MOTOR

W

e wouldn’t blame you

if you were guilty of

falling out of love

with the broad, affable

Aussie engine years ago. They were

supposedly low-tech, low-rent and low-

brow, and many said it was time they

were given the flick.

As the old saying goes, however, be

careful what you wish for. The current

crop of ballistic FPVs and HSVs are a

supercharged swan song and a timely

reminder those people were wrong.

The engines dismissed as lazy, ocker

and ancient are anything but. Not

only are they dripping with character,

unashamedly brilliant and genuinely

world-beating, it’s a miracle we have

them at all.

No, really – Australia’s love affair with

brawny, accessible engines was almost

cut horribly short when, in 1972, a few

simple motoring stories sparked one of

the biggest witch hunts in Australian

motoring history.

It was a tricky situation, really.

Holden, Ford and Chrysler were duking

it out in the Australian Touring Car

Championship. All three were tucked

away in their skunkworks, prodding

Toranas, GT-HOs and Chargers to new

heights in preparation for the 1972

Bathurst 500. New homologation rules

meant each company had to sell 200

units of the car they lined up on the grid,

so the latest batch of road racers – a

300kW GT-HO Phase IV, 225kW-plus

Charger and 240kW Torana – were in

the last stages of development, ready to

be unleashed.

They never made it into production.

When the Sun-Herald ran a piece

on Australia’s ‘160mph (257km/h)

supercars’, the NSW Transport Minister

at the time led a crusade against the

“bullets on wheels”. The papers were

only too happy to fuel the furore that

followed and, with a Wheels photo

depicting a Phase III GT-HO cruising at

225km/h, knee-jerk crusaders stepped

Natural Born

Thrillers

Sure, Europe might be responsible for some of the

greatest free-breathers ever. But no tribute would be

complete without a couple of Aussie mentions

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