WHAT IS your favourite home-grown racing car of all time?

WORDS: Richard Craill IMAGES: Mark Walker / Supplied / Credited

That’s the question that was posed to the TRT team during this week’s episode of On the Grid, our weekly Motorsport news and views podcast that is live now – do jump over and have a listen.

With three hours’ notice, no collaboration between any of us, and absolutely no other criteria other than ‘favourite’ and ‘Aussie-made’, the list we ultimately came up with turned out to be absolutely diverse and totally fantastic.

It reflected our own personal interests within the broader sport, dragged out some unsuspected cars that you might not have thought about – but also proved that the all-time greats really are that.

It was a fun experiment and one we’ll repeat on other topics down the road, but in the meantime, we’d love your feedback: What’s your top five list of aussie-made racing cars?

Let us know via our social media channels now!

TONY SCHIBECI

5. Jason Richards Greg Murphy Racing VE Commodore Super2 Car
4. Marcos Ambrose Pirtek Stone Brothers Racing AU Falcon
3. Triple Eight Race Engineering ZB Commodore – 2018 Bathurst 1000 winner
2. Marlboro Holden Dealer Team 1979 A9X Torana hatch (Bathurst winner)
1. Holden Dealer Team 1972 LJ Torana GTR XU-1 (Brock’s Bathurst winner)

SCHIBECS leant more towards the recent history of the sport and the emotions centred around particular cars as much as the cars themselves; which is absolutely a valid thing to do.

No one thought we’d see the inclusion of a Greg Murphy Racing-run Commodore Super2 car on the list, but when you consider the feelings the sport as a whole has for the late Jason Richards you can completely understand it.

The Ambrose SBR Falcon was the best of a not particularly good Supercar model for the Blue Oval, and Schibecs loved the fact it delivered Marcos his first Bathurst 1000 pole position, on debut. Can’t go wrong with a Pirtek livery, either.

The winner of the fastest ever Bathurst 1000 made it half way up Schibecs list: the T8 ZB Commodore used so devastatingly by Craig Lowndes and Steven Richards that year sneaking into third place.

P2 on Tony’s list was the dominant HDT Torana that smote the Touring Car field at Bathurst in 1979, Brock and Jimmy Richards winning by six laps in that famous race – but he also noted wins along the way in the ATCC; dominated by Torana and won by the similar hatch driven by the great Bob Morris.

Finally, another Brock Car made the top of Tony’s list: the 1972 Bathurst-winning LJ GTR XU1. A car that coined the phrase ‘Giant Killer’, the 202 Holden six took on the might of the Falcon GTHO and beat them on the Mountain thanks to canny driving, an assist from the weather, great economy and more. The start of the Brock Legend.

MARK WALKER

5. Veskanda C1 Sports Car
4. Tony Ricciardello’s Alfa Romeo GTV Sports Sedan
3. Nations Cup Holden Monaro 427
2. Marlboro Holden Dealer Team VK Commodore
1. Norm Beechey’s Holden Monaro GTS 350

MARK’S eclectic selection broadly mixes some history with more modern machinery in style and it turned out to be quite a list.

In at five was the mighty Veskanda C1, the remarkable one of a kind Sports Car built by Adelaide-based K&A Engineering in 1985 to tackle the Australian Sports Car Championship. With Chev V8 motivation it was at the time and remains to this day one of the fastest racing cars ever built here. The car is one of the most iconic locally-made cars ever made and remains in action to this day.

Fourth on Mark’s list is another iconic machine: Tony & Basil Ricciardello’s awesome Alfa Romeo GTV Sports Sedan monster that is without question the most successful individual car in the history of Australian Motorsport. The Alfa has been developed and developed over the years so much so that it’s probably ‘Grandfathers Axe’; but the fact it remains competitive against much more modern machinery is a testament to the car and the guy who steers it so well. Mighty.

The Garry Rogers Motorsport Holden Monaro 427 Nations Cup car and Bathurst 24 Hour winner was next on Mark’s top five; an incredibly worthy inclusion for a project that had a short lead-time but delivered a relentlessly reliable, fast and incredible looking and sounding race car that dominated the two years of the 24 Hour. Watch for a documentary on this car coming soon..

Second on Mark’s list is the famed Last of the Big Bangers; The Marlboro Holden Dealer Team VK Commodore from the end of the 1984 season and indeed Australia’s iconic, if somewhat controversial, Group C era. There’s not much more we can add to the history already told about this car, but Mark loved the fact the HDT went all-out with the new car despite knowing Group A was coming just a few months later.

However, topping Mark’s list is Norm Beechey’s iconic Shell HT GTS 350 Monaro that delivered Stormin’ Normin’ the Australian Touring Car Championship in 19870. Mark saw it live in the Pirtek Legends of Motorsport display on the Gold Coast in 2009 and it has remained etched in his mind ever since. One of the coolest.

DALE RODGERS

5. Matich SR4 Sports Car
4. Dick Johnson’s Tru-Blu 1981 XD Falcon
3. Iain ‘Pete’ Geoghegan 1968 Ford Mustang GTA
2. Pirtek Stone Brothers Racing Ford BA Falcon – Marcos Ambrose
1. Norm Beechey’s Holden Monaro GTS 350

WE GAVE Dale Rodgers some grief for showing his age here, but what a cracking list this is regardless.

The exploits of Aussie engineer and driver Frank Matich are not discussed enough in the annuals of Australian Motorsport, so it is fantastic that Dale listed his SR4 Sports Car in fifth position. The beautiful Sports Car dominated the 1969 Australian Sports Car Championship in Frank’s hands and as fast as it was; the stuninng looks helped make this thing iconic.

Speaking of iconic, Dale’s fourth-placed car began to show off his leanings towards all things Blue Oval and, especially, Dick Johnson: Tru-Blu. The car is iconic, of course, but Dale loved the fact that this was the way Dick repaid his long-suffering fans, and Ford itself, following the Rock incident a year earlier.

Third on Dale’s list is the 1968 Ford Mustang GTA raced so ably by the great Iain ‘Pete’ Geoghagan to the ATCC title that year, while another Ford was second: The iconic Pirtek BA Falcon driven by Marcos Ambrose to back-to-back Supercars crowns in 2003 and 2004.

Recently restored by Ross Stone, the BA returned Ford to the top of the pops after years of copping a thrashing from Holden in the Supercars Championship and this particular car was made even more notable by the fact that Ambrose used the same car for both titles, a rare feat indeed.

Like Mark, however, Dale couldn’t go past the iconic Holden Monaro raced so effectively by Norm Beechey for several seasons. He wrote about that very car in his extensive feature on Norm’s great cars, here.

RICHARD CRAILL

5. Elfin MR9 F5000
4. S5000
3. John Gourlay’s Audi A4 Chevrolet Sports Sedan
2. Marlboro Holden Dealer Team 1979 A9X Torana hatch
1. Marlboro Holden Dealer Team 1984 VK Commodore

PICK THE ‘Wings and Slicks’ tragic among the group! I launched into my top five with something I thought reasonably left-field: the 1980 Elfin MR9 F5000 car which I think is totally under-appreciated in the annuals of Australia’s open wheel history. Developed as a Ground Effects car for the first time, the MR9 was essentially the only car ever specifically developed for the category; other cars were adapted. Never raced as much as it should have, it looked like a 1980s F1 car of the time and is a testament of Garrie Cooper’s genius.

From old wings and slicks to new; I put the S5000 race car fourth on my list, not so much for what it has achieved but for what it has the potential to do. A truly excellent exercise in adapting an international product to the local conditions, the amount of Aussie engineering that has gone into adapting the Oreca chassis to the S5000 concept has been significant and beautifully done. The cars look great, sound great, are fast enough and safe as anything on the world stage.

Third place is a car that ensures we cover off the two iconic Sports Sedans of the last two decades: The thundering Audi A4, Chev-powered monster lovingly fettled by owner John Gourlay for a long time now, and raced successfully by the likes of Darren Hossack and Jack Perkins. Though highly strung at times, the look, the sound and the vibes created by this car are phenomenal every time it graces a circuit.

It was always going to be Brock cars one and two on my list; the ’79 Bathurst winner ended up second and the car that won in 1984 ultimately topped it. As a Torana owner, the A9X is the ultimate car in my eyes and what Brock, Richards and the HDT achieved with it on the Mountain in 1979 was awe-inspiring, most impressively setting the lap record on the final lap of the race.

The ’84 winner has more significance, though; as well as just being a horn looking thing, it also won Bathurst the year I was born and that kind of thing means something when you’ve grown up with that race, and as a Brock fan.