Comments by "John D" (@johnd8892) on "American Reacts to The 1966 GALLAHER 500 Bathurst" video.

  1. Most of Australia did not get to see the race either. It took until the 1969 race until the TV coverage was extended to outside Sydney and parts of New South Wales. This coverage is from newsreel movies footage shown leading up to the main feature at cinemas.
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  2.  @gold4leaf  Dollars and Cents are not metric. No metric standards for currency, unlike weights and measures. The USA have had Decimal currency for over two hundred years but are still anti metric. A metre is the same all around the world , but the value of a dollar depends which country it was minted by.
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  3. Both Valiants in the race had the 273 V8 first available as an option on top of the line Valiants. All the Studebakers had the 4.7 litre V8 which was the only motor in Australian sold Studebakers. All these cars had drum brakes only. Not enough people had bought the disc brake option in the Valiant to qualify for the race.
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  4. It's an HD Holden with the X2 motor. Came 17th. Beaten by the Toyota Crown and Fiat 1500 amongst many others. The HD set back Holden quite a bit as people did not like the look. The HR was clever and cheap restyle that was more accepted.
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  5. Decimal currency came in 1966. But metric measures were a seventies introduction. Bathurst went to 1000km in 1973 from memory. No metric standards for currency.
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  6. Three speed auto and drum brakes. Not enough people bought the disc brake option to qualify the car.
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  7. Metric was seventies until it was legally specified. First Bathurst 1000 was 1973. Lots of confusion out there with Australias version of decimal currency and the later adoption of worldwide metric common standards.
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  8. I think only this early Valiant with the 273 V8 raced at Bathurst. Story of the cars here. How the first V8 Valiants went close to winning Bathurst, but let down by not enough buyers optioning disc brakes. From Shannon's : https://youtu.be/cJC759IAQTo Chrysler also saw the 273 V8 as only needed in the top of the line luxury Regal models with automatic transmission only. Not what was needed for racing. Thought they only went with six cylinder models in later official Chrysler entries. The Mini Cooper S did have front disc brakes and ran early Dunlop radial tyres in the race. A few others did also. These V8 Valiants and the V8 Studebaker cars held back by using drums all round.
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  9. The Mini Cooper S was a lot faster than other small cars. One of the few cars with disc brakes as well. Light weight so even less stress on brakes , wheels and tyres. The Valiant and Studebakers put a lot of stress on their drum brakes, wheels and tyres even though they were the fastest cars down Conrod straight and up Mountain straight they really stressed out the car. That's why the commentator said Bathurst was not a big car track. Too many failures under pressure by big cars previously.
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  10. Both the Valiant V8 models that ran in 1966 beat all the Mini Cooper cars. But they were beaten by nine of the faster and newer Mini Cooper S cars. The S indicating a newer faster Mini model.
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  11. Ford Cortina. Never heard anyone call an English Ford a Toyota.
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  12. The Cortina GT 500 that won in 65 were excluded as a race special by new minimum production number rules. The Cortina seen here is a very basic slow cheapest model.
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  13. Only went to the Mini Cooper S because the winning Ford Cortina GT 500 was banned as too much of a race special. Numbers sold rules increased s lot in 66.
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  14. Original video link is provided in the description as always. Do just watch the original too.
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  15. Front discs on all winners from the 1963 Cortina GT onwards. By the 70s some ran 4 wheel discs. Michelin radial tyres the common choice, but Pirelli, Dunlop and Olympic all used early on. 1965 Coverage shows lots of the radial tyres in use then by reading the stickers on the tyres. No rule to be limited to road cars standard tyres, just a tyre of the same size. Drums and maybe cross plys maybe on the small car also rans going for a class win.
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  16. Although not Pacers in this race. They came in 1969.
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  17. Game over for outright wins, but winning the class for more affordable cars was a sales bonus for many years.
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  18. How the first V8 Valiants went close to winning Bathurst, but let down by not enough buyers optioning disc brakes. From Shannon's : https://youtu.be/cJC759IAQTo Chrysler also saw the V8 as only needed in the top of the line luxury Regal models with automatic transmission only. Not what was needed for racing.
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  19. Seat belts on all cars in the race, but more visible from some angles on the original full video linked in the description.
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  20. The Studebaker story in Australia and how they were so close to winning the early 500 races from Shannon's : https://youtu.be/SHHTPLw-oNM Police motorsport club drivers bought ex Police cars at the Police auctions. Nearly a real world Blues Brothers connection. I think Australia was the only place on the world where Studebakers were circuit raced back then Helped that they were locally assembled and more common on the roads here than Buick. Oldsmobile, Dodge, Plymouth, Mercury, Cadillac and Lincoln. Also helped that they were a common Police car in Victoria for a while.
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  21. Volvo 122 S driven by Kevin Bartlett and John Harvey finished 15th outright. Wikipedia interesting reading.
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  22. This was the only year the Mini won outright. Needed to be in Cooper S form to win and have the Ford Cortina GT 500 race special banned. The Cortina GT and GT 500 won in 1964, 64 and 65. A threepete. Not Lotus versions but much less expensive Australian developed cars with tuned pushrod Cortina motors and sold to the public in Ford dealers. Rules changed in 66 to need many more examples sold to try to prevent race specials being developed.
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  23. Look at the full video or Wikipedia to confirm there were co drivers in this 66 race. Commentator talks about the co drivers.
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  24. All Mini Coopers had front disc brakes. A big part of why they won.
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  25. Next to look at is 1965 to see the winning Cortina or 67 for the first Falcon GT winning in colour.
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  26. Up until then the big cars like V8s had failed. Even in 1967 the 1600cv Alfa Romeo nearly won but had bad luck.
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  27. The Fiats and Twin Cam were in the higher priced classes. The Coronas started being beaten in the second cheapest class by basic light Cortinas then later the Datsun 1600. Price based classes until 1973. Michelin tyres a popular choice but even in 1965 Dunlop and Pirelli radials were being used. Harry Firth put in a protest against the Pirellis being used in 1965 because he did not think of using them. Dismissed
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  28. The standard Mini most people bought back then was an 850 cc car with drum brakes and narrow tyres. The Morris Mini Cooper S were a 1275 cc engine that was much more powerful and had special racing strength internals. Disc brakes and bigger wheels and tyres. Stated by someone in the racing section of BMC Australia that BMC lost money on every Mini Cooper S they sold since the motor was built to such a high specification. The Mini Cooper S was more expensive to buy and so sold in much smaller numbers than the standard versions. Yet every Mini these days gets called a Mini Cooper. I think only one in a thousand were built to Cooper S spec.
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  29. All Mini Coopers had front disc brakes. Jack Brabham, early on driving for Cooper F1. had a hand in the Mini Cooper development and approached Dunlop to make a small disc brake for the CoopEr Mini.
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  30. The Cooper S cars in the race were limited to standard size of 1275 cc and the standard steel wheels as on the showroom cars. Due to being a series production race. So standard for all cars competing with winners often checked after the race. Other improved production racing classes may have allowed 1310 cc and change of wheels etc but not the Bathurst 500 race.
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  31.  @doraexplora9046  no minilites on these Cooper S cars. Just go to the original film where early on they were putting wheels on and later where there are more close ups of the wheels. The rules were about 200 or even 500 Australian delivered cars had to be fitted with a factory option before it could qualify for the race. Other race series around the world may have allowed those wheels but not the Bathurst rules. Happy to be proved wrong and learn something if you can suggest a time stamp on the original film showing otherwise. Are you prepared to search for photographic proof from the 1966 Bathurst race and not some later race at another track? From about 30 seconds into the original film there is vision of the winning 13C cars standard steel wheels being fitted, if you need to be spoon fed.
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  32. Winning car co driven by racing driver Bob Holden , who never raced a Holden as far as I know.
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  33. Much more detail on the Mini Cooper S Australian modell from Shannon's : https://youtu.be/qOtVY2kb7aU Of course references how the Cooper S took the first nine places at Bathurst 1966 and how special the motor was. And how the Australian versions were perhaps the best ones.
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  34.  @wizzard5442  the rules stated something like 200 V8s had to have them by the cutoff time months before the race. Not enough V8 buyers of the luxury Valiant Regal had paid the extra for discs by the cutoff time. Shannon's club TV on the V8 Valiants covered this problem.
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  35. Or even Win on Sunday Sell on Monday.
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  36. 1966 was the only time a Mini won outright. The race covered here. 1969 a Cooper S won its class C placing 14th. Holden Monaro GTS 350 was first outright, eleven laps ahead of the first of the Minis, then a whole series of other Monaros, Falcon XW GTHOs, Alfa 1750 GTV and even a Falcon GT Automatic beating the best of the Minis.
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  37. The Lous Cortina not eligible for the 1966 race, Not an Australian assembled car sold in sufficient numbers here to qualify as a series production car. Anyone can paint a car how they like and often did.
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  38. Ian has several vids on the Thunderdome races. Worth looking at.
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  39. He never raced a Holden I think.
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  40. Good luck to him. Pity it is only on Stan TV.
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  41.  @piglos Well done to the team. Like to see someone not powered by big money do well. I was tossing that trial option up. Hope you can cancel it without them forever drawing down on your account.
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  42. F1 are very strict and will block any non authorised coverage. So covering it with any footage could result in a lot of wasted effort.
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  43. In Melbourne it took until 1969 for us to get Bathurst live on TV. Ties in with your age. Was a Sydney only broadcast until then.
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  44.  @rossbrumby1957  Radial tyres used from the first 1963 race. The 1965 coverage has lots of identifying labels of the radial tyres in use. As does the R on the tyre meaning radial. Dont know where this myth of cross ply tyres comes from. Lots of road cars yes, but never rules against using the multiple radial tyres in production from the fifties if the same size as standard tyres.
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  45. Rules were to use the same size tyre as the production car. Early on smaller tyres in use by road cars. Radials replacement tyres allowed despite widespread mythology.
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  46. Drum brake mythology. ALL Bathurst 500 winners had front disc brakes at least. By 1982 may have been when most high performance road cars had four wheel discs although the 1967 Alfa 1600 GTV cars running 3rd , 4th and 5th had them and apart from some wheel problems may have beaten the first XR Falcon GT cars. Late fifties Jaguar sedans had four wheel disc brakes if you got the 3.4 litre and wire wheel option. Even the Renault R8 cars in the 1963 race had four wheel disc brakes and radial tyres as standard.
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  47. 1972 was the last year that price was part of the class definition. But odd that it was litres multiplied by price. Think this was the only year this system was used.
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