TWIN PIPES

Another of Harry Firth’s strokes of genius with the Cortina GT500 was to use twin filler necks. The rules of racing back then mandated a fuel churn with a regulation-sized spout, effectively limiting the speed at which the car could be filled. But nobody said you couldn’t use two churns at once, halving the refuelling time. Simple when you think about it, but up to that point in Australia, nobody but Harry had. No wonder they called him the silver fox. Hemis or 440 big blocks were supposed to be f itted to cars by t hen. Production had ended in 71. But did they make it into passenger cars in 72? Well as fa r as I know a few of each snuck t hrough, ver y unoff icia lly and way under the radar. I have no concrete ev idence persona lly, but have read about it in severa l dedicated Mopar books and mags from t he States so I don’t see why it couldn’t happen wit h t he red motor. I agree wit h you, just because you haven’t got rock solid proof yet doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. The nay-sayers are obv iously of t he glass-half-empty t y pe rat her t han t he posit ive t hinkers like you, myself and t he rest of t he UC readers who enjoy ot her readers’ memories of GMH stuff from t he 60s and 70s.

Also, in regards to t he question about when is a car a classic : Alt hough I’m not rea lly into plastic bumper cars t hat much, t here are some great ones out there t hat would qualif y as classics. I’m t hinking Group B ra lly cars, 80s and 90s Japanese stuf f; t hat k ind of thing. I wouldn›t say an XR8 Sprint is a classic yet. Or a Dodge Challenger Hellcat, as t hey are st ill new(ish) cars. Maybe someday they will be classics.

I t hink some of t he t hings t hat def ine a classic car are: Age – at least of 15 or 20 years; accomplishments in some sort of motor racing; st yle ; simple (mostly) engineering t hat t he average bloke can work on and f i x. But mainly it’s to do wit h something feeling a bit specia l, something t hat stands out from the crowd of black, white and silver SUVs. It doesn’t need to have a ll t hese qualit ies, but if you can pull up at a ser vo and t he bloke a few cars across comes over for a yarn about it, and how he or someone he k new had one like yours, t hen t hat ticks t he box for me. Let’s face it, he’s not going to come over to ta lk about your 2014 R AV 4 is he? Logan Leatham, Langwarrin.