Cutting The Mustard: Phil Rizzo’s multi-award-winning Charger R/T E49
Phil Rizzo was 12 when his motor-racing-obsessed father bought a brand new Charger R/T E49. It was Vitamin C in colour and like all but 22 of the 149 E49s built was equipped with the smaller fuel tank. Phil learnt his love of cars and racing from his dad. Shortly after acquiring this dream car, the family went on holiday. While they were gone, it was stolen from the locked garage and never recovered. Phil was sure he saw it once in the Oran Park carpark but nothing resulted.... So, in a sense, the story behind this superb machine, is how Phil eventually ‘found’ the lost Charger – no, not the very car, but one that certainly serves the purpose.
‘Mag wheels were very unusual in 1972, ‘says Phil, ‘and the sound of that car with its Webers!’
(Image: Guy Allen)
The Chrysler VH Valiant Charger R/T E49 – to give this beautiful car its full sobriquet – is arguably the most overlooked of the elite Australian muscle cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The R/T E49 is, I would assert, the greatest Australian car not to have won the Bathurst 500-mile (later 1000km) endurance race for series production vehicles. And, when new in 1972, was the fastest-accelerating car ever produced in this country, running the quarter-mile in 14.4 seconds, some three-tenths quicker than an XY Falcon GTHO.
(Image: Guy Allen)
Phil Rizzo has owned his Charger since 20 July 2012 and during his custody the car has undergone a three-and-a-half-year bare metal restoration. Every component, nut and bolt has either been renewed or refurbished. The engine has been totally rebuilt with custom re-manufactured 60-thou-over pistons. It is essentially as Chrysler developed it but with minor reliability and performance upgrades, including roller rockers, a Windaged tray, upgraded E49 profile camshaft and electronic ignition. This last-mentioned item was installed under the dash to ensure the visual presentation of the engine bay remains period correct. ‘If you can hide stuff that works to improve the car, that’s part of my philosophy,’ says Phil.a
(Image: Guy Allen)
On its first outing at an all-Aussie day at Lakeside in February 2015 Phil took the trophy for best restored car. More than 20 other awards have followed.
Before coming into Phil’s care, the Charger had led an exhausting life –including being stolen, allegedly repainted with a brush, going from yellow to red and back to yellow again, and at one stage changing hands for just $400.
It emerged from Tonsley Park on Friday 16 June 1972 and was sold new on 2 August. This E49 was Hot Mustard in colour and was specified with the A87 Track Pack, A95 interior dress-up package (reclining seats, carpets, three-spoke steering wheel, D20 four-speed manual gearbox, D56 3.50:1 rear axle with limited slip differential, E49 Six Pack engine (302 brake horsepower), G60 quarter vent windows and deletion of pop-out rear windows.
(Image: Guy Allen)
The ex-police officer from whom Phil bought the Charger had owned it for 28 years. The custodian before him had given the car its first restoration, which included a fresh application of Vitamin C. Then the car was stolen and crashed into a ditch. For the second restoration, the owner chose to give it a colour change to red. Shortly afterwards, the Charger was sold to the former police officer.
With modern replacement suspension components and tyres, the car drives better than back in the day, says Phil. It’s not as good though as a current muscle car, ‘but then I wanted to experience the feel of a real 1970s muscle car, and it’s great to drive. However, I don’t think I could push it down Conrod at close to 130 miles per hour. Those drivers were something special!’
It is difficult now to believe that the R/T E38 and E49 Chargers were in series production racing for just 12 months and two weeks, from their Oran Park debut in September 1971 to Bathurst 1972 – a measure of just what an exciting era it was.
And how imaginative were those Chrysler Australia engineers, in choosing to go to Weber in Italy for a horsepower boost? It was a genius move. The press release detailing this process reads:
To design the Six-Pack Hemi, Chrysler’s top engineers joined the world’s foremost carburettor experts from the Italian Weber firm and the company’s racing drivers in one of the most expensive programs of its kind ever undertaken.
The carburettor development alone involved such intricate engineering that a VG Valiant Pacer with the Six-Pack prototype engine was flown 12.000 miles to Italy and then tested for 4000 miles all over Italy.
Imagine all those car-crazed Italians sitting down to pasta in the local trattoria when a huge unknown sedan raced by! Imagine the bewilderment of the airline baggage handlers as the Pacer was manoeuvred into the hold of the Jumbo! Imagine the jokes in the local pub that night! ‘A Valiant? A bloody Valiant? To Italy? Pull the other one.’
(Image: Chrysler Australia)
To celebrate the awesome newfound power of the Six-Pack Hemi, Chrysler Australia’s agency produced a magazine colour advertisement which showed the exhaust manifold and extractors glowing red after a workout.
But the E38 was let down mainly by having only a three-speed gearbox (and the brakes weren’t that flash either). This wasn’t an issue, it seems, when the Charger made its racing debut at Oran Park. The factory Fords didn’t show and the six Chargers filled six of the first 11 places with Doug Chivas winning just ahead of Colin Bond in his XU-1.
Then the show went to Mount Panorama, where Moffat seized pole on 2:38.9. Leo Geoghegan started on grid eight with 2:45.7. Brock’s Torana took 10th with 2:46.3. The lack of a fourth gear ratio took its toll climbing the mountain and the Chargers also experienced some reliability issues.
For 1972, the E49 was ready with its new Borg-Warner four-speed. But the wet conditions suited the Torana and Brock’s special talents. In the excitement surrounding Brock’s victory, few registered just how close the Chargers came to claiming victory. Leo Geoghegan started on grid four, having qualified in 2:39.1, nine-tenths behind Brock in third. Moffat secured pole with a time of 2:35.8 ahead of John Goss (2:36.7). Doug Chivas finished the race in third and Leo Geoghegan in fourth, one lap and two laps respectively behind second-placed John French (Falcon) – both cars lost time in the pits for silly reasons (wheel nuts for Doug, loose battery terminal for Leo) and either could easily have won the race. Regardless, third and fourth outright hardly amounts to failure.
So, while the racing Chargers have received less acknowledgement than the Holdens and Fords, the 1972 Bathurst result is impressive.
The Charger is a unique car. Chrysler Australia’s then boss David Brown came up with the concept, originally known as the ’29 Car’. (So good they changed the name: ‘Life is Fine with 29’ doesn’t quite have the ring of ‘Hey Charger!’) Brown wanted a more compact, sporty version of the VH Valiant. So it was that the Charger lost six inches in wheelbase, 13 inches in overall length and a remarkable 130kg of weight.
Almost half of all VH Valiants sold were Chargers, but R/T E49 variants such as Phil Rizzo’s were rare when new and even more so half a century down the bitumen with maybe fewer than 100 extant. It is a privilege to feature Phil’s sublime example in our Member Spotlight series.
