50 years on: How Brock turned HDT axing into gold

Much is made about Peter Brock’s famous split with Holden in 1987 in the wake of the launch of the infamous HDT ‘Director’ Commodore road car and Energy Polarizer.

But it wasn’t the first time Brock had had a split of sorts with Holden, though his surprise sacking from the Harry Firth-run Holden Dealer Team at the end of 1974 didn’t fully divorce him from a connection to the factory-supported team.

And it didn’t stop him from winning at the place that mattered most, Bathurst.

Brock had been having his racing and business affairs managed by then-wife Michelle Downes’ manager, which proved the last straw for Holden, who pulled the pin on their star driver.

“It got to the stage where it really started to irk me because this guy started saying, ‘You’re not to book Peter for anything unless I approve it and you’re not to talk to Peter anymore, and I’ve told Peter he’s not to talk to you anymore,’” former Holden motorsport exec Joe Felice told Australian Muscle Car magazine in 2020.

“I just said to Peter, ‘Your choice – either you drop this guy or we’re going to drop you.’ And he said, “No, I’m going to stick with him.’ So I terminated his GMH contract and got Harry to terminate his driving contract. It was a big decision for the company because everybody loved Peter.”

With no cash, no car and his off-track life in turmoil with Brock linked up for 1975 with Melbourne-based racers Norm Gown and Bruce Hindhaugh in a privateer L34 Torana.

“These blokes were just basic car enthusiasts who loved motorsport,” Brock told model company Biante in 2005.

“Not for one moment did they try to emulate anything that Harry Firth did. The Box Hill boys had their own engine development program, which included a wet sump that worked a treat, a small capacity carby and a budget that meant it was back to my bush town of Hurstbridge for me!”

However, that’s not to say there wasn’t a bit of ‘back door’ help from Firth along the way, as parts and know-how still managed to flow to the little team. Brock was still a favourite son, despite his departure from the General.

The Gown-Hindhaugh Torana didn’t star in the sprint races of the Australian Touring Car Championship, but it was unstoppable in the endurance events.

At Sandown’s September endurance race Brock took his newly renumbered #05 Torana to victory, the very first time he raced under the then-new number, a reference to Victoria’s blood alcohol limit for drivers on the road.

Paired with Brian Sampson for Bathurst (who had co-driven with Brock in a HDT Torana in 1974), Brock qualified third for the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 behind Allan Moffat’s Ford and Colin Bond’s HDT Torana.

He played it steady in the race, ran behind his two main rivals in the early laps, eased into the lead and went on to win by more than two laps to record his second of an eventual nine Bathurst ‘Great Race’ victories.

The win was Brock’s first Bathurst success in a V8-powered Holden (his 1972 win had come in the six-cylinder XU-1 Torana) and not the end of his late-year winning streak.

He kept the form rolling into the 500-kilometre race at Phillip Island, driving solo to score yet another endurance race victory in the privateer Torana.

Brock spent the next two years with his own Team Brock and then Bill Patterson Racing operations, eventually ‘coming home’ to the HDT for 1978 in the wake of Holden’s demolition at the hands of Allan Moffat’s Ford team at Bathurst in 1977.

A decade later his bust-up with Holden in February 1987 was even more public than the first, but once again he returned in the wake of a split with GM-Holden and won Bathurst, this time for the ninth and final time.