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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Collection of the Late Clem Smith OAM
• Sale Date:
  20 Aug 2017 ~ 2.30pm
• Lot #:
  23
• Lot Description:
  THE CLEM SMITH 1978 CHRYSLER CHARGER SPORTS SEDAN
  The National Series for Sports Sedans, formerly called the Australian Sports Sedan Championship, has provided one of the most dynamic and exciting motor racing categories in the country. Built for the ultimate in power to weight performance, these cars are essentially a free construction utilising bodywork from a closed, series production vehicle using a steel tube ‘’space frame’’ chassis. These aerodynamics, together with 6-litre V8 powerplants can generate as much as 700hp using 5 or 6-speed transaxle rear ends. With composite body panels, flared wheel arches over wide slick tyres, front spoilers and a large rear wing generating the all-important downforce, these mid-engined cars have produced some of the fastest outright racing laps seen in Australia.
• Notes:
  This Chrysler Charger Sports Sedan for auction is one of Australia’s most well-known racers built and driven by Clem Smith during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In recent years, Clem has kept the car within the collection at Mallala taking it to the track for just one lap a season. Clem’s affinity and continuous support for the category has evolved in to prize and travel money for the National Kerrick-sponsored Sports Sedan Series to compete at Mallala each year. In return, the series named their race in Clem’s honour and have had this special car lead them on the warm up lap with Clem behind the wheel. In the Australian Muscle Car Magazine, May 2014, Clem said, “I guess it was a pretty special car for a Charger. Sports Sedans were my life for a fair while, when we stopped racing the production cars. We’d run Pacers as production cars, including the Sandown Three-Hour and things like that. When the Charger came along we ran a new one in production cars for quite a while and then I thought we should build a Sports Sedan using a Charger as a base”. During the early years that saw champions such as Alan Moffatt, Frank Gardner and Allan Grice and spawned famous cars like the Bob Jane Chev Monza, Clem Smith’s Charger came from rather more humble beginnings. Clem had bought a wreck and turned it in to a fire breathing sports sedan. “I used that for quite a lot of years, developed that and got the V8 motor with fuel injection and got that going pretty well. Later, I decided to get the proper chassis made. We put the fuel-injected V8 into that, and went from there. It was a pretty good thing. The other Chargers racing at the time, like the more prominent one built and raced by John McCormack, had a Repco V8 engine – so it wasn’t really a Charger! My car was still a Chrysler, with a space frame and it was a very high-tech car for its day. At that stage, you couldn’t use the lightweight stuff they’ve got now so it was an all steel body. It was actually built in the same place as John McCormack’s car [ED: in Adelaide, with Elfin and Chrysler engineers moonlighting on the project], project] on the same jig. Made a pretty good car, actually.” Clem became a central figure and the 1978 Chrysler Charger Sports Sedan was a highlight at Adelaide International Raceway and later at Mallala, having 4th and 6th place results in South Australia’s annual round. However, CAMS changed the sports sedan series into the GT category in the early 1980s and the costs exploded seeing the traditional cars unable to compete effectively. Ultimately, the mishandling of the regulations turned Clem away from the class and even more so, these changes saw Sports Sedan racing essentially disappear from the CAMS calendars and the race tracks of Australia. Clem’s car was built from a fabricated steel tube space frame chassis manufactured with the assistance of Simon Arhan, Bernie Fitzner and Peter Finch utilising a Valiant roof and all alloy pressed door skins fabricated at the Chrysler plant in Adelaide; carbon fibre bonnet and all Perspex windows. The tail fins are made of timber. The centre-mounted Chrysler 6-litre engine features a 340 taken to 360 with stroker crankshaft; Carrillo conrods; roller rockers; Lucas metered fuel injection and a Hewland differential. The car has rose joint suspension and Develco cast uprights; composite 1 nut wheels with magnesium centres. A quantity of spare wheel rims and parts will accompany the car including a spare aluminium pressed bonnet. This vehicle will be sold unregistered.
• Estimate:
  A$50,000 - 60,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Automobiles & Accessories

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.