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

Smokin’ HOs

HSVs on the rise

Auction update

Vale Bob Muir

New GTHO book uncovers lost factory production records

Moffat beats Grice

Johnson goes fourth

Power Shift: new Chevy era leaves questions unanswered • In the biggest reset to Australian touring car racing rules in three decades, Supercars launched its Gen3 cars on the streets of Newcastle. The start of the Chevrolet era was generally greeted enthusiastically by the fans, but as Mark Mathot reports, behind the scenes, things were far from happy.

Paul Newby

AMC BEST LETTER • amceditorial@chevron.com.au | Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards NSW 1590

THE UNICORN FORD FALCON XA GTHO PHASE IV • Four XA Falcon GTHO Phase IVs were built before the Supercar Scare forced Ford to cancel production. Three of them were developed for racing by the Ford works racing team, built at Lot 6 as prototypes. Only one car ever went down the Ford production line as a Phase IV. This is that car, and here is its story.

Road Test XA Falcon GTHO Phase IV • Plenty has been written over the decades about the XA GTHO. But one thing that had never been documented, is a road test of the car. And so, exclusively, and for the first time, we bring you our impressions of what it’s like to drive a Falcon XA GTHO.

Sliding Doors Bathurst 1972

1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 Wet and wild

Racing royalty • Local race fans, brought up on Australian-flavoured V8s driven by local hero drivers, didn’t know what to make of Prince Leopold von Bayern’s presence at Bathurst in 1984. And vice versa. ‘Poldi’ reflects on his great racing adventure to Australia four decades ago.

My Muscle Car

Retro Vision

Bob’s big banger • Some say it’s the best looking racing machine ever to grace an Australian motor racing circuit. It was powered by what is arguably the best V8 race engine ever developed in Australia. It was raced by one of our best-ever drivers, John Harvey, and also by its owner, none other than Bob Jane – for whom the car was so special that he never sold it.

Classic Island • The Phillip Island Classic is this country’s premier historic race meeting, and this year it featured some very premier old touring cars. The Bowden Collection celebrated the 30th anniversary of Allan Moffat’s first ATCC title by bringing the works XY Falcon GTHO that delivered it, while Steven Richards and Greg Murphy starred in the Heritage Touring Car races in ex-factory Nissan Skyline HR31s - and the ex-works Toyota Supra featured elsewhwere in this issue made its return to the track.

Charlie Speed With Style • In the inclusive and diverse world of today there has never been more opportunities for women in motorsport. In management and engineering there has been great strides made by women; when it comes to drivers the picture is less rosy. Yet 40 years ago there was a woman who undoubtedly was as fast as the fastest men. Her name was Robyn ‘Charlie’ Hamilton. Out of the car she was feminine but feisty, inside the car she was ferocious and fearless. The sport had seen nothing like her before and sadly nothing since. She was a phenomenon for five short years, never quite fulfilling the potential bestowed upon her and disappearing from the motorsport scene with little fanfare. In her first in-depth interview on her motor racing career, ‘Charlie’ breaks her silence.

Slot car addiction

White Whale • It was big, it was white,...