South African Muscle-cars
It’s not just people that suffer from altitude sickness, cars do too, and this was one of the reasons that several manufacturers and tuners in South Africa went looking for more power.
At almost two kilometres above sea level the power loss can be up to 17% on naturally aspirated motors and about 3% on force fed engines. And as this is the location of the largest employer in the country, the mining industry, this is where the money is.
Guys like Basil Green with the Perana range of Ford based cars and Basil Van Rooyen and Geoff Mortimer with the Chev Firenza Can-Am solved the problem by shoehorning V8 lumps into everyday cars. John Conchie of Alpine Developments in Pinetown went the Turbo route, eventually performing supercharging conversions too.
Not just performance cars came out the Alpine factory, ambulances, pick-ups, and many other vehicles that required a power boost were converted here.
I had an Alpine built Ford Laser Scorpion (basically a Mazda 323 with a turbo CVH motor) that was a pig to drive as the only other modifications were painted hubcaps on the standard steel wheels with silly 186/65/14 rubber. Serious lag and treacherous torque steer were standard.
The manufacturers, deciding to get a piece of the action for themselves, followed suite with a range of vehicles with the transplants as standard.
The better known cars were the BMW E30 333i and later the 325is (2.7L with alloy panels), Opel brought out the Kadett superboss, a 125KW two door hatch, and the TS (turbo) versions of the Mk2 Astra-Kadett. Alfa had the Alfetta GTV 3.0 with carbs, and Nissan had an extensive range of turbo charged small cars.
But the most famous of all these home brewed cars were the V8’s.
Ford motor Co
The first of the bunch was the Perana cars, from 2.0L Mk1 Escorts, 3.0L V6 Mk2 Cortina’s to Mk1 V8 Granada and Capri models. The Ford dealer franchise offered these cars (the 1968 V6 Cortina Mk2 being the first) with a standard warranty. Performance was more in keeping with the much more exotic offerings of the day and would still be considered rapid by today’s standards.
Ford Motor Co SA decided to build the Sierra XR8 utilising parts from the Mustang and offer it as part of the range, though this was to comply with homologation rules and allowed them to challenge the Alfa GTV and BMW 333i’s on the track. 250 cars were built and the plan to increase the production fizzled out.
Later offerings from the Ford stable included the Sierra 3.0RSI, basically a Sierra XR6 with Lucas fuel injection on the Essex 3.0L V6. I had one of these as a company car and it still remains one of my favourite cars. The BHP figures were not that impressive but the near linear power and torque delivery was fantastic!
General Motors
The Chev Can Am was Geoff Mortimer and Basil Van Rooyen’s answer to the Perana and was a slightly more high tech approach. It utilised the Z28 drivetrain from the Camaro in the very small Firenza coupe bodyshell. 290 BHP in an 1100 KGS body made for serious power to weight ratio, though, as in all of the V8 conversions, traction was a bit of an issue. The car still managed a better 0-60 MPH time than the Perana cars, around 6 seconds.
General Motors SA started to import aussie Holden Monaro GTS’ in CKD form and later rebadged them as Chev SS, these were available with either 308 or 350CU motors. These were big cars with decent performance and a glorious soundtrack. I remember these from my youth as our Porsches and Ferraris. In a time when cars were not cheap (and still today a car is an expensive item in South Africa) but the fuel to power them was, these cars were heroes. Going on holiday, usually down to the coast, petrol was not even a factor when calculating the cost of the holiday, and filling up came out of the change in your pocket almost.
GM became the Delta Motor Corp during the sanction years and they produced a number of performance versions of the Astra-Kadett (Kadett in SA was the hatch version of the Astra) range. The first was the Superboss, a 167 bhp two door hatch, followed by the TS range which had the turbocharged Red-top 2.0 16V motor pushing out just over 200 BHP. I remember when I worked for the Opel dealer network that we offered an advanced driving course with the purchase of the car.
One client who was determined to own one of the first Superboss cars came to the dealer to ask me to demo my car (also a Superboss) to him, so I took him out on the pre-planned course which just happened to be the old Roy Hesketh racetrack that was converted into an industrial estate. After blasting about the place on a quiet Saturday morning, he was impressed enough to come back with the cash on the Monday and pay for a new car and drove it off on trade plates. I got a call about 45 minutes later with the guy in tears, he had binned it on the way home over a centre divide and into a bridge support….no insurance, and how would he explain to his dad?
I suppose sanctions can be a good thing, it motivated the locals to come up with alternatives for the performance cars available elsewhere. Sadly, the cost of motoring in SA is a different story these days, as it is worldwide. It’s also a case of ‘if only I’d known’ too. My brother-in-laws Perana Capri V6 that he wanted to swap for my Volvo Amazon B18B would have been worth a small fortune now, and the Can Am we part-ex’d in Potchefstroom (along with a Cobra replica belonging to a guy going through a divorce, for a pick-up truck and some cash) that no-one wanted as it cost too much to run.
