"All 69/73 Mustang rear spoilers were fiberglass with a genital curve"
Well that puts a whole new perspective on the term "muscle cars" doesn't it!!!! Try spellcheck Dale, LOL
Cheers Dave Graham
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"All 69/73 Mustang rear spoilers were fiberglass with a genital curve"
Well that puts a whole new perspective on the term "muscle cars" doesn't it!!!! Try spellcheck Dale, LOL
Cheers Dave Graham
Dead right mate, and compared to the other runners was an absolute stunner back in the day. I built a tribute 1/32 scale slot car of it, complete with lime yellow beard spoiler, black boot spoiler, matt-black bonnet stripes and big gold door numbers, with lots of help from Murray Maunder. But to see the real one on-track was a treat , with Red straining forward against the belts as he wrestled with the roaring beast, the nose rising high under acceleration, the thing sliding wildly on too-soft suspension, and even post-race in the pits, Red mumbling and grumbling about what might have been, overall buttons open as he mowed through another pack of gum at high speed. No wonder so many of us recall those heady days with such affection, those blokes were dead-set legends in front of our eyes !
I'm pretty sure the Mustang still had its big tank and bootlid filler in its first season in NZ with Frank Bryan. Group 5 cars were eligible to compete in longer distance races in 1967/68, such as the Wills 3 Hour, so the big tank would have been a useful device.
When Dawson bought the car in 1968, he switched in the small tank, although I'm not sure if he did it before or after he raced the car in the 1968 ATCC at Warwick Farm. That race took a few seconds shy of 1 hour, so you'd think he'd have kept the big tank in.
The Dexter Dunlop Shelby that arrived in NZ in late 1970 had raced in the Trans-Am since new (plus local A/Sedan races) with its previous owners Bob Egan and Bob Kennett. So it always had the big tank fitted.
Just going through my Motorman- in Sept 1968 there is a centre fold of the start of the Dunlop half hour race, April 20.
The 3 Aussies were here in their light weight biscuit tins.
Pic #1167- shows clearly filler on boot lid of Frank Bryans car, look at rear window and see shiny cap.
Attachment 25555
Dale-Pic as you requested. My Monaro and Reds Mustang,probably mid Feb 1970. No sign of filler cap here.
Attachment 25556
I took this pic, was meeting at Puke, Dexter Dunlop number 52 ,Red in Kensington Camaro, Grable in Firebird, Fahey in Orange PDL Mustang.
Fuel filler cap is flat, almost recessed into boot lid, attached by wire to original location on taillamp panel.
jacmac- full marks, Next time we meet I can show you this pic.
Dale say is the Shelby fillers were here on the boot lid, as seen by #1167.
So that is the filler sticking out of the tail lamp panel under WGTN?- looks pretty gay (olde English for happy) at that angle.
Will go back and find the mag that shows Kennard running it at the USA events.
Pretty good spotting John so it looks to be the case, came in with the Shelby filler and then changed later!!
You know, quite possibly the big 32G tank got damaged and a stock mustang one replaced it somewhere in its life!! it must have been before fitting the wing as I currently can't open the filler cap with the spoiler mounted and as mentioned above I know the spoiler is in the correct original position.
Dale M
Maybe Red fitted the spoiler, saw this situation and decided that the boot lid filler had to go.
Apart from earlier Wills 3 hour and this Dunlop half hour there were no long distance events needing this big tank and special boot lid setup.
So....how are you going to get around it?
Might be a bit simpler than that. At the time if you had a car where the fuel filler was not on the body exterior you had to fit a splash apron with drainage to the outside to prevent fuel spillage possibly getting into the cockpit driver area, this was 'meant' to cover refuelling during longer events and should probably have been ignored for our shorter races, but some tech guys enforcing the rules did just that. As well as these cars it caught stuff like Imps, VW's in the same net. I would suggest that the Dunlop car guys might have just fitted the external filler tube to save the hassle.
Jacmac- probably would have been our Kiwi boys in USA when they were running it , before Dexter got it.
Attachment 25559
Knew I had this article some where-
Motorman May 1970.
This is the car in USA that Dexter Dunlop swapped his McRae single seater for.
It was run in the Transams and is now in Bodwens.
Note the petrol filler in the boot , same as Nigels.
Car was run with NO rear spoiler, so looks like you cant have them both
That's a great article John, you must have some archive mate!! The rear spoiler deal was only a Red Dawson thing and have never seen it on any other(non 69/70 mustang) anywhere in the world.
Heres the filler set in the Dawson car, im sure the stainless bowl isn't correct but probably necessary along the lines of what Jacmac mentions above, a MSNZ requirement?
Dale M
Its a good that we can see Kennets original ownership and presentation.
Then the next owner Dexter Dunlop and his presentation.
Someone can now step in and give the list, in order, of the consecutive owners and pics.
When I raced against Steve Ross in 1992 , I am sure it was white while he owned it.
And Nigel is a fortunate man to own its stablemate.
Attachment 25566This pic shows Kennet, Dunlop, Haig car still with rear wing & now bonnet scoop also..
Jac Mac, did John Armstrong race that Mustang after Kevin Haig?
Yes Dale, Teretonga.
full noise, no John Armstrong owned/raced the ex Paul Fahey-John Riley 65 mustang prior to Rod McElrea, that car was green with #222 IIRC during Armstongs ownership.
Ownership of the car in question must be Kennet-Dunlop-Haig-Bruce-Morris-Slade-Kennard, then onto the guys you folk know.
Just another of several 'what if' scenarios for me, can remember looking at the car as a roller in a Ferry Road car sales for around $3500.00 and thinking 'should I' at the time
I think the Bowdens bought it off Gary Doyle in the Manawatu area?
Your analysis and description insists you missed your vocation as a motorsport scribbler back in the 70s Glenn, but leave my name out of it. LOL :cool: Sadly four wheeled racing for me never got bigger than 1/24th scale and more often 1/32nd scale where us fanatics kicked everyone's butt with the latest chassis tech!
It's those images of Red's blue Shelby in my mind that continue to stalk me. When I go to HMC meetings - and Dale's workshop where the car has recently undergone some work from Dale Mustang Mathers - I dream that this car may, no MUST, end up in electric metallic blue with a Nascar-styled #35 down each side.
Horn !!
Probably worth mentioning that the gold 35s on the doors had a yellow outline.
Attachment 25572
That funny little hood scoop was fitted to the car when Dunlop owned it. He made quite a few changes to it from the time he got it off Kennett. I'm pretty sure it ran its early NZ races just as Kennett (and Bob Egan before that) drove it in the Trans-Am, with 4-barrel 5 litre motor and 8" wide American Racing wheels.
Note that by the 1972 season, as pictured (photo by Warwick Clayton), the car has sprouted the rear spoiler, wider Minilite wheels, and the hood scoop. I'm sure he also had a bigger motor fitted too.
Attachment 25570
looks like the front spoiler has been "dextered" on the right hand side.
When the Egan, Kennett, Dunlop etc car ran with a 4bbl was it a Windsor originally or Boss 302? Quite likely that the scoop was reqd for Weber IDA clearance on a Boss version, but not reqd on 289/302 Windsor applications. Boss engine was definitely fitted when purchased by Kevin Haig.
In that year were they running tunnel port 302s that were giving all the problems?
You think that makes you wonder, Jack, wait till you see the next pic I am putting up....................
The Egan/Kennett/Dunlop etc Mustang was a Shelby built A/Sedan car, and sister car to that of Frank/Bryan/Red Dawson. Shelby built approx 26 of the cars, keeping a couple for themselves to run a Ford factory backed effort in the '67 Trans-Am series, with the rest being sold to customers. They were all fitted with 289 Windsor motors.
Up until 1969, teams could run multiple carbs in the Trans-Am. I assume the Egan car was fitted with either a single or twin 4-barrel set-up. Like most privateer A/Sedan cars, it ran mainly local SCCA A/Sedan races, then took part in the big-dollar Trans-Am series when it came to town.
Egan campaigned the Mustang until selling it to Bob Kennett, who'd raced a Porsche 911 up until the 1969 season, when the SCCA decided the 911 was not a sedan. Kennett then raced the Mustang in 1970 Trans-Am and A/Sedan races before it went to Dunlop.
For 1970, the SCCA declared all cars must be fitted with a single 4-barrel only, no more multi-carbs. So the Mustang was converted to that set-up, if it wasn't already doing so.
The tunnel-port motor was used by the factory Shelby team in the 1968 Trans-Am, and proved a disaster. It was created in an attempt to keep up with the Penske run Camaros, and was 302ci. The design was taken from their Nascar program, but didn't work on road courses. They then developed the Boss 302 for 1969, which, like everyone else, was forced to run a single 4-barrel in 1970.
Its unlikely the Egan/Kennett car would have had its 289 motor replaced with a Boss, but its possibly it might have been fitted with a larger 302. But it definitely arrived in NZ with a single 4-barrel motor, as thats what it was forced to run in the US.
I'm sure I read somewhere Jac that Dunlop had a new mega-motor built for the car after the first season, which would be when the multi-carbs were fitted along with that little hood scoop. I'd need to go through my old mags to check, but maybe he fitted it with a Boss motor?
Getting reliable info on this stuff is like getting teeth pulled! Rang a 'reliable' source yesterday and it would seem that' Murray Bunn' built a Boss 302 engine for Dexter, this motor was still in the car when Kevin bought it, Kevin had problems ( and I believe these might have been a continuation of some suffered by Dunlop ) with that engine & rebuilt it along with some replacement bits after that first abortive OSCA season along with a lighten it up program & the colour change to Detroit motors signage. If you look at pics on the NZ Mustang website Kevin appears to have tried two different hood scoop designs.
Attachment 25575
Going, going,going..........watch for the next instalment.
Good to see Southern Men werent worried about being P.C. then.
Attachment 25578
going................and gone.
this sequence with our very own Jacmac in a OSCA-deserves to be here, not an an Imp thread.
Smile, Jack.you were well covered this day, its seems every magazine had you covered.
Attachment 25579
The caption for this was- life with Dexter can be tyring
Who wasnt there and missed this gem.
Car has bonnet scoop
Motorman Oct 73-D.G.Seymour photo.
No should be in the Mini & Imp thread...Now John, was it not you who suggested that exuberant driving styles would not be tolerated in HMC, or are you just reinforcing that thought.:).
My Story-cos I was there!- total loss of brake pedal when braking for the elbow at Teretonga, decided to make the elbow into a sweeper, just about got away with it and damage was confined to RR corner, it was Stewy Q that called it 'lil black sambo' which stuck, and there is a 3rd pic somewhere that caught the car in mid air just as it contacted the bank.... now if it happened today the whole RHS of the car would be stuffed from contact with the tire wall and I daresay I would be nursing some severe belt bruises, but you pay your membership fees and that's what you get.:)
BOT.. looks like the fuel filler was on that rear panel of Dexters car.