Brock VK

It didn’t win many races, and yet this Brock/HDT Group A Commodore is one very special Holden

success racer did enjoy some on-track This Commodore Group A thinks comes to mind when one but it’s not a car that generally this car’s race machines. But it’s not of the classic Peter Brock it unique position special, but rather the race record that makes it the Holden Dealer Team. occupies in the history of

Acouple of issues ago (AMC113), we took a deep dive into the rst ‘non-Holden supported’ HDT road cars produced by Peter Brock. This is the car that stands on the other side of the divide. HDT 14 is the last race car built and campaigned by Brock’s Holden Dealer Team prior to its divorce with General Motors Holden on February 20, 1987.

This car is also responsible for the squad’s last victory as a factory team, which came on the concrete-lined Wellington street circuit in New Zealand – barely a month prior to the split that shook Australia.

While the separation of Brock and Holden marks a signi cant point in this car’s history, so too is there a remarkable union.

Brock had recruited long-time foe Allan Moffat to be his co-driver in Australia and overseas for 1986. HDT 14 is thus the only machine the two Mount Panorama legends shared in a Bathurst 1000.

HDT 14 debuted in the 1986 Sandown 500. Brock and Moffat led the race early on but fell back after various dramas, including a broken sway bar and a flat tyre.

Despite its relatively brief competition record – and just one win to its name – HDT 14 holds an unmatchable place in Holden’s racing heritage.

Build

Australia’s adoption of international Group A touring car rules meant the race side of HDT had been very busy in 1985.

The team built three new VK Commodores during the season, then constructed two more

new cars late in the year for its 1986 European Touring Car Championship campaign!

But 1986 was very different: just one new race car came out of HDT’s Port Melbourne headquarters as the team tackled both the Australian Touring Car Championship and selected races in Europe.

HDT 14 debuted at that year’s Sandown 500, Brock qualifying his new Commodore on pole position in the Dulux Dozen one-lap shootout, the Mobil-backed driver proudly accepting the $1000 prize cheque from opposition sponsor Castrol!

Though the new #05 Commodore led early, a broken front sway bar left Brock and Moffat struggling to hold off the Roadways-built Commodore of Allan Grice and Graeme Bailey for best of the rest behind the Nissan Skylines that ran away with the race.

A mid-race puncture for Moffat and a late spin for Brock meant the Chickadee car was the rst Commodore home in third place behind the turbocharged Nissans, making for ominous signs heading into the big race at Bathurst. Bathurst 1986

With 12 wins in ‘the Great Race’ between them, Brock and Moffat represented one of the best-credentialled driving combinations to ever tackle the Bathurst 1000.

However, the all-star campaign suffered a major blow in Friday morning’s practice session wh en Moffat extensively damaged the #05 Commodore in what he described as the biggest crash of his career.

A new patch of road heading into McPhillamy Park had meant there was a new bump there, as well as the usual bump on the apex.

Running right behind Graeme Crosby’s Commodore, Moffat slid just a couple of feet wide, dropped the back wheel into a small, muddy hole on the outside of the track.

The car slewed across the circuit and hit the wall hard, riding up and along the concrete for some 50 metres before coming down and coasting to the grass on the outside of Skyline.

Moffat jumped out of the car and, nursing a jarred wrist, climbed the concrete fence, hiding behind it away from the mounting crowd – clearly embarrassed.

Brock took it in his stride and his team sprang into action. The damaged car was taken straight from the circuit to Bathurst Motor Body Works in town and the rebuild commenced.

The car was completely stripped back to the rewall and the team carefully replaced both front chassis rails, inner guards and the radiator support panel.

Front-end mechanicals were own up from Melbourne (an Australian Airlines jet was held at the terminal in order for the parts to make the ight!) and body panels were taken from an HDT show car on display in one of Bathurst’s banks.

Just 21 hours after the accident, Brock drove the repaired race car back to the track under Police escort, declaring it to be better than new.

“We reckon we can still get out there and win!” he beamed.

Brock seemed intent on proving the point early: he charged from 11th on the grid to fth by the end of the rst lap!

He trailed eventual winner Grice by 15

Allan Moffat’s one and only Bathurst start in a Holden came in this HDT Commdore in 1986. Sadly, it was not to be an auspicious occasion.

seconds when he handed over to Moffat on lap 39, but their hopes of victory were dashed at their next stop on lap 76.

As Moffat came over the speed humps in pit lane – designed to slow cars on their approach and departure from their pit bays, prior to the introduction of a speed limit – the car’s oil cooler was damaged.

The crew became aware of this when they removed the front wheels and the pool of oil became visible.

Over two laps were lost by-passing the damaged unit before Brock and #05 returned to the race in seventh place.

Although the pair regained one of the lost laps, Brock and Moffat took the chequered ag one lap down in fth place.

Brock raced the car at Calder Park’s Sun South Paci c 300 a fortnight later – nishing second after staying out too long on slicks after a torrential storm – and at the Australian Grand Prix support race in Adelaide. No one knew it at the time, but the Adelaide meeting would be the Holden Dealer Team’s last race on home soil with factory-backing.

HDT 14 continued to serve as the #05 Commodore into the start of 1987, Brock and Moffat winning the Nissan-Mobil 500 at Wellington and nishing third a week later at Pukekohe.

The plan for the 1987 ATCC was for Brock to move into a newly-built VL Commodore while John Harvey and Moffat campaigned the existing older machines, the latter most likely taking the reins of HDT 14.

However, the events of February 20, 1987, changed all that…

After the split

With Holden, Harvey and Moffat all departing the ship, and the new VL being sold off to raise cash, Brock started the 1987 ATCC once again aboard HDT 14.

A blown engine took him out of the Calder Park opener, while he took third after losing a race-long battle with Jim Richards’ little BMW M3 at Symmons Plains.

Brock was due to race this car again at Lakeside, but a heavy crash at the kink during Thursday’s private practice with team-mate Gary Scott at the wheel left HDT 14 with signi cant front-end damage for the second time in its short racing life.

The logistics of running a car at the Spa 24 Hours in Belgium plus two cars at the endurance races meant HDT 14 was repaired and rebuilt as a VL Commodore in time for Oran Park’s Pepsi 250.

Aboard the #6 Mobil car that day was

Neil Crompton, the future voice of Supercars making his touring car debut alongside reigning Australian Formula 2 champion Jon Crooke.

The pair raced the car again at the Sandown 500, where they nished a ne fourth in greasy, wet/dry conditions.

HDT 14 copped a second big front end hit when Gary Scott shunted it at Lakeside in practice for the ‘87 ATCC round. Later that year at Oran Park, Neil Crompton made his touring car racing debut in it.

However, the return from Belgium of the VL used at Spa-Francorchamps meant HDT 14 missed out on another trip to Mount Panorama to race (though it was on-hand at Bathurst that weekend to act as a display car). David Parsons’ outing in it at the Australian Grand Prix at the end of the season marked its nal start with the team. Ostracised by Holden, Brock’s operation switched to BMW for 1988 (before, horrors of horrors, Ford the following year).

Afterlife and restoration

The oldest remaining Commodore in the team’s eet, HDT 14 was sold to Western Australian Bill Lee and then on to privateer

Dennis Norgard, who raced it in local events at Wanneroo Raceway until 1990.

By 1993 the car had been sold to a pair of new WA owners who only used it for a handful of track and private practice days at Wanneroo, the history and value of the car discouraging them from exposing it to more risk.

Although its owners wished to return the car to its 1986 Bathurst trim, they felt HDT 14 deserved a rebuild at a level that was beyond them. In 2015 the car was sold to Melbourne collector Terry Smart, who commissioned renowned race car builder and restorers Tom Rogers and Rick Wyatt to tackle the job.

“What we wanted to do with the car was be sympathetic to its history,” Smart said in 2016.

“The request to Rick was to do that in a way where we would leave as much as what was original as possible, given that we needed to change a signi cant number of the body panels.”

The result was a car that is beautifully restored, but not over-restored.

The engine bay, boot and interior oor still feature original paint, and all the important original dents, scratches and cracks consistent with operation at the highest level of Australian motorsport still remain.

“We managed to locate a VK donor car that had panels in good quality and condition that could be reapplied to HDT 14,” Smart added.

“At the rear, we could actually see the cut lines where the HDT had removed the VK panels and had spliced on the panels for the VL, so we just followed that line to restore it back to the VK.”

The restoration was completed in time for the car to be displayed at the 2016 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 – 30 years on from its sole Mount Panorama start – as part of a Brock car display marking 10 years since his passing.

Subsequently sold to a new owner, the car returned to the circuit again last year and, as AMC goes to press, sits proudly on display at the National Motor Racing Museum at the foot of Mount Panorama.