out for my saturday morning long distance grocery walk.

........lo and behold.

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1973 ford falcon XA.
pepper red. GT. 351 cleveland.
(aussie ford that is).
however ......styled in detroit. last of the aussie fords styled in the USA.
put me in a good mood all day.
owner was standing nearby and i had a quick chat.
freshly restored by him.
cracked a joke about it having its nose up like a 914.
......he knew what a 914 was and asked me why i said that.
told him i had one that was one shade of orange off his pepper red.
or was that pepper orange?
ie phoenix red. or is that phoenix orange. he knew what phoenix red was.

car blokes. top blokes.

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70s. top era. go fast stripes. wild colors. emotionally crippled cars suffering from epa strangulation pillow suffocation.
sure beats the 21st century. what shade of grey is that again. oh yeah. mirage grey.
ah i thought it was saharan grey. nice polar silver SUV there mate. its not silver. its uber unsaturated black. tops. beaudiful touch screen you got there where the gear lever used to be. yeah. gear levers are for pensioners.

Cool!

The seventies was my jam!! High school daze and so many cool cars.

It looks like the white car in the "Brokenwood" series.

Very cool. A couple of decades ago I organized a Mercury/Lincoln/Ford car show where 7 Falcon GTs entered. It was thought to be the largest gathering of Aussie Falcons in the US. Awesome cars.

i recall seeing that tv show at some stage.
that was a holden kingswood - rival homegrown GM product - if my memory is correct.

ford falcon, holden kingswood and chrysler valient were your basic aussie family cars right through the 60s and 70s.

Recently at the Toluca Lake Bob's Big Boy cruise-in, a proper Mad Max re-creation / photos by my bud Derek W.
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...view as she 'Blew by you
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Proper pipes too !
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RHD and the 'Book em Dano (aka Hawaii five Oh) blue lawman light
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@Maltese Falcon

yeah the two door hard top (mad max car) is an absolute classic.
possibly one of the most beautiful fords anywhere, any market?
big swollen rear guards to take the rubber for mount panorama bathurst 500.
literally designed to win that race and then sold on the street.
and ford surprised themselves. sold more than they ever expected.

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if you knew how to fill out the options order book the right way you could basically get ford to build you one off the production line to bathurst spec. apart from the specially welded bodies the team cars had.

prior to that you could pretty much walk into the show room and buy what was called a GTHO with the earlier model cars. the HO was the bathurst car. the supercar scare put an end to that around 1971. similar to the death of the muscle car in the USA with insurance and epa standards.
the 4 door GTHO phase 4 looked pretty much like the red falcon i posted photo of.
only 4 ever built before the program was cancelled due to the threatened government legislation. i believe 3 of the 4 survive and are all held tightly by collectors here in aus.
thats the one to have. absolutely brutal car dressed in 4 door family car sheep clothing (sort of sheep clothing. )

so the hardtops kind of became the secret GTHO. strictly speaking ford made it appear you could no longer buy the bathurst car in the showroom to appease the govt. legislators.

@Maltese Falcon

i posted photo above for your interest.
yes Jackie Ickx drove at bathurst.
alan moffat talked him into coming here in 77 to do the 500 as his co driver.
he was one of the first international drivers to haul himself all the way down here to do the race.
back then it was an obscure provincial event.
of course its gone on to have legendary status and all the international drivers want to pit themselves against the mountain.

https://practicalmotoring.com.au/interview/jacky-ickx/

would have been a shock for j i to wrestle that big ford down the mountain with its crap brakes compared to his life with nimble porsches at le mans.

Wonk, nice find and story--thanks.

My car heroes of the 70s, including some I owned:
Porsche 914 (of course)
Fiat X1/9
Mazda RX-7
Porsche 930
Datsun 240Z
Chevy Camaro (Gen 2)
Chevy Chevelle SS

BTW, for those who were not there or have not studied automotive history, the 1970s was a difficult time for cars and fans. Initial emission requirements were ramped up leading to all kinds of crap bolted on to motors. Giant crash bumpers were bolted onto fronts and rears. Safety systems included all sorts of belts, buzzers, lights, ignition locks, etc. Cars got fatter, uglier, slower, and just not fun.

...and don't forget cat converters starting in 1975.

Always loved the Aussie Falcons, thought they looked like a cross between a Torino and a mach1 Mustang

right on the money there art.
they are a slightly shrunk down 1970 and half USA falcon (only slightly reduced) with a healthy dose of torino thrown in the mix. the detroit styling team were on a roll around that time. the mavericks are like a shrunken aussie falcon a bit.
all really nice cars.

myself i have always had a soft spot for the mavericks.
only a few rare private import examples floating around in australia.
i like em better than mustangs.

very tasteful collection of cars you have had there my man.

I would add an early 70 or 71 Boss 302, but the 914 and 930 for sure

Thanks. How many of these were officially sold down under?

fiat X/19 (heaps of them - but all rusted out and gone even down here).
RX7 - heaps of them and still quite a few around. aus is big into mazda and rotaries.
930s. plenty. a mate of a late friend of mine owned the paris show display concept turbo. didn't have the turbo in it. was ex hamilton via porsche factory. long story.
datsun 240Z heaps and heaps. we got em early on. some of the lowest vin # cars are here apparently.

914s - never here. officially speaking. but there are a couple of special ones via the distributor. and two of the crayfords cars.
never see 914s.

camaro gen 2 or any gen. never here officially. but enough private imports you see em from time to time. the 21st century camaro was actually engineered down here.
i used to see the LHD prototypes out on the street with special plates back in the early nougthties driving around in the port melbourne area.

chevellle. never seen one in the metal down here. they are here. would like to check one out. i like the look of those but confess when its not a porsche i am kind of prone to fords.

Grey, silver, black, white, misty moonpie, whatever those colors are called are

This is what happens when people buy into corporate bullshit that "neutral color cars have higher resale value" when they do not (according to statistical data that I cannot put my hands on now). People should just stop buying cars those awful and boring colors. Let's see what the manufacturers do with tons of unsold ugly cars. . especially that idiotic primer grey color. Sad.

@wonkipop

The "gear levers are for pensioners" comment above has had me chuckling the last few days. We would call them 'retirees' here in the US but 'pensioners' somehow reflects both a disparaging and respectful persona to it at the same time. Luv the Oz dual meaning, fits those of us that follow the 914 temperament perfectly.

Some of us will be pensioners before we know it and may have been looking closely at the newer P-cars with the gearbox switch on the dash, although I wish they at least had an optional "anti-theft lever". The cars are billed as luxury/sports cars with myriads of power and handling options. The convenience of a dash switch combined with shift paddles at the wheel feels OK with me, as supporting the spectrum of driving styles.

Hey, I am a retiree (mostly) and a pensioner (I get two checks every month from former employers). And while I prefer automatic transmissions for some things, like trucks for off road and towing, and I know that modern PDK systems are faster, my fun cars will always have a gear shift lever and 3 pedals.

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Late 70’s.. my first 914. 71 2.4 liter 4 banger

Steve with a Datsun truck in the garage with a bowing wooden door and a wood shake roof soooo 70’s Oh and a beach cruiser!!

1977 at the Mar Vista shop at Grand View & Washington Pl. Me and Orville 'Blu Kyle...another kit installed

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Girls LOVED 914s back then:Click to view attachment

Here's my first car, bought in 1973 for $500 when I was 16. I earned that as a subcontractor to my carpenter dad, who was remodeling part of the local Gulf station. I learned how to do bathroom tile, and did the restrooms. My uncle was a city mechanic and had a side business fixing wrecks and selling them. He took me to a salvage yard and we went home with the 1969 Fiat.

It could have been a 914. I was a dedicated Car and Driver reader, and they had recently published a comparison of SCCA-legal sports cars. The 914 finished 4th out of 8, and I had to have the winner.

Unfortunately, the car I could afford had hit a pole dead-center. The bumper, front panel, grill, and hood looked nasty, but the mechanicals and even the radiator were fine. I learned how to do body work (poorly--at that point I was a damned PO who was VERY fond of bondo). Once I got it running, I then had to learn how to change the syncros in the 5 speed transmission.

@bkrantz

fiat 124 spyder another one of those cars aussies never got.
we got the coupes but not the converts.
fiat never made the spyder in right hand drive form for some reason.

there are few down here that are private imports.
came in from the states in the late 80s and early 90s.
similar kind of thing as me and my 914.
you had to then convert to right hand drive.
which people did using coupe mechanical parts.

nice little cars too.

another bit of aussie muscle brawn.
holden torana SLR 5000. 74-78. came out around about the same time as my 74 914.
usual formula - stick a bigger engine than is sane in the "compact" model.
don't worry too much about the brakes. suspension - whats that?
general motors product - ie holden.
many a young man met an untimely and early end in these monsters.
gallows humour named them "gum tree magnets".
spotted this one in the traffic a few months back and got a quick snap.
rare to see one around.

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@bkrantz

dug these out of my photo files for you.
went to an italian day in carlton (melbourne) a couple of years ago as the infamous melbourne covid curfew came to an end.

a couple of aus delivery (proper rhd) X1/9s.
an early one and a late one i believe.
the few that are left that i see are in superb condition retained by enthusiasts.

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and given your fiat 124 spyder first car.
a couple of aussie spyders.
these would be ex USA and likely came in during the late 80s/early90s.
converted to r h d here.
superbly i might add. look and drive completely like they are factory.
aussies used to be very good at doing professional conversions.

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there are one or rwo original rhd fiat dino spyders here in aus.
now thats a car.
don't think there are any fiat dino coupe versions of the same thing.
but there are a number of fiat 130 coupes here.
my mate has one.
slightly different car but very stylish.
known locally as mafia staff cars.
see if i can dig up a photo of my mates.

Holden just did what lots of shade tree Yanks did, but with more money. Speaking of worry-free transplants, I once saw a guy trying to shoe-horn a V8 into a Chevy Vega. I never saw it done, but I heard that the first time it was running, he floored it and twisted the engine off the home-made mounts.

Very cool--thanks. Those cars look great. The Spyder was fun to drive, especially as a high school student. I would drive to school, and hard to park further from the building than my family house on the back side of the school property. But then we could sneak out for lunch and drive to McDonalds. And almost always at least one girl wanted to go in my car.

holden welded in enough stuff in the front of the toranas to hold the 5.0L V8 down.
i think the toranas were based on german opels. not 100% but think that is the source of the basic body shell design.

of course the opels did not have a 5 L V8.

the two door version was the real one to have.
they were the true bathurst spec cars.
and there were bathuirst spec and bathurst spec.
peter brock the king of the mountain had something special in his.
holden race team car.
always sounded different and revved higher.
turned out it had some kind of super duper flat plane crank internals.
rumoured to have come from GM USA skunworks somewhere.

you get a sense of the sound here.
7000 rpm could be sustained if need be (but only for a lap or two when you really needed it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anZlA3_EEuw

Early 80s in Monterey

Early 80s in Monterey

Posted this before…

1973….

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And now…..

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How time flys

Never sell your cool cars.

1979 and a nice road trip to Allensworth State Park with Dee Dee and the new tail dragger.
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I ran this SS350 '69 Camaro on Sundays at Lions Dragstrip, from 1969-72. It was an AHRA track...then converted to NHRA track until the City forced its closure in 1972. This track was where Don Garlits had part of his foot blown off; wherein he hatched the idea for the engine placement behind-driver style modern AA/FD.
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The Camaro was a quick Straight Line car, but always had a wicked Understeer tendency in the curvy canyon roads of local hills. Sold off in 1974, for that awesomeness of a 914 !
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Sounds like the call of Mulholland.

]The Chevy Vega was quite capable of having a V-8 put in it. GM rebranded the Vega as the Monza, and later put a 302 V-8 into it for racing. Of course you had to drill holes in the inner fenders to change the spark plugs, but GM offered a kit with the hole saw and rubber plugs for the holes.

With stock GM parts, you could put any small block into the Vega. With the 4-cylinder rear gearing, the were monsters in a straight line. I had lots of friends in high school with V-8 Vegas.

In High School I had a friend that bought a stripped down
Vega wagon, 2 door with the back side glass replaced with metal
panels. He bought it new and drove it till the engine failed.
Another friend then bought it from him, flared the rear fenders
and put a built 350 in it with 411 rear end gears..
Painted it black and it was an amazing budget hot rod..
As I remember he had to put ladder bars in the back to
keep the rear wheels planted..???

I ran this on the street everyday in the Mid 70's. 66 Chevelle post. It had under 7000 miles on it when it was first turned into a race car. 427 C.I. Big Block, 12/1 compression Crower Monarch solid lifter Cam, rectangle port heads Corvette Tri-Power, 4000 stall converter, Modified Turbo 400, 4:56 gears. Stripped to the shell 6 point cage. Ran in the 11's at Brainard International Raceway.

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Another car I had back in the Mid 70's Built id from Junk. Custom mixed pearl paint.

My first exposure to the Porsche horizontal fan was with this 917/30 in 1978. Otis Chandler owned it after purchasing from Roger Penske...it's the Talladega rekord car (in Sunoco livery). I won a raffle to sit in the ride-along seat at R-I-R for a 20 minute session. Fastest I've ever been on 4 wheels (200 +) on the back straight ! Then I spent several years hunting down a flat-fan assembly for my next build on the black six>>>found it in 1988.
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The guy I remember almost certainly did not use parts from GM or even a local speed shop. It was strictly DYI, fueled by beer.

Still lots of equip out there for '70s Vega v8 swaps !
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