14 May, 2010

Greetings,

We’ve decided to give our email subscribers a bit more of an insight into what happens in between deadlines at the Unique Cars bunker, by letting you know what’s happening behind the scenes.

Enjoy…

Our new Brockism

Our infamous GT-HO tribute car has a gazillion entries and it won’t be too long (end of June – get your entry in quick!) before we find it a new home.

We’ve got a bit of form on this give-away car front and have a couple of surprises up our collective sleeves. But one thing we can give you a sneak peak at is our next major build: none other than a VK Brock Commodore tribute.

Project manager Phil Walker found an ex-police car out in the scrub somewhere and reckons it’s a pearler.

It’s already got some of the right features, such as the engine but, just as important, the thing is dead straight. In fact, you’d be sorely tempted to just tidy it up and use it as is.

Since partnering with the Grand Tourer workshop in Melbourne for the Falcon resto, we’ve become pretty keen on this idea of using a one-stop restoration house, where we can. This time around the project has moved to beautiful downtown Sydney and the good folk at HDT Special Vehicles.

Targa stampede

The mag was all over Targa Tasmania like a rash in recent weeks, with no less than three cars out there causing chaos. Ed Fincham writes: “The Unique Cars-supported Mitsubishi Evo of Adam Newton and navigator Dan Lemish won its class in the Rookie category.

“Our very own ‘Captain Conrod’, John Wright, also recorded a solid finish in the Early Modern class in his Subaru WRX.

“Meanwhile, I and co-driver Michael Browning managed to keep our borrowed Nissan 370Z coupe on the tarmac in the Tour section, despite some pretty wet and slippery conditions. While non-competitive, the Tour still provided plenty of thrills and one major casualty in the form of a highly modified Nissan GT-R that overcooked it on day two and ploughed through a farmer’s fence!

“Look out for a special, power-packed Targa Tasmania feature in the next issue of Unique Cars.”

Mustang muster

You could be forgiven for thinking that assorted staffers have cornered the world market in Mustangs. We blame Phil, a Mustang enthusiast who started this whole thing. 

One has ended up in the clutches of our Ed, Chris Fincham. It’s a dead straight 1966 model, with a 289 in it, that had spent the last 15 years parked in a workshop. He reckons the name “Buttercup” has been suggested on the domestic front – given its colour – though the proud new owner reckons “Fang” is closer to the truth, given the number of spiders that had taken up residence.

In any case, it’s the proverbial restorer’s dream and we’ll keep you up to speed on how it goes.

Taking a somewhat more direct route to Mustangdom is contributor Greg Leech, who’s picked up this fully-restored 1969 with a monster version of the 351 powerplant in it. Having been through all the trials of Project HG some months back, he figured it was his turn for an easy ride and this car was perfect – just add number plates.

The third car? I’ve been sworn to secrecy on this one – for the time being – but let’s just say you should keep an eye on the mag…

Brunhild the Bimmer

Project 635, aka Brunhild, is pretty well finished on the mechanical front – thank heaven. It’s not been the easiest or cheapest exercise, with ignition, injection, head, suspension and lots of other bits and pieces getting the once-over.

Is it worth it? Well, yes. The car has heaps more power than when we started and has become a sweetheart to drive.

The most recent addition was a slightly lairy set of wheels, namely a set of 16x7 Superlights (Minilight replicas), which has lifted the looks and enables us to fit a nice modern set of sticky Toyos.

Now we’re on to the cosmetic stuff, such as tidying up the paint and replacing leaking door seals. Complete repainting is off the agenda for the time being, as it’s hideously expensive for this model. But we’ll see…

That’s it for this week…

Guy Allen