Michael Stahl
A relaxation of import regulations is fuelling a mini nostalgia boom in US muscle cars. Stahly fires up 400 cubes of Detroit iron for his own drive back down memory lane.
If you’re one of the many who regard the 1970s as the decade that taste forgot, you’re not going to like this decade any better. Australia’s automotive landscape is only going to get Drum-rollingly, Amco-Bogartishly, Glo-Weavingly worse.
We’re talking Burt Reynolds, David Soul and David Hasselhoff worse.
There’s already a not-so-quiet revolution occurring on Australia’s roads. It’s been gaining momentum like, well, a two-tonne vehicle with a big-block V8 and undersized drum brakes.
Relaxation of the registration laws for older vehicles [see breakout, right] has been a bonanza for cashed-up baby boomers with a hankerin’ for classic American muscle. And with these ‘classic collectables’ by-passing much of the traditional red-tape, the industry growing around them also fits the wild west theme.
Cars built 30 or more years ago may now be registered in left-hand drive, provided they otherwise meet the roadworthiness requirements in force when they were built. It’s opened a flood of smooth, sixties Mustangs, Mopars, Camaros and Corvettes to soothe our super-heated market of six-figure Aussie supercars. Some put the figure of US imports at 2000 cars every month.
While this isn’t only muscle cars – California-climate Euro sports cars are in high demand, too – it roughly levels the balance of trade of Pontiac G8s headed in the opposite direction.
The Motown imports aren’t all Coke-bottle curves and McQueen cool. The rolling 30-year line means that every year, a fresh Detroit horror is exhumed for the specific, obscure enjoyment of another television-educated, fifty-something Australian male.
The Blues Brothers’ 1974 Dodge Monaco Police Pack has been yours since ’04. Last year opened the T-top on the ’77 Smokey and the Bandit Pontiac TransAm, in all its eagle-bonneted obnoxiousness.
I wanted some ’70s wheels for a personal drive down memory lane. Throughout the late-1970s I raced motocross and dirt circuit. I was always pretty crap at it, but it’s paid long-term dividends: I used up a lifetime’s quota of crashes early, on a relatively soft surface.
Inner-city space constraints have steered my retro-perversions towards motorcycles (and one very small car), but I have no trouble identifying as a mid-forties big kid who’s unashamedly star-struck by his ’70s automotive idols.
One of my bikes, a 1972 Husqvarna 450 WR desert racer, draws a straight line to the blond-haired, buck-toothed 10-year-old kid sitting stunned in front of On Any Sunday at the Roselands Cinema.
Australia’s premier, annual event for vintage motocross is Classic Dirt. The fifth edition, held at Barleigh Ranch a couple of hours north of Sydney, promised whole harems of Husqvarnas, masses of Maicos, a bevy of Bultacos, an orgy of Ossas, slatherings of CZs.
I picked up one of the specialist car-classifieds and rang a few numbers. I phoned three before I located one that didn’t pull a verbal hand-brakey when I mentioned Wheels.
I had a perve around the website for Mick’s US Muscle Cars and Classics (www.usmusclecars.com.au) before calling. Mick’s surname sounded familiar; I remembered his father, Laurie, racing a Mustang in Appendix J, and Mick’s name popping up at Bathurst a couple of times.
Mick ventured, “Mate, come over and take my own car. She’s just a good, honest runner, nothing too flash. A ’76 Pontiac Firebird Esprit 400. I’ve got this because I’m a mad Rockford Files fan, and James Garner drove one.”
Turned out the Rockford-replica Firechicken was only the first part of my journey into television kitsch.
At Mick’s southern Sydney workshop, we were chatting about his racing exploits – father and son finishing 12th at Bathurst in 1993 – when it clicked. For six months during 1992, Mick Donaher and his family were the subjects of the proto-reality television series, Sylvania Waters.
Mick barely disguised a sigh. “Yeah, that often comes up,” he said. “Y’know, they showed six hours of film. And they had over 100 hours on tape. So they could have made us look like the Brady Bunch, they could have made us look like the Manson Family.”
Mick walked away from V8 Supercar racing after a major shunt on top of The Mountain in 2001. These days he races Laurie’s stunning ’69 Camaro and is fair-dinkum about building the US Muscle Cars business.
“I’m a mechanic by trade, and I know those cars,” he explained. “But it’s very hard when you’re an enthusiast as well as a businessman. It’s very difficult to buy with your head and not with your heart.”
All of the above actually makes Donaher over-qualified to be an importer of classic cars. Currently, importers do not need to be licensed automotive dealers, there’s no limit on the number of cars they can import, the vehicles don’t even need to be roadworthy, and there’s no warranty, expressed or implied.
“As it stands now, every man and his dog can bring a car in,” Donaher says. “It’s probably selfish of me, having been in the industry a few years, but it makes sense to me that you should have to be licensed to be an importer. If you had to pay a licence fee of $2000 a year or something, you’re gonna make sure that you’re au fait with the rules.”
In his workshop was an aggressively elegant trio comprising a 1970 Boss Mustang ($99K), a ’68 Dodge Charger R/T 440 ($79,500) and ’72 Plymouth Barracuda 340 ($59,500). There was also a very clean, restored example of the first Mustang (’65) for $27,500. Think what you like about Yank cars, all these are clearly classics.
“I get people coming to me all the time saying, ‘Now, can you recommend a good guy to convert it?’” Mick said. “I say, ‘Do yourself a favour, drive the car for a month. Drive it around, get used to it. ’Cause I’m telling you, this car will become more valuable in time as a LHD car than it will as a RHD.’
“I mean, something like that Boss Mustang – if you converted that car, you would dead-set want shootin’.”
I drove away in Mick’s car, the ultrasonic warbling of the Rockford Files theme inexplicably in my head. There was something instantly likeable about the punch-drunk Pontiac. The dark metallic green paint was in very good condition, meaning it showcased the shittiness of the acrylic enamel in use at the time. The panel gap around the fibreglass bonnet could swallow an adult’s index finger, and I noted GM’s accidental omission of any sideways-facing bonnet scoops.
The chrome-plated key had been worn back to bronze and needed jiggling just-so in the door. Inside was a Dali-esque vision of gently wavy, white plastic panelling, dotted with the exposed heads of screws. Black plastic plugs replaced the window cranks of poverty-pack sister models. And the dual-inertia-reel seatbelts were bizarre to use, the driver’s belt eventually settling precisely upon my left ear-lobe.
But other than sitting on the opposite side, none of this was so different from the pointy-spoked steering wheels, painted-plastic interiors, Fablon woodgrain and slippery vinyl seats of XC Falcons and HZ Holdens.
Some of it was more familiar than expected. I’d always thought (though I hadn’t thought about it often) that Radial Tuned Suspension was a legitimate Holden innovation. Turns out it was just another bullshit badge out of the GM parts bin.
If you did want to, you could probably convert the Firebird to right-hand drive using about one-sixth of a rooted Kingswood.
The Pontiac wasn’t the ideal weapon for the narrow lanes of Sydney’s inner-city. Over-the-shoulder glances at Give Ways, and suddenly billboard-width hatchbacks are a constant challenge from the left seat.
Out on the broader boulevards of the ’burbs, however, then fat-arming it (the a/c wasn’t working) up the Pacific Highway en route to middle-aged motocross Mecca, my seat position ceased to matter. The car’s steering was far less approximate than I’d expected and the disc/drum braking reliably straight, if not particularly strong. One brief, half-inch prod of throttle seemed enough to carry the 400-cubic-inch, 225bhp, tall-diffed behemoth for about 17 miles.
Fuel efficiency was, of course, on the scale of the Exxon Valdez, but on the highway the big Ponty made me feel far too omnipotent and unstressed to bother getting figures on it. Best I can offer is that every time I touched the interior door handle, it seemed to cost me $90.
But I’ve mentioned before that I have occasional use of a Ferrari 400 A. It’s only two years younger than the Firebird, and likewise has a three-speed auto (GM, no less). The Ferrari has leather,
12 cylinders, six Webers, four disc brakes, steel space-frame, double-wishbone suspension – as trick as it got in the late 1970s.
But the Firebird, at 1730kg, is actually 90kg lighter. And with the exception of handling extremes I wouldn’t care to approach in either, it’s no worse to drive. Operating costs would be similar, servicing costs no contest. And, hurting the most, the mass-produced Detroit dunger is today worth as much money as the contemporary flagship of the Ferrari range.
Turns out it’s the exact opposite with the dream dirt-bikes of my youth. In the early-1980s, fancy-pants brands like Maico and Husqvarna would sell you one of their 250cc ‘works replica’ models for around $3000; Yamaha YZs, Honda CRs, Kawasaki KXs and Suzuki RMs were around $2000.
Today, that might find you a chook-chasing basket-case; with a booming repro parts industry, good examples of Japanese and Europeans typically run from $4000-$6000.
Models sought for their rarity (like Yamaha’s 1976 four-stroke TT500) or for vintage racing competitiveness (the magnesium-engined 1974 Husqvarna 250 CR) are closer to $8K.
Remember the Honda XR-75? The four-stroke Honda minibike was every schoolboy’s dream from its launch in 1973, and out of the reach of most. Lined up in a marquee at Classic Dirt, one owner displayed his collection of restored K0 through K3 models … any one of which, today, would start at $5K.
When I first pulled the Pontiac up at the Barleigh Ranch gate, the unknown guy at the gate said, “You used to race, didn’t you? St George club, wasn’t it?”
Given that I’d never achieved anything of note, I was impressed. And I, too, started recognising riders’ names and jerseys.
Vintage motocross racing is as fast or as flabby as you want it. Vintage dirt lets guys like hardcore Husky fan Glenn Wollenweber and CZ nutcase Robin Hall bring their whole collections of bikes and, er, cycle through them all weekend.
Pointing the Pontiac home, I could fully understand how some blokes get their yucks cruising in a Yank tank. Seems a waste of crudeness to me, when one’s ride back in time can be even dirtier, muddier, bumpier, ruttier, noisier and smokier.
