{"id":78861,"date":"2026-08-24T03:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78861\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T03:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T03:36:08","slug":"muscle-car-masters-returns-to-sydney-motorsport-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78861\/","title":{"rendered":"Muscle Car Masters returns to Sydney Motorsport Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Heritage<\/p>\n

By Andrew Clarke<\/p>\n

Date posted: 24 August 2026<\/p>\n

Three years after its last appearance, the Muscle Car Masters returns to Sydney Motorsport Park this weekend with a spectacular collection of Australian touring car history, including three Ford Sierra RS500s, famous BMWs, Mercedes DTM machinery and a rare Saturday night race.<\/p>\n

The Apex Steel Muscle Car Masters returns to Sydney Motorsport Park on August 29-30, bringing some of the country\u2019s most significant touring cars back to Australia\u2019s traditional home of muscle.<\/p>\n

Around 30 Group C and Group A cars will contest the final points round of the 2026 Heritage Touring Cars series, joining Touring Car Masters, National Sports Sedans, Historic Touring Cars Group N and Group S, HQ Holdens and Australian Trans Am for two days of racing.<\/p>\n

For Heritage Touring Cars, the meeting brings together machinery spanning one of the most diverse periods in Australian touring car history, from locally built Holdens and Fords to the turbocharged European and Japanese cars that transformed the sport during the Group A era.<\/p>\n

Three Ford Sierra RS500s reunited<\/p>\n

Among the headline attractions will be three Ford Sierra RS500s running together.<\/p>\n

Bathurst 1000 winner Jonathon Webb will drive the last Caltex Sierra built, a car raced in period by Australian touring car legend Colin Bond.<\/p>\n

Andrew Miedecke will be reunited with the Yokohama-backed Sierra he raced during the 1989 season, while Terry Lawlor will drive the Shell Sierra associated with Dick Johnson\u2019s dominant 1989 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Shell car helped Johnson to the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship and was the car in which he claimed his first Bathurst 1000 pole position.<\/p>\n

Mercedes and BMW classics join the field<\/p>\n

If the turbo Sierras represent one of the defining weapons of late-1980s Group A, the European contingent goes considerably deeper.<\/p>\n

Brothers Jerome and Meon Nehrybecki, sons of Australian chassis designer Henry Nehrybecki, will bring a pair of Mercedes-Benz 190Es to Sydney Motorsport Park.<\/p>\n

Meon\u2019s car has particularly significant history, having been built by AMG-Mercedes for the 1991 DTM season. It competed in yellow and white K\u00e4rcher colours with J\u00f6rg van Ommen and Frank Schmickler and is now regarded as one of the more original surviving examples from the period.<\/p>\n

BMW will also be strongly represented.<\/p>\n

Dean How will campaign the JPS BMW 635CSi raced by Allan Grice and Jim Richards and regarded as one of the earliest BMWs connected with Frank Gardner\u2019s Australian operation.<\/p>\n

At the other end of Gardner\u2019s BMW story is David Towe\u2019s JPS M3, the final M3 built by the team.<\/p>\n

Rick Allen will add another significant E30 M3 to the field with the Benson & Hedges car driven to fourth outright in the 1992 Bathurst 1000 by Tony Longhurst and international star Johnny Cecotto.<\/p>\n

Japanese touring car history on show<\/p>\n

The Japanese invasion that helped reshape Australian touring car racing will not be forgotten either.<\/p>\n

Greg Boyle\u2019s Falken Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R will appear as an invited car. The Skyline finished fourth outright in the 1993 Bathurst 12 Hour in the hands of Keith Carling, Bill Gillespie and Graham Neilsen, but had already enjoyed an unusual piece of Mount Panorama history as the Safety Car for the 1992 Bathurst 1000.<\/p>\n

Peter Woods will bring the ex-Graeme Bailey Chickadee Toyota Celica, another instantly recognisable car from the Group C period.<\/p>\n

Lloyd Williams will race a restored Mazda RX-3, while Chris O\u2019Connor will drive Michael Logiudice\u2019s ex-Terry Finnigan Maggi Noodles Gemini and Scott Fleming will campaign a Peter Williamson Toyota Celica.<\/p>\n

The diversity is precisely what made the Group C and Group A periods so memorable.<\/p>\n

Big-capacity Australian V8s shared the track with rotaries, four-cylinder screamers, turbocharged Sierras, BMWs, Mercedes and eventually the all-conquering Nissan GT-R.<\/p>\n

More than three decades later, Muscle Car Masters will put many of those shapes, sounds and liveries back on the same circuit.<\/p>\n

Bathurst BMW back in action<\/p>\n

Muscle Car Masters Preview-colin-bond-caltex-ford-sierra-rs500<\/p>\n

Back to the home of muscle<\/p>\n

The Chickadee Celica flies again<\/p>\n

Touring car history returns<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s mighty Shell Sierra<\/p>\n

Touring car legends under lights<\/p>\n

Miedecke\u2019s Yokohama Sierra<\/p>\n

Heritage Touring Cars under lights<\/p>\n

And on Saturday night, spectators will get to see them in a setting rarely experienced in historic racing.<\/p>\n

At approximately 7.15pm the Heritage Touring Cars will head onto Sydney Motorsport Park for a night race, one of only a handful held in the series\u2019 history.<\/p>\n

Night racing has produced some memorable Heritage Touring Cars images in the past, including the 2021 HSRCA Sydney Classic where Tony Alford\u2019s iconic Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R led the field under lights.<\/p>\n

The combination of glowing brake discs, turbocharged touring cars and some of Australian motorsport\u2019s most famous liveries should make Saturday night\u2019s race one of the highlights of the revived event.<\/p>\n

First run in 2006, Muscle Car Masters became one of the country\u2019s signature historic motorsport meetings before disappearing from the calendar in its familiar form.<\/p>\n

Now it is back, and rather than simply displaying the cars that shaped Australian touring car racing, many of them will once again be doing what they were built to do.<\/p>\n

Race.<\/p>\n

The Apex Steel Muscle Car Masters will be held at Sydney Motorsport Park on Saturday, August 29 and Sunday, August 30.<\/p>\n

Tickets, the full entry list, event schedule and spectator information:
Muscle Car Masters spectator information<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/a>\"\"\/<\/a>
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