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7 Jan 2020, 01:14 (Ref:3950118) | #1 | ||
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Looking for history on a '70 camaro used in thunder saloons
Hey, im wondering if anyone has any info or knows anything about a car ive recently purchased.
From what i know it was purposely built to run in the thundersaloons and the BTCC in the 1970's to 1980's. It was purchased and maybe built buy a guy called Brian Rice, i believe he also raced it for a time. The car is a pretty heavily modified 1970 camaro Z28, its not been changed or modified since it stopped racing in the early 80's where it was put up for sale and then i believe just parked and passed along with people doing bits of work to it. I have 2 sets of front wings for it, one set is orange and silver rather than blue and silver and i was told it had a sister car, so believe these are from that car. If anyone knows about the sister car, id love to know about that too. My plan for the car is to repair and rebuild it and turn it into a road/race car so i can still drive it around on the streets. Ive been told that the car was bought from the dealer in the states and built over there, all the aero on the car was apparently tested in a wind tunnel owned by mercedes. The car was then shipped over here with its sister car by Brian Rice . Unfortunately i have no proof on these claims, this is just what i was told by a couple different people, someone also told me it was a penske camaro but i really doubt it is. Below is some older photos of the car as it was racing etc: And below are photos of how it is now: If anyone recognises the car or knows anything about it id love to know as i think this car has a lot of history. Even if you dont know anything but might have ideas of where to look or who to contact, id also love to know that too. |
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7 Jan 2020, 10:54 (Ref:3950149) | #2 | ||
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Thanks for coming on and posting.
The driver and car rings a bell actually. Rice ran this car in ASCAR, a shortlived but decent anglo american heavy metal series in the UK in the late 70's to early 80's. There were Camaros Mustangs up against Aston Martin V8's etc. I recall seeing Rice's car, silver or silvery blue with quite outlandish arches and spoilers! I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was built by Penske or something like that perhaps for IMSA or SCCA racing? Other entrants were Brian Sheridan, Roy Yates, Brian Powles, Jon Woolf, John Brindley, Jon Fletcher etc. Some of the cars were very heavily modified, some of the cars were ex BSCC Group 1 cars if I recall. |
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7 Jan 2020, 11:06 (Ref:3950152) | #3 | ||
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Sadly the photos don’t show on my browser. Is it me or the OP?
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7 Jan 2020, 11:53 (Ref:3950159) | #4 | ||
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Ah thanks for the info, will see what I can dig up through imsa etc.
Yeah the pgoronlinls dont seem to have appeared for some reason, maybe this forum doesn't like Flickr link. Here's a link to my flickr with pics of the car on. https://www.flickr.com/photos/185894431@N04/ |
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7 Jan 2020, 12:13 (Ref:3950163) | #5 | ||
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Nor me either.
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7 Jan 2020, 12:17 (Ref:3950164) | #6 | ||
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Sorry guys, the photos dont seem to have shown up, not even the links... for now until i can figure out how to edit my posts here a link to my flickr which has all the photos i have of the car on. https://www.flickr.com/gp/185894431@N04/tH84j8
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7 Jan 2020, 12:37 (Ref:3950171) | #7 | ||
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Thanks, those work!
Wow, what a car...... |
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7 Jan 2020, 14:56 (Ref:3950206) | #8 | ||
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awesome, glad that link works, haha. Thanks, hoping the car will look a lot better once its finished.
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8 Jan 2020, 13:59 (Ref:3950407) | #9 | ||
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Brian Rice raced an 'ordinary' ProdSaloon Camaro in 1974-75. Was the car pictured based on that I wonder
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8 Jan 2020, 14:25 (Ref:3950414) | #10 | |||
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Quote:
There was certainly a few examples of those cars at the time in standard and homologated racing series. |
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8 Jan 2020, 15:29 (Ref:3950432) | #11 | |
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Wow! What a cool car!
If it was used in Thundersaloons the CSCC modsports/Thundersaloons group is a goldmine of info, maybe try posting there? https://www.facebook.com/groups/2548...77031/?fref=nf |
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8 Jan 2020, 16:30 (Ref:3950444) | #12 | |||
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Quote:
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8 Jan 2020, 19:29 (Ref:3950477) | #13 | ||
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Thanks for the posts guys, i managed to find some info on an american forum, turns out there was a few cars with the same body style as mine that ran in the AAGT and IMSA. the style was designed and first raced by a guy called carl shafer. Ive found about 6 or 7 other cars from the 70's that had the same/ similar style but no car that was exactly the same, most are later 70's style camaros. so id imagine the car was built and possibly raced in the states before brial got it and raced it here. I know brian had imported another camaro which was aparently the sister car to this one, whatever that means, and i also know theres a guy on here called al who owns an orange camaro that was imported by brian so it may have been at the same time.
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8 Jan 2020, 20:22 (Ref:3950490) | #14 | ||
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Al (Allan) Weyman, most likely. He has a Camaro and races with the Classic Touring Car Racing Club. Think he may have had an IROC car as well. Not active on the forum for a while, but could likely be found via Facebook if you wanted to ask him anything.
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8 Jan 2020, 23:06 (Ref:3950526) | #15 | ||
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Hi guys. I do indeed own a genuine Penske Tube frame IROC but sadly the car you have there is not the sister car to mine. On my car the only original GM parts are the roof, rear quarters, rear panel and bumper. The rest is entirely fabricated by Banjo Matthews the NASCAR Stock Car builders and finished off and ran by Penske and is chassis number Penske IROC 11 and raced as car number 5 and is documented to have won at the hands of Mario Andretti, and raced by Gunnar Neilson, Richard Petty and Buddy Baker and others. I have an American friend who owns the pink one. I told the chap you bought that off Mr. Cohen (?) it wasn't a Penske IROC as it wouldn't have the stock shell and front subframe that yours has. If your own Facebook there's a page on there about Historic Oulton Park ran by a photographer Mr Higginbotham who recently put a great set of pictures up of all the ASCAR cars at what must have been a pretty packed meeting. Both your car is on there and mine bit also with similar rear aero grafted on which I have now ripped off and replaced with the proper GM panels. It's driven by Anthony Wolfe. Hope this helps and excuse spelling mistakes as posted via phone.
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8 Jan 2020, 23:20 (Ref:3950527) | #16 | ||
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Al asked me to post this picture of how it should look. Hope it helps.
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9 Jan 2020, 00:14 (Ref:3950529) | #17 | ||
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thanks alan for the info, yeah i bough the car of mr cohen a little over a year ago, he said he wasnt sure about the penske thing. I know the car wasnt an iroc, it doesnt fit the specs of those, but im fairly certain in the early 70s penske dabbled in AAGT and chevrolet commissioned the penske company to make a few more camaros for chevrolets new drivers once penske change to racing the amc javelin. i have links to some of the cars that ran state side that looked like mine.
https://www.racingsportscars.com/dri...hafer-USA.html https://www.racingsportscars.com/pho...-01-31-051.jpg https://alex62.typepad.com/imsablog/...he_altern.html I cant find the facebook page alan, tried looking around, is it a closed group that requires an invite or something, would love to see the photos. |
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12 Jan 2020, 09:08 (Ref:3951140) | #18 | |
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Was looking for 70's/80's touring car shots and found a collection of pics from the 'Sun Free Race Day' at Brands 31/7/83.
After all the pics of Mansell's F1 demo and Linda Lusardi, we've got shots of what I'm guessing from the mix of American V8s and Astons, was an ASCAR race? ...and a pic of what looks like Kai's Camaro Last edited by KA; 12 Jan 2020 at 09:13. Reason: added link to individual pic |
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13 Jan 2020, 18:34 (Ref:3951385) | #19 | ||
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Wow, thanks man, theres another photo on there where the car shows up behind a couple others. I cant find any race results or even information on that race on that day, just results on the f1 cars that raced that day. Aparently ascar started up in 2001, haha so i dont think its that, maybe thundersaloons? anyone know of anywhere that would have race results from the thundersaloons that far back?
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13 Jan 2020, 20:08 (Ref:3951405) | #20 | |
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IIRC Thundersaloons started about 1984/5-ish.
I think there was more than one version of ASCAR- the 2001 onward was the NASCAR-style series (predominantly Rockingham-based IIRC) while Chunterer mentioned an older version in one of the early posts of the thread-which went back to the early 80's and featured US V8s like Mustangs and Camaros against Brit heavy metal, predominantly Aston Martins. It's a long time ago now, but I followed Thundersaloons pretty closely at one time and don't remember any Astons, and don't see in those pics some of the cars I'd expect to see in an early Thundersaloon race, like Rod Birley's Sierra-GA or Vince Woodman's Capri. Apologies for dragging the thread off-topic for a moment, but a couple of the Astons definitely ring a bell with me- the yellow #54 car looks like David Ellis, and is the silver #21 car alongside him in a couple of pics the Hyde Vale 'Silver Dream Racer' driven by Ray Taft or Mike Wilds- (Did that go to be one of the Marsh Plant Astons raced by Gerry Marshall in the 90's?). I don't know whether that helps confirm that it was definitely ASCAR though? |
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13 Jan 2020, 20:19 (Ref:3951408) | #21 | ||
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Brilliant, thanks for the info mate, if i can confirm the driver or something on any of those cars in the photos, i might be able to find the name of the race and the grid lineup of the cars that raced, if i can find a name of a driver, i could search for it on here: https://www.racingsportscars.com/ maybe
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14 Jan 2020, 08:14 (Ref:3951526) | #22 | ||
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Just throwing my bit into this discussion. I'd say that ASCAR started around 1980/1981 time and from what I remember it was for big V8's, mostly American muscle cars, but with the specific intention of also allowing cars like the Aston Martin (to bulk up the grids and give the owners of these cars more opportunities to race). As an aside, I think the ASCARS used the Mallory Park oval circuit instead of the full circuit with hairpin. Thundersaloons came along a few years later (86/86?) and had very open regulations (I think the concept was trying to re-create the old Supersaloons of the 1970's) which did include some very off-the-wall creations. This also attracted some of the original ASCAR cars as well which may be why there's a little confusion. Of course the Thundersaloons continued to develop and later also included a number of ex BTCC RS500's.
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14 Jan 2020, 16:10 (Ref:3951577) | #23 | ||
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yeah, i managed to find race results on the yellow aston from those pictures, it deffinitly raced in ascar at oulton and a few other tracks, and i found another picture of my car behind the aston on a track, but whenever i search for ascar, no matter what, it comes up with " did you mean nascar" and only shows me stuff about nascar...
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14 Jan 2020, 17:03 (Ref:3951584) | #24 | |||
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Quote:
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14 Jan 2020, 17:28 (Ref:3951589) | #25 | ||
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Yeah tried that too haha, even tried searching with bing! thats how desperate i got... still always comes up with nascar related stuff... either that or talks about the modern ascar that started in 2001.
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