BangShift.com Muscle Cars

Kiwis Race Muscle Cars, Too: New Zealand’s Classics-Racing Series is as Fantastic as Any

One of the great things about the muscle-car era Down Under is that it really carried on in the late 1970s while the United States suffered through the Malaise Era. As a result, the Australian Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons of that time period mark a (relatively) attractive transition from classic muscle to the 1980s muscle-revival style we saw stateside. One of the lasting consequences is that 1970s muscle cars participate in Australia’s Touring Car Masters and in New Zealand’s similar series, the Enzed Central Muscle Cars, the field also includes 1980s Falcons and Commodores.

This is the final race of the season from Pukekohe Park Raceway near Auckland and the Central Muscle Cars organizers take a great tact to it. They fip the grid for these races and handicap the start. So the first rows leave at the green light and then the flagger waves off a few rows at a time a set amount of seconds after that. That leaves the racers at the back of the grid—typically in the quickest cars—to play the hare and try running down the relative tortoises with a bigger head start. It’s good stuff and the fire-spittin’ Kiwi muscle cars are as entertaining as their Australian cousins.