So I suppose that if you have read even half of the site. You will have seen the obvious connection that I had with the Interceptor. Also of course that I spent 19 years building and owning it.

So why did I sell the Interceptor?

How could I sell the very object that kept me sane all those years?

Why would I want to?

Why would I sell what was so entrenched in my life that is was part of myself?

How could I do that?

Difficult questions with harder answers?

No not really: The decision to sell the Interceptor rests entirely at the feet of the legislators of law in Australia.

The Interceptor became impossible to enjoy, as it simply can not be driven on a public road in Australia.

And the Police see to that!

My site has a few stories about travel in the Interceptor. Most were written about events that happened 15 years ago.

As of about 12 years ago I virtually stopped driving the Interceptor. I actually became kind of shell shocked by the Police harassment.

It is strange really because when in the Interceptor I was an actually a connection between Police and Public. Although I was never a Police member I was an ambassador just the same. All I had to do was pull on a leather Jacket and as I was driving the most famous Police car Australia had ever seen. And by default I became the most public Policeman in Australia.

When the Police pulled me up. The public applauded me and laughed at the Police. A nice sentiment and an interesting comment on just how the Police action was interpreted by the public. But all the same I still got booked.

In the end the Police won. As persecution has a way of being relentless they were always going too win in the end, I knew it all along.

The stress of waiting for the next confrontation finally overpowered the fun of driving. And more and more the Interceptor lived in sheds, Museums, under car covers in the yard. Any place I could find lodgings for it really. The only thing that it did not do was get driven.

Years went by.

In the passing time I contacted a few leading Car magazines hoping that they would support a push toward an alternate license law. Perhaps a law that would allow responsible and limited use of such a car on the public roads. All I wanted to do was drive it, even slowly, just to drive down the beachfront, and sit at a Cafe drinking coffee with the sunset coast behind. Or visit a mate and sit talking cars. Or go on a picnic, clubs cruise just anything to enjoy the car.

But neither the magazines nor the after market accessory companies (an entire industry supported by modified cars) were interested in taking on the Law. Nobody wanted to try.

I wrote long and involved submissions appealing for sponsorship, so I could "take the show on the road". Again zipp! No response. Reality. This entire Mad Max culture seems big on the Internet. But really it is no bigger than before the Internet existed at all. Today is really no different to the times I went for years alone in building the Interceptor. Those were the times of no pats on the back; no e-mail's of support, just people thinking I was nuts.

For advertising purposes the Interceptor is old so it has no promotional value, no cooperate interest. Cooperations are looking for the next new thing, and not to revive an old thing. Advertising trusts in trends, they want new new, buzz buzz, snap snap. Advertisers and Cooperation's have no trust in feelings or history.

In the final years even the trip to Wanneroo raceway for some legal responsible and controlled fast stuff was becoming impossible.

I would have to move the car before dawn, and return after dark, just to reduce the possibility of even being seen by Police.

And a dawn to dusk day was almost impossible with the storage arrangements I had. And I just did not have the money for a trailer a tow vehicle or storage.

By late in 2000 I could see that the boundaries had finally closed in for good.

Under Police roadside apprehension I was treated like a criminal, abused. lectured, everything but spat at. I would stand listening to some idiot lecture me about my unsafe car. And watch families passing by in decaying rusting death traps. Mobile coffins carrying families.

Morally I had no problem offending the law because there really was no common sense applied at all.

As evidenced by the legality of the Interceptor in the USA.

In my final attempts to establish creditability and find a use for the Interceptor, I approached the Cancer care operations of "Canteen" and "Make a wish". I offered the Interceptor as a ride for sick kids.

I tried "Canteen" first but even though it is OK to take a kid 2000 feet up in a hot air balloon, I was told that nobody would cover the insurance on a sick kid riding in controlled conditions around a racetrack in a fast car.

I then approached a racing driver who represented the "Make a wish" crew. Now the "Make a wish" team took sick kids riding in controlled conditions around a racetrack in a fast car.

Full of hope and picture of Interceptor in hand I was told that the situation was covered and that I had nothing to offer.

Another dead-end.

In the end it seemed that the only way to use the car would be to enter into the increasing number of car shows and there related (and limited distance) off public road 10 MPH cruises. .

But to be in this circus the Interceptor really need those pipes hooked up and some tough brut of an engine. Not the outback friendly starts every time 351 that could at least attempt to look after the wallet (with fuel at a dollar a litre).

My Interceptor had always been for endurance and long distance outback travel. Not a short blast around the block.

I thought about installing a 460 big block. But that would require me to remove an entire drive train that was in near new condition. Also it would be a financial disaster.

That was not the way.

I never advertised the Interceptor. It was never for sale. I guy just said put a price on it.

The interest was from overseas so that suited me fine.

The Australian culture and the people are the Interceptor.

The dusty Interceptor hauling across the red heartland is what Australia is all about.

But Australia from the Government point of view does not want it. So does a Government act in the interests of a country? Gosh no! Public interest has nothing to do with Government ... it never did.

To sell to the USA was the easy part.

When I found that Bob lived in Arizona it all fell into place. The Interceptor would get its desert home.

In a land where it would be accepted.

In the weeks prior to departure we filmed the still elusive video.

When the day came for the final one way drive down to the docks, it passed with out a drama. Nothing felt real.

I just got into the Interceptor and drove it straight through the busy traffic for 30 miles and into the container on Freemantle wharf. I never even saw a Cop.

The Interceptor; such a stranger to city traffic showed me how well it could behave, not a hic-up or a miss fire, it just purred along in warm Western Australian morning sun.

I personal drove the car into the container, and it was me who swung the heavy container door closed. The Interceptors last inches on Australian soil were not in the high speed outback that we had know so well, but at a slow crawl into the container with plugs spluttering and franticly searching for the missing rev's. Before I had the time to understand that the era was over. The Interceptor was gone..

So where do I go from here?

I now have a nice street legal XB coupe; it is a 351 but no fire-breather. Just a nice tidy cruise car. So I drive it every weekend.

In time I will soup it up. It will be fast but it can never be the same.

But I will be driving a coupe into the outback again soon. Just to enjoy the drive like before.

The years are still passing but I am driving again. I am still in the game.

Oh yes.. then out the back is that ex-drag race coupe. The 460 big block. It is almost ironic but my Interceptor went to a place called "Phoenix". "The Phoenix Interceptor". By legend the "Phoenix" rose from the ashes. Victory from loss if you like.

So this makes the Interceptor I am building with the 460 coupe exactly that, victory from loss and once again "A Phoenix Interceptor".

Sometimes I sit in the now engine-less and dusty bulk of the old drag coupe. From the drivers seat I look at the lifeless gauges then out across the hood. I dream and wonder.

Like I did so long ago.

Note:

I had reservations on the inclusion of this text as I feared that it would detract from the generally uplifting nature of the site. In the end I elected to let this addition stay simply because this is the way it is. And if this entry effects you the reader you have gained some understanding of just how it kicked the guts out'a me.