258 replies to this topic

[S pack]

And many consider the phase 3 not only as a muscle car, but the fastest 4 door car in the World, and it was basically,  an american muscle car, with our Ford falcon body ontop.....

 

Not that much is Aussie design about those Falcon bodies either.

[DanWA]

You forgot the LC/LJ/UC at the start of the thread title

[yel327]

Not that much is Aussie design about those Falcon bodies either.

 

And if GMH hadn't decided to switch to the LC as the weapon of choice and continued with the HG a GT-HO may never have ever won Bathurst. 1970 would have been a close thing, the race was actually significantly slower than 1969 and Harry would have had another year of development which should have included his Old man Emu HG with the LT1 engine but even if the 1970 race had seen a HG using the 1969 engines further developed it'd have been very close. After that though 1971 and 1972 would have been totally different, what would have happened is anyone's guess. Ford may even have pulled out of racing as at the time there really was no other engine in the Ford stable suitable for the task, the Cleveland they had was the best available, they'd have to have developed it further whereas GMH had access to that wonderful 1970 Z28 LT1 engine if needed.

[StephenSLR]

Its agreed. Toranas are definitely not musclecars.

 

So does that make Toranas, Pony Cars?

 

Pony car is an American class of automobile. The term describes an affordable, compact, highly styled car with a sporty or performance-oriented image.

 

 

* runs & hides before the can of worms erupts.

 

s

Edited by StephenSLR, 18 December 2015 - 09:12 AM.

[StephenSLR]

I'm tending to agree with yel, the only one we had was the GTS327.

 

What about the 360 Charger; didn't they stick the biggest boat anchor they could find into a Charger? 

I recall a joke about the 265 Chargers with triples; if you wanted the fuel efficient version, you got the 360.

 

s

[yel327]

The 340 E55 Charger in a VH is the gun V8 car, but they were only autos and dressed up as a luxury car sort of like a HQ LS (not sporty). Wheels or Modern Motor put a decent exhaust on one and it was faster than a GT-HO over the quarter. The VH had the high compression 340ci engine, the VK E55 got a far lower performance version of the same spec engine, very much like the L48 changed from HG to HQ (10.25:1 down to 8.5:1) the same happened with the E55 from VH to VK, from memory went from 10.4:1 down to 8.5:1.

The 360c cu engine is like the 2BBL 400 would have been in a HQ. Easily woken up but a doughey stump puller. There were performance versions of the 360 in the USA (just like there was 1971-1974 Z28 350ci SBC engines in the USA) but we didn't get them in Australia afaik.

 

If you are going to include any Charger in Aussie Muscle it is undoubtedly the E38 and E49. They fulfil all criteria other than being a 6cyl. Nothing was ever faster until the HSV cars of the 90's.

Edited by yel327, 18 December 2015 - 09:45 AM.

[myss427]

I remember seeing a container full of the 340 Chrysler motors at Indy speed shop in the early 80's of old stock motors. They had steel cranks, good compression with the latest w port heads. They were a very underrated motor, on the level of an LT1 chev.

[yel327]

The VH engines had steel cranks. Once these ran out they used the later low comp engine with cast crank in VJ (I said VK before).

 

340 in US in 1971 was 10.4:1, 850cfm carb, 2.02/1.6 valves and 290hp. Not sure if we got all the goodies in the VH E55. Apparently the 290hp was an under-rated figure. Some good info here:

http://www.e55charge...m/e55-chargers/

[yel327]

Aha, auto and 2bbl carb, that ones out.

 

360 was a 4BBL Bomber, but a lugger not a fighter!

[xu2308]

Least we can say our Aussie Super Car were that fast they banned them 

 

 

Attached Files

•  XU2 Torana.jpg   52.38K   1 downloads

[yel327]

E57 360 was a 2 Barrel slug, like you said earlier. The E57 in both late VJ and VK spec was just a caravan tower. Even the 'performance' versions in that US weren't thought much of. 

 

Regarding the XU1, all I can say is thank goodness some of the bosses in Holden realised there were more races in Australia than Bathurst. The LC XU1 won the 1971 Manufacturers Championship against the Phase 3 and E38, along with four ARC's in a row. The LC's Warwick Farm debut also saw a win against Bob Jane's 350 Monaro, which by all accounts was the fastest series production Monaro at the time. Sometimes the powers that be know better than the blokes in the field, and I firmly believe this was one of those times. My opinion. I was at Warwick Farm, one of the most technically challenging circuits ever in Australia, most meetings from January 1971 through July 1973, and saw the crowds there. So I'll leave it at that. (Because I know there will be paragraph after paragraph singing the praise of Harry's HG forthcoming)....!

 

There you go, we only got the 2BBL 360!

 

You won't get any arguments from me about the LC XU1's credentials. By all rights it embodies the whole US Muscle Car theme other than the lack of cylinders. It too like the HK GT327 has an engine unique within its series, the engine is pulled from the bigger car, it is performance oriented, looks the part, and even goes one further in that the engine is modified for performance. If you ever got a chance to chat to Don Holland he had proof and was adamant that the ARDC stuffed up again in 1970 and he was actually on the same lap as the winning Fords, not a lap down as the official results show. So it does make you wonder "what if?" the HDT cars hadn't suffered from (I think) valve spring troubles.....

 

BTW Old Man Emu was canned due to enormous cost, XU1 was a far cheaper car with a lot more local content and had a future - imported engines were about to go backwards big time in performance and the HK-HG shape was planned to be gone by the time 1971 rolled around. As you say people within GMH obviously had far more puzzle pieces than Harry did. 
 

[StephenSLR]

as someone said (and he was spot on)  muscle car means a big piece of American shit box, that is fast in a straight line (because they put a truck motor in a car) and shit everywhere else, especially in Factory Form....

 

This wasn't a bad thing; the car companies didn't have to overspend on engineering and kept the costs down; they weren't pretending to make them Sports Luxury; just pack in as much grunt as possible to satisfy power hungry customers; bearing in mind these were perfect for the long straight roads of the USA countryside and the Saturday Night street racers who just wanted to switch the thing on, point it in a general direction and slam the foot down.

 

s

[wot179]

I had a buddy bought an ex cop 360 Charger when we were both straight out of high school.

It was a two barrel but had extractors fitted somewhere along the line.

It had a pretty good top speed.

We got caught in it once doing 180 in a 100 zone (slowing down). 3mths disqualified, a $500 fine and back at it in those days.

Never have I been so close to being a blood spattered mess than as a passenger in that car.

It wasn't long before I wouldn't get in it with him.

If he hadn't stuck it into a ditch and pretzeled it, trying to take a hairpin at the bottom of Razorback late one night

at 100km/h, it would have been the end of him.

I still shudder when I think of the deathrides I experienced in that car.


Definitely not a musclecar, though.

[yel327]

My drive car on P plates at school was a HQ Deville. Only a 308 but still went fast considering most of the other guys had Geminis and Sunbirds or other such girl's cars. My toy car then was a HQ van with a 202 with triples and a 3spd floor shift. The Stato had Pacemakers, twin system with no balance pipe and bugger all mufflers. Loud POS.

[yel327]

At least the ARDC were consistent! Stuffed up lap counts in 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970. Harry Firth protested in 1967 and got the result overturned. The ARDC covered their butts in 1968, but months later exonerated Des West but never overturned the result. 1969 Des wanted to protest but Harry wouldn't let him as a HDT car won, and we already spoke about 1970. Poor old Des West really should have had 2 x Bathurst wins to his name and Brock ten wins.

[yel327]

I think a VL turbo might give you some inkling! If not that one of those dealer made UC turbos.

 

But a V8 turbo would have been even better! GMH actually tried this on a HX GTS sedan.

 

At the end of the day i'd put my money on a closer to stock and lower revving 308 XU1 being a better endurance touring car than a turbo six, at that time (ie early 70's).