CELICA MYSTERY

I enjoyed the article on the RA28 Celica (UC 467), and reckon that should have been the cover car.

The car is most likely an evaluation vehicle brought in by AMI for their executives to drive as a company car.

The Bathurst option does not make sense because the car is one of one.

I recall a stor y in Wheels back in the late 60s early 70s of a Celica GT and Corolla (KE20?) Levin, both in orange.

The cars were the assigned vehicles to Bill Owbridge and Ken Hougham. They were upper management at AMI (Australian Motor Industries – a major assembly business) and enjoyed driving something different.

AMI executives retained a company car for about 11 months. They were sold before the second registration was due.

It is likely that the AMI records are now missing. The more interesting evaluation vehicles could potentially be tracked by the Victorian registration records from the 60s and 70s for AMI cars. There will be a large number of company car records to sift through.

Both cars in the Wheels story had personalised plates with WO for Bill and KRH for Ken which may be a potential filter for the best of the evaluation cars.

The Wheels article obviously made an impression on me. I think I was 11 or 12 at the time. I possibly have the magazine stored somewhere, but that is no certainty given the number of house moves I have had in the ensuing 50-plus years.

DAVID MORLEY: Thanks for the extra info, Peter, and I reckon you might be on to something.

I’ve discarded the Bathurst theory on the basis that the car was a Liftback and not a Coupe (as Peter Williamson was racing at the time). Nevertheless, his cars were GTs and had to come from somewhere and would have been imported on an ad hoc basis.

Your theory on the car being an exec-driven company car makes a lot of sense. I’ll pass your info on to the current owner. Thanks for getting in touch.