High-speed highlights from the Down-under waterfront sprint
CHEVROLET CORVETTE STING RAY
Corvette owner Mike Armstrong was sprinting his car on the Geelong seafront for the first time following an unexpected restoration. ‘I backed it into a trolley in my garage a couple of years ago,’ he admits. ‘Because of the body shape and where the damage was we had to repaint the back half of the car, so I figured that if we were doing half of it we should do it all. I also re-trimmed it while it was apart.
‘It came to Australia six years ago as an exconcours show car. It’s pretty rare as its 396cu in big-block V8 was only available in 1965.’
V2 GN SPECIAL
Brendan Dillon’s self-built GN features a unique engine. ‘People tell me that I’m going to kill myself with this car, but it is only as powerful as my foot allows it to be,’ he says. ‘If it’s down a little it is 1000cc, a bit more and it’s 3000cc,’
‘ The cylinders are from a Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial engine as used in Lockheed Constellation aircraft and the adapted conrods are from a Rolls-royce Merlin. The end result is a 6.2-litre quad- cam V-twin.
‘One of my greatest joys is seeing faces light up when the car comes into view.’
RENAULT 5 TS TURBO
Rob Sealey’s Renault spent 20 years in boxes before he bought it in 2009 and put it back together. It did some auto- crossing from 1986 then was pulled apart for a restoration that never happened. It’s a works car – with a difference. ‘Australian rally driver Bob Watson wanted to have another crack at the Australian Rally Championship in 1980,’ he says, ‘so his team built this car up from a dealer’s standard Renault 5 using a Renault TS engine – which is 200cc bigger than the one in the factory Turbos – and a custom-built straight- cut gearbox.