Where are they now?
T
hree of the four Allan Moffat Racing/Peter
Stuyvesant Mazda RX7s built at Moffat’s
Toorak headquarters survive today in some
form. Two are owned by Paul Stubber: the
second car (AMR-002) and the left-hand
drive 004 ‘Daytona’ chassis. Chassis 002 is
in fact a reshell of the #42 car which nished
third at Bathurst in 1984 (the ‘Hansford/
Moffat’ car in which Hansford took the start
as a back-up entry/insurance policy against
the #43 car striking trouble early – which it
duly did, its engine failing after just 15 laps).
Moffat sold 002 in the late ‘80s to Matt
Wacker, who used it in Sports Sedan
competition (below) before later selling it
to West Aussie Chris Reindler (father of V8
Supercar driver Karl). Reindler subsequently
crashed the car; it was later re-shelled and is
now owned by Stubber.
This car hasn’t been seen on track since
2010, with Stubber not budging on his stance
of wanting to run a six-speed gearbox, which
he maintains the Moffat Mazdas did in the
period (Mick Webb admits as much in this
story), but which CAMS does not permit in
Historic Group C racing. The third car, AMR-
003, was the one written off after the shunt
Moffat suffered in the 1984 Surfers Paradise
ATCC round.
The original AMR-001 Mazda was later
used as a test hack for running in engines and
brakes when its racing life was over and was
sold to a Mazda dealer in the mid ‘80s. It is now
n Queensland, where it restoration is currently
almost complete.controversial, always entertaining and sometimes
spiteful era of Allan Moffat Mazda Racing was
over, and Allan was once more out of business.
He would be back, again making headlines, but
not in a Mazda. Everything was sold off and 711
Malvern Road was again empty.
Moffat himself, who sadly now has little memory
of his glorious racing past, summed up the RX7
experience to me in a 1985 interview: “The fact
that it took two years to homologate is Australian
motorsport’s loss, as well as mine. I think you
would agree that the Mazda RX7 did nothing
but improve Australian touring car racing. It gave
privateers an opportunity to compete at a nancial
level that wasn’t horri c. In the Ford days, 95
percent of everyone’s creative effort was spent on
the engine and ve percent on the car. The ratio
with the Mazda was exactly the opposite. The only
time we spent on the engine was how long it took
to undo the box it came in...”