PESCARA: DENNY HULME CROWNED KING OF THE ROAD NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC CAR AUGUST 2020 ISSUE 356
TRIUMPH STAG • TOYOTA CELICA GT-FOUR • ALFA ROMEO ALFETTA GTV • PEUGEOT 405 • FORD MUSTANG SERIES FOUR
CELICA GT-FOUR
R A L LY R E VO LUTI O N
AT F I F T Y ISSUE 356 $10.99 INCL. GST AUGUST 2020
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PEUGEOT 405
REFINED FRENCH FLAIR
BIG RED
CENTRAL MUSCLE CAMARO
ALFETTA GTV C U T- P R I C E SUPERCAR
ARMCHAIR TRAVEL: DRIVING MISSISSIPPI’S RIVER ROAD
IN THIS ISSUE
#356
August 2020
FEATURES
2
4
Triumph Stag
14
Hands-on restoration
18
Alfetta GTV
28
Celica GT-Four
36
Mustang Cobra
44
Great River Road
64
MGB GT
76
Big Red
96
Targa Hawkes Bay
SOUTHERN CHARM
UNSEEN DELIGHT
GIUGIARO GORGEOUSNESS
B U I LT T O W I N
F O U RT H , AGA I N
MISSISSIPPI MEANDERING
U K– K I W I C O L L A B O R AT I O N
C A M PA I G N I N G C A M A R O
H O N O U R S AT I S F I E D
NEW ZEALAND CLASSIC CAR
18
4
28 COLUMNS
52 MOTORMAN Pininfarina Peugeot
36 REGULARS
43 SUBSCRIBE AND WIN 84 BEHIND THE GARAGE DOOR
58 KITS AND PIECES Nine-tenths Ferrari
86 READERS’ WRITES
70 MOTOR SPORT FLASHBACK Hulme’s breakthrough
100 NOTICEBOARD / EVENTS DIARY
87 PRICE ON ... One man’s junk
88 CLASSIC GARAGE 102 LOCAL SPECIALISTS 104 DAILY-DRIVER / NEXT MONTH
90 STAR INSURANCE MARKETPLACE The mighty Mk2
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ISSUE 356 / AUGUST 2020
3
Feature: 1978 Alfa Romeo Alfetta GTV
SUPER AFFORDABLE SUPERCAR The Alfetta GTV lives in the shadow of its gorgeous 105-series older brother but offers its own rewards to Alfa enthusiasts By Ian Parkes, photography Stephen Perry
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he latest generation of Giulia saloon cars is clothed in some of the world’s most gorgeous motoring curves, as befits a car made by a company hailing from one of the world’s great capitals of fashion and style. That wasn’t always the case, though. Many of Alfa’s earlier saloons were boxy affairs designed in-house, such as the ’50s Giulias, the ’70s Alfetta Berlinas, and the love-it-or-hate-it Alfa 75. However, responsibility for the design of the marque’s coupés was handed to Italy’s deservedly more famous design houses and these remain the cars that get most of the attention. Bertone’s Franco Scaglione created the 101-series Giulietta Sprint and Spider, and Giorgetto Giugiaro the iconic 105-series cars for Bertone, as well as the Alfetta GT and GTV car we have here, but by then he had founded his own design house, Italdesign. The taut, organic lines of the 105-series coupés remain the high point for many Alfa fans and, apart from Alfas of this era’s even more enthusiastic than usual reversion to rust, they will cope perfectly well in modern traffic and offer lots of fun while doing so. Values are heading north fast for any and all variants of these great cars, which means enthusiasts looking for a bargain must look elsewhere in the line-up.
It has Alfa’s robust aluminium twolitre twin-cam four, which had been the backbone of Alfa Romeo’s reputation for sporting cars
Guigiaro’s handsome 105 series gets most of the love ...
... but the Alfetta will find happiness too
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ISSUE 356 / AUGUST 2020
19
Feature: 1994 Celica GT-Four
RALLY-BRED PEDIGREE From its inception in 1973, the World Rally Championship was the domain of European marques like Alpine-Renault, Lancia, Fiat, Ford UK, Audi, and Peugeot. In 1990, Japan finally broke that stranglehold with the Toyota Celica GT-Four By Ashley Webb, photography Strong Style Photo
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oyota dedicated many years of its World Rally Championship (WRC) competition experience to the development of the new Celica GT-Four ST205, which was released in February 1994. The GT-Four ST205 was to be the most powerful Celica produced to date. Toyota engineers developed a new two-litre turbo engine exclusively for the GT-Four, boasting a larger CT20B twinentry turbocharger, combined with a larger water-cooled intercooler, and modified the water jacket in the cylinder head. It also featured
Toyota engineers developed a new two-litre turbo engine exclusively for the GT-Four, boasting a larger CT20B twin-entry turbocharger ‘laser-clad’ valve seats for enhanced engine cooling and efficiency, and revised intake valve lift. Laser-clad valve seats, created by lasering a powder mix directly onto the head instead of adding press-fit seat inserts, offer lower valve head temperatures and optimal shaping of intake throat. A higher capacity intake manifold surge tank was also developed to improve intake efficiency, resulting in an engine with higher torque in a wider engine rpm range, and a smoother increase to higher rpm ranges.
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ISSUE 356 / AUGUST 2020
29
Feature: 1968 MGB GT
A second dose of Dash When the Asquith family moved to New Zealand, they brought along an MGB GT. Aiming for a useable everyday classic, they set about a rebuild with the help of some Kiwi know-how By James Asquith
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t its launch in 1965, the MGB GT was hailed as an affordable and practical sports car. It was not often described as having “definitely awesome super horsepower” — but this one was. Our 1968 MG earned that name when I was driving home with my eight-year-old son, Caeden, soon after buying the car in the UK. Caeden saw me flick up the overdrive switch and, when he felt the modest surge of speed, he christened the new car ‘Dash’ — short for ‘definitely awesome super horsepower’. A little while later, we moved to New Zealand. Dash stayed behind at my parents’ house in Yorkshire, England, awaiting shipment to New Zealand, but it was to be a longer separation than we expected.
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KIA ORA, DASH When the car arrived in Wellington in December 2018, it was duly taken along for entry certification. VINZ found some wrongly wired lamps and switches — not too bad — but, much more significantly, some poor welding repairs. As the structural problems were probed more thoroughly, we realized that the previous owner’s restoration would not do and we needed an upgrade. Dash had made it into the country, but it would take some time and money before he would be free to explore any of New Zealand’s scenic highways. We took the car to our new home in Johnsonville in the northern suburbs of Wellington, and I pored
over the car in detail to figure out what was next. There were lots of new parts on the car and a very perky reconditioned drivetrain but the chassis needed serious work. I met up with members of The MG Car Club of Wellington at the British Car Day in Upper Hutt, an annual celebration of all British and European cars held at Trentham Memorial Park each February. There were lots of offers of support from the friendly club members manning the stand. I got chatting with Michael Anderson, the club’s ‘rally and regalia director’, who quickly grasped the situation and helped us take the next step in progressing the project.
ISSUE 356 / AUGUST 2020
65
Feature: 1970 Chevrolet Camaro
Big Red and beyond
Brendan Mason campaigned one of this country’s best-known muscle cars for 12 years. He has handed on the Big Red flame but now plans to meet it again on the track By Quinton Taylor, photography by Quinton Taylor, Dave Loudon Photography, and from archives
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or more than a decade, Invercargill racing driver and businessman Brendan Mason has turned out for motor race meetings a lot less often than he would have liked with the 1970 Chevrolet Camaro known as ‘Big Red’. “In total, I have only done 37 race meetings in 12 years, which isn’t a lot due to the logistics and costs, but I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute I’ve worked and raced the car, and the friends I have made during the journey will be everlasting.” Brendan recently decided to quit motor racing and said those words soon after selling Big Red to Rob Lewis. He says it’s been an entertaining
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12 years with the ex–Wayne Anderson Pinepac Racing Camaro; it’s also been a rewarding time, with forays over the ditch to Eastern Creek (now Sydney Motorsport Park) in 2012 with the Central Muscle Cars (CMC) and again in 2016, on a CMC expedition to Bathurst.
BATHURST FIRST “Bathurst has to be the pinnacle of race tracks to race on,” Brendan reckons. “Bathurst most definitely was the most memorable. Second would be Eastern Creek.” The car has been to Australia twice and that was the highlight.
Bathurst is probably the best track in the Southern Hemisphere. Angus Fogg showed the Touring Car Masters invitation team from New Zealand how to drive it. “A bloody good driver,” is Brendan’s verdict. In February 2018, during the Evolution Motorsport Classic race meeting at Teretonga Park, Invercargill, Brendan pulled off one of his best drives on the last day of the meeting, coming home a close second to Todd Stewart in the PDL Mustang. It was a nose-to-tail battle that might never have happened, but the PDL Mustang team put in a huge effort rectifying a fault that had sidelined their car in a previous race.
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