Developing the Monaro GTS 327
Away from his rally exploits, Watson was also a key engineer in the development of one of Australia rst hero muscle cars, and certainly Holden’s rst – the original HK Monaro GTS.
Watson was a chassis development engineer along with John Finlayson, and in particular had the task of creating a Monaro that could win the Bathurst 500.
“Bagshaw had gone to the States with Peter Lewis-Williams with the aim of sourcing a drivetrain to match Ford’s Falcon GT. They came back with the package of a 327 Chevrolet V8 coupled to the Muncie gearbox and an LSD. The main motivation was to beat Ford in motorsport, mainly racing, and in particular the Bathurst 500.
“So, we were given the task of making this beast handle. We didn’t make it stop, because we weren’t allowed to because we couldn’t change the brakes for time and cost reasons.”
Watson and Finlayson played with springs, sway bars and shocks and did a lot of work on the car.
“I would drive to work in the morning and then head down to Lang Lang, put the crash helmet on and play race driver all day. How is that for a job?
“It was fantastic, really fun. We had a Falcon GT there as a benchmark comparison car, and by the time we nished, even though the Falcon had gone from the 289 to the 302, we knew we had a better car.
“We were given the brief of creating a car that could win Bathurst and we were quite con dent that Holden could do that with the Monaro that we had developed.
The package Watson and Finlayson came up with included lower height, higher rate springs, revalved shock absorbers (in
those days GMH made its own shock absorbers at the Dandenong plant), heavier front sway bar, reduced diameter rear brake wheel cylinders (to prevent rear tyre lock up) and tramp rods at the rear to control wheel hop under braking. Stronger wheels were also designed and speci ed.
Watson says it was an extremely tight programme, with the time to release the new parts and get the cars into production being very short in industry terms – in this case a few months, when most similar programmes take years. The reality is that the 327 GTS Monaro gained its homologation just days before Sandown in 1968, only a few weeks before Bathurst.
The only, small improvements they could make with the brakes, given the budget and the lead time, was the removal of the front brake dust shields and aforementioned smaller rear wheel cylinders.
Watson says despite the tight development they believed the Monaro was a better package with a power advantage, a tighter suspension with less body roll and less understeer – and he believes the Monaro was an easier car to drive than the Falcon.
Tony Roberts decided he wanted a crack at Sandown and Bathurst, so he personally bought a 327 GTS and asked Bob to co-drive. With inside knowledge, Roberts made sure he sourced the ‘best’ car possible off the Dandenong production line. Despite being accomplished rally drivers and having done thousands of laps around Lang Lang, both Roberts and his chosen co-driver Watson still had to get their racing licences and the signatures necessary for the two-race campaign they had planned.
In the lead up Roberts and Watson came across the list of distance speed records in the CAMS manual and realised there was a chance to bag some records in the new Monaro and get some serious practice for the upcoming race forays in the process.
So, Sandown was hired in early September, about two weeks before the Three Hour race, and the pair set out on a 24 Hour CAMS supervised run around the track. Nothing could better prepare a couple of young drivers for a 3 Hour production race than a at out, run twice around the clock at the very same racetrack!
Apart from the 16 national distance records they set, the exercise gave them a head start on just about everyone else in terms of brake issues, handling and fuel economy.
Sure enough, that knowledge would prove invaluable in the Sandown enduro.
Henk Woelders’ Monaro led the rst 10 laps before it was delayed with a brake issue, handing the lead to Alan Hamilton’s Porsche. Meanwhile but the Roberts/Watson Monaro was there or thereabouts throughout.
“Tony started and drove the rst stint and we believed we could get through to the end by managing our brakes,” Watson says.
That would have been ne, except the car did strike brake problems late in the race, having taken the lead with 10 laps to go after
the French/Chivas Alfa shed a wheel.
Behind Watson was a young bloke called Alan Jones, 12 years later to become World Drivers’ Champion. Jones was sharing a similar Monaro GTS 327 with Clive Millis.
The race came down to a tense struggle to the nish. In the closing stages Jones was charging and Watson had no brakes. The gap was coming down at eight seconds a lap, but Watson, armed with the knowledge from the 24 hour run and his rally skill, knew that he could throw the car sideways to wash off speed and negate brake use.
“All the other Monaros changed pads but our record run experience made us decide not to. But with eight laps to go the pads had popped out of the callipers and there were no brakes. A few times I had to scrape the fence at Peters [Corner] to slow it down.
In the end Watson took the ag just eight seconds ahead of Jones. One more lap and Jones may have won.
Three weeks later the two Holden engineers went to Bathurst in their privateer Monaro, severely under-funded and up against the new Holden Dealer Racing operation being run by
Daily Telegraph motoring writer, 1960 Australian Touring Car Champion and Scuderia Veloce owner David McKay.
“We had a little sponsorship from BP and $200 from Sydney Holden dealer Pat Cullen in Liverpool,” Watson says, “but apart from that it was funded by us.”
The pit crew were work colleagues from the Holden garage who also helped with the rally team. But they knew the Monaro and motor sport inside out and were a slick team. They actually did the fastest pad change at Bathurst that year.
The 1968 Bathurst 500 could ll a whole feature story on its own but the AM Robertsentered Sandown-winning GTS 327 was one of eight Monaros entered, and with some judicious brake strategy the pair found themselves crossing the line in fourth place at their rst ever attempt at the Mountain. At scrutineering, however, the second placed Des West/Ron Marks Monaro was rubbed out for illegal valves, and Roberts and Watson were award third.
Watson actually played a role in the West/ Marks machine’s exclusion.
“That car was clearly faster than the other Monaros up the mountain and led the race for a long time,” Watson explains. “That attracted the attention of the scrutineers after the race.”
But the scrutineers didn’t have all the detailed information they needed when it came to checking the speci cation of the engine.
“When I went to Bathurst I thought I should take as much paperwork as possible,” Watson explains, “and as a Holden employee I clearly had access to the official GM paperwork, so I took copies with me.”
Watson proved to be the only person at scrutineering with a copy of the engine specs, and it was these that were referenced by the officials. Critically, it meant that West and Marks were excluded.
Second place then fell to the Holden Dealer Racing Team Monaro of Kiwi Jim Palmer and Phil West with Roberts and Watson third.
“Our race was totally incident free, and we probably could have done better in hindsight,” Watson says.
In early practice, however, the pair was 15 seconds off the pace and driving it like a rally car.
“Tony had become quite friendly with Harry Firth, who was still with Ford, and despite winning the 1967 500 in a Falcon GT, being about to win the inaugural Australian Rally Championship in a Cortina and spearheading the Ford team in the upcoming London Sydney, he was already in discussion with Bagshaw to run a new Holden Dealer Team in 1969.
“Harry quietly took us behind a shed before qualifying and talked us around the track and briefed us on how we should attack the place.”
With Firth’s help, they lifted their pace considerably and quali ed sixth fastest.
For the race the pair planned a single pad change but also had a brake strategy to make them last. This involved buttoning off on the then second Conrod hump on the run to Murrays, letting the wind resistance help slow the car and to be easy on the brakes at the biggest stop on the track.
“Because of our Sandown experience we knew the weakness of the brakes. But at Bathurst we treated them too gently, and at our one brake pad pit stop, the pads were only half worn, so we could have been using them a lot harder,” Watson laments.
Still, to take a win and a third in the two most important production car races in Australia was an effort not to be sneezed at.
Just about anyone else would be plotting a race career after a start in racing like that, but not Bob Watson. As mentioned, racing was not for him and rallying would be his lifelong passion.
Team-mate and work colleague Tony Roberts would, of course, win Bathurst a year later with fellow rally star Colin Bond in Harry Firth’s rst HDT tilt at the Mount.
As for Firth, he would play a key role in Watson’s rally career changing course in a very French way.