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GBO Possum

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GBO-Possum
Back in ‘65 I bought a brand new Morris Cooper from the dealership in Narrabeen, a northern beaches suburb of Sydney (Australia). As yet, there are no Scapes for that area of Australia, but there are quite a few from Victoria.

Here’s “my Cooper“ on the Great Ocean Road. I even remember the number plate 😂

Tech specs. This had the short stroke 998 cc motor. I asked the famed tuner, Bob Holden, to work a little affordable magic, and his work on the ports and head boosted the top speed from 86 mph to 99. At that speed, it had pretty much run out of revs. Fitted with Michelin radials, (a hand-me-down from my previous Morris 850), the handling was a lot of fun.
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Back in the late 90‘s, I was the ecstatic owner of a base model 993 coupe in my favorite color, Speed Yellow. The 993 was the last of the air cooled 911s, and the sound was so awesome that I usually wound the windows down before starting it up.

Back in those days, roads way out in Central Australia had no actual speed limit, we just had to establish that we were driving “safely”. Over several days, I pushed my comfort zone higher and higher until eventually I discovered the car‘s limit. After long periods of driving at 260 km/h, slowing to 130 felt like it was crawling.

On the track, the handling was incredible, right up to that moment when snap oversteer set in. 😳

The two cars below ⬇️ were bought hoping I could strip off the wings and reproduce “my” 993. It didn’t work, but they’re still beautiful. The floor they stand on is evocative of the red Australian desert.

Thanks for listening.


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While it may appear that I’ve managed to move the camera outside the bounds of the track, this shot used a trick.

During replay, I moved the focus to one of the AI cars, and looked across to my car which had not yet reached the hairpin corner.

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