Quote:
Originally Posted by prn 31
Who knows that those 427 Munros could've done if they were really extended?
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That would have been interesting to see. Even at half to three-quarter throttle and only revving to around 5,300 they were still doing 280 during qualifying (driven hard they could safely take those 427 engines to around 6,200 rpm apparently). The unfortunate thing is that the Monaro's were never driven as hard as they could have been.....not even in the Nations Cup sprint races. They only went as fast as the opposition dictated.
In all honesty they should have lapped Bathurst in around 2:05 and their top speed on Conrod should have easily been around or over the 300 mark. And the reason for that was that (using the Le Mans class system of the time as a guide), they were a GTS car in a GT race/series. Sure there was the 8.0L V10 Viper in NC and the 6.0L V12 Lamborghini, but the Viper ACR was a very much watered down version of the GTS-R that had won outright at the Daytona 24 Hour and won the GTS class at Le Mans a few times, while the Lambo, unlike the Monaro, wasn't a pure race car.
As for the actual top speeds on Conrod? I did hear years ago that Jim Richards was timed at 319 in his NASCAR.....which is a pretty impressive feat considering that they were on the brakes
before The Chase. I also heard of Keith Carling's sports sedan being clocked at 314.
The fastest Group A car that I know of was Tony Longhurst in his Sierra when he reportedly hit 295 during qualifying (which was 2km/h actually faster than Skaife went in the GT-R 12 months later), while the fastest ever Group C tourer on Conrod was Tom Walkinshaw in Gossy's V12 Jaguar in 1984 when he allegedly hit 290 in early qualifying before they changed the diff to give more punch going up Mountain Straight.
Riding a motorbike on the old straight at speeds over 300 would have been pretty damn hairy. Going over the humps you'd literally fly.
However.....I think the top speed would likely have been Jenson Button in the McLaren Mercedes. If Lowndes was reported to hit 310 then I've no doubt that Jenson was quite a bit quicker.