Pretty effective
King Street, Newtown, is renowned as Sydney’s uber-cool high street, the height of inner-west Sydney chic. But back in the early 1970s Newtown had none of the cafes, restaurants or designer fashion retail stores for which it’s famous today, and generally was rather more working class.
At the top end of King Street in 1970 was the famed motorsport tuning and preparation business, Malcolm Motors. Down the other end was D&P Traders, suppliers of racing karts and equipment.
‘D&P’ stood for the husband-and-wife duo Darcy and Pat Peck. Pat had raced karts in the ‘60s before graduating to cars, running a near-standard 327 Camaro in Sports Sedan racing. The Pecks dabbled briefly with a Falcon GT-HO in Series Production racing before opting for a Torana XU-1. Two XU-1s, in fact: a Series Production version and a Sports Sedan.
Darcy prepared the cars for Pat to drive but did not himself race. The Sports Sedan came together quickly, but before it could be tested the engine needed to be dyno tuned. Conveniently, Malcolm Motors a mile or two up the road (literally in the sameoffered ‘two hours preparing and setting up your engine’ on their dyno, from only $18. ‘Ask for Ron, the Motor Maestro!’ the ad read.
