Australia’s early ‘supercar’ street racing

We found some photos of what could be described as Australia’s first V8 supercar races, held on the original Albert Park street circuit back from 1956. This race meeting, billed as the Melbourne GP, was an unofficial part of the Melbourne Olympic Games celebrations.
This was a genuine street circuit, with trees, telegraph poles and park benches as hazards, protected only by hay-bales.

The sedan races were held as a support to the open-wheelers and sports cars but attracted plenty of spectator interest when Len Lukey and a wild young rookie named Norm Beechey turned up in 1955 model Ford Customlines, powered by the 4.5-litre OHV Y-block V8.
Their battle in 1958 ended in a spectacular bingle with two bent Cussos on the footpath.
In the late 1950s, sedan races were treated pretty much as novelty events. There was no standard set of rules and the ATCC didn’t start until 1960. Len Lukey’s Customline was road-registered (as was Beechey’s #4) and was also used to tow his open-wheeler to race meetings.
According to legend he used it during the week to take the kids to school.
If you look at the tyre distortion in the photos you can see that both Cussos were driven on the limit, if not well over. For spectators these races proved how thrilling a couple of big V8s could be, especially on a street circuit. Fast forward almost 70 years and racing on street circuits is a staple of today's V8-powered Supercars.