Survive and revive

Wheels Magazine
June, 2007

No-one knows when Australian muscle-car values will stop rising. What we do know, is that today's revival can be traced back to 2003. But before we go any further, I define the original Aussie muscle-car era as 1967-'78, starting with the XR Falcon GT and ending with the Torana A9X and XC Cobras - in other words, the first and last of the factory muscle cars that raced at Bathurst.

I can still remember an appointment with a magnificent metallic blue XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III one winter night in 2001. Parked next to the water in Melbourne's old port area, the car was a national concours winner, and arguably the best in Australia at the time. It was the vehicle chosen to launch a series of fine-art prints featuring Australian muscle cars, and I was there to ensure that the specification of the car was absolutely correct.

I'd lusted after this model and colour, and as both the car's owner and restorer were present, talk turned to how much it would take to own it. The figure was around $80,000 - about $30,000 more than the going rate, and beyond my reach at the time. It was significant that its owner, a dyed-in-the-wool Ford loyalist, drove an HSV ClubSport as daily transport.

Around the same time, I received a phone call about my own award-winning LJ Torana GTR XU-1, one of  the 150 1973 Group C homologation specials. I had sold it in 1984 for around $11,000, more than double what an average XU-1 was fetching at the time. Its owner locked it away (after telling everyone it had been stolen and destroyed), then pulled it out of its hidey-hole 17 years later. Apart from some age deterioration, it was as I had sold it and was creating a feeding frenzy at $40,000.

There were other signs in 2001. I remember talking to the owner of an award-winning E49 Charger as we photographed it for a magazine feature and the art-print series. Although a magnificent example, everyone thought he had rocks in his head when he valued it around $40,000 - double what they were selling for then. And I recollect former Brock publicist and Holden PR contractor Tim Pemberton worrying about the price of an HT Monaro GTS 350. He'd paid $25,000 for the car, bought to help Holden promote the new Monaro.

Now, in 2007, that $80,000 GT-HO Phase III is worth at least $500,000, with some analysts claiming that prices won't stop until they hit a million dollars. A mint, original 1973 Group C Bathurst XU-1 is worth at least $160,000 probably closer to $200,000 to the right buyer. A similar range now applies to any early Monaro GTS example in Bathurst specification. Some E38 Chargers have already hit $140,000, but the more desirable E49s are not selling because their owners feel that current offers of around $200,000 are not yet high enough!

The exact point at which prices took off is fairly easy to identify, and there are two individuals who will be remembered as pivotal in Australia's muscle-car revival - Holden's Peter Hanenberger and Ford's Geoff Polites. Between them, they created a rivalry that allowed both the Holden and Ford fan bases to re-emerge. (Chrysler's launch of the 300C would later add to this momentum, allowing Chrysler fans and their cars to join the party.)

After arrogance and ignorance delivered a range of sub-standard T-series models, Ford global chief Jac Nasser appointed the principal of a Sydney Ford dealership, Geoff Polites, as Ford Australia's new president. Polites had been profoundly affected by a stirring speech from Bill Bourke (the architect of Ford's local performance history and eventual domination of the Aussie market) when he first entered Ford as a young graduate. Now, as Ford Australia president, he embarked on a mission to revive the Bourke approach.

In the meantime, Hanenberger wasn't sitting on his hands. Because he had provided the engineering credentials behind the Radial Tuned Suspension program that delivered the dominating A9X Torana in 1977, he shared the Polites perspective and ensured the VT Coupe concept emerged as a Monaro, under strong internal pressures to do otherwise. Polites responded with the right-hand drive Mustang program and the first T-series that could kick HSV butt.

By early 2003, with the arrival of the BA Falcon GT in showrooms (alongside Ford's first factory-designed V8Supercar that actually looked like the GT), and Holden's renewed efforts with the Monaro and HSV range, awareness exploded across all generations. For the fist time since 1982, Ford owners could look Holden owners in the eye. Polites will never be forgotten as the man who took the hard knocks to achieve this, while Peter Hanenberger will be remembered as the one who didn't allow difficulties in Europe to stifle his ambitions for Holden.

From there, it was a short step for young fans to identify with where it all started. And it's this fresh enthusiasm that distinguishes this boom from others before it. Today, anyone can become an active part of the local muscle-car boom with an affordable near-new model, or an old one, or something in between, such as a base-model Falcon or six-cylinder Monaro.

Other factors will keep this process going; 2003 was 58 years after World War II, so baby boomers were retiring with fat super payouts, and rushing to relive an amazing automotive era, or catch what they missed first time round. It is not unusual for these owners to drive the latest FPV or HSV model and hold a number of the originals in the garage. As their children and grandchildren experience these cars, the consciousness is spreading to keep it alive beyond a single generation.

General Motors product czar Bob Lutz also has a lot to answer for. His recognition of Australian capabilities has prompted a sense of pride in what has been happening away from the world's gaze. He has forced Australians to look at their cars in a more positive light.

And as international enthusiasts discover Australia's hidden treasures, Australian-car movements are springing up around the world.

Mod Squad
Author Joe Kenwright cites HSV's original 1991 VN ClubSport as helping light the fuse of the contemporary muscle-car explosion. The 'Clubbie' survives as Australia's most popular and longest-running unbroken muscle-car line. A second trigger was HSV's '94 VR GTS, the first muscle car since the original era to feature a monster engine not shared with lesser models. HSV continued the trend with the VT II GTS 300 in late '99 which featured a special 300kW Callaway C4B engine.

For more reading on Classic cars, see the below features:

Aussie Gold:
The Golden Age of Australian muscle cars

Muscle Mass:
David Bowden's collection of Australia's racing touring cars

Back in the day:
Peter Robinson recalls three epic road trips in the bred-for-Bathurst supercars

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