The Classic Rally Phenomenon

From Australian Road & Track Magazine - Winter 1992

Artwork produced by Brian Caldersmith for the 1992 video sleeve.

Mototorsport does a full circle and returns to an era of challenge, camaraderie, chivalry and low budget.

Top level motorsport has exploded into a fury of stress, excess and enormous expense. Formula One drivers could practically pay the Third World debt with their spare change!

What's left for those of us who want to race, have fun and not take a triple mortgage to do it? Of course there are always club sprints, motorkhanas and sundry events, but they can get a little wearisome after a while.

Enter the classic rallies, currently springing up all around the country. Now common in Europe, the wave really began here with the 1988 Hallet Nubrik Grand Prix Rally, and has spawned the now mandatory Repco Mountain Rally and others like the Targa Tasmania.

Usually about four to six days long, these events combine all the action and thrills of navigational sections and competition events, and culminate in gala fib-telling occasions.

What sort of car do you need? Some events have boundaries like the pre-1975 Repco. The Grand Prix Rally will consider almost anyone with a 'special or unique car of some sort. When they get thirty MGBs applying, however, they have to pull a few out of the hat. It's quite common too to see humble Morries and Holdens mix it with the exotic Ferraris and Porsches, often embarrassing the more expensive machinery. Factory and dealer teams appear regularly as well as company directors, pro race drivers, doctors, accountants, janitors and council workers. Everyone can get in there and have a go. More often than not these events gain enough interest to attract substantial TV and newspaper coverage, and can always be seen in glossies like this one.

The costs can vary. Take an average two-person team and their accommodation, travel, food, etc.. Targa Tasmania: probably around $5-6,000 easily (that's a dear one!). Grand Prix Rally: say about $2,500. Now, the Repco is a real bargain at under $2,000, and tends to attract those who find the sometimes snobby GP Rally out of their league. The hidden costs are a little unpredictable but obviously must include provision for repairs, car preparation, your ‘accustomed manner', and so on.

Both the Grand Prix Rally and Targa Tasmania will undergo (I hear) substantial changes for their next events. Neither can be expected to get cheaper, but the Repco organisers have hit on a formula straight away - and it works. Volunteers make a heroic effort to stage the event, keeping costs down straight away, and the competitors just love the testing navigation.

So if you have a smart car in the garage and don't know what to do with your next holiday, throw in the wife and kids and go on a rally!

Read The full Report

Related story: Jaguar Drivers' Club Repco Mountain Rally at CuriousJag (with video)

See the National Museum of Australia's Historic Vehicles in Action

Brabham racing car, Royal Daimler, Aeroplane Jelly T-Model Ford truck will take to the track

A hundred years of automotive history will be in action when a selection of iconic vehicles from the National Museum of Australia take to the track at Wakefield Park Raceway in Goulburn, New South Wales, on 17 August.

Will Electric Motorcycles ‘Spark’ a Riding Revival?

While there is nothing revolutionary about electric vehicles, new technology and greater concern for the burning of fossil fuels has seen a new wave of electric motorcycles ready for market.

When the giant Harley-Davidson Motor Company develops a brutish electric motorcycle, you know something is afoot.

Australia's newest luxury car brand: Genesis is launched in Sydney [watch]

A glamourous ribbon-cutting at the first Genesis Studio, in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall, has marked the launch of the Genesis brand in Australia.



The flagship studio was unveiled by Executive Vice President, Global Head of the Genesis Brand, Manfred Fitzgerald.

The launch of Genesis Studio Sydney introduces a new premium customer experience to the Australian market, and will be joined by Genesis Studios in Melbourne and Brisbane next year.

The stunningly designed Studio in the retail heart of Sydney’s CBD is defined by its spiral staircase encircled by a spectacular, bespoke large-scale curved LED screen.

Lake Perkolilli claypan racing is back

It’s called sacrilege! Desecration! A travesty! Covering precious antique race cars and bikes in sticky red dust and driving them at extraordinary speeds. The drivers of 100 pre-war race cars and motorcycles who will be heading to the isolated claypan of Lake Perkolilli near Kalgoorlie in September this year don’t care what the purists think.

Getting down and dirty with their vintage cars is their greatest reward for bringing the old bangers to life.  The ability to race on one of the world’s oldest motor race tracks is getting old cars restored and fired up again all over Australia.

12 to 15 September ON A CLAYPAN 

NEAR KALGOORLIE, Western Australia

Lake Perkolilli is legendary amongst those who know about the outback origins of Australian motorsport.  The rock hard and billiard table smooth claypan was a Mecca for speed merchants who wanted to claim Australian speed records, and from 1914 through to 1939 many records were set by cars and motorcycles.

When around-the-houses motor racing came to Western Australia and the spectators did not need to trek the 600km to the Goldfields, Lake Perkolilli or “Perko” as it was called was forgotten and virtually abandoned. 

The Lake Perkolilli Red Dust Revival from 12 to 16 September this year will resurrect the old natural track and re-live the glory days of motorsport.  The competitors will get their vehicles (which are all at least 80 years old) covered in thick red dust that seems to get ingrained into the paint so it never comes off.  The dust will seep into everything. “So what?” is their reaction!

They’ll camp in the bush — just like the racers of the 1920s and 1930s who trekked from Perth to test out their cars and bikes on what was called the “Brooklands of the West”.

Britain has its Goodwood Revival on a converted airfield, the USA has The Race of Gentleman on a beach and now Australia has the Lake Perkolilli Red Dust Revival on a claypan in the outback. 

The oldest cars at the Red Dust Revival will be Ford Model T speedsters.  The venerable Model T released to the world in 1909 was not known for speed but when the smart young mechanics of the era stripped them back and hotted-up the engines they were fast and loud. 

There will be Chrysler racers from the 1920s, replicas of the cars which set Australian 24 Hour Speed Records back in 1926 and 1927.  Austin Sevens, the original “Baby” Austins will compete head-to-head with more expensive and sophisticated cars such as Bentleys and Lagondas.

One car is even being shipped from the United Kingdom to be a part of the revival of motorsport at Perkolilli.

About 40 classic motorcycles will also race on the claypan for the first time since 1939. The great marques of the past such as BSA, AJS and Triumph will be well represented as well as obscure brands such as Corah which have been forgotten in time.  The “flat tank” racers with their black racing leathers and big singles or V-twins will add to the spectacle. 

Vintage aircraft will also fly up from Perth to the claypan just like the original era.

The Lake Perkolilli Red Dust Revival is run by a group of enthusiasts from the vintage motorcycle and sports car fraternity who just want to experience the thrill of claypan racing.  To administer the event they formed the Lake Perkolilli Motor Sports Club Inc.  Everyone who enters the event with a car or motorcycle automatically becomes a member of this very exclusive bunch of people who can say that they have competed on one of the world’s oldest race track with exactly the same surface as a century ago.

The event is free to attend as a spectator and thanks to the City of Kalgoorlie/Boulder there is camping adjacent to the claypan and the most basic facilities.  And that is how it should be!  Camping in the bush and enjoying the smoke, smell and clatter of old race cars and bikes as they kick up the dust.

For more information go to www.motoringpast.com.au