Redemption for the Walkinshaw

As the 1980s drew to a close, the VL Commodore SS Group A SV, or ‘Walkinshaw’, as it’s more commonly known, was looking set to go down in history as by far the least successful Holden model in touring car racing ever.

From its race debut in mid-1988 (which coincided with the release of the all-new VN Commodore – so that within the Holden model lineage the rst postBrock HDT race homologation offering from TWR was technically out of date as soon as it hit the race track!) up until Bathurst 1990, it had scored precisely

race win. A one-two, in fact, with Larry Perkins heading home Holden Special Vehicles team-mate Denny Hulme at the end-of-year touring car support race at the ’88 Australian Grand Prix meeting on the Adelaide street circuit. A win is a win, but in this case it relied on the near complete failure of their opposition Sierra and Nissan eet, as one by one the turbocars wilted under the hot South Australian summer sun.

The Holden Racing Team’s 1990 Bathurst victory would also be dependent on the turbo teams engaging in a bit of feet shooting, which they duly did, but even then the HRT needed to have a fast and reliable car to take full advantage of the situation. Which they indeed did.

With Larry Perkins going on later that year (with Tomas Mezera) to win the Nissan Sydney 500 at the brand-new Eastern Creek circuit, the previously discredited – and even unloved – VL ‘Walkinshaw’ bowed out of frontline touring car racing on a magni cent, and completely unexpected, high.