Lansvale Commodore back to life

The Lansvale Racing team was a Bathurst regular in the 1980s and ‘90s and now one of its former Group A VL Commodores has been rebuilt and is almost set to go – across the ditch.

Current owner of the ex-Trevor Ashby/Steve Reed machine, Rodney Heads, has spent the last 12 months working on the yellow Commodore in New Zealand to bring it back to its former glory, its 1988 Bathurst-spec and corresponding livery.

“All the signwriting is done, the wiring should be nished soon and all the fuel lines are about to go into it,” Heads told AMC.

“I can’t wait to get it running again, we should be ring it up within the next month.”

The privateer-run Commodore was originally built new from a Holden Motor Sport race body and debuted in carburettor-spec, nishing 10th at Bathurst that year.

The car was upgraded to fuel-injected ‘Walkinshaw’ speci cations for the Bathurst 1000 the following year but the team decided to convert it back to a carburettor for 1989 before returning to Bathurst, where they nished 13th.

The car went on to make ve more Great Race starts in privateer hands (and back in ‘Walkinshaw’-spec) with Glenn Mason in 1993 and Greg Fahey and Denis Cribbin in 1994. It was subsequently sold off to New Zealand.

“It was raced 15 years ago and then put in a shed and now every mechanical component in it has been rebuilt, checked or greased,” Heads said.

“It’s still got all the scrutineering stickers on it from Bathurst, which is a cool part of its character.”

The New Zealand business owner tells AMC he could be tempted into selling the Group A racer once it’s complete.