Articles by David Burrell

In April 1964, Gail Brown was 22 year old elementary school teacher and getting to work in her mother's '57 Ford Fairlane 500 convertible. She wanted a car of her own. It had to be cool and it had to be a convertible. Gail went to Johnson Ford in Chicago on April 15th, 1964. After looking at all of cars in the showroom she told the sales representative that nothing appealed to her. With a grin, he said, "I've got something in the back that's really new." In a storeroom, still under a cover, was a brand-new Ford Mustang convertible in Skylight Blue, with a 260-cubic-inch V8 engine and Rally Pac instrumentation. "That's what I want!" Gail said. It cost her $3,419. What makes Gail Brown unique is that she bought her Mustang on April 15th, two days before the car was set to go on sale, by chance becoming the first known retail buyer of an American icon. Today, Gail recalls with a great deal of fondness those early days of Mustang ownership: "I was the coolest teacher in the school that year and the boys fawned over the Mustang" she said "I felt like a movie star everywhere I went for the first few months," said Gail. "I remember everyone waving and flagging me down and giving me high-fives." In 1966, Gail married longtime sweetheart Tom Wise. The Mustang first became the family car and was then it was relegated into being the backup car for the growing family. Fifteen years of Chicago winters and everything four kids could throw at it eventually started to catch up with the car. By 1979 the mudguards were rusting, the floors were giving way and mechanical gremlins were making it difficult to rely on . So it was pushed into the garage and spent the next 27 years there. When Tom retired he began a restoration project and by 2007 all of the rust was cut out, a new top installed, the body repainted and all of the mechanicals repaired. Now their children have children, and as you can imagine the car is very popular in the family. "The grandkids love it, everybody loves it," says Gail. "We all go for rides around town". David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au  

In these days of digitalised and enhanced images being used in car advertisements the art of the hand drawn image has been lost. Back in the day, before high quality colour film and cameras, most car advertisements consisted of hand drawn images. Pontiac's advertising campaigns in the 1960's are considered the best of the art form and had a lot to do with Pontiac's rise to the number three position in sales behind Chevrolet and Ford in the USA. Between 1959 and 1971, those advertising campaigns would be driven by the artwork of Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman-Fitz and Van, as they were known.  Art Fitzpatrick began his career as an automotive designer and in the 1950s did advertising art for Mercury, Plymouth and Buick. Van Kaufman started his art career as a Disney illustrator. He subsequently spent time in Europe, and developed a European style in his illustration. Their advertising art was so good and so popular that in 1965, then Pontiac General Manager John Delorean, would insist for a time that all Pontiac advertising art work be done by Fitz and Van, and that photographs not be used. This also included Australian built Pontiacs. During their tenure providing Pontiac with advertising images, Art Fitzpatrick drew the cars and Van Kaufman drew the scenery and people. Many of their advertisements featured their initials, such was their popularity! It was the evocative combination of dreamy and exotic locations, visually successful people and razor sharp renderings of the cars that galvanised attention. Their art appeared in Pontiac brochures and magazine ads. Those ads frequently appeared in such upscale publications as National Geographic and Life Magazine. Art Fitzpatrick's style was to illustrate Pontiacs to look even lower and wider than they already were. But his talent allowed him to do so without the cars ever looking cartoon like. Van Kaufman passed away in 1995. Art Fitzpatrick continues to share his world class automotive art. He attends car shows and seminars, where he displays and sells his automotive masterpieces, past and present. In August of 2013 the Automotive Fine Arts Society (AFAS) recognized Art Fitzpatrick with its lifetime achievement award, presented at the Pebble Beach Concours d 'Elegance. David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au

And it is not the baby boomer generation who are driving the growth. It is a much younger demographic, those in their 20s and 30s, who are into Mazdas, Datsuns and Toyotas of the sixties and seventies.Brett Montague has owned his 1972 Datsun 1600 for four years. He and his father, Jim, found it on a Victorian property after a long nationwide search for a one. "It was being used as a paddock basher car" says Brett.What appealed to Brett was that despite the dents and scrapes the car was mostly rust free. He is a toolmaker by trade so the restoration was no hassle for him. Whilst Brett wanted to keep the car as stock as possible, the desire to use car daily in 21st century traffic changed his minds about the direction of the rebuild.Jim takes up the story: "We wanted to keep it as stock as possible, however it soon became obvious that to make it easy to drive in today's traffic a few modifications were needed to ensure reliability and tractability." Brett says that the original 1.6 litre engine has been replaced by the 2 litre version out of a Datsun 200B. A couple of Weber carburettors have been strapped to its side to improve the power output."The disc brakes are slightly larger than original and the front seats are ex-Skyline. The gearbox is also an ex-Skyline 5 speed. It is a little beefed-up all round, except for the radio. That's still the original AM unit" says Brett.The attention to detail on the Datsun is compelling. The car looks brand new and whenever it is taken to 'show and shines' it draws admiring comments.The 1600 was the car that really put the Japanese maker onto the world stage. First released in 1968, it was marketed as the Bluebird in Japan, the 510 in the USA and the 1600 elsewhere.What set it apart was its independent rear suspension and standard front disc brakes in a world where solid rear axles with leaf springs and drum brakes were still foisted onto consumers. Datsun made no secret that they used BMW and the benchmark and inspiration. The good bit was they sold the 1600 at half the BMW price.The 1600's sophisticated suspension made them agile race and rally cars. They won their class at Bathurst in 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971 and the rally successes earned them a 'must have' status in that arena.David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au 

In August 1962 when Ford executives were reviewing the twelve styling proposals for what would become the Mustang they gave each a different name. One design really stood out. It was a white prototype designed under the guidance of Joe Oros, boss of the Ford styling studio.The actual shape had been penned by Gale Halderman and his proposal was called Cougar. The grille featured a stylised big-cat contained by a chrome surround. As time went on there was considerable debate about which direction the Cougar should face. Should it be left or should it be left or right? Various design models during 1962-1964 can be found with logos pointing in either direction.Meanwhile, Ford had prepared two concept cars for the auto show circuit which were called the Mustang I and Mustang II, and they used a galloping pony logo. The designer was Phil Clarke and he had the pony running to the left. But just as with the Cougar logos debate went on about which way the pony ought to face.As the deadline for releasing the new car drew closer some in Ford started to favour dropping the Cougar name, replacing it with "Mustang". They asked Ford's adverting agency to conduct research. The results were very clear. The name Mustang was top of the comparison list because, as agency personnel said, " it had the excitement of the wide open spaces and was American as all hell."So it was back to the design studio to create a new version of the pony for the grille of the production car. But should it go right or left? The right hand supporters claimed that was the way horses raced in the USA. The left facing folk stressed that it represented a horse galloping out into the wild west, corresponding to that direction on a typical map.Others suggested a compromise of a horse's head and as late as January 1963, a mere eight weeks from the start of actual production, they even mock ed up one on the grille of a pre-production car. However, Ford boss Lee Iacocca cut to the chase and made the decision in typical blunt fashion: "the Mustang is a wild horse, not a domesticated racer, it goes left". And so it has for 50 years.David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au 

With the 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang closing in fast, does the name Stanley Tucker mean anything to you? No? Well, for Mustang fans it's the name of the Canadian airline captain who purchased the first pre-production Mustang convertible. Yep, that's right -- numero uno. And just how did this most valuable of cars escape the corral and get sold in Canada?The story goes that by the time the Ford Mustang officially went on sale on April 17, 1964, it had been rolling off the assembly lines for about five weeks. Thousands of Mustangs had been shipped to dealers throughout North America so they would be available in showrooms on opening day. However, not all of the cars on display were actually meant to be sold to customers.Among those was a Wimbledon White convertible with serial number 5F08F100001 that rolled off the line on March 4th, 1964 and was shipped to the George Parsons Ford dealership St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. That car, along with about 180 other early examples, was not meant to be sold to customers. These preproduction models were supposed to be used for internal testing and promotional purposes only.The next day, however, Eastern Airlines pilot Capt. Stanley Tucker saw the sleek new convertible and knew he just had to have it. Tucker convinced Parsons to sell it to him. As more than 22,000 orders and sales had poured in opening weekend, no one back at Ford world headquarters in Dearborn at first realised the significance of that particular sale.Once it became known a couple of weeks later that Mustang number 1 had been inadvertently sold, Ford officials got on the phone to Tucker. Their mission was simple: we want it back!  But Tucker was having so much fun with his new car that he initially declined to sell it back to the company. For a long time he had the only Mustang in St John, and the car attracted enormous attention.Eventually, Ford found a way to entice Tucker out of Mustang number 1. On March 2, 1966, less than two years after Mustang production began, Tucker drove the first Mustang back to Detroit and handed over the keys. In return he was given a brand-new example which just happened to be the 1-millionth Mustang produced - another white convertible.Ford Motor Company donated Mustang number 1 to the nearby Henry Ford Museum where it went into storage as is. Why? Get this! It was the Museum's policy was to not display anything less than 20 years old? In 1983 it was restored and you can see it at the Henry Ford today.David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au

Styled by the House of Ghia, the fast, sporty and luxurious four seater was Fiat's entry into the Pber classy "GT" high performance market. First shown in prototype form at the 1960 Turin Motor show everyone who saw it said "Fiat must make this". And so they did and by the time it reached dealer showrooms in 1962 it was twice as expensive as the new E Type Jaguar. John Slater has a 1964 example, and it is one of about 20 coupes still believed to be on the road in Australia. "Fiat made approximately 7000 between 1962 and 1968, and only about 200 were factory right hand drive. It is estimated about 70 went to the UK and maybe only 40 to 50 came to Australia. No one really knows for sure because the coupe was never separately identified within Fiat production numbers", John says.  That means his 2300s is a seriously rare automobile. Built on the same frame as the Fiat 2300 sedan, the coupe was penned by Sergio Sartorelli, who was the styling chief at Ghia at the time. Tom Tjaarda and Virgil Exner Jnr, whose fathers were car design legends in the USA, also contributed to the shape. The distinctive reverse-sloped c-pillars and large wraparound fastback rear window was crisply executed and provided ample interior space for four plus luggage. "It just drives wonderfully", says John. "The six cylinder motor was designed by ex- Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi and the Arbath people warmed it up to 136 BHP by strapping on an extra Weber carburettor and using special pistons and a modified camshaft. It has a four speed gear box and four wheel disc brakes so it stops very quickly". The Fiat attracts attention when ever John takes it out for a cruise. "So few were imported here and so few now exist worldwide means that many people have never seen one before," he says. So why is it that so few now exist? John explains: "Fiat's capabilities in the 60's did not include rust protection so most of the cars in Europe have succumbed to rust." As you would expect parts for the Fiat are hard to find, however the driving dynamics of the 2300s far outweigh the difficulty in keeping it on the road. "It is such a great touring car ", he says. David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au  

Yikes!! It is hard to believe that Chrysler's Minivan first rolled off the production line 30 years ago. This simple design caused a complete transformation of the car industry and started the great world-wide rotation out of sedans and station wagons that is still impacting markets today. The Minivan boosted Chrysler financially, created a global category which every other car maker copied and elevated Chrysler boss Lee Iacocca and his product planning guru, Hal Sperlich, into the pantheon of automotive gods. You see, when both were at Ford, it was Lee and Hal who saw the future for a small sporty car and raided the Falcon parts bin to create the iconic Mustang. Chrysler was not the first to sell a "garageable" car-like van. Many makers tried and VW fans might rightly claim the Kombi as the initiator. But it was too spartan and un-carlike to have mainstream appeal. What Lee and Hal did was monetorise the idea. They identified a big target market, raided another parts bin and sold it to eager buyers for a premium price. Simple, really. It was Sperlich who, when at Ford in the mid-1960s, first predicted that as the baby boomers married and had families they would have to forsake their Mustangs and Camaros for something more versatile. Research showed they did not want the station wagons their parents bought in the 1950s. (Are we there yet Dad?).  What boomers wanted was a roomy, multi-purpose vehicle, which drove like a car, would fit in their garage, look reasonable stylish, be powerful enough to cruise along a freeway and seat up to seven in comfort on the way to soccer. Sperlich called it the "MiniMax". But Hal had two problems to overcome. The first was an engineering issue. To fit in a garage the van had to be low and this meant a front wheel drive configuration. And Ford had no suitable front drive package. The second was that Henry Ford II did not see the future as clearly as Sperlich and regularly told him to "forget about it". Sperlich persisted with the idea and in the end Mr Ford got tired of hearing about it and fired him. Hal went to Chrysler where he continued to work on the idea. In 1978 "Hank the Duce" also got tired of Iacocca being President of Ford and fired him. And over to Chrysler he went as well. You all know the story from there on. Iacocca saved Chrysler with government backed loans and a plain, four cylinder, front drive automobile called the K-Car. So once Chrysler was again financially stable Lee and Hal turned their attention to the old MinMax idea. They had the money, they had the front drive platform, they had the K-Car parts bin and there was no Henry Ford II to get in their way. The rest is history. The irony is that Chrysler never thought to trademark the name "minivan". David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au  

"Many people thought the FB was destroyed in a road crash sequence, but that was just a rusted old hulk painted to resemble the real car", explains Jim. Jim acquired the car through his daughter, Paige, who worked for the TV production company which made the series and had always admired the car. "After the crash scene they had no need for it, so Paige suggested we buy it", he says. Although the car was in reasonable shape, Paige and Jim decided to undertake a full restoration and get it back to showroom condition. It took them both three years and they well and truly succeeded. This baby is as crisp and bright as if it had just rolled out of the dealership. Released in January 1960 the FB Holden design pays homage to the iconic 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. Chrome abounds on the FB, and that's to be expected, for it was styled during the reign of General Motors (GM) famed design supremo Harley Earl. "Misterearl" they called him, and he just loved chrome. He was known to order stylists to add it on by the pound. From its sparkling, chrome-encrusted egg-crate grille to the chromed sweep-spear along the doors, to the three chromed stars on the front mudguards and on to its rear fender fins and "jet exhaust" tail lights, the FB lays claim to every late-1950s GM styling motif imaginable. Inside you sit on two tone green bench seats and look out through the big wrap-around windscreen. And everything is etched in bright metal. Holden sold 175,000 FBs during its 16 month production run and it was the last Holden to have the big car market all to itself. It was soon joined by Ford's Falcon and Chrysler's Valiant, and the Big Three Car Wars began. Jim's and Paige's car has an early build number from the Adelaide factory of GMH. It is painted in the rare Fernando Yellow colour which was only available during the first five months' of production. GMH changed from nitrocellulose based paints (Duco) to a more resilient acrylic paint in June 1960. They called the new stuff the "Magic Mirror" finish. Cars like "Marge", which have TV and/or film "on-screen" provenance, are a growth section in the collector car market, especially here and in the US and the UK. The more time spent on screen, the higher goes the value. David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au  

One of the fastest growing segments in the classic car world are 1960s commercial vehicles. What was once the tradies' basic workhorse is now desirably collectible. And one of the most desired of the desired is the 1960 FB Holden utility, with its iconic fifties styling motif, the wrap around windscreen.Good, clean examples of the FB and its look-a-like successor, the EK, are keenly sought after because so few have survived the wear and tear of everyday business use or farm life and the dreaded advance of rust. Sam Princi's FB Holden utility is a wonderfully original example of the genre. There's nothing fancy about this ute. It is bare bones all the way. No radio. No heater. No door arm rests. No interior rear view mirror. Three speed manual transmission and drum brakes.That's the way it was back then. Utes were for hauling stuff around. They were not luxury vehicles for posing in. "It came from Perth where it had been stored for 15 years" explains Sam. "I looked at five or six before I found this one. It needed a bit of a tidy up, but nothing major, surprisingly it's very original" he says. Sam's Ute was built in Adelaide and sold through the Perth Holden dealership Sydney Atkinson, which is long gone now. It has 4,000 miles on the dial & he's sure that's the second time around.On a cruise through Sydney's northern beaches the Ute attracts immediate attention. When we stop at an abandoned petrol station for a photo shoot people quickly surround the car. "Cool" is the word most used to describe the car and the Americana of its wrap around windscreen. On the road the Holden easily paces the traffic. "Second gear is my best friend" Sam says. " There is no synchromesh on first, so you learn quickly the benefits of a little extra clutch & acceleration".When we stop at traffic lights a guy in the car next to us shouts out "my dad used to run a Holden dealership and sold thousands of those. It's great !" and he speeds off in his Toyota Corolla sedan. Sam's car is a trophy winner yet he still uses it regularly. "I love driving her as often as I can, it's loads of fun", he says. FB utes command strong prices these days. Rusted hulks with no motors and no gearboxes are advertised for $2000, while restored beauties have $30,000 prices tags.David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au

What Ford did in creating the GT 1600 is exactly what Pontiac boss John Z. Delorean did when he and his band of brothers created the legendary GTO. The recipe is well known. What you do is take the biggest motor you have in your engine roster and stuff it into the front smallest car you make, beef up the suspension and the brakes, sell it at a price premium and watch the dollars roll in. Delorean did it with the 1964 Pontiac Tempest and Ford did it with the first series Escort. You see, by late 1966 Ford in the UK knew that their famed Lotus engine Cortina race and road car was about to be upsized. More weight meant less speed. So, while the bean counters were otherwise engaged, the race and rally (R&R) department guys decided to shoehorn the 1.6 litre Lotus twin cam engine into the soon-to-be-released smaller Escort. Said Bill Meade, the R&R chief mechanic "it will go like hell with a twin cam engine in it". And it did! Lucky Tim Clifton has one of these Escort muscle cars. Built in Sydney at Ford's Homebush factory in 1972 it is one of less than 1200 made in Australia. So it is rare and for those who know, very collectible. "I spent 2 years searching for it" says Tim. "In April 2011 I found it in Queensland and trailered it back to Adelaide, " he adds. Tim says that the body of the Escort was in reasonable condition and he has not done much to it. The motor, however, was a different matter .It was in need of serious remediation. A complete rebuild, actually. After the motor had been finished the car was resprayed in its original colour of Pepper Red. Next on the restoration agenda will be the interior. Meanwhile Tim drives the car because "I wanted one to drive around in. I've had a couple of Torana XU1s but I've always liked the shape of the Escort." So if you hanker after one of these pocket rockets from Ford please remember they only made about 1200 of them in Australia, and prices reflect the rarity. David Burrell is the editor of www.retroautos.com.au