The 1972 Australian Touring Car Championship was one of the greatest contests ever, the Bathurst round one of the best races in a series full of close events in its 60 year history… The latter in essence allowed us to live beyond our means doing so as the houses we bought gained capital values of almost obscene levels (in Australia) thereby taking care of our debt/equity ratios. The 1972 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned national motor racing title open to Improved Production Touring Cars and Group E Series Production Touring Cars. Firth was starting to get an idea of how their Bathurst contender would fare later in the year. How the Photo Download Works. What a career!- FV to F1, Rallycross to Le Mans, he did, raced, built and won in everything (autopics). The 1972 race was a round of the 1972 Australian Manufacturers' Championship, which was open to Group E Series Production Touring Cars. ‘That car (the HDT prototype) as an experiment seemed to work ok. Initially registered by GMH on 28 April 1972 with a 6 cylinder engine, a V8 was fitted later by Experimental Engineering. Perkins in Gary Campbell’s Elfin 600B/E Ford during the 1972 Glynn Scott Memorial Trophy at Surfers Paradise, first F2 home (G Ruckert). Without going into all of the detail for international readers, Ford and Chrysler competed locally with factory teams. But a win is a win, the only one for the car. There was nothing to stop privateer teams running the ‘Top Gun’ Holden Monaro GTS 350, some did, but the ‘factory’ Holden Dealer Team had to run the cars Holden’s marketing needs demanded. There were over 30 built by a nearby country Holden Dealer here in South Australia as well as a few others by dealers interstate. Australian Touring Car Championship race number 3 of 8 Monday, April 3, 1972 at Mount Panorama Circuit, Bathurst, New South Wales 13 laps on a 6.240 kilometer street course (81.1 kilometers) Colin Bond’s HDT Torana LC GTR XU1 in the Bathurst pitlane 1971, 4th in the race won by Moffat’s works Falcon GTHO Phase 3 (autopics). The race was extended from 500 miles to 1000 kilometres in 1973. The car would have been a great 160 plus mph package with the slightly heavier V8 sitting back a bit in the chassis relative to the venerable Holden ‘Red’ six. They delved into their parts bins and packaged existing hardware- engines, gearboxes and chassis underpinnings into very attractive packages. Globemaster Sprint alloy wheels were used and some revisions to the suspension- they evolved a good package which gave Peter Brock his first Bathurst win- the last solo win as it happens in 1972. The solution was simple, build a V8 variant of the XU1. By 1966/7 those components were finding their way to their Australian subsidiaries and were packaged into yummy stuff such as the 289 cid V8 powered 1967 XR Ford Falcon GT and 1968 HK Holden Monaro GTS327. The later V8 L34 and A9X Torana’s incorporating lots of Repco goodies would of course come soon but the LJ V8 is a wonderful mighta-been with KSN-116 proof positive of just what a weapon the XU1 V8 was…, Brock on his way to LJ XU1 victory, Fiat 850 Coupe behind, Bathurst 500 1972 (unattributed). Posts about 1972 Bathurst 500 written by markbisset. 26 likes. They are nicer to drive than a standard XU1 as the engine (V8) is far smoother than the lumpy, grumpy 6’. And then along came the media hysteria ‘Supercar Scare’ which was a frenzy of journalists and politicians whipping themselves into a lather over ’18 up year olds driving around the streets of our cities at 160 mph’. The Bathurst 1,000 is a 1,000.293-kilometre (621.553 mi) touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia.It is currently run as a championship event for Supercars.. ‘Series Production’ were essentially showroom stock cars, the class to which the Bathurst 500 was run. Mount Panorama, Bathurst - 1st October, 1972 Number of Laps: 130 Total Race Time: 6:0:99.1 Fastest lap: Allan Moffat, 2:36.5 (141.98 km/h) Classes: Class A - Up to 3000 CP Units; Class B - 3001 to 9000 CP Units; Class C - 9001 to 18000 CP Units; Class D - Over 18000 CP Units It was held on 30 September 1973 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst. ‘They do flex-horrid little car but they were also a great race car! This topic has been well ventilated down the decades amongst enthusiasts in Australia, their is little point adding to it here. It was open to production vehicles competing in showroom condition, [1] with the field divided into five classes based on the purchase price of the vehicle in Australian dollars. Tendered for sale by GM in February 1975. Group C Era. He was off to Snetterton for the Formula Ford Festival with Garrie Cooper’s first Elfin 620FF late in the year, he won the Australian FF ‘Driver to Europe Series’ in 1971 but took his prize a year later knowing he would be better prepared, the rest is history. ‘Let’s not piss the pollies off’ was the main aim of GMH, Ford and Chrysler management, the price of not building a few hundred high-performance machines was a cheap one to pay to keep the self serving State Governments and Canberra dickheads at bay. When tested again at Calder by Brock on 31 May 1972, running a 2.78:1 diff and Detroit Locker it was a second a lap quicker than a normal XU1 driven by Colin Bond at the same test. 1972 was also the last year that drivers were permitted to drive without co-drivers. 72745 - E. Olsen Ford Escort T/C - Bathurst 1972 Order a Photographic Print or a Download. Bathurst High class of 1972. Mount Panorama pickings were decidedly slimmer once the marketing focus changed to the six-cylinder Holden Torana in 1970. Bruce Hodgson with Fred Gocentas aboard their Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 4 during the Southern Cross Rally, Mount Faulk Road outside Port Macquarie in October 1973. The first and most developed of the racers was sold to a chap in Toowoomba and is now in the Bowden Collection. Tweet. With their V8 plans scuttled the HDT gave the specifications of the LJ six a tickle, by use of a wild ‘HX’ camshaft and with engines balanced and blueprinted they gave circa 212bhp. A Belmont wasn’t fit for anything other than as an inner city cab operated at less than 35 mph. Ford’s Mustang and Chev’s Camaro being ‘Pony Car’ cases in point. Digby Cooke qualified the Monaro 2nd, DNF with Trevor and Neil Mason 21st in the race won by the Colin Bond/Tony Roberts HDT GTS350 (S Jek), Cooke/Bowden Monaro 350GTS Bathurst 1970 Q2 and DNF gearbox, Bathurst below (S Jek). Australian Touring Car Championship race number 3 of 8 Monday, April 3, 1972 at Mount Panorama Circuit, Bathurst, New South Wales 13 laps on a … It was held on 30 September 1973 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst. 1972 Bathurst Previous race results / Next race results Previous at this track / Next at this track. The category allowing the wildest modifications was ‘Sports Racing Closed/Sports Sedans’. The 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500 was an endurance motor race open to Group E Series Production Touring Cars. A 300bhp Phil Irving head Holden 6 was as quick as my then 380bhp Chev, though my engine bill was a LOT less which was the reason originally (to change from the Holden 6 to Chevy V8). Larry drove and tested for the HDT in 1972, mainly competing in Rallycross, his primary race program that season was driving Garry Campbell’s Elfin 600 B/E Ford ANF2 car to the national Australian Formula 2 title. The LC and later 202 cid LJ 1971-73 XU1’s were supreme road cars (the LC ‘praps not so much, it was way too choppy in spring/shock rates to take your babe to the drive-in) and winners in rallies, rallycross and on the circuits. Lee continued ‘My XU1 Chev Sports Sedan highlighted that. Fitted with a 5 litre Holden ‘308’ V8, M21 4 speed gearbox, suspension tweaks and away they went, the car was driven by Brock, Bond and Larry Perkins. Larrikins in the HDT Rallycross LC XU1 supercharged ‘Beast’ at Catalina Park in Sydney’s Blue Mountains in 1972. None of us are complaining mind you, even if our kids are! The second racer was given to Hodgson, a Ford works Escort rally exponent who rallied it for several years before the machine was involved in a head on accident with a Holden Commodore, the wreck exists. Whilst Holden were beavering away on their 1972 Bathurst contender, out in Mahoneys Road, Broadmeadows on the other side of Melbourne Ford were working on the new XA Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 4 whilst in Tonsley Park, Adelaide Chrysler were working on a V8 engined RT Charger, the E55. Of Ford’s four Phase 4’s constructed, the least built up racer, the spare was given to John Goss, it was sold via McLeod Ford, assembled for road use. It’s a shame really as the spec of the XU1 V8 would have been sweet- slinky, small (floppy in race terms) body, 308cid 300 bhp’ish V8, M21 4 speed box, Detroit locker diff, 6×13 inch Globe Sprintmaster wheels, long-range fuel tanks and aerodynamic aids. The machine also featured widened 6X13 inch steel wheels and a full-width front spoiler incorporating brake ducts intended for the road-going variant. Tweet. Hodgson and Gocentas, Phase 4, rally and date unknown (unattributed). Brock drove it as a loan car but the 308 V8 had been replaced with the 202 LJ 6. Brock raced the LC V8 car at Calder on 14 May in the ‘Marlboro Trophy Series’ minus spoilers but with the widened steel wheels shown in the Bathurst shots earlier in this article, in a combined sports Sedan and improved tourer race running as a support event for the ‘Repco Birthday Series’ event for F5000 cars. Mason/Mason Mazda R100 and Cooke/Mason Monaro GTS350 Bathurst 1969. So, the cars were all ‘pulled’ (or considerably softened as a luxury cruiser in Chrysler’s case) by manufacturers keen to maintain the high tariff walls the pollies provided which enabled them to produce sub-standard crap, flog it to the punters and make a poultice. This was the first race to be held under the new metricised distance of 1000 kilometres, rather than the 500 miles previously contested. The Facebook page for all those who attended Bathurst High school who would have graduated in 1972. Referred to as the ‘Lockwood Special’ due to the bonnet pin locks so fitted! 1972: Next: 1974: The 1973 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was the 14th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. GMH were proceeding to develop the production version of Harry’s V8 prototype ordering three GTR (not XU1) V8’s, which were sent down the Elizabeth, South Australia plant production line on 13 April 1972 for use by the Experimental Engineering team at GM’s Port Melbourne plant in inner Melbourne. Torana racer/engineer Lee Nicholle had this to say about the prospects/charcteristics of XU1 V8’s on ‘The Nostalgia Forum’. Steel wheels and a full-width front spoiler incorporating brake ducts intended for the car experiment seemed work! 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