Australian Muscle Car 2020-02

Whaddayakn
Autopics.com.au
YYes, we know, this isn’t a
muscle car. But stick with
us here, because there is
a muscle car connection,
tenuous though it may be.
More on that in a bit.
Recently in AMC #111 we
profiled Sue Ransom as part of
our Muscle Woman series, noting
that she shared a Ford Capri with then husband
Bill Brown in the 1978 Bathurst 1000. The ‘Susie/
Billy’ driver pairing is not the time a Great Race
featured a husband and his wife in the field –
Fred and Christine Gibson drove in the same
Bathurst 1000 race, although not together in the
same car. It has been generally assumed that
Ransom/Brown were the first married couple to
compete as a driver pairing at Bathurst.
Not so, however. The first married couple (at
least that AMC is aware of) to race at Bathurst
was in fact Max and Diane Dickson, aboard a
Ford Cortina MkII 240.
This is where the muscle car connection
comes in. The Dicksons’ Cortina was part of
the first McLeod Ford assault on the Mountain
in 1969. That’s right, the Dicksons’ team-mates
were John Goss, in his first Bathurst start, and
Denis Cribbin in their Starlight Blue Falcon GT-
HO (inset). No pressure then.
The Cortina 240, also finished in Starlight
Blue, was no ball of fire, even with the optional
1600cc crossflow engine, giving away over 20
horsepower to the all-conquering Datsun 1600.
Not surprisingly it was the only Cortina entered –
but there were a few other optimists in the class
in unlikely cars such as VW Type 3 Notchback,
Morris 1500 and even a Renault 10!
Back in AMC issue #78 we covered the
Starlight Blue Falcon GT-HO’s ill-fated run in
the 1969 Bathurst 500 and its subsequent
resurrection and restoration. This writer
Bill Forsyth
interviewed John Goss and team patron Max
McLeod about their first Bathurst, and the
Dickson Cortina rated an unfavourable mention
with both men.
“We entered a Ford Cortina 240 (MkII) for
husband and wife Max and Diane Dickson,”
recalled Max McLeod. “That was a big mistake,
but Ford provided support for us to run the
Cortina though the car wasn’t up to the mark.”
Goss remembered the Cortina as a
distraction. “I had to attend to that car’s strategy,
though it ran well in the race and finished.”
Indeed the Cortina did finish sixth in class
behind five Datsun 1600s for 31st outright on
108 laps. Not a bad effort around an unforgiving
track like Mount Panorama.
What has us stumped is we can’t find a
record of Max and Diane Dickson racing
anywhere else. They must have, of course,
in order to get off their ‘three stripes’, allowing
them entry into the 500 in the first place.
There is no mention of Diane Dickson in the
popular ‘Ladies Races’ held at Oran Park
during that period. It’s a given that the Cortina
would have disappeared into the abyss, but what
about the Dicksons? As far as we can tell, it
doesn’t look like the couple ever raced again. So
Whaddayaknow?
Update
We’ve struck, ahem, gold with the Stacey/
McIntyre Falcon XR GT. Both the (lead)
driver and car survive. Stay tuned for an
upcoming feature, we promise it will be a
cracking read!
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Autopics.com.au
Whaddayaknow? Contact AMC via amceditorial@chevron.com.au and please outline details in y
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