Speedway's battle of the Stangs

By 1972 production sedan racing was the big thing in speedway just as it was in road-racing. Sydney racer Peter Crick started the trend by setting up a Monaro GTS for speedway use, then updating to a Torana X-U1. His rival Rick Hunter was running a yellow Ford Falcon to GTHO specs. Meanwhile Canberra speedway promoter Peter Gurbiel, owner of the Regent Body Works in Queanbeyan, was thinking that a Mustang was about the only thing that could beat those two guys.

Then he heard that Californian ace Mike Clyne was about to tour Australia in a Boss Mustang being constructed in Sydney by Bruce Maxwell, with help from Maxwell’s mate Barry Sharp at Jack Brabham Ford. Gurbiel decided to throw out a Federal Capital challenge.

Mustangs were fairly common in Canberra, mainly because American embassy officials liked to bring them over and had a habit of crashing them fairly regularly. A bent 1966 model was located and Gurbiel’s team spent four months gutting it, adding barwork where necessary and shifting the steering wheel to the right side.