Giocattolo Group B - just bought one. Possibly Australia's ultimate supercar.

[nb_351]

hey mondie, congrats...
is that the same bob roman that owns autotek? i think it was called that... has the yellow/red commy ute...
ill look at work for you tomorrow for those tyres, and do some ringing around, i work at a tyre shop... so if i cant find it, noone will have it...
what brand are on it atm?

[VSSII]

Originally Posted by BROCKYB8

yeah it was todd willkes and he was doing a display of power on the day . IT was a early version of what we now call powercruise. I had my 302 cortina at the event . He hit the wall at about 150km ph . THat car however i believe was modified the hell out of . THey had to rip alot out. There was a write up on them in street machine b4 and after his death at eastern creek .

THe main problem that said was that he had a standard seat belt and he went throught the window when the accident happened.

Todd was competing in a go to whoa and kept the foot buried past some excuse for a sign which was the 'last braking' sign. The organisers were worried, and rightly so, that entrants would race around the track so they finished the go whoa in a funnel type arrangement which finished at the wall. The fact that he moved the fuel tank to under the bonnet was an attempt to cure the chronic understeer they apparently had when pushed hard. But it wasn't engineered despite looking fantastic, and unfortunately contributed to his death.

I figure anyone who could afford to purchase one new could probably also afford to spend some $$ on suspension geometry so these issues may have been ironed out.

[Angeldust]

that thing gives me goosebumps. awesome car

[BadMac]

http://www.giocattolo.com.au/

Which one is yours (8 or 10??)?
http://www.giocattolo.com.au/thecars.htm


Other Sites.
http://www.bretts.com.au/~con/html/giocattolo.html
http://alfasud.alfisti.net/gioe.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giocattolo

[PepeLePew]

You LUCKY LUCKY bastard!

[FPVTurboTaxi]

omg ...
well i have a story about car number 1 , i was heading out of caloundra in my old xy and got flogged by one of these alfas ??? but hang on it was a v8 . anyway i catch up and pass it .... next thing i see a car veeer off the road and and take out 4 guide posts and roll i pull over and the v8 alfa pulls in behind the xy . we all run down to a toyota upside down with 2 people still hanging in the set belts , the young guy from the alfa and i pull out the 2 people with a few cuts ect .. all of a sudden a huge bang ...... a landcruiser hit the alfa .. fibre glass and kevlar showered us .. the young guy turned to me and says my boss is gunna kill me ,.,. its a prototype .. omg
a police 4wd had been blinded by the sun the same way as the lady in the toyota had and clipped the prototype
i drove him back to the factory and about 6 months later i got a call to come down and have a look at one .. i took it 4 a lap around the caloundra industrial area ... wow

IM JEALOUS :-)
Mate u got a really rare motor vechile

[Tles]

That's a wicked and well cared for Toy, Mondie. Guess that's the Roman Autotek - Recaros and Momos guy, think he had something to do with the Giacottalos originally.
looks awesome, enjoy!

just be careful of the flame throwers on the back not shorts friendly - experience here. Closest I came was one of the last Suds so these were a dream for me too.

[davocol]

Hey Simon, it looks fantastic I know nothing about these cars, have never seen one before but now want one Excellent taste as always. Congratulations on the purchase.

[aussiblue]

Reminds me of Aus's other supercar, the Detomaso Pantera.

The De Tomaso was Italian and made in Italy (Modena) although some of the 351 V8's engines were sourced for a few short years from Oz after the North American supply ran out and some oz guys based in the UK fitted the turbo for the smaller 5 litre fitted to the Pantera 2. See http://www.detomaso.it/gb/vetture/ieri/ieri.html

[xr8ute]

Absolutely horn car. I love the look of these things.....can only imagine what they might be like to drive. I am insanely jelous :P

Congrats Mondie.

[Mondie]

Thanks for all the comments guys. The car really is sensational to drive, l took a mate out this afternoon and we were both grinning like idiots.

Originally Posted by nb_351

hey mondie, congrats...
is that the same bob roman that owns autotek? i think it was called that... has the yellow/red commy ute...
ill look at work for you tomorrow for those tyres, and do some ringing around, i work at a tyre shop... so if i cant find it, noone will have it...
what brand are on it atm?

Yes this is Bobs old car. l really appreciate the offer of help on the tyres. It has the original Yoko A008s on it, they are in new condition but rock hard.

Originally Posted by xbgs351

Stuckey advertise tyres to suit them.

l have not heard of them, would you have any contact details?

Originally Posted by FPVTurboTaxi

omg ...
well i have a story about car number 1 , i was heading out of caloundra in my old xy and got flogged by one of these alfas ??? but hang on it was a v8 . anyway i catch up and pass it .... next thing i see a car veeer off the road and and take out 4 guide posts and roll i pull over and the v8 alfa pulls in behind the xy . we all run down to a toyota upside down with 2 people still hanging in the set belts , the young guy from the alfa and i pull out the 2 people with a few cuts ect .. all of a sudden a huge bang ...... a landcruiser hit the alfa .. fibre glass and kevlar showered us .. the young guy turned to me and says my boss is gunna kill me ,.,. its a prototype .. omg
a police 4wd had been blinded by the sun the same way as the lady in the toyota had and clipped the prototype
i drove him back to the factory and about 6 months later i got a call to come down and have a look at one .. i took it 4 a lap around the caloundra industrial area ... wow

IM JEALOUS :-)
Mate u got a really rare motor vechile

l read somewhere that 001 was nearly written off by a cop car. Its amazing that you were actually there when it happened. Bloody unlucky to get cleaned up when parked off the road though.

Originally Posted by TTonka

That's a wicked and well cared for Toy, Mondie. Guess that's the Roman Autotek - Recaros and Momos guy, think he had something to do with the Giacottalos originally.
looks awesome, enjoy!

Ttonka, you are right Bob was involved with the original builds. He was supplying and trimming the seats, doortrims, carpets, hoodlinings and doing the leather on the dash plus the Momo wheel and knob. This car was to be his but the Giocattolo Motori was would up by the banks and in the sell up it was bought by another guy who Bob then later bought it off.

Cheers Mondie

[1600GT]

mondie...
australian muscle car, issue 15. released sept/oct 2004.
has a pic of brock's 76 L34 bathurst torana on the front to highlight the story on the L34's 30th anniversary.

page 90. 6 page write up featuring your car. gives a very good history of the full giocattolo/paul halstead story, and a run down of each car built.
well written article IMHO.

hope this helps.

ohh... btw... i'm jealous...
would LUV 1 of these in my garage.
and yep, true aussie muscle.
just a shame it went the way of a few other great aussie muscle cars (bolwell comes to mind) due to red tape.

[Charliewool]

VERY nice find Simon!!
Here's Stuckey's link... http://www.stuckey.com.au/

Regards Charlie

[Sam_Boss260]

Post a sound clip PLEEEAAASSEE.....................

[Mondie]

Originally Posted by 1600GT

mondie...
australian muscle car, issue 15. released sept/oct 2004.
has a pic of brock's 76 L34 bathurst torana on the front to highlight the story on the L34's 30th anniversary.

page 90. 6 page write up featuring your car. gives a very good history of the full giocattolo/paul halstead story, and a run down of each car built.
well written article IMHO.

hope this helps.

ohh... btw... i'm jealous...
would LUV 1 of these in my garage.
and yep, true aussie muscle.
just a shame it went the way of a few other great aussie muscle cars (bolwell comes to mind) due to red tape.

Thanks mate, l am off to find a copy of that issue now.

Originally Posted by charliewool

VERY nice find Simon!!
Here's Stuckey's link... http://www.stuckey.com.au/

Regards Charlie

Hi Charlie, good to see you still around mate. thanks for the tyre link, hopefully they have something in the right size.

Originally Posted by Sam_XR6

Post a sound clip PLEEEAAASSEE.....................

l would if l knew how, whch l dont unfortunatley

Cheers Mondie

[xbgs351]

Originally Posted by Mondie

l have not heard of them, would you have any contact details?

http://www.stuckey.com.au/tyres_deta...reName=AV1-40i

[Mondie]

Thanks for that link xbgs351, l had emailed them this morning after not being able to find the size online. Your link shows them as being in stock, off to call them now

Cheers

[Gammaboy]

An option for tyres would be to re-rim the simmons to a 16" with the same centres?

[Mondie]

Originally Posted by xbgs351

http://www.stuckey.com.au/tyres_deta...reName=AV1-40i

l called them this arvo and while the site says they are in stock, they are sold out with no more stock on the horizon. Apparently demand for this size is quite strong but Yoko have not plans to make more anytime soon. l think l may start looking online at whats available in the US.

Gammaboy, thats not a bad idea as l believe the 15 & 16" B45's used the same centre section. l want to keep the original look and this may be an option if l just cannot locate some 285's.

Cheers Mondie

[Fev]

i am incredibly jealous and you should come to sydney and take me for a drive lol it is a gorgeous car and i wish they made more so i had a tiny sliver more of a chance to buy one :P congrats on the buy and i hope you dont see any cop 4wd's why takin it for a spin

i remember that eastern creek crash, my bro was there.. from what I remember he was comin down the straight at near 300, braked to late, but fryed the brakes which then blew the tyres and then he just went straight into the wall.. im not sure if all that is true but thats what i remember.. that was a black day that was

im assuming your car is build number 10? the other ones have km's on them or are somthing different

[nb_351]

Hey mondie…
Bad news on these tyres… I rang tta (tyre tube Australia), who we get majority of our stuff from… these tyres are discontinued, and theres no stocks left… like getting a root out of a nuns hostel as he put it lol
yokohama have no intention of making anymore, unless demand is overwhelming… but theyre older technology anyway…
Blame people with toranas and falcon coupes lol
The only thing reasonably close is the yokie 352 in a 295/50/15, with a 105H rating… with an OD of 677mm, it’s a bit taller then the A008, which will put your speedo out slightly… I cant quite remember how much speed a H rating , but it’s the same as an RE92…
it has a higher load rating… which is over 1000kg per tyre or somewhere around that area anyway… I can do these for about 340 each, they retail for approx 405 IIRC…
The 285/40/ZR15 A008 had an OD of 609mm, rated at 92W, and the ZR meaning over 240kmh rated… a bit more pricey though…
Theres also BFGs but the yokie is the pick of them…
So yeah, you can also get rims resized to 16s, but then youll be modifying it away from original… although if you kept the original rings, you could get them redone later on…
Or just buy a set of 16s and keep the 15s locked away… its up to you mate lol

[nb_351]

If I was you, go and get some fr18s or fr19s, 19s are better as the have the bigger centre, the 18s are just fr17s with bigger ring… like todd wilkes had on his… you can get them with the same grey finish centre aswell, they would look hot, but theyre expensive…

[Pedro]

I saw build number 3 or 6 (blue) in the late 80's at "Operation Drag" (run buy Gold Coast Police) at Surfers Raceway. It was absolutely immaculate and by the sound of the rumbling idle it had some engine mods.

The Government was a major contributor to the demise of Halstead's project as he had to pay full import duties and taxes on everything.

[Mondie]

Originally Posted by nb_351

If I was you, go and get some fr18s or fr19s, 19s are better as the have the bigger centre, the 18s are just fr17s with bigger ring… like todd wilkes had on his… you can get them with the same grey finish centre aswell, they would look hot, but theyre expensive…

Mate thanks for your efforts in checking out tyre availability. It looks pretty dire, l will just have to wait for Yoko or whoever to make a special run as l have been told they do from time to time. The guy from Stuckeys said it was a very popular tyre size so it seems there is some demand there.

l will have to find some US retailers online, perhaps they could have something.

In the meantime the A008's have 80% tread so there is no rush, but l would like something a little softer so l can have some fun! l dont like the look of a Gio with bigger rims, these cars are very small in the flesh and look to Ricer for my taste with big rims.

Cheers Mondie

[elgt146]

Originally Posted by Pedro

I saw build number 3 or 6 (blue) in the late 80's at "Operation Drag" (run buy Gold Coast Police) at Surfers Raceway. It was absolutely immaculate and by the sound of the rumbling idle it had some engine mods.

The Government was a major contributor to the demise of Halstead's project as he had to pay full import duties and taxes on everything.

This blue one was highly modified. It started out fairly mild but still ran in the 12's. It later had a massive amount of money thrown at it and was a weapon.

It was for sale in Southport about 5-6 years ago in a yard on High Street.
Around $70,000 I think he wanted. Apparently the owners wife told him to sell it before he killed himself.


The Todd Wilkes Yellow car was Warwick Cappers old car.
We met up the week before Eastern Creek crash at a local GoldCoast hangout and went racing in a safe area.

A friends Monaro running on the bottle raced Todd and must say had him numbered until top gear anyway.

I was trailing in my XR8 trying to get the result and keep up with zero luck.

He originally had the Supercharged then Turbo Charged VS Ute and then went twin turbo in the Gio before anyone mainstream had even thought about it.

The car is still around although but has not been repaired.

His call card was The Judge.

[GenTech]

Awesome car.. you are part of a vary rare breed that have owned a Giocattolo. Congrats.

Yeah regarding Todd, sad, sad day. I was participating in that Race event, it was called Autosalon - Final Battle (from memory) on the 25th of February 2001. And the first competition of the day was called "Terminal Velocity", and had cars blasting down the main straight of Eastern Creek trying to reach maximum speed through the traps on the start/finish line. This main straight was also a drag strip, but the drag strip ran in the opposite direction (which had a large field and sand traps for run off) as it would never pass regulations to have a drag strip ultimately finish in a perpendicular concrete wall. But the organisers decided to run this "drag style" event backwards, down hill, with the bare concrete wall at the end. There were 3 large water tank things to try and make it safer but the wall itself had no tyre protection (crazy). There were probably 20 or so cars that I saw and the speeds reached were around 180 k's for worked V8's, STi's etc and they stopped with plenty to spare. Then it came to Todd (Judge). He flew down and hit the traps at almost 300kph, backed off and started braking. At that speed, he was moving at around 83 metres per second, so the second or two that it took to move from the accelerator to hit the brakes meant a third of the braking area was gone before he had even started slowing down. So the car dipped, and started slowing down, but was now struggling to stop in time, so Todd mashed the brake peddle and the car dipped further forward, and locked the front wheels, he attempted to manually abs, but there was no way he would stop in time. To make matters worse, the last 50 or so metres, were nullified, as he hit the christmas tree armco with the right side of the car (this was the start line for the drag strip) and sent the car up on two wheels, then it ploughed through one of those water tanks and into the wall at around 150kph. A fireball broke out a few seconds later. The commentators were in shock, but after 20 minutes, they announced that the driver was OK (obviously he wasn't) and was being rushed to Hospital but that they were cancelling the event anyway. Horrific.

He had alot of details about the Giacottolo on his site which can be seen in archive form here
http://web.archive.org/web/200605231...com/index.html

[paule11]

Try this link for tyres http://www.classic-usa-cars.com/index1aa.html

[Fev]

there seems to be a huge amount of different stories on the todd wilkes crash.. i also heard that people thought he was still alive, apparently they thought they saw him try to jump out of the car..


ANYWAY

nice damn ride

[Mr. CVE]

Just found this thread.
Tyres are not that hard to get as they used them on the front of wide body Pantera's
Just gotta wait for them to make another batch and bring in a set.
If you need help let me know. As a Pantera owner I have become pretty good at tracking down hard to get parts !

[Mechan1k]

Originally Posted by GenTech

Awesome car.. you are part of a vary rare breed that have owned a Giocattolo. Congrats.

Yeah regarding Todd, sad, sad day. I was participating in that Race event, it was called Autosalon - Final Battle (from memory) on the 25th of February 2001. And the first competition of the day was called "Terminal Velocity", and had cars blasting down the main straight of Eastern Creek trying to reach maximum speed through the traps on the start/finish line. This main straight was also a drag strip, but the drag strip ran in the opposite direction (which had a large field and sand traps for run off) as it would never pass regulations to have a drag strip ultimately finish in a perpendicular concrete wall. But the organisers decided to run this "drag style" event backwards, down hill, with the bare concrete wall at the end. There were 3 large water tank things to try and make it safer but the wall itself had no tyre protection (crazy). There were probably 20 or so cars that I saw and the speeds reached were around 180 k's for worked V8's, STi's etc and they stopped with plenty to spare. Then it came to Todd (Judge). He flew down and hit the traps at almost 300kph, backed off and started braking. At that speed, he was moving at around 83 metres per second, so the second or two that it took to move from the accelerator to hit the brakes meant a third of the braking area was gone before he had even started slowing down. So the car dipped, and started slowing down, but was now struggling to stop in time, so Todd mashed the brake peddle and the car dipped further forward, and locked the front wheels, he attempted to manually abs, but there was no way he would stop in time. To make matters worse, the last 50 or so metres, were nullified, as he hit the christmas tree armco with the right side of the car (this was the start line for the drag strip) and sent the car up on two wheels, then it ploughed through one of those water tanks and into the wall at around 150kph. A fireball broke out a few seconds later. The commentators were in shock, but after 20 minutes, they announced that the driver was OK (obviously he wasn't) and was being rushed to Hospital but that they were cancelling the event anyway. Horrific.

He had alot of details about the Giacottolo on his site which can be seen in archive form here
http://web.archive.org/web/200605231...com/index.html

This is pretty much the actual events on the day ... I was spectating as a few of my mates were entered in the "Terminal Velocity" event on that day.

It was a hell of a shock ... there was this eerie silence for a couple of seconds over the entire field ... then the fireball.

The event was not well thought out ... after that one ... I didn't think that Autosalon would continue ever again ... due to how that actual event was organised.