Charger vs Charger
Craig Marsland owned and drove both the Diffen and McCormack Charger Sports Sedans. Therefore he’s in a unique position to compare the two. These are his thoughts:
Body
Both cars retain the majority of the steel body as required by the rules of the day. Rear guards on both were ared in steel, fronts on both were aluminium with handformed ares. Both had an aluminium bonnet, boot and door skins (all supposedly pressed after-hours at the factory) Diffen’s car had a full welded-in roll cage, whereas McCormack’s car only had a half-cage, which has now been upgraded to a full-cage in its recent restoration. It appears that the Diffen car was probably the more structurally sound, or stiffer of the two at the time.
Engine
Diffen ran a 340ci inch (5.6-litre) Chrysler with Formula 5000-style Lucas mechanical-injection, dry-sumped, solidmounted in the middle of the car alongside the driver, covered by a fabricated aluminium cowling. McCormack ran a Repco F5000 Holden-based engine of 304 cubic inches (5.0-litre) again Lucas fuel-injected, drysumped and solid mid-mounted. Note: Under the rules of the day you could run up to 6.0-litres if the car came with that engine new, if not you were limited to 5.0-litres.
Gearbox
Diffen ran a Chrysler all-aluminium Chrysler New Process 4-speed gearbox mounted behind the engine in normal con guration. McCormack ran a Hewland DG300 5-speed box mounted behind the engine, minus the differential.
Differential
Diffen ran a speedway-style quick change unit, whilst McCormack ran a second DG300 Hewland minus the gearbox.
Brakes
Both cars utilised Lockheed AP 4-piston callipers front and rear as was the popular choice at the time.
Suspension
Both cars ran F5000-inspired suspension. Diffen had at the time rather radical “rising rate” front-suspension and independent-rear utilising Matich F5000 uprights. McCormack’s car utilised El n MR5-based independent suspension all round. Both used fully adjustable aluminium bodied Koni coil-over shock absorbers upfront; Diffen probably had same on rear (can’t remember). McCormack had coil-over Armstrongs (if my memory is correct).
Driving comparison
Ithink I am the only person to have driven both cars. With my limited experience and ability at the time, my thoughts are that Diffen’s car had awesome horsepower, stopped well, handled reasonably well, but was a little fussy when on the limits through the corners. You really had to be on-the-ball to drive it on the edge. Which, in all fairness to the car, could have been overcome with further development... and more time and money. Apart from that, it is an absolute thoroughbred that unfortunately was never able to reach its full potential. But a huge buzz to drive. The noise alone was insane and I have never experienced the same since. Whereas when I owned and drove the McCormack car a few years later, it was a very easy car to drive. It was comfortable, forgiving and predictable and much easier to drive on the edge. With all that said and done, I did almost identical lap times in both cars and those times were not far off those achieved by much better drivers than me in the car’s heyday. Which is best? I can’t choose, they are the same but very different and the smile on the dial from either is huge. My only regret, I could not do justice to either, my eyes and heart were always bigger than my wallet!