Its hard to take away the achievements of johnson and this car, but what spoils it for me is the hypocrisy. Johnson famously incited the hatred of the skylines. He was a loud critic and no doubt pushed for 'success ballast' to be applied to the gibson GT-R's. So the gibson team had weight added and boost restrictions applied in an attempt to limit the HP. Meanwhile, dick openly talks about the enormous power outputs of his cars from exactly the same methods. high boost turbocharching. He had the fastest sierra's in the world and then cry's about the skylines because they were the only cars that could beat him. He was happy flogging the rest of the field with near 700hp, but when someone else can beat him oh no. Thats not allowed. He still does it today. A few years ago he got 888 penalised for a slight wheel rotation when coming off the jacks in the pits. He actually has members of his team watching competitors pits to see where they can jump up and get them penalised to hand DJR a victory. Meanwhile at bathurst he gets his number 2 man to deliberately hold up the field before safety car release and qualifies his number 1 man on an illegal engine. Sours it for me unfortunately.
I have just picked up a 98 s model. Coming from the UK driving little capacity motors due to fuel cost and tax, being able to jump in a 3.8 V6 and actually enjoy it without sweating over the tax or fuel cost (although it still surprises me how thirsty she is) is such a great feeling. I absolutely love it.
Those 4 speed top loading Borg Warner gear box, gear sticks were a night mare. That bloody nylon ball that the stick swiveled on, would crack really easily, a pain the arts. But for that donk it was a close ratio and gave very impressive performance off the make.
They could once Telstars were Imports from Japan made part of Broadmeadows Home of the V8 from late 1987 onwards.We had to make to initially with Mustangs and later Sierras till 1992.The odd part was the medium ford that was raced at Bathurst was not available to regular people at the dealers as everything below Falcons till about just over 2 decades ago in passengers cars came from Mazda in the eighties and most of the nineties.
Why do most of you guys, call cars that most people can't afford, "little"? What would it be a "normal" car for you? A Scania sleepover cab truck maybe?
I was 10 years old when my best mate's dad bought a new '89 VN Calais 3.8 in two tone maroon. Think it cost him 40k NZD. I remember how modern it looked compared to most other cars families drove back then, usually early 80's falcons/commodores/jap imports. The grey velour trimmed seats felt luxurious and I also remember the four speed auto being pretty cool when most autos were three speed in those days. Also remember how unreliable the engine was and how raspy (in a bad way) it sounded under acceleration, and the exhaust pipe was painted chrome, the paint flaked off within months of ownership, then fixed under warranty. My mate's dad always regretted not going for the 5.0.
I hesitate to correct a true Oz motorsport great in John Bowe,tho the E49 Charger was released in time for the 1972 Bathurst 500, by which time Ford were racing the Phase 3 GTHO, not the Phase 2 as he stated. Phase 2's raced against the VG Pacer in 1970. 1971 saw the E38 race the Phase 3,then E49 against Phase 3 with the Globe 15" rim, that had been made for the stillborn Phase 4. Stillborn in that it never raced on a track,only in rallying, of all things. Bruce Hodgson in the 1973 Australian Rally Championship. Hope folks don't find me too pernickity, tho I remember the era like it was yesterday.
Interesting video. I was 20 years old when I engineered/designed/drafted this vehicle with the other 5 of us. After the designing of this charger I was transferred to the production line with my supervisor to instruct the production guys how to build. I am now 77 and it still brings back many memories. We went through the testing around Adelaide etc before started racing. Many good memories. Good one guys.
Makes sense. Hemi 6's are becoming hard to maintain. Barra engines have decent aftermarket support and you can boost em to ludicrous power levels. Much better behaving in city traffic if you keep cam duration sane and tuned by someone who isnt an idiot. But it took Ford 3 decades electronic fuel injection, twin cams AND forced air induction to just match the performance of an E 49. An old dinosaur two valve a cylinder 265 ci with a hot cam triple webber carbs and tuned extractors. Progress? Hahahahaha 😂
Drove in an ex highway pursuit 265 charger. Owned by a cop so not detuned like most were for sale to the public. But refined over his decades of ownership. My mate became the second owner. From Adelaide to Port Augusta. A 600+ k round trip. It was one hell of a drive. These were awesome highway cars. Overtaking acceleration was brutal and big time fun. When it was time to put the pedal to the metal. The speedo wound out. But the fun stopped being fun when the front end got floaty & started lifting. Imagine those lucky enough to pilot an E49 would have a permanet grin etched on their face. Brakes & handling needed balls of steel to man handle the monster in the twisty stuff. There is something beautiful about the raw primal performance of cars like this. If I had the coin I would definitely own an E49 or a replica resto mod with motec trumpet efi, custom roller cam, close ratio 5 speed mated to an lsd 3.5 or lower. Decent dampers, properly set up torsion bars. And decent disc brakes that don't $#!t themselves when put to the test. A car like that would keep most smallblocks & barra turbos honest and handle pretty well. May be in the minority but I love a well tuned big 6 better than an 8 on the road.
I love to see these 100% original examples still around. My dad had the exact same one (model, colour and engine), that I learned to drive in. Very fond memories!
I'm surprised with all his knowledge that he stated the engine is a hemi, it isn't. It's a "semi" hemi at best. Chrysler called it a hemi purely for marketing purposes.
Well John ..Beautiful car well presented..but No GT beater but glad to see them about ..what is amazing now us that u can but a showroom car today that would have won Bathurst without any mods !!!
If the Sierras had the original twin-plane rear wing envisaged by its Designer (but canned by Ford's bean counters), the Sierra would have gone even faster on high downforce tracks.
That's a nice looking wagon. I was part of the era when you could buy them for $50 running and had quite a few of them. I'd never want to drive one again but I enjoy looking at them.
They made a prototype vg valiant 340 v8 4 speed that was never a production car after already using that shape for 3 models ve vf vg nobody ever talks about this i would love to know more about this prototype,from the valiant book i had this thing was nuts,the vg was a very good handling car in that era.
I still have the original engine on a pallet in storage. Engine now in car was built by myself, I added a kill switch under the shaker!!!! Proof to what I claim!!!!! Painted the block in ford blue engine enamel, present engine carries a crow phase 111 cam.
Exactly the same colour as mine ... a duck egg blue colour called Riviera Blue ... but mine had a Chocolate Brown Vinyl Roof and the chocolate brown interior with the fishnet headrests - Reg Nr was WOI 4040 .... I put a full Janspeed exhaust system on it ... bought it for £4500 and sold it for £6000 ... only car I ever made money on!!! lol
