@Maltese Falcon kindly set me one of the Dunpy stickers he had made up for #40 a couple of years ago.

i've faffed around since trying to work out where to place him.

had to wait until i retrieved the audi urban battle wagon from its entrapment in tasmania resulting from the vid lockdown era.

Dunpy will be going to Bathurst for the 12 hr in Feb.
the audi is white. f piech had something to do with #40 and these audis.
its a long bow to draw. .
the sticker backing is in the glovebox for good luck.


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I have mine he sent as well right on the 6 in front of the numbers on both sides.

Very cool fellas!

putting Dunpy to work I see, awesome !
Meanwhile from the 914-8gtt thread; we are starting to collect custom livery for a Sonauto theme, but with a bit of hot Cayenne pepper
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Now for the Twist to the name
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Hot naming shift!

too f'n good.

dunpy had a happy trip to bathurst and made it back home.
1550km and his presence blessed the urban combat audi - it never missed a beat.

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no idea what le mans camping scene was like in 1970 but bathurst in 2024 is still tolerable. but my humble set up was rendered ridiculous by the average aussies in attendance who brought along their mobile suburban villas.

i dunno. the country has gone soft .........

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but as some of you may know the manthey racing team finally won.
(and manthey is basically a factory team these days - 100% owned by porsche).
first time a 912 has beaten a 911.
the "grellow" car stormed it home.
lets just say the car loved the rain and so did its driver.
one matt campbell is a rain god in the style of schumacher and senna.

grellow qualifying. calling on the rain gods.
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thunderstorming home at the end.
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the team had two cars. 911 ran an attractive shell livery almost as good as grellow.
911 got a biffo into the sand trap at skyline about 1/3 through the race. but got out and battled on and was up on the same lap as the front pack at the end.
i was secretly barracking for 911. got bashed up but came back at those buffoon bully boy mercs.

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camera man at the bottom of the esses before forest's elbow.
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what its like at the dipper. grellow may as well be a tree?
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the dipper
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mob of kangaroos lying all over the mount panorama sign made of rocks on the side of the mountain after the race was over. they didn't give a
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i only pulled the phone out and starting taking photos in the pouring rain during the last 1/3 of the race. i was kind of indifferent until it starting raining.
but i have a stick coming from the wyong motors chick who is real good on the end of a camera (or these days an eye phone). i might upload some of those images when i get to them? i just enjoyed the general aura ---- until the last couple of hours of the race.

general conclusion. the "grellow" was not even trying. and the second car the
"911" fought its way back. these cars were seriously sorted and fast. the mercs and bmw had no answer to them in 2024. they even penalised the porsches with a 10kg penalty adjustment. and gave the 10 kg discount to the bmws. didn't change anything.

meaningless art shot.

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arm chair critics.

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plunge down the mountain.


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KTM didn't make it down.


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...More info pls on that \v/ support vehicle on track: SUV, truck, or Ute ?¿
Dunpy out with the 'Roos

my memory says twin cab ute marty. but i might be wrong.
whatever it was it pulled the KTM out of the tyres where it had buried itself.
thats one of miss monaro 1968 bathurst winner's photos.
she became my press photographer for the event.
she will have other photos of the smash scene.
she is going to give e stick with the photos.
i just took one look at what she was getting on her iphone and didn't pull my phone out until the last 1.5 hours. i was off on my own in the rain and she was somewhere else on the track further up on top of the mountain.

wonki giving grellow (aka race # 912) his ye olde irish hocus pokus blessing after qualifying.
it rolled right past me as i was walking in the paddock.
miss monaro caught the photo.
i think it worked.

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the livery is gorgeous.
stunning.


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miss monaro got some great shots of the shell livery manthey car (aka race # 911) as well.
rolled on by right behind grellow.
they will be on the stick i get whenever.

miss monaro's favorite came in 3rd.
the "wash it" audi A10.

2nd and 3rd drove a hard race right to the line fighting for those two spots.

@Maltese Falcon

it was one of these.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2024-volkswag...-safety-update/

VW amarok twin cab. "ute".
really a pick up truck. utes have become extinct.

the clean up crew were using it.
if you look in photo there is a chick working the cable set up for the tray truck.
she travels the world working on track clearing after prangs.
one of the marshals was telling me about her.
she was running the show. all the guys were just doing what she told them to do.
she arrived in the amarok.

medical car did not have to even leave the post.
it was parked about 10m from the stack.
driver was ok. just a bit winded.
crowd gave him a big cheer and a clap when he finally managed to get out of the car.
canopy would not open.

EDIT
i see why you asked the question.
you guys don't get them in the USA.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40541996...ickup-revealed/

relatively common sight here.
but mostly its the big toyota/nissan/ford twin cab utes - cheaper.
VW relatively expensive.

@wonkipop I remember another VW pick-up, the Taro which I've heard was just a re-badged Toyota truck...some kind of trade "Agreement" between the two manufacturers. A loaded VW Amarok for $85k is steep, I purchased a new F250 powerstroke 6.7L for aporox the same; and it can tow a small home !
The ultimate VW truck for me is the Doka that I re-imagined...
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the 85K AUD = about 55k USD.

but its still steep.
mostly what i see around is the ford version. ranger.
made in thailand i believe.
not hearing good reports on quality of the ford version.

most folks go for the J trucks. toyota or nissan.
or if they are really towing, they buy dodge rams which get converted to right hand drive down here as some kind of industrial deal with chrysler.
those things are monsters by aus standards.
tend to be bought by the boat towing mob.

i like the look (and the idea) of your reworked VW twin cab.
unfortunately the old kombi is now a cult car with steep prices due to the young mob chasing them down. i can see the attraction. while coming back from bathurst i passed a tray truck with a kombi on the back. looked like some young VW bus kook must have cooked it on the highway and was having it sent back to wherever it came from. (melbourne probably) to be repaired. it was pretty hot out there on the inland highway.
i'm not sure the youngens follow the old wisdom of backing off to 55 when the temp hits 35C. it was well into the high 30s cruising back in the audi. made a change from the old days of nursing the type 3 down the hume dicing with trucks.

ps thats temp in celcius. we don't do farenheit down here.

I enjoyed watching parts of Bathurst this weekend. For some reason, I thought Bathurst was an V8 Supercars race. Is the sanctioning body like IMSA in the US?

supercars is on the traditional date. used to be first weekend in oct.
always around my birthday. oct 5th-ish.

funnily enough the 12 hour is closer to the original race in spirit.
ie an enduro.
only these days you have to punish a car a lot more than 500miles (very original race in the 60s or 1000kms as it became after metrication in the 70s.). the original race descended into a kind of meaningless purpose built race car thing (holden v ford basis) sometime in the late 80s/early 90s. and now that ford and holden (ie GM and ford) are over in australia - ceased to exist - dead - rip etc its even more meaningless.

this 12 hour held in feb kicks off the racing season in australia and is really much closer to the original vibe back in the 60s and 70s.
but.......and its a big but.......the cars are a long way from production cars. a long way.
though oddly enough the porsches are by far the closest thing to a production car out of the lot of them.

i'm not sure i will go again. its being commercialised the vibe was not as peaceful, easy going and laid back as it was in 2018 on the top of the mountain. i guess that is what happens to things that get successful. it felt better in 2018. but i am glad i went.
the rain at the end really arced it all up to another level - and of course 2/3 of the weak as p$ss spectators left. it kind of turned into 2018 for the last 2 -3 hours of the race.

it was worth it to see a merc take a tank slapper at skyline and disappear over the edge of the world backwards and then hear the ..........thud. aquaplaning at its finest.
the porsches just sailed through the running water across the track.