MOTOR

Dylan Campbell

The US is riding a fast car wave, and we want to have a surf

Of course, the new Mustang’s headed

this way, too, causing much fanfare,

but I hope scuttlebutt that the “over 500

horsepower” Mustang GT350R isn’t

coming to Australia is someone shit-

stirring. Ford can no longer roll out the

old excuse that there’s no right-hand drive

car, given the new ’Stang of course can

come with a starboard-side tiller.

And while the logical bit of my brain,

tiny though it is, and so hard to shut-up,

argues the GT350R’s flat-plane crank V

is probably not designed to tuck a steering

column under its right elbow, I can’t help

but wonder, why not? Aside from some

all-wheel drive AMGs, it’s never been an

issue for the Germans.

The pill turns from bitter to plain toxic,

too, when you consider the Americans

are increasingly asking us Aussies to help

engineer and design their cars.

The new Ford GT, terrific but sadly left-

drive only, was designed by a man from

Hobart. A 12-year veteran of Ford Oz,

two years ago Detroit summoned Todd

Willing to lead the design of the Blue

Army’s secret Ferrari fighter. He’s now

back in Melbourne designing the global

Fords of tomorrow.

Meanwhile the trick carbon-fibre

wheels on the GT and Mustang GT350R,

which caused much saliva to drip from

American journalists’ dropped jaws in

Detroit, were made by a mob in Geelong.

Still in Detroit, GM’s show-stopping

concept cars, the Buick Avenir and Chevy

Bolt, while not normal MOTOR fodder,

were designed and built by a bunch of

Aussies in Port Melbourne, at Holden.

And it’s much reported the role Holden

played in the design and development of

an American icon, the Camaro. Holden,

again, is hard at work on the next one.

With philosophies like “One Ford”, the

Blue Oval and GM are seeing the world’s

car markets through an increasingly

global prism. It’s this same globalised

perspective which probably didn’t do

much for the survival odds of the Aussie-

only Falcon and Commodore.

If Aussies are to cop the rough end of

globalisation, which cost us our icons, we

deserve to reap its benefits, too. There’s

no reason America’s next generation

of performance cars can’t be built for

a global market, helping amortise their

development costs, in right-hand drive.

So Ford, GM and Chrysler, give us

Corvette Z06, Camaro Z/28, Cadillac

CTS-V, Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat

and SRT Viper. And, for crying out loud,

Mustang GT350R. That’s a pretty long

list, I agree, so forgive my greediness,

but lord knows when our Aussie nails are

gone, we’ll be hungry. And American pie

has never tasted so good. M

A

ustralians have always loved

a bit of American pie. And

I don’t mean the movie that

had the world’s prepubescent

males wearing out the pause button on

their television remotes. Or the ballad

gurgled by Don McLean in 1972, still

stuck in people’s heads.

American food, film and TV has been

rotting the guts and minds of Australians

for decades. Yet when it comes to the

American performance car pie, we’ve

nibbled mere crumbs.

It’s never been a drama given Ford and

Holden have kept us sated by dishing

out V8 Falcons and Commodores for so

long, the fast car equivalent of curried

kangaroo pie. And the Aussie attitude has

always been, ‘the septics can keep their

shitboxes, mate’. Rightly, so, too, given

how good our locally-sired product has

always been.

But as we prepare to farewell Falcon

and Commodore, we have to keep in

mind that when they’re gone, our bellies

will grumble for some simmering rear-

drive muscle.

Right now Americans are going gaga

for exactly that. To name just a few, cars

like the 477kW Cadillac CTS-V, the

Corvette Z06 we’ve driven this issue, and

the track-focused, LS7-powered, 377kW

Camaro Z/28.

ED’S

NOTE

Aussies copped the rough end of

globalisation; it’s time we reap its benefi ts

M

MANAGING EDITOR Ged Bulmer

EDITOR Dylan Campbell

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Scott Newman

STAFF JOURNALIST Louis Cordony

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR Curt Dupriez

SUB-EDITOR Tristan Tancredi

ART DIRECTOR Damien Pelletier

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Sean Farley, Andrew Marsic

GUN DRIVER Warren Luff

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS

Ellen Dewar, Nathan Jacobs

WRITERS

Nic Cackett, Paul Cockburn, Steve Cropley, Craig

Jamieson, Greg Kable, David Morley, Carlos Lago,

Kim Reynolds, Tim Robson, James Stanford, Steve

Sutcliffe, Aiden Taylor, James Whitbourn

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Simon Davidson, Nathan Duff, Malcolm Griffiths,

Julia LaPalme, Thomas Wielecki

EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENTS

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Paul Cockburn

Award hog, cheese and wine

snob, wordsmith, Anglophile,

gentleman, scholar, Dolphinist