Did you know, drivers of pre-entered relevant cars to be displayed in the Pit Straight Car Club Corral are admitted free of charge to ECR?

The Car Club Corral is a grassy area located trackside, close to all amenities and attractions. It provides great views of the track and is a nice place to enjoy a picnic with family and friends. Non car club members are welcome to register.

For display car registrations and info click here.

The Australian Racing Drivers Club celebrates its 60th anniversary in September 2012.

To mark the milestone, the Masters will feature a parade of cars that were on sale in Australia in 1952, the club’s first year. Below is a list of cars confirmed so far for the parade. Several of them (albeit not the Roller) competed at Mt Druitt in 1952, as shown below.

• Holden 48-215 sedan
• Holden 50-2106 ute
• Austin A40 sedan and sports plus
• Ford Prefect
• MGs, TD and Y
• Ford Custom
• Chevrolet
• Vauxhall Vagabond
• Peugeot 203C
• Fiat 1100
• Renault 750
• Rolls Royce
• Jaguar Mark V

More vehicles for parade to be confirmed in the coming months.

A batch of ‘new’ Group C/A historic touring cars and drivers will be among those racing for a trophy named in memory of Jason Richards at this year’s Australian Muscle Car Masters. Richards succumbed to cancer late last year and his many mates in the Group C/A paddock immediately swung into action, proposing a special trophy for the class. Jason competed in the inaugural Masters in 2005 in Paul Stubber’s ex-Holden Dealer Team Torana A9X and was an event regular thereafter. Forty cars raced at the recent Phillip Island Classic (see report p96), including newly-restored machines which are AMCM bound.

Tickets now on sale
Prepurchased ticket holders have priority access through Gate 7 with competitors, officials and VIPs.
Book online at click here or by phoning (02) 9672 1000.

 Jim Richards’ AMC Javelin made its long-awaited Touring Car Masters debut on the streets of Adelaide and will ‘perform’ for NSW spectators for the first time at the 2012 Muscle Car Masters.

Being Fathers’ Day, we’re hoping Jim will toss the keys to his faithful Falcon Sprint to son Steven for the weekend. Come on, Jim, it would good to give Steve some extra miles in a V8 Ford ahead of joining Mark Winterbottom at Ford Performance Racing before the re-instated Sandown 500 and Bathurst 1000.

Regardless, a big field of TCM machines will hit The Creek. More on the TCM from p104.

The Muscle Car Masters gives owners of our featured muscle marques the opportunity to parade their cars around Eastern Creek Raceway. Drivers of these vehicles are admitted to the Masters free of charge.

To acknowledge the dedication, enthusiasm and passion of muscle car clubs, the AMCMasters has each year showcased particular makes and models of road-registered muscle cars celebrating special anniversaries.

The parade is an exclusive speed-controlled lap during Sunday’s packed program. This year, the tradition continues. The Featured Muscle Marques static display and track parade will form an integral part of the anniversary themes of this year’s event, with high quality, showroom-spec examples of the following Ford, Chrysler and Holden muscle marques invited to take part:

•  40th anniversary:  Ford Falcon XA GT
• 40th anniversary: Valiant Charger R/T E49
• 40th anniversary:  Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1
•  30th anniversary: VH Commodore SS Brock HDT Group III

Drivers must pre-register. Booking forms will be available soon.

 All Featured Muscle Marque cars will be displayed exclusively on the bitumen-sealed car park and adjacent freshly-mowed lawn areas directly in front of the circuit’s main administration building. These dedicated display areas not only provide an all-weather display facility, but also allow easy access to/from the racetrack via a bitumen-sealed access way for the parade lap session during Sunday’s program.

*Static display/track parade numbers are strictly limited. The maximum number of road cars to parade is 60.

So, if you’re lucky enough to own one of the rare Australian muscle cars highlighted here (must be in clean, presentable condition to be displayed) and you would like to join us for a great day out, then make sure you get your entry in early.

A stellar line-up of race action for 2012

• Touring Car Masters
• Group N Historic Touring Cars (Pre-1973)
• NZ’s Central Muscle Cars
• Group C/A Historic Touring Cars (1973 – 92)
• Master Blasts – Best of the Best
• Heritage Hot Laps
• Formula 5000 Open-Wheelers

Group N Historic Touring Cars (Pre-1973)

Heritage Hot Laps

NZ Central Muscle Cars

Ask and you shall receive. A big field of Formula 5000 machines will blast down Eastern Creek’s main straight and through turn one on Fathers’ Day.

The stock-block V8-engined open-wheelers have been wowing crowds at Historic racing events in New Zealand and Victoria for several years. However, the 2012 Muscle Car Masters will be the first time 20-plus F5000s will race in New South Wales since the mid 1970s. So get set for the earth to shake and your insides to be rearranged by the thunderous machines. The field will comprise a big contingent from the New Zealand Formula 5000 Association, complemented by the swelling Aussie ranks. The F5000 frenzy is a response to the many requests from punters for the colourful and spectacular cars to join the Masters program.

The first four-cylinder Falcon is about to hit the road.

The EcoBoost newcomer has had plenty of build-up, from a low-key press preview at Ford Australia’s media Christmas party at the You Yangs proving ground last year to the giant windscreen strips across the blue oval’s V8 Supercars since the start of the 2012 season.

But nothing prepares for the reality of a car that is truly a make-or-break model.

Ford knows the Falcon four is the car that can win back a giant slice of the government business it has lost in recent years to green-focused councils, as well as major State and Federal government buyers.

The range of new rivals to the homegrown Falcon – as well as the Holden Commodore – includes the predictable locally-made Toyota Camry models, but has also grown in recent times to even include the diesel-powered Hyundai i30.

Ford knows many governments have to buy Australian if there is a suitable car, even if a Korean compact with excellent efficiency makes a case, and hopes the four-cylinder model will tick the box to give it a major sales boost.

The key numbers are already public – 179 kiloWatts and 353 Newton-metres of torque with fuel economy as good as 8.1 litres/100km – that’s 34.8 miles-per-gallon – with no price increase above the existing inline six on the Falcon XT, G6 and G6E that will be available with the  EcoBoost four.

The Australian red lion is finally off the endangered list. No, we don’t mean the PM.

GM Holden is safe as a local carmaker until at least 2020, thanks to a joint-spending splash that ensures it will make two cars for the foreseeable future at its manufacturing base in Adelaide.

But it’s not the end of life support – or major surgery – for a local carmaker that still faces some worrying global challenges in coming years and a question mark over the future shape and style of its Commodore headliner.

With big sixes on an irreversible downward spiral, the Commodore of 2018 and beyond – after the VF update of the current architecture hits the road in 2014 – could be almost anything, including an SUV-coupe type of crossover similar to the unlovely but successful BMW X6.

No-one is ruling anything out, for Holden’s design aces and research team have been working for at least five years on the future direction for a Commodore to suit 21st century Australian families who rate SUVs ahead of traditional sedans and station wagons.

At least they have the cash now to convert dreams to reality.

The Fishermans Bend patient has its new certainty thanks to a $275 million government support package that combines cheques from Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide in a deal that has been negotiated over more than six months.

But there is more to the deal than a simple government bailout.

Holden says it and its Detroit management team are actually committed to spending a whopping $1 billion over the next 10 years to renew its local model lineup and keep the factory in Adelaide making cars at global quality levels.

“Holden’s business model has been a great success in this competitive and challenging environment. Last year we sold more locally-made cars in Australia than any other manufacturer, and nearly 60 per cent of all Holdens sold in this country were built in Elizabeth,” says Mike Devereux, chairman of GM Holden.

It’s that local success and profitability, despite the recent downturn in Commodore sales, that convinced Detroit chiefs to continue backing the Australian operation and – in turn – won the government support for the new long-term deal.

“Holden will receive government co-investment of $275 million and directly invest well in excess of a billion dollars in the 10-year vehicle development and manufacturing program. Co-investment of this kind is critical for our industry and helps Australia compete against other car making countries that protect their industries through tariffs and/or financial support.

Co-investment means a company must spend first to get government backing.

Toyota has received co-investment contributions to the $350 million bill for its new four-cylinder factory in Melbourne, which will soon begin supplying two types of engines for the locally-made Camry and Camry Hybrid, and the $103 million grant to Ford at the beginning of the year was only possible because the blue-oval brand is doing its own update work and spending on the Falcon and Territory.
The Holden deal was announced right at the top, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard taking credit – even though it was the work of the outgoing Minister for Industry, Senator Kim Carr, who was punted in a Canberra power battle – for the cash.

“In January this year we were at real risk that there would be no more Holden in Australia, that we wouldn’t have Holden here producing motor vehicles,” says Gillard.

“That wasn’t acceptable for me as Prime Minister and it wasn’t the right thing for the nation’s future. It would’ve been a knockout blow for manufacturing in this country, given the importance of the auto industry to all of manufacturing.”

So there will be two locally-made Holdens until 2012 and the smart money is on a rollover for the existing Cruze, which is already a global model that’s bolted together in Adelaide on a flexible production line that now suits two very different models.

And the Commodore?

The GM plan is to roll the Australian hero into its global product plan, instead of leaving it as a local orphan. There is a long history of tweaking global designs to create an Aussie front-runner that goes back to the VB Commodore of 1978 – originally an Opel – and there are several potential contenders that would provide rear-wheel drive and a smaller body to suit local tastes.

Talking at the Detroit Motor Show in January, former GM Holden boss Mark Reuss even hinted that the upcoming Cadillac ATS would be an ideal candidate for a Commodore morph job. It’s classy, compact, rear-wheel drive and has the quality to be pitched internationally against the BMW 3 Series.Could it come to Australia with a local ‘top hat’ body design? Don’t bet against it.

But Devereux is not getting ahead of himself while revealing Holden’s plans.

“The two new Australian-made cars will be world-class. They will be underpinned by global architectures from within General Motors and bring new fuel-saving, connectivity and safety technologies to Holden’s portfolio.

“The program also delivers a significant return on investment. We estimate Holden will inject around $4 billion into the Australian economy over the life of the program,” is all he is saying, for now.