Author archive
Gran Turismo Falcon: Ford Unleashes the 351kW GT-F.
Ford Australia stayed with its tried and true “drip feed” teaser campaign in the lead up to today’s (June 10, 2014) release of the GT-F from Ford Performance Vehicles. Looking remarkably like anything from the V8 range in the FPV stables, it’s the thing filling the gap between front wheels and bonnet that has followers of the blue oval all excited. The supercharged 5.0L beast is said to have 351 kilowatts, in reference and homage to the iconic 5.8L V8 found in Falcons of the 1970s. Rumours already fly in regards to the true output, with some sources quoting over 400kW with what Ford calls an overboost function. Torque is sizable with 569 Newton metres available, allowing a sub five second zero to 100 kmh time.
Externally, Ford offers this: in what’s claimed to be a direct salute to the Falcon GTs of old, the GT F features bonnet, roof and rear deck black-outs that FPV says are “unique” to the model. The GT F is also gifted a “distinctive ‘stealth’ exterior striping package” as well as gloss-black accents on the ‘raccoon eyes’, grille, applique, rear diffuser, door handles and mirrors. This, says Ford, ensures “the GT F is unlike anything that has come before it”. The interior has also had a bit of a wand wave, with an enhanced infotainment system featuring a G sensor, uprated seats with the logo embroidered in and GT Orange highlights on the dials, seat stitching and badging.
Such is the attraction of the 351 numerals, virtually all of the 500 cars built for Australia (50 for New Zealand) were presold, with one dealership, Sunshine Ford on Queensland’s Gold Coast being lucky enough to be allocated build number 351 in a Ford ballot, subsequently bought by a loyal customer. This particular customer, a long standing client, has gone to the trouble of securing Queensland registration with the numbers 351 on the plates.
Engineering wise, apart from the semi-tame atomic bomb under the bonnet, there’s retuned springs and shock absorbers, wider wheels, reinforced real lower control arms, stiffer upper control arm bushes and suspension strut mounts at the front . These come from the firecracker RSpec sedan so it’s a well proven package and should ensure a crisp, sporting ride. For those that are able to enjoy race circuit track days, Ford have also engineered in rear camber bolt adjustment. Transmissions are six speeds in both auto and manual.
At $77990 plus ORCs, it may not be cheap but the sheer amount of torque and ponies will see it well placed to take on more expensive competition plus annoy the “other” big hitting Aussie brand, HSV. With the cars largely being bought by investors, their return is sure to be positive.
Milestone: 500 Posts on Private Fleet's blog.
Winter is officially here, so now is a great time to check your tyres, for both age and depth of tread. Age as rubber does dry out and become brittle over time if not looked after and depth because it’s those grooves in your tyres that pump out the wet stuff when the roads get rained on. Lesser grooves means more water under the tyres which can lead to aquaplaning and a potential crash.
Private Fleet is here to help you get as best a deal as possible on a new car but we’re also here to provide information, buying tips and share information. That information, in various ways, is also shared via Private Fleet’s blog and THIS is the 500th blog article!
It’s a huge thanks to the team at Private Fleet for the effort they put in every day helping you buy a new car, but it’s also thanks to YOU, the buying public for staying with Private Fleet, letting your family and friends know what we do, telling us what a great job the wonderful team at Private Fleet have done to get you into your new wheels. Just as important is the thanks that go to the contributors to the blog since its inception; there’s been many a great article covering all aspects of the automotive and motorsports fields and, as a contributor, I’m proud to be part of the team.
Happy 500 blog articles, Private Fleet, here’s to many more!
Classic Cars: Holden Monaro.
There’s something about the shape of a classic two door car that attracts the eyes like little else; Jaguar found that with the E-Type, Ferrari with the GTO (and pretty much every one of their cars!) and Australia’s Holden did it with the Monaro.
July of 1968 saw the release of the first “two door pillarless coupe”, with the HK Kingswood losing two doors, gaining a redesigned roof and kickstarting a legend, with the release of the Monaro. There were three models; the base, the GTS and the GTS 327. The entry level model came with Holden’s trusty 161 cubic inch cylinder engines with the GTS offering the 3.0L or 186 c.i. with standard or 186S engines. Naturally enough, the GTS 327 came with the Chevrolet 327 V8, with 186kW or 250 brake horsepower. Engineers originally claimed the engine bay was too small to hold the American iron, fastracking development of an Australian designed and built V8, however a remeasuring found the Chev would slot in nicely. The HK Monaro also provided Holden with their first victory at the Bathurst 500 race, with Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland (piloting the car for just one of the one hundred and thirty race laps) backing up the pole position and fastest race lap. The HK was distinguishable by the narrow, American influenced tail lights and a short vertical/wide horizontal bar in the grille.
Barely a year later the facelifted HT Monaro arrived on the scene. The 327 was dropped in favour of the 5.7L 350 cubic inch and the HT saw the addition of a two speed Powerglide automatic. The hairy chested V8 had 300 ponies (224kW) in manual form and was slightly detuned for the auto. The HT also saw the introduction of Holden’s own 4.2L and 5.0L V8s plus, later in the HT’s life, the three speed Trimatic automatic. The grille was updated with the addition of a plastic, multi slatted design and increased in size tail lights, plus the addition of a round speedometer, replacing the strip style. Go faster stripes,available on the HK and located on the driver’s side, were relocated to running down the centre of the HT. Looking good but performing no real function were two air intakes on the bonnet. Rubber bushes in the suspension replaced the sintered bronze bushes found in the HK. 1969 also saw the formation of the fabled Holden Dealer Team; put together by racer and engineer (the late) Harry Firth, the team featured rally ace Colin Bond, McPhee and Mulholland, Tony Roberts and a young, almost untried driver named Peter Brock.
1970 launched a new decade and the HG Monaro. External changes were mild; the grille was separated into two part, taillights were modified slightly, some badging was added and chromework reduced. At the front of each fender was a bold “350” decal, to stamp its authority on the road. The non 350 powered GTS had a softer suspension, improving the ride and disc brakes at the front were added as well. The HG would also be the last of the smoother, rounded design before the release of the HQ.
1971 had the world watching their tv sets to see what was happening in Vietnam and the HQ Holden was released as well. A sleeker, more angular design, the HQ Monaro had a completely different profile yet had the family resemblance; a larger rear window and squarer rear quarter window seemed to ease the sporty look, with the design 
now seen as one of the best to come from an Australian design studio. There was a change of engine and name specification, with the GTS nomenclature being V8 only. There was the addition of the LS range,with engines from 173 c.i. in the entry level non LS, through to the 3.3L or 202 c.i. six and above for the LS. From the start until 1973 the HQ had no body striping, plus, with the HQ Statesman luxury vehicle also being fitted with the 350, there was a perception the range wasn’t as sporty as before. The three speed Turbo-Hydro automatic gearbox also was seen as a dulling of the range, at the time. Adding to the spice was the change to a smaller car for Holden’s main racing duties, the Torana. It wasn’t until 1973, with the release of the first four door Monaro GTS that body striping was added to the HQ range, possibly in an effort to clearly differentiate between the Kingswood and the Monaro. A final kick in the pants for the Monaro faithful was the deletion of the 350 decals, being replaced with a generic V8 bootlid badge. In 1974, the final year of the HQ, the manual version of the 350 was discontinued and the engine itself was shortly after deleted from the range, along with the slow selling auto.
The facelifted HJ continued the Monaro name, with leftover HQ two door bodyshells being fitted with the HJ’s squared off front end whilst the four door GTS became a model in its ownright, with the HQ GTS being an optioned up Kingswood. The GTS also came with either the 253 c.i. or 308 c.i. engines as the 350 c.i. and entry level coupe were discontinued, however the LS was continued with the 3.3L. Just 337 LS coupes were produced, making them one of Australia’s rarest production cars. The GTS coupe was discontinued with just over 600 examples produced. Of note though was the ability to option in bodywork in the form of front and rear spoilers.
Mid 1976 saw the release of the HX range, effectively a mild facelift and also effectively the end of the Monaro nameplate. Alongside the four door Monaro GTS sedan, there was the release of the specced up LE two door pillarless 
coupe, complete with glitzy gold wheels and leftover eight track cassette players, plus emission controls for the engine.
Late 1977 had the Holden GTS released, complete with four headlight grille, disc brakes all round, front and rear spoilers as standard, the introduction of Radial Tuned Suspension and the 4.2L as the standard powerplant, being shuffled aside in June of 1978 in favour of the 5.0L. At the same time, Holden had also released the Opel based Commodore, with the then mid sizer ending the run of the GTS in December of 1978. The HZ itself was phased out in 1980.
In the late 1990’s, Holden designers produced a concept car; based on the Commodore of the time and shown at the Sydney Motor Show in 1998, the media quickly christened the coupe concept as a Monaro and such was the public interest the car was put into production. Available as the CV6 with a supercharged 3.8L V6 or CV8, featuring Chevrolet’s 5.7L V8 and with six speed manual or optional four speed auto, the CV6 failed to ignite and was dropped soon after introduction. The car would also be sold as a Pontiac GTO, with styling changed at the front to suit the American market, plus the Monaro was updated front and rear in line with the introduction of the VZ Commodore. 
Public interest quickly waned, however, with export markets drying up and some questionable styling changes affecting public perception overseas, the final Monaro was sold in February of 2006. Various racing versions including a 427 c.i. powered car were raced whilst Holden Special Vehicles released their own under the name of Coupe, not Monaro, including a limited run all wheel driver version. With Holden discontinuing local manufacturing by 2017, it’s exceptionally unlikely that the Monaro name will ever be seen again on a Holden badged vehicle.
Vale Sir Jack Brabham.
The words “household name” get thrown around loosely at times, however in the late 1950s through help me with my homework to the 1960s it was hard to not know of Jack Brabham. Knighted in 1979, Sir Jack Brabham passed away at home on the morning of May 19, at the Gold Coast in Queensland, aged 88.
Born in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville, April 2nd 1926, John Arthur “Jack” Brabham was exposed to the automotive field very early; at the age of 12 he’d learnt to drive the family car and trucks of the grocery business his father had. He studied metalwork and technical drawing, before moving into a duopoly of study (evening course in mechanical engineering) and daytime work at a garage. On the 19th of May, 1944, he enlisted into the Royal Australian Air Force, becoming a flight mechanic, contrary to his wish to become a pilot however there was already a surplus amount of aircrew.
An American colleague, Jonny Schonberg, persuaded him to watch a category of racing known as midgets. Popular at the time, it was enough to have Jack interested and he built a car and engine which Schonberg raced. After Schonberg’s wife stepped in, Brabham took over and won on just his third night of racing. He won the 1948 Australian Speedcar Championship, repeated the feat a year later and also added the South Australian Championship plus the 1950 and ’51 silverware. From here, Brabham became interested in road racing, buying and modifying cars from the Cooper Car Company. He raced in Australia and New Zealand until 1955, picking up the nickname Black Jack along the way. After competing in the 1955 New Zealand GP, Jack went to the UK to try his luck there. He drove an ailing car in the 1955 Grand Prix, retiring with a broken clutch. It was also around this time that the Brabham and Cooper name became intertwined, with Brabham working with the Cooper factory and racing their cars, including the Formula 2 category.
1959 saw the Cooper cars receive a power boost with the addition of 2.5L engines to the company’s team, with immediate results for Jack, winning the 1959 Monaco GP and the British GP after a tyre conservation drive saw him win ahead of rival and friend Stirling Moss. It came down to a close championship fight between Brabham, Moss and Ferrari’s Tony Brooks, with Brabham running out of fuel and pushing the car across the line for fourth. It was, though, still enough to get the required points. Brabham, being as competitive as always, though teh cars and he could do better; he asked his friend (another soon to be Aussie legend) Ron Tauranac, to come and work with him in the UK. Brabham and Tauranac worked side by side in upgrading and selling cars via Brabham’s car dealership but it was in racing that their future lay. With advice from Ron, Brabham took a Cooper car, helping to designthe Cooper T53 and took the car to five successive Grands Prix victories, including the Belgian Grand Prix, where Stirling Moss was injured retiring for two months to recuperate) and two others were killed.
Tauranac and Brabham formed Motor Racing Developments, racing a Cooper before moving to a team he created in 1962 and racing cars powered by the FIA’s choice, a 1.5L powerplant. There was no success that year and little at all before 1966 saw a change to 3.0L engines. The other teams had unwieldy and unreliable 12 cylinder engines; Jack persuaded Australian company to help develop a V8, based on the American Oldsmobile alloy block. It was a proven engine which would give better reliablity, allowing them the advantage and the other teams catchup as they struggled to make their engines reliable. This would end up creating a piece of history that still stands; with Ron Tauranac and Brabham building the BT-19 car, powered by the Repco 3.0L V8, Brabham won the French Grand Prix, becoming the first ever driver to win in a car of his own construction. He’d win four races straight, becoming the first and only driver to win a championship in a car bearing his name. Jack was 40 in 1966; stung by media questioning his ability, he’d uncharacteristically recated by appearing in a beard and hobbling to his car with a cane at the Dutch Grand Prix. To rub it in, Brabham won the race.
1968 was the beginning of the end for Brabham’s racing career; retirements in the first seven races, minor points in the German GP and then four more retirements. In 1969 Jack suffered injuries to a foot in atesting accident and told his wife he’d retire at season’s end, selling his share of the team to Tauranac. Having found no decent enough drivers to race in his team in 1970, Jack postponed retirement, winning in his first race. After some good finishes he did retire at the end of the season.
Jack stayed busy in retirement; running his cars at events such as the Goodwood Revival, saying racing kept him young. His first wife, Betty and he had three sons; David, Geoff and Gary.In 1994 Betty and Jack divorced, with Brabham remarrying in 1995, to Margaret. But by the mid 2000s, health issues started to creep in. He was almost completely deaf thanks to the years of racing without the protection today’s drivers take for granted, there was kidney dialysis and macular degeneration in the eyes. Brabham’s achievements though were being acknowledged, with a suburb in Perth being named Brabham and an extension to the Sydney Motorsport Park (formerly Eastern Creek Raceway) taking the full length to 4.5km and being called the Brabham Circuit and an automotive training facility was opened in Queensland in 2012, being named the Sir Jack Brabham Automotive Centre of Excellence. Sir Jack Brabham made his last public appearance just one day before his passing, with one of the cars he had built.
Vale Sir Jack Brabham.
Level 2, 9 Help Street