OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics It's no wonder this country is shutting down !

Ahhhhhh.........the most controversial Commodore in the history of motor racing.

Is that the real 05 or car 25 rehashed to look like 05. The argument continues to this day as it went to Auction recently (the Peter Champion version) and it's still not 100% clear who has "The Real 05", The Bathurst Motor Museum or Peter Champion ?

Cheers,
BB.

I came across this today. Guy just paid $9000 for it I was told. It has a V8 with dual exhausts and is a bit rough around the edges -literally. There is rust bubbling where the panel van body meets where the ute tray would start. The lighting is terrible. To much shadow and sunlit background.

G'day Bonnar_Bloke and Mowerfreak,

Hey Bonnar_Bloke you know more about that Commodore than I do mate. I would hope that the one at the Bathurst museum is the original one though. It's an awesome car that Holden VK Commodore. Last of the big banger group c touring cars and a bathurst winner!

Hi Mowerfreak nice looking Panelvan there mate, I guess these days that must be what those sorts of cars are going for even with some rust. I think even back when I bought my XC the panelvans weren't all that common and available for sale. I noticed the old A-shaped tread pattern Yokohama radial 352 tyres on this XC panelvan. I spotted them straight away as I had also fitted those exact same style tyres to my red XC sedan when I had it. I like how the writing is coloured white on the tyres makes them look more like race tyres I guess. Yokohama doesn't make those classic radial 352 tyres anymore with the raised white lettering on the outside.

Speaking of car history I just know a little bit about the history of that Allan Moffat Ford XC Hardtop that's at the museum. I have heard many years ago from a ford racing historian that this car that won bathurst in 1977 and also I think the number 2 XC Falcon Coupe car that Colin Bond drove at bathurst in 1977 were originally the XB race coupes. I'm not sure what exact year they originated but they were the cars that Allan and Colin won almost every touring car round in 1977 before the bathurst 1000. I was told that they updated the XB cars to look like the newer XC falcons just before bathurst 1977. So basically what they updated was the front sheetmetal and grill to the new XC model. They also updated the inside dash panel to the new XC falcon style. The interior door cards weren't touched and they are still the XB type. Also you can tell at the rear of the coupe on the quarter panels on the racecars at bathurst in 1977 they still have the little side marker lights pointing in the vertical direction which is how they were on the XB falcons.

I also heard that they took these 2 Moffat cars to bathurst that year fitted with the reverse bonnet scoops but they were told by cams to remove them as they weren't officially allowed at that time or some other reason. I think they were then fitted to these cars for the later touring car races in 1977 after bathurst. Also i've heard that these cars were then updated to the 2 XC Cobra race cars in 1978 also. I'm not sure if it was still updated after the Cobra to the 1979 Federation insurance XC though.

So anyway that's just some history I have come across over the years on these old Hardtops. So this XC coupe that's in the museum was donated by Allan Moffat to the museum and would most definitely be that original body shell that started out as the XB race car and was updated throughout the years. Now it has been returned back to the 1977 bathurst livery as this was it's most famous victory at bathurst. Also those rear quarter lights on the car at the museum now has the later XC style marker lights where they are fitted in the horizontal direction as they were updated to the later XC style.

Here are some photo's I took at the Bathurst motor racing museum back in 2006. Enjoy!

My dream has been to get a CM and paint it into a former cab livery and make it into a taxi cab!
Not legally of course. I've even obtained a roof sign from the 1970s and an old mechanical taxi meter in readiness for the conversion.
The biggest challenge (apart from getting the car itself these days) is reproducing the cab co-operative's signage for the doors and boot lid from the 1980s period.
I'm prepared to settle for an HJ-HZ Holden or XC Falcon but I think a CM would be the best choice and would attract a tonne of attention at shows. I have even recorded genuine sound effects from the cab radio dispatch to play through the speakers lol, thanks to the 1980 Cabbies documentary.
The final items I'll need is a golfer's hat and to grow a thick moustache when behind the wheel "cruising for fares".

Hi Mowerfreak,

That sounds awesome mate I hope you can maybe one day make that dream come true. It sounds like you have some of the parts already, there is probably still a few CM's out there to be found. I did see a nice clean CM style Valiant sedan here the other day and it had club registration plates on it. I also saw a nice clean XA sedan today with the original early 70's black and white Victorian plates still on it.

You should be able to recreate the original signage for the doors and bootlid if you know what the original one's look like or from a sample maybe. I used to visit a guy that worked on older race cars years ago and he used to recreate the old race car advertising decals using a local signwriter company.

I'm thinking the last few items that you mentioned might be alot easier to obtain...LOL!

Cheers!

Hi Converse, forgot to mention an outfit of brown and beige clobber lol!!

One time I placed an old taxi sign on the roof of my yellow Valiant and took it for a spin one Saturday night just to see people's reactions on the street and let me tell you it turned heads! I even had a man outside the local RSL club actually try to flag me down from quite a long distance and I saw him flipping me off in the rear view mirror after passing him lol!
Then I saw a bunch of guys in a car waiting at lights laughing their heads off at the sight of the taxi sign as I rounded the next corner before heading home!!

LOL! That's a classic mate! You know what I reckon if you really made it into a taxi for use today people would want to travel in your classic original style Valiant cab instead of the regular new boring plastic car taxi's.

Wouldn't it be awesome if you had all 3 models mate, A CM Valiant, a HZ Kingswood and a XC Falcon all in original taxi livery! I reckon you'd be getting people ringing up to place bookings to travel in these Aussie classics again!

How cool would these classic taxi's look lined up at the taxi rank with all the new current taxi's?

It reminds me of a few years ago here in Melbourne they were still running some older electric trains. People loved them and were taking photo's near the train. Those old trains the windows would open on the carriages. I am glad that I got to ride in them a few more times some years ago before they finally stopped running them. I remember those trains when I was a kid and it was like stepping back in time!

Cheers!

Here in Sydney they run vintage double deckers that date from the 1930s to the 1970s on Australia day and young chicks will actually take selfies in front of the radiators at the front of the bus!! I never noticed this in years past. People appreciate retro more than ever. I think many people have a bitter sweet attitude to modern life and see something from the past like this as a much needed transportation to simpler times.
I even had the manager of my local tyre shop marvel at my 89 Laser Ghia sedan and it's condition for it's age. He called it a blast from the past and commented you don't see these anymore, even though it's still my daily(ish) drive.

Hi Mowerfreak,

I have sometimes here seen those red double decker style buses run, I think they are more a tourist thing. Don't know if I have seen them lately though, I think they are from the UK? You know I tried looking on youtube last night and I can't believe I can't find any footage of some classic Melbourne public transport buses from say the late 70's or through the early to mid 80's. I do remember travelling on these classic Melbourne buses when I was younger, they had those deep sinking style vinyl seats. You probably know the one's I am talking about. I am not sure what make they were now maybe Volvo or MAN? They were the nice comfortable style buses before they all went to those seats where it feels like you are sitting on a plank of wood like most modern public transport buses are now.

Yes I think alot of people appreciate retro now. I used to frequent some old op-shops around here some years ago and I would watch how many of these younger generation were always buying retro op-shop items like furniture and other household items to take home. I think many were probably university students and maybe these hipster types. But I tell ya they love the retro items. They were even buying old records and cassettes.

Also you'd be amazed at how much stuff gets thrown in the rubbish bins everyday at these op-shops, simply because they don't have the space to store the items or because they think that no one will buy the items. Once when I was there the dumpster was quite full and you could see the junk near the top of the bin. I could just see a few VHS tapes near the top so I took them out to see what was on them. Anyway one VHS tape I found was an original Nokia 1610 Australia mobile phone advertising training tape. I kept that one. I also found a few VHS tapes that seemed to be from channel 10 here with GMA "Good Morning Australia" outtakes back when Bert Newton was hosting it. They have proper printed labels like they were purchased from the 10 network. I have them here somewhere I did have a look at one a bit back then and I remember it had Bert Newton talking to the crew as he was getting ready before the Morning show. That is just a couple of items that I happened to find on one occasion in an op-shop dumpster. Imagine how many other goodies are thrown out and lost forever at these places.

Cheers!

Hi Converse,
You want to talk buses, I'm the guy. Those MANs you mentioned were the MAN SL200 mark 1 and 2. The Mark 1 had the ugly looking older style body and the mark 2s had the square looking more modern shape and higher horse power engines.
Sydney had hundreds of Mercedes Benz 0305 city buses and I have learned they are basically the same bus chassis and mechanicals but with their own engine ancillaries and different transmission choices.
Other than that, they are very similar underneath.
The Volvo you describe would be the Volvo B59 rear engine bus with the massive destination screen up top.
They had a very advanced (for the time) 9.6 litre turbo charged engine (the MANs were 11.4l NA) let down by a dated 2 speed ZF automatic and talk axle ratio.
I actually rode one with a private operator in Sydney bought second hand from Melbourne and was shocked at how slow these things were from the mark. They later fitted three speed autos to them which made them much more acceptable but still slow due to the tall diffs in them.
I have a 1:76 scale model of a M&MTB Leyland National bus which Melbourne took delivery of 30 units in 1975 and were run until about 1990 when they were retired and sold off to other operators or scrapped.
You probably rode them as well at some point.
Just Google image search Leyland National and you should recognise it. They were once a ubiquitous sight in the UK and some have been preserved and restored there.

Hi Mowerfreak,

Thanks for that mate yep you are spot on I googled some images and those old buses I was talking about with those deep sinking vinyl seats were those Volvo B59's. As soon as I saw the picture I knew that was the bus. I used to like the sound of the engine they were sort of smooth and felt refined for their time. Also yes I don't remember them ever being that fast off the mark either. Just a lazy comfy old bus ride back then..lol. They would have been still running these old Volvo's here until the mid to probably late 80's I reckon.

Then I think they all started to change over to those other one's you mentioned again the MAN SL200 mk 2. I remember these MAN SL200 mk2 very well as I pretty much rode on them every working day to the city and back for around 2 years from 1996 to 1997 when I was working as an apprentice electronics technician and I didn't have a drivers license yet. Those were the first sort of buses where the seats were the more modern firmer style than the old fat sinking vinyl cushions like what was on the old Volvo B59's..lol

There was also a local bus company around here that was still running some older manual gearbox buses probably up until the late 90's. They had a big manual gear change lever coming up from the floor near the driver. I tell ya what the bus drivers back in those days really worked hard, driving a manual bus and also collecting and issuing tickets and giving the passengers their change back all day.

Oh brings back some great memories. i'd love to ride in one of those old school buses again today.

Cheers!