I tend to think of muscle car culture in strictly US terms as most of the rest of the world can’t afford to waste gasoline, and some just don’t have good enough roads for it, so the news item below suprised me a bit. What kind of muscle cars do you guys play with. Is it a big thing in Australia?
There’s a festival held in Canberra every year just after Christmas, called Summernats which is devoted to all that car-related stuff.
Yeah, muscle cars have been a pretty big deal in Australia since at least the 1960s. The main competition has always been between those who love Fords, and those who are fans of Holdens. Holden (or, to be more correct, General Motors Holden) is the Australian arm of the General Motors company.
Probably the most famous Australian muscle car is the Ford Falcon XY GTHO, built in 1970-1971. You can see a few pictures of a recent concourse-winning example here. I believe that only about 1800 of these were made, and they are generally considered to be pretty much the king of Aussie muscle cars. Even Holden fans generally concede that the GTHO is one fine auto.
But Holden has its own legends. One of the best known is the Torana SLR-5000. The Torana started life as a relatively small and sedate car with a six-cylinder engine, but was gradually given more power, finishing with a 308ci V8 that powered it to plenty of Australian Touring Car championships. You can see some pictures of the SLR-5000 here. Note that the car in the story looks right, but it no longer has its stock engine; the old 308 has been replaced by a nitrous-equipped 478ci monster putting out almost 800hp. I always think its a shame when people mess up a great car to turn it into a steroid-laden behemoth.
Another well-loved Holden muscle car was the Holden Monaro which, over the course of its lifespan, came with a variety of 6 cylinder and V8 engines. The V8s included locally-produced 308s and an imported Chevy 351. You can see an image of a Monaro here.
Both Ford and Holden have continued to produce high-performance sedans, although Ford had quite a long period in the late 80s and early 90s when they did not offer a V8 in their vehicles. Now both manufacturers offer V8s, and both also have affiliated high-performance arms that specialise in producing faster, meaner-looking versions of the regular street cars. The name of Ford’s high-performance group escapes me right now, but Holden’s is called Holden Special Vehicles, and you can check their cars out here.
I’m sure someone who knows a lot more about Aussie cars than i do will be along soon to add a whole lot more info.
On a related note, we saw quite a few classic Mustangs (pre 1970) while visiting New Zealand 5 years ago.
Strange though it may seem other countries have real working roads. They also have plonkers who like to spend their every last cent on their cars. I have no idea what a muscle car is (but I’m an old woman/girl so why would I?) but NZ has more then enough boy racers/car morons. They are more then happy to waste the dollar-ish per litre price of petrol on dragging fellow tools and spinning merry little doughnuts wherever they can.
America is no different to any other western country. There are car nuts everywhere.
You must be worse off than most though. What amazes me in New Zealand is the crosses and wreaths by the roadside in places where I think “How could you die here, on this terrific road?” Because the rural roads are really good even where there is little traffic (compared to Australia at least).
We got the New Zealand highway patrol TV series here a couple of years ago and some of the stupidity on display was mind boggling.
This is very true. We waste our petrol very badly, with many morons.
Far too many complete idiots on the roads.
The Holden Monaro, with a different hood and front fascia, is being imported to the US under the traditional American musclecar name of Pontiac GTO. Some old-time “Goat” loyalists like it, some don’t.
I used to post to a street rodding discussion group back in the mid-late '90s. It was California based, but at times it seemed to have as many Aussies in the group as it did Americans. Judging by these guys, Australia is/was almost a parallel universe to the United States when it comes to car culture. Apparently, the U.S. and Australia are the odd ones out in that the two countries didn’t have the restrictions on engine size that many other developed nations had, so muscle cars were as popular there as they are here.
The Monaro was the leading muscle car. Hot rodders tended to drool over slopers and utes, which were invented by Ford in Australia After a farmer’s wife asked for a car that was suitable for both taking livestock to market and for driving to church on Sunday. As Cunctator mentioned, they have their own meets. They even have their own version of Salt Lake where they run speed trials.
Also, not having the smog problems of L.A., the car manufacturers in Australia didn’t seem as hard hit by emissions restrictions through the 1970s. For example, the Ford 351-Cleveland was kept in production with closed chamber (high compression) heads, and there were also destroked 302-Cs.
Come to think of it, the Aussie car guys did everything pretty much the same way that we did it in the U.S., except that they did it upside-down and on the wrong side of the road. 
A great number of the roadside crosses and wreathes in Australia seem to be on good stretches of road too. I don’t think it’s the quality of the roads that is the key determiner.