Muscle News
The great Bathurst Brock auction and the arrival of HSV’s RHD Camaro.
An auction of the largest single collection of Peter Brock cars and memorabilia in existence, held at Bathurst on the night before the Bathurst 1000 – Lloyds’ ‘Brock Collection’ auction of Peter Championowned cars was an event in itself.
As an auction, it set new records; it was, in fact, Lloyds’ biggest Australian auction ever.
Total sales on the nal fall of the auctioneer’s hammer amounted to just under $6 million, although Lloyds spokesperson Kirstie Mini e expected that gure to rise considerably during post-auction negotiations with some of the under-bidders.
“The total from the sale will hit $10 million,” Mini e said. “We’re expecting the rest of the cars to sell in the next few days.”
On the night, the best was saved till last. The nal item to go under the hammer, the ‘82/’83 Bathurst winning HDT Commodore VH, attracted the highest price – a record-breaking $2.1m.
With this car presented in a hybrid form to re ect both of its winning years, featuring ’83-style rear end and ’82 front, but dressed in the ’82 livery, it might be seen as two cars for the price of one. This HDT Commodore’s dual provenance notwithstanding, it’s an astonishing sum of money for a historic Australian touring car.
The other ‘big ticket’ item, the Champion collection’s ’84 day-glo Bathurst HDT Commodore VK ‘Big Banger’, ended up being passed in on the night at $850,000.
Intriguingly given that the legend of Brock is so intrinsically linked to Holden, the cars which attracted the next two highest sums were Fords: a Falcon GT-HO Phase III which had been driven at Mount Panorama by Brock in the early ‘90s for a magazine story, and a Group A Sierra RS500. The Falcon attracted $800,000; the Sierra went for $595,000.
In a re ection of the growing interest in historic Group A cars in Europe, bids for the Sierra sat
as high as $565,000 before the auction began. It sold to an overseas purchaser.
Lloyds’ Kirstie Minifie said that overall there was considerable international interest in the Brock collection, including ‘two strong bidders from the USA’..
While most of the buyers wished to remain anonymous for the moment, Minifie said that despite the high prices paid for some of the cars, it’s unlikely they’ll be locked away, secure from public view and stored as ‘investments’.
“A lot of the buyers are interested in displaying their cars publicly,” she says. “And some will race them.”
Another high seller was the 05 Brock/Parsons VL Commodore from the ’87 Bathurst 1000. This, of course, was not the winning car, but rather the one Brock abandoned early in the race that year after its engine failed, so that he could continue in the sister #10 car – which went on to a famous (and unlikely) victory. This car sold for $800,000.
While Commodores were in high demand (although a ’91 Brock Mobil Group A VN race car only got to $310,000 before it was passed in), there seemed less interest in Toranas.
The HDT Torana A9X four-door driven by Brock at Sandown in his return race for the factory team in February, 78, fell short at $250,000, as did a former HDT L34 (but presented in A9X trim) race car. It was passed in on the night at $375,000.
The auction included a series of replica ‘tribute’ Brock race cars as well as some unusual Brock originals such as the HDT Monza two-door prototype and a pair of Brock Targa Tasmania cars (a Monaro and VU Ute). The 5.0-litre Monza went for just under $100,000; the Monaro was passed in at $150,000 and the Ute sold for $77,000.
Of the tribute cars, a neatly turned out HDT XU-1 ‘Beast’ Sports Sedan replica attracted bids of no less than $170,000.
The night before, Lloyds auctioned off Craig Lowndes’ 2018 Bathurst race suit. It was donated by Craig as a fund raiser for the local farmers’ drought relief effort. It sold for $23,000 – which probably seemed like quite a sum on the night, but 48 hours later was looking like a rather shrewd investment…