Australian Muscle Car

Australian Muscle Car is a fresh, proudly Australian publication dedicated to preserving the legend of the unique ‘Australian made’ Ford vs Holden muscle car heritage. From 1960s classic Bathurst muscle to the super sophisticated Falcon and Commodore performance cars of the new millennium and everything in between.

Steve Normoyle

Australian Muscle Car

Chrysler gets the chop: 300 SRT gone from Oz

ARG opens season at Symmons

BMW’s Magic Bathurst milestone

Moffat at Macau

Spencer Martin book

Speed Kings

AMC BEST LETTER

Wally’s Words • Farewell to an old mate

Adventures with Brocky: tales from Peter Brock’s PR chief

Paul Newby

Whincup’s Monster Monza • This monster Chev Monza is a very different type of V8-powered supercar from Jamie Whincup’s Triple Eight Commodore ZB, but it’s a car that Jamie knows well – because this was his uncle Graeme’s race car when Jamie was just a kid starting out in karts. Back in the day this wild, winged wonder of a machine was arguably the most advanced Sports Sedan in the country – and even 30-odd years later the now beautifully restored ex- Graeme Whincup Monza probably still has the potential to give some of the current-day Sports Sedans a run for their money.

Catastrophe averted • Ford no longer makes cars in Australia but more than 50 years of Aussie Falcon production and development is a proud record for the Blue Oval down under. And yet back in the early 1960s it might have been all over for the Falcon and Ford Australia before it really even got started, had it not been for the drastic salvage effort put in place by the Ford top brass – and some secret goings on at a remote South Australian location known as Cape Catastrophe.

Some of the 1500 changes made to XM:

Miami nice • They called it Miami but a name like Campbellfield might have been a more geographically representative moniker for the last, and probably the best, Aussie-developed V8 production engine. A decade on from the release of the Miami Ford 5.0-litre V8 Bernie Quinn, one of the engine’s chief architects, reflects on the bold project to develop this supercharged variant of a Ford engine design that hadn’t yet gone into production anywhere.

Stormin’ in a Shelby • Late in 1964 Norm Beechey flew to the US to buy a brand-new Ford Mustang, the car which ‘Stormin’ Norman’ would steer to victory in the following year’s Australian Touring Car Championship. Here, close to 60 years later, unearthed almost by accident from Ford’s historical records, is a detailed collection of the correspondence that took place between Beechey in Melbourne and Shelby American in California between 1964 and ’66 – as well as Beechey’s recollections today of his association with Shelby and the famous blue Neptune Ford Mustang.

Beechey’s recollections • When AMC’s US correspondent Mike Matune Jnr sent us this remarkable set of documents showing the communication and dealings between Shelby and Norm Beechey during his period racing the Mustang, we took the opportunity to show them to the man himself.

Hot-six SANDMAN • The Sandman series was an attempt by Holden to cash in on the 1970s youth panel van craze. It was certainly a success, so much so that the Sandman today has achieved a kind of Aussie cultural icon status. But if Holden had seriously wanted to make a van that reflected what was really going on out there in the youth van scene in the ‘70s, it would have come up with something like Phil Platcher’s hot-six HX Sandman. After all, what’s not to like about a Sandman with an XU-1 engine?

Beaso The quiet achiever • He’s not a household name but he’s the guy who showed Peter Brock the fast way around Oran Park, and the driver who probably would have been our Formula Ford national champion one year if not for a driving error from Larry...