First Cannonball Run (illegal ) - Cannonball run Melb / Perth  

Draven

JUst looked at the blower vid, it is the same car, but still unsure about it being a Fairlane, none the less its still a nice old Ford lol yes even in its clunky state... would have been better off cutting a hole in the bonnet as well

Brisan

I have photos of the ZF Fairlane when it was on the back of a truck being taken home to Vic. It had a canary for the bonnet hump. I have recently spoken- on FB to the original owner. He has the car in his shed-modified to be legal, which are the pics with the lower bonnet with a vent in it.
Once I work out how to post pics, I will. Pics show rear of car as well.

Also have photos of the Ferrari at the Alice Springs Casino the day before it crashed....

EUniqe

is this coming back on or something?

.Tim.

Jump onto photobucket.com and create an account there Brisan,

Upload your pics and once they are on there it will create image tags, copy the one that starts with [img] and paste it into your post on the forum and presto!

Brisan

Not coming back EUniqe. Just going through some old photos and came across them and decided to do some googling. This thread is one of the items that came up and I thought I could solve the Falcon or Fairlane problem.

Brisan

vk134

Pics answer a few questions, yes it is a Fairlane by the rear quarter panels and if I am not mistaken headlights are from XE ESP

Shuffs

So as a matter of interest,where were your photos taken,because as you can see OP seemed to think it only did 100k's then was towed the rest of the way,which I wouldn't have thought was feasible?I take it the guy who is driving it in the video,is the current owner,because it no longer has that huge bulge on the bonnet and the spiel on the video says he was getting it roadworthy for a permit,to get further work done.

Brisan

Hi Shuffs, photos taken in Wudinna, SA on the Eyre Peninsula. As you can see from the photos, there is a canary on the window. I don't think you get these while being towed. Can't believe you would tow a car from Vic to Perth....I will see what i can find out. From what I know, Original owner has the car back, modified to be legal.

chris.stork.129

Ok, so this thread is just over a year old now, but a link to here was sent to me from a friend so hopefully I can solve quite a few questions on here.
Yes it is definately a 72 Fairlane. I should know, its in my shed here. I removed the front alloy bar as it looked shit, and besides it never ran the cannonball with it fitted so I figured it wasnt supposed to be there. Its still here though out the back of the shed. The carbies were re-located to beside the blower to have the canary removed, the engineers report I have with the car was done after the race, so thats obvious.
As for it breaking down, Charlie Kovacs (the winner) told me he passed it on the Western Highway just out of Ballarat, so no idea where the story came from about it being towed from Castlemaine. Completely wrong freeway for starters.
And besides, Ive also spoken with another competitor who verified that this fairlane passed him just the other side of Port Augusta, so that shoots that story down completely.
As for the 2-tonner, it was owned and driven by Charlie "handlebars" Kovacs, of trucking fame. Ive spoken with Charlie a number of times about this race, yes he definately won it, but not sure about him being disqualified, as he still has the winners cheque for the $10k. It bounced so he framed it as a memento.

chris.stork.129

Oh yeah, those 2 videos were also posted by me, when I first took posession of it.
The gearbox was stuffed, I had Paul Rogers rebuild it and now its fine. The engine hadnt been touched in a very long time, the carbies were leaking fuel from the dried out gaskets and the ignition system was breaking down. That would explain the way it ran rough in the video clips. It still ran well considering all that. The dyno sheets here show 450hp at the wheels, not huge by todays standards but wouldve been alot back then.
And the diff gears appear to 2.75:1
The car was in storage for decades, actually the original owner was (Im led to believe) Graham Funston - not sure if spelling is correct - who had the car built for the run. i even still have some of the notes and receipts from the build some 30+ years ago, along with the original entry sticker that was on the windscreen.
The next owner was an elderly lady who didnt even have a drivers license, Im led to believe that she inherited the car when Graham passed away and thats when it went into storage.
She also passed away about 10 years ago and the car was sold to recover unpaid storage fees, that buyer then sold it to me and Ive been chasing its history ever since.

for those who buy Australian Muscle Car magazine, theres been quite a bit published on the cannonball run over the last 4 years or so.
the race was late 84, and was completed in under 30 hours. And to make it even more interesting, the WA police were waiting at the border for the entrants, sp speeding in WA was almost impossible.Think about that, no freeways, and no speeding in WA and still made it in under 30 hours, thats some serious speed on back roads.

Shuffs

Wow!Thanks for that Chris,eighteen months since the thread started,and twelve months since the last post,and all of a sudden you have made it a small world
Yep I think OP was the sort of person who didn't let truth get in the way of a good story,and it's great that you have the old girl percolating again,she has an exhaust note I could listen to all day.Thirty hours is a phenomenal time for that trip.I have done the trip from Lismore (far north coast in NSW) to Port Augusta,numerous times,stretching the speed limit once you get out a bit,and it takes me twenty one hours,so they must have been low flying to get to Perth in thirty,particularly,as you said,on back roads.

grimlock_drift164

Hey guys i was wondering ,my dad raced in the first cannonball run and was wondering if u guys had any more general information on the race and who was the person driving the trans am,because my dad was enquiring ,he drove the red vh brock commodore?thanks in advance?

grimlock_drift164

Hey guys i was wondering ,my dad raced in the first cannonball run and was wondering if u guys had any more general information on the race and who was the person driving the trans am,because my dad was enquiring ,he drove the red vh brock commodore?thanks in advance?

len_walsh101

Hello Chris, I'm afraid I can't tell you much about your car but I can fill in some details about the race. I was Charlie's co-driver you see. Your car was mobile for the first section of the trip only. We passed it on the way to Mildura, perhaps about half way, motoring along nicely under its own steam. They had a support crew accompanying them, although struggling to keep up. There were two checkpoints en-route; the first in Berri SA, and the second in Albany WA. By the time we left Berri the supercharged monster was already being towed by their support trailer. They did complete the run to finish in that configuration. They were the only car with such a team supporting them, numbering about 4 or 5 crew.

The route via the Calder highway was very quick, averaging well over 200 km/hr to Mildura. The Victoria police air wing monitored entrants but we monitored their movements precisely, thus avoiding them. At the time I was an Air Traffic Controller at Tullamarine an our scanners proved indispensable. After Berri we traveled on back roads, including sections of gravel or graded dirt, also at high speed, up to about 180 km/hr. Everyone refueled at Ceduna before the lengthy Nullabor crossing. Ceduna was our only fuel stop, pulling up midway between the rows of pumps, simultaneously adding about 1000 lts from either side of our tray mounted fuel cell. Nobody passed us during the whole race, and we maintained 230-240 Km/hr all the way to the WA border, where a police road block detained all the entrants, arresting the crews of about six cars. Police in aircraft tried to time each vehicle, which formed the basis for the arrests. Police technicians examined every car there at the border.

Eventually the police decided to shadow us by blocking us between highway patrol cars. That ruined our planned 23 hr race as they escorted us from Albany to Freemantle. There were 64 starters and about half of those finished. I'm happy to furnish further details if anyone's interested.

len_walsh101

What a spineless wanker Crowle is. Offering no evidence he claims to have won the race Charlie and I won. Lying prick!

“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” (Christopher Hitchens).

johnaau

After corresponding with Len Walsh about the race, I've realised that the drivers stories and information about the event needs to be recorded somewhere, before this race is forgotten.

I've started creating a website to record all of the information I can find: www.cannonball.info

I hope to collect accounts from any of the drivers I can contact, photos, news articles, videos and results.

If you drove in the race, or were involved in any way, I would love to hear from you.

You can contact me through the website.

doolow

thought i would bring this back from the dead.... how is everyone

johnaau

I have been collecting more information, newspaper articles and photos over at www.cannonball.info. One of the teams has sent me their original route maps and plans which will be up on the site soon...

There's also some info up there about another race that ran the week before the Cannonball Cup from QLD to WA. www.cannonball.info/other-events/paradise-to-perth-cannonball. This is the race that @grimlock_drift164 was asking about, in which his father raced.

johnaau

Does anyone have Australian Muscle Car magazines? I have #56 which has the original article about the race, but I've heard that other issues have more information. I would like to know which other issues have more information on the race if anyone can help?

johnaau

I spoke today to Andre who was the owner of the supercharged Fairlane. He has cleared up what happened to the car during the race. It started the race on a trailer because it wouldn't have made it past police. Once away from the police they got it off the trailer. The car did break down but it was a jammed thermostat which they removed. The car continued on but was defected by police when crossing the desert for the bonnet hump, but they could continue on in the race. At Port Augusta they called on a friend to tow the car through a road block, and then drove on to the finish. There's a bit more to the story on the website and I'm going to speak to him again to get more info and photos and videos.

Anyone know of a business that would have been around at that time called Packrel Body Works (not sure of spelling)?

Flash635

Hang on a second, I won the race in a homologated Datsun 120Y.

johnaau

Video of various parts of the race now up on the website: www.cannonball.info/video