed by IR Diffen (ED: the same Ian Diffen who would later race a wild Charger Sports Sedan under the Ian Diffen World Of Tyres banner – back then Diffen was assistant at Ford to Howard Marsden) addressed to John Joyce who produced the Bowin in his factory at Brookvale in Sydney. I have another letter signed by Howard Marsden in 1972 where…

AMC BEST LETTER

Over the years, much has been written about the ‘Bill Bourke Special’, the gold-flecked, black 428 V8-powered Falcon XW GT that had been specially built for Ford Australia’s Managing Director at the time, American Bill Bourke. The story has been well told; for those unfamiliar with it, it goes like this: in 1969 the Ford Motor Company of Australia shipped a brand-new Falcon GT to America, where it was to be customised to order by Kar-Kraft (Ford America’s motorsport skunkworks which only a few months earlier had delivered one of its specially-built Boss 302 Mustang Trans-Am racers to one Allan Moffat), before being returned to Australia to serve as Bill Bourke’s company car. Well, here’s the scoop… This famous Falcon has NEVER left Australia! That’s right: ‘The Bill Bourke Special’…

Holden VU SS The ‘two-door V8 sports car’ that saved the Commodore ute

Given the phenomenal sales success of Holden’s high-performance VU SS, it’s hard to imagine that at one stage this iconic muscle car – and the Commodore ute on which it was based – was threatened with extinction at a pivotal moment in Holden’s history. That was in 1997, when the all-new VU design program was just getting underway, and Holden’s senior product planner for large cars, Mark Behr, was putting together a business case for it. The VU was a bold reimagining of the traditional Holden ute, from a primarily utilitarian workhorse to an overtly sporty and more car-like alternative. It was to be the first Holden light commercial with independent rear suspension (IRS) and rakish coupe styling that included an innovative flush-fitting tonneau cover. In this exclusive AMC interview,…

Holden VU SS
The ‘two-door V8 sports car’ that saved the Commodore ute

A day in the sun

Back in the day What better place to be on a sunny winter’s Sunday than Amaroo Park? Top billing at the June 2, 1974, meeting was the second round of the Sun-7 Chesterfield Series for Group C touring cars, but there were also four separate fields of Sports Sedans, races for Formula 2 and Ford openwheelers, plus production sports cars and Clubman cars. The Division 1 Sports Sedan races were without the likes of John Goss’ Lightweight Hardtop and John McCormack’s Charger, but with the Porsches of Jim McKeown and Bill Brown up against Graham Moore’s V8 Cortina and Bob Stevens’ ex-Bob Jane Trans-Am Mustang, it was still a fierce contest. Brown won both races, with the second ending in controversy after a clash between Moore and Paul Older’s BMW…

A day in the sun

Ann Gordon loves her old Aussie muscle cars. In addition to the XY Ford Fairmont seen here, she has a ’69 model ZD Fairlane parked in the garage, along with her husband’s Falcon XY GT and her dad’s old Monaro, which Ann is in the process of restoring. Dad happens to be George Wegener (right), the veteran drag racer featured in AMC #140. A man who at the age of 87 must surely be the oldest race driver in Australia, if not the entire world. Hardly a surprise, then, that Ann caught the car bug growing up in the Wegener household. “As a kid I was always in the workshop with dad,” Ann says. “Helping him, passing him tools – you, know, ‘grab me a ring-open-ender, undo this, take out…

Australian drag racing’s finest Muscle Car movers and shakers

TOP 25 The following is a selection of the 25 most significant drag racing muscle cars from the early days of Australian drag racing. These are not in any particular order, and could as well be replaced by other contenders; it just depends on what you see as significant. This could as easily been a list of another hundred vehicles... These are mostly single vehicles, but sometimes we’ve morphed two vehicles into the one feature since the original vehicle was replaced by a later version that cosmetically may have been different but had the same impact and continued the impact that began with its predecessor. We figure these are the cars that influenced a generation. They might not have won the most – though most enjoyed their share – or…

Australian drag racing’s finest Muscle Car movers and shakers

The Bear and family

Muscle Man Introduction The best Australian driver never to have raced at the Bathurst 1000? Well, if you take the obvious candidate – former F1 driver Mark Webber out of the equation, who have you got? Maybe the late Niel Allen, the McLaren Formula 5000 driver who held the outright lap record at Bathurst for over 30 years? Or what about Kent Youlden, the two-time Australian Production Car Champion who came second in the Bathurst 12 Hour, in a … Ford Laser? Kent Youlden, who sadly passed away last year at the relatively young age of 71, was a very accomplished racing driver, who pragmatically put his family and his lifelong career as a production engineer at Ford ahead of his racing aspirations. His early years were in rallycross and…

The Bear
and family

If this is the premier historic race meeting in Australia, then Phillip Island is the perfect place for it. Not only is it a world class circuit, but at 4.45km it’s big. The venue itself is huge; off and on track there is room for big numbers of entrants in the paddock as well plenty of displays in the spectator areas. Large fields in all categories is usually what you get at the Island Classic, and even though numbers overall were a little down in 2024 there were still some very big grids. The Heritage Touring Cars events attracted 36 cars, which included a small selection of Super Tourers in addition to the Group A and C cars. Among the drivers up the front of the field was some heavyweight…

Slot car addiction

2024 releases After a few years of Covid induced turmoil in the industry, the familiar pattern of releases of new cars seems to be returning. If that sounds melodramatic, then we have to remember that slot cars are a niche hobby in a world where ‘hands-on’ is constantly being replaced by electronic media. It is good to see our industry surviving and coming out the other side apparently intact. Two pieces that seem to confirm this are, firstly, the 2024 Spielwarenmesse toy fair held in Nürnberg Germany in January, and secondly, the announcement of Scalextric’s Australia only releases. Spielwarenmesse is the traditional place for manufacturers to release information of their new products. Covid had disrupted this news and planning cycle in the past few years, so to see slot manufacturers…

Slot car addiction

Bathurst or bust?

It’s not been the start to the year Supercars Australia would have hoped for – or even anticipated, for that matter. The demise – only just a few months ago – of the Newcastle street circuit round threw the proverbial spanner in the works at the last minute, leaving the 2024 calendar unconfirmed right up until the end of October. Not that the Newcastle news came out of the blue. There has been strong and growing opposition to the event among some Novocastrians, and in particular the inner-city residents whose front doors are a metre or two away from the edge of the racetrack. In hindsight, it’s hard to see how staging a street circuit motor race so close to homes that they become uninhabitable for weeks on end could…

Bathurst
or bust?

Holding your block The ESR-450 Engine Stand from Hare & Forbes Machinery House is an easy to use rotary design offering many approach angles to make your engine building more accessible . The new geared manual crank handle feature mounted at the rear of the stand uses approx. up to 95% less human physical strength compared to the standard conventional units on the market and allows you to easily rotate the engine block 360º in any convenient desired angle position, for you to gain better and easier access when rebuilding a combustion engine and even when disassembling components. This very sturdy engine stand can hold up to a 450kg engine block, and with its six heavy duty swivel caster wheels allows you to move and position the engine exactly where…

In this hobby, or at least in my corner of it, you have to take the opportunities as they come. What the heck does that mean? Well, when you find a model of a particular car, sometimes you just have to grab it, even if you have to put it on the shelf for a while. Such was the case with the Jaguar XJ-S here. It’s a Corgi Junior, same size as Matchbox and Hot Wheels, so about 1:64 scale. This one was in ‘played with’ condition; not destroyed, but a long way from brand new. That’s fine: some kid has enjoyed themselves with it and now it’s my turn. A while passes, and I pick up a brand-new Jaguar from Coles, this time a Matchbox XJ-C. Hmm. The XJ-C…

Bolwell Nagari Tony Hanna at Ace Models teased us with these 1:43 beauties a while back, and now here they are! Two versions of the Australianbuilt sports car, a coupe and a roadster, with two colours in each. And they look pretty bloody great, don’t they? We featured the Nagari a while back. They’re in limited runs only and considering the cost of tooling the price of $135 is pretty right. Get more info at www.acemodelcars.com Group C HDT VK Commodores Big news from Authentic Collectibles. Big as in size, that is. You a Brock fan? A Holden fan? Need a centrepiece for your collection? Here you go – a 1:12 scale (yes, that’s a twelve) Group C VK Commodore. This sealed-body resin model will impress and and all who…

Donington Auction at Amaroo In late February Donington Auctions held its first auction from its new facility - one of the former ARDC buildings at Amaroo Park. Donington Auctions got together with Shannons to celebrate the occasion with a car park display of classic and muscle cars, racing cars and motorcycles. Donington hopes the repurposed ARDC headquarters will become a meeting point for car clubs – and AMC can vouch for the quality of the café that’s now situated in one of the old buildings right behind the former ARDC head office.…

AMC Club Directory

CAR CLUBS A9X Torana Club Australia Inc. Established to assist all its members identify and preserve genuine examples of the A9X Torana by providing assistance with information, parts, and services. WEB: http://a9xclub.org.au Brock Commodore Owners Association of Australia Inc The Brock Commodore Owners Association of Australia Inc (BCOAA Inc) endeavours to bring together owners of Brock/HDT Special Vehicles built Commodores (VC-VL) and WB Magnums (Statesman and utility variants), produced and issued with a build number during the period that Peter Brock owned and traded under the HDT Special Vehicles Pty Ltd company name from 1980 to 1988. WEB: https://bcoaa.com Canberra Torana Club (CTC) The CTC was founded in 2003 with the goal of preserving the history and experience of the Holden Torana for future generations. The club is about bringing…

Last year I penned a Muscle Woman feature on the diminutive Robyn Hamilton, who graced our race tracks in the late 1970s at a time when Sue Ransom and Christine Gibson were prominent in the sport. With the exception of the likes of Leanne Ferrier (formerly Tander) and Chelsea Angelo in recent years, there have been slim pickings since. I’m not about to wade in and postulate why there is a dearth of female talent today; instead I’m turning back the clock to look at a couple of female racers that left their mark on the sport a very long time ago. Joan Richmond is a name only the most scholarly of motorsport students will know. In a decade-long career that neatly spanned the 1930s, her racing record was impressive.…

a word from our sponsors...

How do you make a humble plastic motor oil container look good? Like this. BP could have just as easily have relied on the first rule of advertising (namely, the idea that above all else, ‘sex sells’), with an attractive young female model holding up a 5-litre container of BP’s new motor oil for high performance cars. Instead, it opted for more authentic, more creative approach – but with just as much appeal. When developing the 1973 campaign for the newly-released BP Corse Plus oil, BP’s ad agency was careful to ensure it didn’t alienate potential customers. So there were two different print ads: one featuring an XA Falcon GT, the other a HQ Monaro GTS. Simple but highly effective, and dare we say even evocative. It’s just an oil…

a word from our sponsors...

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