Norm Beechey's famous 1966 Chevy II Nova holds the distinction of being the only V8-powered car to have defeated Pete Geoghegan's almost invincible '65 Ford Mustang.

Beechey's sole victory over Geoghegan's famous Ford occurred on November 20, 1966 at Sandown Park's LCCA Touring Trophy meeting, where he beat Geoghegan fair and square, a feat he was never able to achieve in his own Mustang.

Beechey raced this fabulous muscle car in Australia across three seasons spanning 1966 to 1968, during which time it won 36 races and shared centre stage in many a memorable battle with his arch rival Geoghegan.

These included the nail-biting Australian Touring Car Championship battles at Bathurst in '66 and Lakeside in '67 (when the ATCC was decided by a single race), in which Norm led early but was defeated on both occasions.

Beechey's selection of the 1966 Chevy II Nova as replacement for his '64 Mustang was an inspired choice for several reasons, not the least being that he constantly strived to keep one step ahead of the competition by using the latest and greatest machinery.

The arrival of a shiny new muscle car fresh from the US in the 1960s always created a great buzz in local media circles, too. This coverage was pure gold for his 'sponsor' Neptune, at a time when commercial branding could not be openly displayed on race cars.

Neptune was at the time a subsidiary fuel franchise owned by global oil giant Shell, but its cars could at least be painted in the fuel brand's handsome blue and white corporate colours.

Under the Neptune Racing Team banner, which included Jim McKeown's Lotus Cortina and Peter Manton's Mini Cooper, Norm's new Chevy created an ideal brand mix for the team with broad spectator appeal. (After Neptune's withdrawal later that year, the cars were painted black with Shell's yellow and red stripes and renamed the Tridents Racing Team).

The '66 Nova was also a great looker, with the prettiest set of panels yet seen on Chevy's compact unibody model introduced four years earlier to combat the popularity of Ford's new Falcon in the US (see Joe Kenwright's detailed analysis of the Chevy II road cars).

And, despite being slightly larger and heavier than the Mustang coupe, there were numerous potential Mustang-beating attributes including a relatively light kerb weight just under 2800 pounds (about 1270 kgs), similar wheelbase, track and body dimensions and a potent power-to-weight ratio thanks to a stout small-block 5.4 litre V8 that was more than half a litre larger in cubic capacity than his Ford-based foe.

Even though it had drum brakes all round, it was hoped the Chevy II Nova's raw muscle car credentials would form the basis of a Geoghegan Mustang beater when Beechey purchased a brand new four-speed manual V8 example from a Chevrolet dealership in Santa Monica, California.

Key elements in this purchase was that Norm's new missile was factory equipped with a rugged Muncie M-21 four-speed gearbox and 'Regular Production Option L79' which for an extra $198 bought the Corvette's hot 350bhp version of Chevy's 327cid small block V8.

Novas built with this factory fire breather came loaded with forged high compression pistons, hot camshaft, big valve heads and an aluminium intake manifold with a fat Holley four-barrel on top.

When bolted into a relative lightweight like the Nova, off the showroom floor this mighty mouse was good for 15 sec quarters at about 95mph. And, according to reports at the time, with a few tweaks and sticky race tyres bolted on, some high 13s could be achieved without much difficulty!

Even so, Norm's next stop was Traco Engineering in Los Angeles. Proprietors Jim Travers and Frank Coon (Traco was a blend of their last names) built the best damn race engines you could get at the time, finished in their signature light grey paint finish.

Traco's success in dirt track speedway, Indy, sports cars, Can-Am and Trans-Am is now legendary, as was their celebrity client list that included Roger Penske, Bruce McLaren and A.J Foyt to name a few of many.

Beechey commissioned Traco to build a full-house racing version of his 327 that would out-muscle Geoghegan's 289 cid Shelby-powered Mustang. Traco responded with a 40-thou overbore, forged high compression pistons with stainless steel rings, Chevy's strongest 'pink' connecting rods and steel billet crankshaft.

A full roller cam worked big valve heads that featured dual valve springs and tappet return springs. Induction was courtesy of a quartet of huge 58mm two-barrel side-draught Webers mounted on a Moon Industries cross-over manifold cast from lightweight magnesium.

The dyno confirmed every dollar Norm spent with Traco was worth it, when the mighty 5.4 litre small block churned out a stomping 475bhp and around 480 foot pounds of torque!

A lightweight aluminium flywheel and heavy duty, single-plate clutch assembly with sintered metallic linings was coupled to the close-ratio Muncie M21 four-speed gearbox and rugged GM 12-bolt rear axle assembly with clutch-type LSD centre.

A heavy duty Corvette aluminium radiator was installed to keep a lid on coolant temperatures, while exhaust exited through big bore extractors and large dump pipes.

Given its capacity/power advantage over Geoghegan's 400bhp Mustang, Norm looked to have all the firepower he needed to get the job done.

The sobering fact that Norm was able to achieve that only once, in so many memorable races against his lesser-powered adversary, says plenty about Geoghegan's sublime driving talent and John Sheppard's fastidious preparation of the Shelby-powered Mustang.

It also highlights the ongoing struggle Norm faced in making full use of his Chevy's power advantage, which wasn't helped by some wayward handling that took time to tame and the need to run the original 9.5-inch drum brakes front and rear as supplied with the car (Geoghegan's Mustang was lighter and had 10.5-inch front discs/10.0 rear drums).

"The drum brakes created so much heat that the brake linings would actually split right up the middle and bend the backing plates away from the drum face,"recalled Beechey's former race mechanic, Graeme Moore. "To fix it, we gusseted them with little bits of metal welded in underneath the backing plates to retain their correct shape.

"We were also allowed to drill holes in the backing plates and then feed air cooling ducts into them, mainly at the front. None of the brakes in those days actually stopped the cars, they just slowed them down a bit, but they were as efficient as we could make them."

Moore recalled that the Nova's marginal braking capacity (and that of Norm's previous cars) was chiefly responsible for Beechey's super sideways, flamboyant driving style, as he had learned over time to routinely change down a gear and throw the car sideways into a turn to scrub off enough speed to make it through!

Moore said a big gain in braking performance was achieved when they replaced the car's widened steel rims with a set of the latest American Racer 15 x 7-inch five-spoke wheels from the US, cast from lightweight magnesium.

These rims not only reduced the car's unsprung weight (for improved handling and power-to-weight ratio) but their more open design also greatly improved cooling of the red hot brake drums. Beechey suddenly found he could go in 50 yards deeper under brakes.

"The widened steel rims we started with had double-thickness centres to stop them tearing apart through the corners, but they were so heavy they acted like four bloody big flywheels,"Moore reflected.

"When we first put the mags on it, Norm came into the pits and said 'the brakes are much more efficient - what have you done to them?' but I hadn't done anything to them. Simply by putting the mags on it, we were no longer having to stop those four large masses of spinning metal each time he hit the brakes. Plus the dissipation of heat was so much better too."

Getting the drum brakes working properly was only part of the Nova's chassis development, as sorting out the American coupe's suspension to optimise power-down traction and overall cornering grip was also an ongoing challenge.

"Allan Heaseman was a so-called handling expert in Sydney at the time, so I spent a week up in Sydney with him and we made up a batch of different springs, sway bars, anti-tramp rods and things like that,"Moore recalled.

"It did help, but the car was never a great handler. Remember, this was 1966; most cars didn't even have roll cages back then (the Nova was later fitted with a bolt-in half cage) so they used to flex all over. I remember when Norm revved the engine on that car, all the body panels used to quiver!

"Norm even insisted on fitting a stable door-type bolt lock on the inside of the driver's door because he was always frightened of it coming open. Of course, we were running on standard vinyl seats in those days and he was sliding all over the place. Hell, they must have been heroes to drive those things so hard!"

Moore recalled that reducing the car's weight was also a never-ending process. On the Nova it involved all the usual lightening tricks used at the time, which involved removing anything that didn't need to be there and trying to make what remained as light as possible.

Moore was a stickler for what he called 'preventative maintenance' as he logged literally hundreds of hours of spanner time doing just that. The car's commendable reliability over 40-odd races with Beechey in Australia was as much a result of Moore's meticulous maintenance as it was Beechey's acceptance of some of his theories.

"I actually got on really well with Norm,"Moore said. "He was more like a big brother than a boss. He trusted me and I trusted him, so we were able to toss around ideas between us.

"Norm was very good at diagnosis through his feel for the car. He'd say 'it's about to run a bearing because the oil pressure is a bit lower than normal' so I'd pull the sump off and sure enough there'd be a bearing that was about to run. If he got out and said the car was 100 per cent, then I wouldn't touch it because I knew he'd be right.

"We were having a lot of head gasket problems, so I told Norm that I thought the compression ratio was too high. We were trying to run at 12.5:1 or better with big bump pistons, so I talked him into lowering the compression a bit and not using so many revs.

"Norm was always a big revver, he liked low diffs and lots of revs. For example, at Calder Park we were running a 4.8:1 diff I think it was, like a drag racing diff, so he was hitting 8000rpm just before the braking marker at the end of the straight!

"It certainly had great acceleration, but the motors weren't lasting very long because of the high revs, so I talked him into running a slightly taller diff as well. You know, we had about 500 foot pounds of torque to play with, so it made sense to drop the compression and the revs
a bit to make better use of that."

Fortunately, this famous Beechey car has survived the rigours of time. After Norm sold it in the late 1960s, it continued to compete in touring car racing and drag racing events as it passed through several owners before it was acquired by Graeme Hooper and restored to its current Trident Racing Team condition.

Famed muscle car collector David Bowden purchased the Nova from Hooper in 1998 and it now forms part of the superb Bowden Collection in Queensland, where ironically it has ended up back where it started right alongside its nemesis - Pete Geoghegan's '65 Mustang!