Photo's of the car

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away ........................ Oh sorry wrong story. The idea of developing another Killer Mullet Rallye Team car came about when Daewoo and I were competing in the 1994 Group 7 Rally Championship.

At the same time, we were doing a lot of motorkhanas and speed events in the mighty 1600. I was a bit concerned that we were flogging the poor car to death, (we were) so WE decided to look for another cheap car to use for all the events other than rallies. We discussed what type of car would be suitable and we were going to get something really impractical just to be silly, but decided on a Datsun of some kind as Daewoo knew a bit about fixing them.

We did nothing for a few months until I saw what looked like a piece of junk parked in my street when I went out for Chinese one night. It was a shocker, about 6 different colours, not a straight panel on it and plenty of rust. The perfect competition car. I told Mrs Buggsy about it when I got home and she suggested leaving a note under the windscreen for the owner to ring. I did that and the phone rang about 5 minutes later. Yes he wanted to sell, but he wanted $2000 for it. It was supposed to be a classic (a classic piece of junk I thought) but I didn't want one that bad. It was just about out of rego and he knew it would never pass, so I had a bargaining lever. I offered $1000 (It was a classic car after all), He countered with $1500 and I countered with $1200 and it was mine. I am a dickhead!!!! If I had known then what I know now, I would have run a mile.

So there I was with a rusty piece of junk in the garage (but it was a classic) and I only had about 6 weeks to get it ready for rego. I enlisted Peter R's help to determine what to cut out. When I saw what he marked out in Texta I nearly died. There wouldn't be much left after the angle grinder was finished. To cut a really long story a bit shorter, we spent almost every night for 6 weeks welding, cutting, patching, hammering and bogging, not to mention drinking beer.

The photos show how bad the floors were, and the seat mounts too, but we kept at it. I was learning all the time. Pete taught me how to weld with a mig welder, and I spent a lot of time cutting holes in the floor to replace rusty areas. Other than the body repairs there were other things that needed attending to as well, I replaced the gearbox with a manual. We needed new brakes. We needed new seats. I had to replace the drivers guard. I had to replace the shocks as well. I took it to Peter M's and he gave it a clean bill of health. We were ready to go racing!

Th first event was a Khanacross at the butterfly farm at Windsor (which was the Mini Car Clubs grounds at the time) in January 1995. Pete, Daewoo and I were all entered in the Z (which is what the piece of junk actually was) and we had a ball until the car started making weird noises from the rear end. We called it a day as we had to drive it home, but investigation revealed that it was only the rear springs (which weren't from a 240Z) jumping out of their seats and flopping around. The other problem was that the car seemed to be flexing an awful lot so we decided that a roll cage was on the agenda.

The most amazing thing about the car was how we managed to do everything on the cheap. We got the gearbox and replacement diff from Graeme H, who, being a spare parts manager, got me brakes, clutch, wheel cylinders, slave cylinder, strut inserts etc. very cheap. The roll cage was built on Insults front lawn with a pipe bender, Two cases of beer and old tubing from Peter D.

Wick Mullet (The Welding Guru) welded it all together, and while he was at it set fire to the interior, and burnt the new seats, What a schmuck.

We gradually improved bits and pieces, as cheap bits became available.

The crowning glory was the paint job. I love bright colours and the only reason for building a competition car was to have a super bright paint scheme. The colours I came up with were purple, french blue and white, with fluoro yellow and green splashes down the sides. Of course it had to have a matt black bonnet too.

When it was finished I thought it looked sensational, and so did Daewoo. So much so that we decided to paint the 1600 the same colours. TEAM COLOURS !!!!!!!

Our first real rally was at Buladelah in April 1995. But our first rally was not a fairytale event. I hadn't tried the old rally tyres on the car before we went so when we got there I found the lower profile tyres gave us no ground clearance. This was going to be interesting! It was a good event, especially for me. I had never driven in a rally before. I had never driven the Z that fast on dirt before. But we didn't crash. The car didn't break down. Our el cheapo engineering stood up to the pounding well and I was as happy as a pig in $%&*.

Unfortunately the super Monroe Wylie strut inserts were never designed with rallying in mind and gave up the ghost after about 1.5K. In fact they got so hot that they blistered the paint on the strut tubes off, before the seals blew and splattered oil all over the inner guards. But at least we didn't back off. In fact I was so proud when Daewoo suggested that I slow down a bit (I was only doing 110 mph - or so the speedo said), Just desserts for him scaring the hell out of me for 2 years.

So the super Z was on it's way, and further improvements were soon added.

New higher compression head
Triple Webbers
15 inch wheels
Factory extractors
2.75 inch exhaust
LSD (no not the drug)
New springs

Things were rosy until January 1998. With the help of Roger R we had built a new engine just in time for the first event of the year, a hillclimb at Wakefield Park near Goulburn. After getting the engine together Daewoo spent the week going for long drives every night to run the engine in. On the Saturday we drove it to Goulburn and Daewoo, Ben S and I entered in the hillclimb The car went really well and Daewoo was the 3^rd fastest car after Warwick B's 4X4 Lancer and Geoff M's PRB. Unfortunately the day was ruined (for me anyway) when Daewoo rolled it in the afternoon.

Ah well, back to the drawing board! Daewoo was fantastic and paid a lot of money to different people to get the car straight again. We did a few things different this time too. The front half of the cage was replaced with a tube bent up by Warren at Hyundai Rallysport and welded in by Wick Mullet with a lot more stiffening bars behind the dashboard and around the front legs.

I also added some more improvements:

Four wheel disks
Closer ratio Z gearbox
Marsh Rally seats

 I took the car to Sam's Performance to get the carby's tuned too, And after they fitted new chokes, venturis and jets it went like a rocket, (not falling apart in stages)

Although it is not a flash motor, with a leftover cam from Insults Skyline, it develops 140 horsepower at the wheels without revving the tits off it.

And that's where it stands at the moment. The car owes me about $6000 and considering we built it all ourselves, I am pretty proud of it.

There are a lot of people, who gave of there time freely or at minimal cost who need to be thanked. They are in no particular order but they are all friends and without them the car would not exist.

Daewoo Mullet…………the bastard who got me into this in the first place.

Peter R…………………who sliced and diced the car and patched it up again, and taught me to weld.

Wick Mullet……………..who did most of the structural welding on the car and came up with some brilliant ideas (and set fire to the car and broke the windscreen as well)

Geoff M…………………who rewired the car, gave me driving lights and other pieces and who worked long and hard for peanuts (and helps out a lot of the other Mullets as well)

Roger R…………………who built the engine for beer and friendship.

Peter M………………….who's assistance in getting the car registered was most appreciated. He also tunes it for free and gives out free beer (he just doesn't know it)

Barry McT……………….who patched up Daewoo's little indescretion

Doogie……………………who stood around drinking beer whilst the rest of us worked. (ed: Best place for him)

Fly…………………………See Doogie.

The Killer Mullet Rallye Team ……….with whom I have been associated for far too long, for serviceing me and Daewoo (maybe I should rephrase that)

And last but not least my darling Lyn, who lets me do all this in the first place.

Thank You All

BUGGSY MULLET