Thanks Jon I appreciate that, we might be able to fabricate a replica if we don't find any information on the original, one advantage of working for a technical college is that there are plenty of skilled tradesman to use for these kinds of projects.
Its been quiet interesting researching Uncles Terry's adventures in the Camaro, I managed to source some of the race reports from the 67-71 years that he ran the car. What's certainly apparent from these articles is that it was a wild and temperamental race car. He struggled with chassis handling and brakes in the early 67-68 races, the car being awesome on the straights blowing by most other cars it was up against but cornering and stopping the big block usually ended in tears. In most races he forced his way to the front but lost it under braking or cornering after 3-4 laps. The cars suspension was eventually modified quiet extensively by an Australian chassis tuning specialist and photos after that clearly show the car behaving much better.
Although he slowly tuned the chassis into Australian touring car racing, bad luck seemed always to be his best competitor, on numerous occasions mechanical failure stopped short his races. Just some examples being a ruptured fuel tank while in second, the fumes being so bad that Terry blacked out when returning to the pits. Another failure was an exploding clutch and flywheel with some pieces coming through the firewall and hitting him in the leg. I've discovered a great sequence of photo's of the car spinning on three wheels on the back straight of Sandown Raceway when a left rear axle flange sheared off while Terry was warming up for a qualifying run.
He did win on occasions and was also successful in an invitation event overseas in New Zealand, he actually raced there a number of times, being quiet popular with the big Camaro.
Towards the end of his racing career with the car in 70-71 the big block started to have regular failures, spare parts lists in his advertisements when the car was for sale indicated damaged cranks, pistons and rods. By the end of 71 the car was a heavily modified race car, it was running 10" minilite magnesium race wheels, full floater locker diff, aluminium fuel cell, rear disc brakes, and full roll cage. Interestingly he persisted with the 396, I can't find any reference to him running the Bill Thomas Trans Am 302 that he brought over from the US bolted where the passenger seat was removed.This mystery engine that Ron Ogilvie told us was sent with the car just disappeared. Terry's first race mechanic told me he didn't know anything about it.
I've managed to talk with Graeme Blanchard who brought the car off Terry in 71 and he told me that the 396 block showed signs of major damage with welding repairs all over it. He ran with the big block for a while, (scared the hell out of him at times) but eventually gave up on it and replaced it with a 350 small block. Graeme was the last to race the car, he ran it until 72 when it was sold to a guy called Lakis Manticas, who was a successful mini racer. Manticas stripped the car of its race components and sold it as a roller to drag racer Barry Wearing. Barry who is a lovely bloke can't recall where the car went to after he sold the roller in 74, its being missing in action since then.
So lots of history but no car, yet...! we will keep looking.
