We know that Farmtruck and AZN made it over to Australia for the fun and excitement that was Summernats 30, but guess who tagged along? That’s right, America personified, Cleetus McFarland himself. When he heard that Aussies had plenty of power, more than any American could handle, you know he had to hop onto a big plane, spend the better part of the day either snoring or admiring the Pacific from great heights, then make his way to Canberra to find out what was what. Along the way, they managed to hitch a ride with a local in his right-hand-drive converted Impala for the cruise around the city, and naturally, when you put two power-happy people at Summernats around other like minded individuals, you’ll get celebrations, happy times…and one rather irritated cop.
Ask any Australian: hot rodding over there is not like over here. Over there, they are walking a very, very fine line between legal and illegal, and the government and cops are not on their side. You have to mind your Ps and Qs if you want to keep the local constabulary happy. But when you have two manic individuals hanging out of the car yelling and whooping after an already long day of making sure hoons aren’t threatening public order, chances are good that you might be a slight bit irritated.
Luckily, the officer just let them off with a warning (a rather stern one, but a warning is a warning) and they continued on their way, one Aussie a bit more on edge and two Americans with a newfound understanding of what hot rodding could be. Yikes.
In 67 you could buy a Impala in Australia, they sold the full size cars out of Holden dealerships till GM changed their mind about selling the full size cars into other countries in about 68.
The RHD cars came out of Canada as they were part of the “British Empire” and were taxed at a lesser rate.
They came into the country CKD and were assembled by Holden.