#33 - The Australian ZL-1

[Jeff Murphy]

I was in Australia for business last week and made time for a special side trip from Sydney to Melbourne to go see a special car. For those of you that don't know, there was one ZL-1 that was turned into a championship winning road racing car.

The car was purchased as part of a two ZL-1 package (along with #52) from Jim Rathmann Chevrolet in Melbourne, Florida in 1970 by Bob Jane, a tire mart empresario and racer from Melbourne, Australia (nice symmetry ). Bob Jane was very close to Bruce McLaren, whose Can-Am cars ran the original aluminum block Chevy monster motors that were the genesis of the ZL-1 program.

Both cars were Gibb ordered cars. The #52 car was a LeMans blue three speed auto car, which was sold without the motor and destroyed (making my #49 LeMans three speed auto car the highest number surviving Gibb car). The #33 Hugger Orange 4-speed car was turned into a road racing car that dominated the Australian Touring Car Championship (similar to our Trans-Am series) as a ZL-1 in 1971 and with a 350 cu in engine in 1972, before the rules were changed to help the Ford guys out (even though they had been running the equivalent of the Bud Moore Boss 302 cars). At the end of the 1971 season the ZL-1 motor from #33 was sent to England to go into a 2nd Gen Camaro race car that has disappeared (I now have a new hobby ). When the team led by Miles Johnson decided to recover and restore the #33 car they used the engine from #52, which they still had sitting with only 2000 miles on it.

They are a great bunch of guys that are full of wonderful stories, as are so many of the original owners of these cars. They are also very generous - I came home with a copy of an extremely detailed diecast recently made of the car, a bunch of signed posters, some memorabilia from the old race team and some Bob Jane team wear including one of the shirts you'll see the guys wearing in one of the pictures I'm going to post. Since I now have two of the models, I will ask Tom to auction off the other at next year's Reunion charity auction.

I've encouraged them to join the site and, more importantly, to think seriously about spending next summer in the US with the car to attend, our show, the Gibb show, etc. When Miles does show up here, let's make him feel welcome and maybe that will convince him and Bob Jane that there are a lot of people that would love to see the car in our neck of the woods.

I'll post a few pics now, but maybe we should hold off for more and feature the car as the November car of the month?


PS Charley I already asked, you can't have it...