BELOW: Wayne bought the bones for GAS69 as a roller
off long-time mate Rob Beauchamp, after Rob slotted
its original running gear into his award-winning
maroon LX sedan. “The HT was already a show-quality
car, so I fitted the 350 Chev and Powerglide out of my
old HG panel van to get it back on the road and drag
strip. It was a neat and tidy car, but there were plenty
of others around that were just like it, so I decided to
make it tough and mean to make it stand out”Well that decision paid off!
Definitely [laughs]. It won Entrants’ Choice and
Top Street Comp in ’86. The pro street style
was in its infancy and the rebuild was inspired
by a tubbed HK Monaro drag car called No
Name that was owned by a bloke called Garry
Erickson. I always chatted to him about his HK
and loved that race look. It was the ultimate style
as far as I was concerned and definitely would
make the HT stand out, so it was a win-win.
An engineering shop did the tubs and chassis
work but it came back jacked up in the rear and
looking all gangly, which was the opposite of
what I wanted – I wanted a low and fat Monaro.
A friend introduced me to a fabricator by the
name of Scott Leo, who understood where I
was coming from and told me he could get the
ride height down. Scott worked with me all the
way from that point, and he along with a band
of mates helped me get it done. I was into heavy
metal then and the original Midnight Maniac
name came from a song by a band called
Krokus; that and because we fired it up for the
first time at midnight in the yard of my parents’
farm! You could hear it for miles [laughs].
I was a teenager then and my schoolmates
and I pored over GAS69 in the June ’
SM. The rims blew us away – they were
the first Weld wheels we’d ever seen. How
did you go sourcing cutting-edge parts
like that for the build?
For starters, a drag-inspired build meant youwere now dealing with race shops and not your
more common local ‘street’ performance store,
which gave us fewer options to find certain
parts. I was seeing plenty of great stuff in US
magazines too, so had Phil Woodbridge import
those wheels for me. The Enderle injection on
the blown 350 also came from the States, and
that was a learning curve to detune it sufficiently
for street use. There was some trial and error
to make the whole package work when you
started to mix street and race influences.
Are you surprised by how much attention
and love GAS69 still has with people, and
do you get sick of people like me always
asking you about it?
For many years I thought GAS69 was just ‘my’GAS
BUILDING one of Australia’s most iconic Monaros is no mean feat amongst the
dozens that have crafted since 1968, but the fact that GAS69 is still so revered years
after its demise is proof of Wayne’s vision and innovation.
“I sold it in the late 80s as a rolling shell,” Wayne remembers. “It went to a bloke
who stripped it down, but I think it just got pushed further down the priority list and
further into the backyard before eventually being scrapped. I still have the front
guards, bonnet, doors, diff, rear wheels and tyres from it, so am part of the way
there in case a suitable donor comes along.”
ABOVE: Wayne’s XD Fairmont Ghia was built in 1986 and
ran a tough 351, C4 and 9in combo. “I bought it as a stolen
and recovered wreck and pieced it back together as a tidy
streeter,” Wayne says. “The XD is a nice-looking model and
one of the last of the ‘muscle car’-looking Falcons with the
squarer lines, so it had a certain appeal for me at the time.”
Sandy Pagel still has her quad-Weber-fed HK Premier, which
was featured in SM, July/August 199298698698698698698698698686866 anananananaananaaanad d d d dd dd