Saturday Sleuthing: Tim 'Plastic' Pemberton

You might not instantly recognise Tim Pemberton's name, but you're almost certainly familiar with his work.

As the PR guru for Holden's motorsport efforts for over three decades, 'Plastic' was responsible for lingo and imagery that is now embedded in Supercars folklore.

Entering Australian motorsport in the 1970s, his first gig centred around no less a figure than Peter Brock, beginning a working relationship and friendship that lasted until the icon's tragic passing in 2006.

Although, as he shared with Saturday Sleuthing, Pemberton didn't have much more than a passing interest in motorsport before he was tasked to work with the King of the Mountain…

What does an average day look like for Tim Pemberton in 2019?

Watching sport on television and doing nothing much else! When you're retired, that's what you do I guess. Plenty of footy, cricket and motorsport.

Were you interested in motorsport before you got involved in it? What was your background prior to that?

No, I was a bit of a football fanatic. I was connected to the Carlton Football Club here in Melbourne and working in advertising agencies.

Doing that, I got involved with the Road Safety and Traffic Authority here in Victoria, which in turn was sponsoring Peter Brock in 1975 to go and do a bit of road safety stuff around the place.

They were looking for someone to tour around Victoria with him. I thought that would be interesting, not knowing much about who Peter Brock was – I knew that he'd won Bathurst and stuff, but that was about all – and I got involved that way.

Do you remember the first time you met him?

Yes I do – it was in a restaurant in St Kilda Road, and I remember he kept bludging my cigarettes because he didn't have any!

And the road safety deal was what prompted him to adopt his signature #05?

That was being developed at that stage. The problem with 0.05 then was that it wasn't a national figure; in New South Wales, 0.08 was the drink-driving level.

That was the reason why, when he went to Bathurst in 1975 with #05 on his car, they said to take it off, that it wasn't legitimate because they believed in '08' not '05' – we don't care about you Victorians, so you are now #5!

NSW changed over to 0.05 a year or two later, so that's when he picked #05 up for all his races.

Brock obviously had the reputation later in his career as being extremely good with fans and people in general, but was he like that back then?

The RTA program probably helped it. I don't think he really was (as good) back then, but having moved around doing these road safety chats at town halls around Victoria, you'd get two to three thousand people jammed into them, he really had a good line of speech.

His question-and-answer stuff was terrific, too. In the process of that, he probably knew more about the driving habits of Australians than anybody in the government, I reckon!

It really developed his speaking skills and his ability to get on with people.

Dick Johnson recently told the V8 Sleuth Podcast that you and Brock offered him some help in 1981 amid his emergence as Ford's chief rival to Brock and Holden…

It was just a matter of someone replacing (Allan) Moffat. The situation was 'black hat' vs 'white hat' and both characters – Moffat and Brock – developed that, and it got everyone lots of media coverage and gave a point to the whole exercise.

Then Moffat lost interest in the late '70s and didn't turn up to races half the time. Dick Johnson was sort of the #2 Ford driver, so he was the logical replacement to step into that publicity area.

You were responsible for coining a lot of terms that have become iconic in the lexicon of motorsport history: ‘Big Bangers’ for the last of the Group C HDT Commodores, the 'Energy Polariser' I believe was one of yours as well…

Yes, it was – I lived to regret that!

What were some of the other expressions or terms you dreamed up, and which was your favourite?

That's delving into the memory bank … I remember the 'Big Bangers'. That was only because the Holdens were about to change from five-litre engines to 4.9-litre (to better suit incoming Group A rules).

I just thought, well, it's the last race for the big five-litres … it's the last of the 'Big Bangers'.

We did a poster with the car on it and what have you, and the media guys thought it wasn't bad and got hold of it and used it to promote the Bathurst race.

There were a few other things … back in those days you did lots of big posters because the dealerships liked sticking them in their windows, and Holden was going to pay for them, so…

One of the ones which was my favourite was the 'Jekyll and Hyde' poster, which had half the road car at the front, and half the race car (the 1991 VN Commodore Group A) at the back!

You said off the top that you weren't really interested in motorsport until you got involved … what kept you around? What drove the passion?

Earning money off Holden! (laughs)

No, it was a good well-paid exercise, but once you get involved with Supercars in particular, inside the team environment, it's pretty exciting stuff.

Far more so than if you're just watching on television or watching the odd race; you don't really get the connection to what's going on in the pits, and that's half the interest in the whole exercise.

You were involved in a lot of fun, quirky and wild publicity campaigns and stunts over the years. Are there any that particularly stand out?

Dressing all the drivers as barbarians! That was a good one – except it didn't work with fans. They couldn't recognise who was who! The drivers thought it was terrific.

We also did a few film clips with the Holden drivers...

… including the 'Always Holden On' music video?

Yeah! We invented this song to do with racing and they were all pretending to play instruments.

The drivers all loved that – plus the fact that there was plenty of beer to be drank while this was occurring.

That was a lot of fun doing that, but it probably didn't go down too well with the fan base: 'Why are all those blokes singing? What does it all mean?'

Do you still follow Supercars pretty closely?

Yes, but I don't go to any races. I've got a crook foot, so the last thing I'd go to is a motor racing circuit where you've got to walk everywhere.