Today's feuding families are the Holdens and the Fords and their panel-splintering escapades have been going on for a long, long time.
Since both families first took to the hills of rural Bathurst, way out west of Sydney town, there has been a split right down the middle of automotive society in Australia.
The Holdens don't like the look of them Fords and them Fords ain't got nuthin' but spittle for them Holdens.
Most times of the year little is said, although in heartland Australia (or anywhere in Oz for that matter) you see the bumper stickers like "Only Holdens Have the Tow Bar on the Front" or "What do you call a Ford with 200,000 miles on it? ... a lie."
It is a fine feud, pure and simple, and it's one of those colourful things which makes this form of motorsport a little more special than most.
Of course what makes events like Bathurst even more intriguing in this age is the fact that "interlopers" have appeared.
Crikey cobber ... there are some Volvos and Nissans out there and, well, they sound and go pretty good.
Although you wouldn't say that too loudly staked upon a patch of that hillside near Skyline surrounded by blue Ford flags and red and white Holden flags.
Hey, there's another option for a new flag. Nah, maybe not ... you'd split the country in half.
Which I daresay is going to happen anyway if the whole absurd idea of changing what we've always had and which has served us perfectly well goes ahead. But enough of that ... it is the weekend of the great race.
The Bathurst 1000, and like the Melbourne Cup which is set to be staged in just a month's time (where did that last year go?) it is the sort of high-horsepower event which can stop a nation.
I can remember about 20 years ago when it also gave us a good seat at a good winery restaurant, and excellent service as there were few people about.
I said to the waiter bloke we weren't sure we'd get a spot, as Sundays in spring were always popular, but he said it appeared a large slice of the populace were watching the great race.
I figured if it dented the commercial populace to that extent here across the ditch the landscape of Australia must have been absolutely barren.
Probably not so much the bars though as the automotive-minded versions of the Hatfields and the McCoys lined up and took aim at each other with sharp and funny little barbs.
I figure spending all day watching the whole thing is not practical. I watch the start and the opening laps and return a couple of hours later to see what's happened and then take in the final hour, because inevitably that's when things really start to happen.
While the Holden chaps like Garth Tander and Jamie Whincup, and Ford's Chaz Mostert and Mark Winterbottom can be seen as favourites, in 1000km of racing a lot can happen and even the underdogs get a good sniff.
As we Kiwis tend to do, we have spread our allegiance nicely. Shane van Gisbergen drives a Ford, Scott McLaughlin steers a Volvo and Fabian Coultard punts a Holden.
And all three are very quick.
It is a big motorsport weekend, which actually gets underway on Friday on Sky Sport 3 with replays of qualifying and night racing.
And Saturday sees the top 10 shootout at 11.30am on SS3 and then on Sunday ... it's all on.
On the Box
-Highway Patrol, TV2 at 8pm Thursday: It's rather frightening to consider who is driving what out there on the open roads, and how they are driving. We've all seen the genuinely dodgy drivers who can't indicate and who can't keep their distances and who are illiterate when it comes to recognising what 'stop' or 'give way' means. This weekly outing where you get to tag along with the highway coppers reveals some ... shall we say, interesting confrontations. Some are relatively low level and often even humorous, but others are genuinely serious and alarming. Always interesting, and from what I've seen it's not a task I would feel keen to pursue.
-7 Days and After Hours, TV3 at 9.30pm and 10pm Friday: A good dose of Kiwi humour wrapped end-to-end at the conclusion of the week. Jeremy Corbett and his 7 Days panel crew pick up on the events of the week and basically tear them, and the people who sparked them, to shreds. And there are occasions when you end up asking yourself "are they allowed to say that?" It's followed by a re-run of the Ben Hurley-hosted After Hours where the stand-up comics of the land are let loose. And here we have one of the most recognised ones - Rhys Darby.
