It was a cold, wet winter's night in 2001 in the middle of Melbourne's old port area. Parked next to the water was a magnificent metallic blue XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III, a national concours winner and arguably the best in Australia at the time.
It was the star attraction in the launch of fine art prints featuring Australian muscle cars. I was there to ensure that the specification of each car was absolutely factory correct.
Because I had always lusted after this model and colour, I figured it was time I did something about it. As both the car's owner and restorer were present, talk turned to how much it would take to prise it from the owner's grip.
The figure was around $80,000, about $30,000 more than the going rate and out of reach. It was significant that its wealthy owner, a dyed-in-the-wool Ford loyalist, drove an HSV ClubSport as his daily driver.
Around the same time, I received a phone call about my own award-winning LJ Torana GTR XU-1, one of the 150 1973 Group C homologation specials with race improvements more extensive than any GT-HO.
I had sold it in 1984 for around $11,000 to fund a Morgan Plus 8, more than double what an average XU-1 was fetching at the time. Its owner locked it away after telling everyone it had been stolen and destroyed then pulled it out of its hidey-hole 17 years later.
Apart from some age deterioration, it was exactly as I had sold it and was now creating a feeding frenzy at around $40,000. One of the prospective buyers who contacted me to verify its history was on the Channel 10 V8 Supercar broadcasting team.
At the close of 2001, I was talking to the owner of one of the best award-winning E49 Chargers in Australia as we photographed his car for a magazine feature and the next art print. Although a magnificent example, everyone thought he had rocks in his head when he valued it at around $40,000, or about double what they were selling for at the time.
Former Brock publicist and Holden PR contractor, Tim Pemberton had just bought an HT Monaro GTS 350 to help Holden promote the new Monaro and was wondering if he had paid too much at $25,000.
By early 2007, the $80,000 GT-HO Phase III was worth at least $500,000 with some analysts claiming that prices wouldn't stop until they hit a million dollars. A mint original 1973 Group C Bathurst XU-1 was worth at least $160,000, probably closer to $200,000 to the right buyer, a range which now applies to any early Monaro GTS example in Bathurst specification.
The E38 Chargers have already hit $140,000 while the more desirable E49 examples are not selling because their owners feel that current offers of around $200,000 are not yet high enough!
After the company who was producing the fine art prints had to pull the pin in 2002 because there wasn't enough interest, the exact point at which prices took off and the causes are fairly easy to identify. Because I was at the coal face from ground zero, it has been an amazing ride.
Old enough to experience the first Aussie muscle car period from behind a steering wheel and young enough to enjoy it all over again, I believe that the current period of resurgence will be viewed with far more nostalgia and amazement than the original muscle car era.
For the record, I define the original Aussie muscle car era from 1967-78, starting with the XR Falcon GT and ending with the Torana A9X and the XC Cobras, the first and last of the mainstream factory muscle cars that raced at Bathurst. For today's revival, 2003 was when it all went ballistic. Who knows where it is going to end, if it ever does.
So what sparked today's revival at such a precise point and can it be sustained? There were a number of trigger points that set the context. One of the first was HSV's release of the original VN ClubSport in 1991, a model that took off from where the last Torana SL/R5000 had ended.
It survives as Australia's most popular and longest-running unbroken muscle car model line ever. Muscle cars of the original ClubSport era were too often overpriced and cynical plastic-clad marketing editions or short run Group A homologation specials.
A second trigger was HSV's VR GTS in May 1994, the first muscle car since the original era that featured a monster engine not shared with lesser models. It was a trend that HSV continued into the amazing VTII GTS 300 with its special Callaway C4B engine, previewed in late 1999.
During this period, I had been engaged as founding editor of HSV's in-house magazine Excelerate at a time that HSV's John Crennan and John Harvey were actively joining the dots by reviving hallowed muscle car badges and encouraging owners of the old and new to link up into a single overwhelming Holden muscle car movement.
As I drove the GTS 300 on its final pre-production shake-down in the Australian outback, it felt like we were back in 1971 at an even more blistering pace.
Holden then added an unexpected booster rocket to this process by showing the VT Coupe concept in 1998, which could only be a Monaro in this context.
Yet Holden's efforts were not enough to spark the revival when Ford was a making a real mess of it. There were two individuals which time will record as pivotal factors in Australia's muscle car revival. Between them, they created a rivalry that allowed both fan bases to re-emerge with pride.
They were Holden's Peter Hanenberger and Ford's Geoff Polites. Chrysler's launch of the 300C would later add to this momentum and allow Chrysler fans and their cars to re-join the party.
After arrogance and ignorance delivered a range of T-series models from Ford and Tickford that shoved a middle-finger into the faces of Ford loyalists and their hallowed GT heritage, Ford global chief Jac Nasser appointed the principal of a Sydney Ford dealer, Geoff Polites, as Ford Australia's new President.
Polites had been profoundly affected by the stirring induction speech from Bill Bourke when he first entered the Ford world as a young graduate. Bourke was the architect of Ford's local performance history and eventual domination of the Australian market. Polites was now on a mission to revive the Bourke approach.
It was at this time I was invited by Tickford boss David Flint to balance my HSV involvement by setting up Tickford's inhouse magazine Blueprint ready for the revival of the GT. This later extended to helping set up FPV itself.
In the meantime, Hanenberger wasn't sitting on his hands either. Because he had provided the engineering credentials behind the Radial Tuned Suspension program that delivered the dominating A9X Torana in 1977, he shared the Polites perspective and ensured that the VT Coupe concept emerged as a Monaro under strong internal pressures to do otherwise. Polites responded with the RHD Mustang program and the first T-series that could kick HSV butt.
By early 2003, the arrival of the BA Falcon GT in showrooms, Ford's first factory-designed V8 Supercar that actually looked like the GT and Holden's renewed efforts with the Monaro and HSV range came together for an explosion in awareness across all generations.
For the first time since 1982, Ford owners could look Holden owners in the eye and hold their heads up with pride at the track and on the road.
Polites will never be forgotten as the man who took the hard knocks to achieve this while his Holden rival, Peter Hanenberger will always be remembered as the one who didn't allow recent difficulties in Europe to affect his nerve and stretch Holden to new levels.
From there, it was a short step for young fans to identify with where it all started. It is this fresh new enthusiasm that distinguishes this boom from others before it as big Healeys, E-type Jaguars, Aston Martins, Ferraris and Porsches languish with a privileged and narrow band of owners.
Anyone can become an active part of the Australian muscle car boom with an affordable near-new model or an old one, or something in between such as a base model Falcon Hardtop or six-cylinder Monaro. With every new model from Ford or Holden, and now Chrysler, it can only grow.
Former Street Machine Editor and V8 Supercars commentator Mark Oastler was one of the first to pick up the trend in Street Machine then ran with it in Australian Muscle Car magazine. Unique Cars was also quick to see the shift in emphasis and act on it.
There are three other significant factors that will keep this process going for some time yet. The year 2003 was exactly 58 years after World War II, about the time that the first baby boomers were leaving their jobs with fat superannuation payouts.
The rush was on to relive an amazing era or access what they missed first time round. It is not unusual for these owners to drive the latest FPV or HSV model along with a number of the originals in the garage. As their own children and grand children experience these legendary cars, the consciousness is spreading at an amazing rate ready to keep it alive beyond a single generation.
The untimely deaths of Howard Marsden, Bill Bourke and Peter Brock along with a sense of their own mortality have prompted this generation to recognise that the original legends won't be around forever.
The rush is on to meet and honour those who are still around, a phenomenon that individuals such as Norm Beechey, John Harvey and Allan Moffat find quite moving when there was so little reward first time around. Again, younger fans are increasingly captivated by what these guys achieved against the odds.
GM product czar Bob Lutz also has a lot to answer for. His recognition of Australian capabilities has prompted a sense of awe for what has been happening away from the world's gaze.
Lutz even forced Australians to look at these cars in a more positive light. As more international enthusiasts can't get enough of Australia's hidden treasure, Australian car movements are springing up all around the world.
It is timely to look at what caused the original muscle car era to crash and burn, literally. Pond life attracted to the fast money and fast performance, stole or destroyed the originals at such a rate that insurance was next to impossible and with that, the ability to finance a new purchase was lost.
As Geoff Polites noted in 2002, Ford by 1976 was selling the last XB Falcon GT to themselves. Now that more of the heavyweight nasties in our community adjust their sights to the latest revival ready to steal, forge and destroy, there are already signs they have the potential to turn what is currently a wholesome family interest into a cesspit and kill it.
With the benefit of hindsight, there is no excuse for owners and clubs to allow this to happen second time around.
To comment on this article click here
Related articles:
Aussie Gold:
The Golden Age of Australian muscle cars
Muscle Mass:
David Bowden's collection of Australia's racing touring cars
Back in the day:
Peter Robinson recalls three epic road trips in the bred-for-Bathurst supercars