246 replies to this topic

[retired308]

a great read this, wonderful history, a friend back in 1990-1 wanted to buy this car, we took it for a drive, and it was immaculate , unfortunately the asking price 15k was too high, the rumour was it had been an ex race car belonging to gricey.
it sat in a car yard for a long time after that.
the owners brother also owned the mcrae l34 at the time! which sold for 7k a few years later
we eventually bought an l34 from victoria for 12k. its still here too.

[hungus76]

a great read this, wonderful history, a friend back in 1990-1 wanted to buy this car, we took it for a drive, and it was immaculate , unfortunately the asking price 15k was too high, the rumour was it had been an ex race car belonging to gricey.
it sat in a car yard for a long time after that.
the owners brother also owned the mcrae l34 at the time! which sold for 7k a few years later
we eventually bought an l34 from victoria for 12k. its still here too.

Hi there, which owner would that be? I know the 3 owners prior to me and have never heard about a brother with the McRae L34. That's the Dustings car isn't it?

[hungus76]

Adrian,

When I saw the engine No for your car, i did not think that it could be the engine that was in the car when sold to Scotty Taylor, because it just did not look like a GMH engine No. Our prime engine was a warranty claim engine that i saw one day when I was up in the service dept of the dealership. I got very interested in it because it had the extra webbing at the rear of the main bearing area. I asked the service manager what the story was and he told me it was a warranty claim engine. I cannot remember what the problem with it was. HX Holden's were the model at the time, so I am presuming it was from an HX model.
I then had to set about how i was going to save it from destruction when the GMH warranty man next came to visit. With a bit of help from Graeme and the service manager, the big hammer didn't touch it. We had our new engine to replace the original unit that was giving so much trouble with water leaking due to core shift in the block casting.
It would be my opinion that the engine in your car is a replacement fitted some time after it was sold to Scotty Taylor.

Deane Hill.

Thanks Deane, riveting reading as always!

I could think of a million things to ask you about the car, I'll end up driving you mad.

[retired308]

hello adrian, the boys lived in howrah, the dustings car was yellow then and he dragged it a few times its tags were missing at that stage,
the red cars owner sold it to pursue an aviation license i recall, havent seen either of them since around that time, so could be mistaken, greg was the red cars owner he bought it from that car yard in new norfolk i thought?
getting on a bit so might be wrong.

[retired308]

come to think of it david owned the red one, greg was younger, a mechanic, and he had the yellow one.

[hungus76]

greg was the red cars owner he bought it from that car yard in new norfolk i thought?
getting on a bit so might be wrong.

Yeah the car was owned by Phillip who owned Colonial Motors in New Norfolk.

Regardless of which brother owned the car I was unaware of either of them owning the vehicle, so that's interesting to learn. Going back from myself owning the car this is what I know :

I purchased the car from Darren, who is a Police Officer. I purchased from him but the deal was done through Dave Powell Superwheels car yard

I believe he bought the car from Lyndon, who lives in New Norfolk

I thought he purchased the car directly from Phillip of Colonial Motors but maybe this is not the case and one of the 2 brothers slot into the picture somewhere?

we took it for a drive, and it was immaculate , unfortunately the asking price 15k was too high, the rumour was it had been an ex race car belonging to gricey.
it sat in a car yard for a long time after that.

Still is immaculate! I purchased in 94 - 95. They had $18,000 on it and I secured it for $15,000. Yeah the Allan Grice story was persistent for many years, only been the last couple of years that the real story has started to come together properly.

Edited by hungus76, 07 April 2012 - 08:19 PM.

[retired308]

great work, it still looks the same hungus, very nice car for sure, time frame would be around 1987-91 this would have happened if that helps you. I do know the surname of the owners if you want.
and I have the yellow l34 on vhs at tarmak around that time here somewhere.

[hungus76]

great work, it still looks the same hungus, very nice car for sure, time frame would be around 1987-91 this would have happened if that helps you. I do know the surname of the owners if you want.
and I have the yellow l34 on vhs at tarmak around that time here somewhere.

Feel free to send me a private message regarding the surname, I may even know them as the Hobart car scene is a relatively small group.

[hungus76]

Finally, I have heard (third hand and so no direct knowledge) that if you can provide Holden with the original engine number they will provide one of their provenance reports to confirm the same or not. However if you cannot provide the original engine number they can't/won't do this for you, and merely provide the BETSBAC report which only records the engine type in that field. Good luck with your hunting - seems you have made significant in-roads especially of late. Cheers, TB

Thank you for all the suggestions you provided.

I may try contacting GMH first and give them the engine No. that Deane spoke of and see what they can tell me about that.

If that turns out to be unsuccessfull then I'll look at trying NSW RTA as that seems to be a lot more involved.

I have no idea what I would have done without the assistance of people on this forum!

[A9X]

How good is that !!

[sagman]

WOW !!! ........ that should just about answer any questions i would have thought !!!!

Wish there were more like you who took pics of their work at the time , it would make life a hell of a lot easier to research these special cars .

Thanks for sharing.

Larry

[eyepeeler]

Great photo's,

[retired308]

great pics and history well done.

[hungus76]

Oh wow! I just don't know what else to say. That is incredible.

Seeing those pix just gives me goosebumps, I cannot express just how grateful to you for taking the time to do that for me. Thank you so, so much!

Just brilliant!

[hungus76]

Look very closely at these 2 pix, both have little chips missing from the dash above the speedo and the fuel/temp guage. They match perfectly!

That's all the proof I need!

Attached Files

•  DSC02484.jpg   66.52K   27 downloads
•  PICT0002A.JPG   66.05K   25 downloads

[hungus76]

Hey Adrian,

Have you tried to find the CAMS log book for the car. It would be a very valuable asset. Scotty Taylor would be my first call, as he was the last person to use it as a race car.

Deane Hill

Hi Deane,

Somebody has approached Scotty Taylor on my behalf regarding the CAMS log book, He believes he still has it but it's packed away somewhere due to moving. He was also about to head to Europe for approximately 6 months so it's going to be a long wait to see if he can locate them.

Fingers crossed.

Once again thanks so much for all the info you have supplied and all those incredible photos. It's very much appreciated.

[hungus76]

Does anybody here have any photo's of the car when it was raced by Scotty Taylor ?

I haven't been able to find many at all, only the ones I posted further back in this thread. Any thing at all would be great.