A new HDT
Despite winning the 1968 Victorian Rally Championship in his Preston Motorsentered Kingswood V8 and nishing fourth in the inaugural ARC in the same car, behind the new champ Firth, Watson entered 1969 with no real rally program.
John Bagshaw and his team saw more value in Holden winning on race tracks than in rallies, and so the old state based ‘Dealer Teams’ were shut down. Instead, Firth was placed in charge of the new consolidated national Holden Dealer Team, based in Melbourne, but still being
nanced through the cheque book controlled by Peter Lewis-Williams and later Joe Felice.
Watson and Roberts had been approached by David McKay to be a part of the three-Monaro London to Sydney team at the end of 1968. But their employer, Holden, would not give them time off, so they had to stay home in Australia. One can only wonder what having a pair of rapid Holden engineers in a car they’d help develop may have done for Holden’s tilt on the Marathon, given Ford’s third placed GT was headed up by young Ford engineer, Ian Vaughan...
After McKay’s Holden effort in the marathon bore no fruit, Holden looked elsewhere for its competition programme. That was the catalyst for Harry Firth and Holden getting together, with Firth leaving Ford to head up Holden’s new Holden Dealer Team.
By then Watson had found himself on the outer with Firth. As anyone who knew Firth will tell you, when you were on the outer with Harry, you were well and truly on the outer… Harry had a plan for his new young proteges, Bond and Brock in both circuit racing and rallies, and they didn’t include Watson.
So still earning his salary from GM-H during the week, Watson had to content himself with thrashing Holdens around Lang Lang but not around the forest at weekends.
At the time Renault was stepping up its motor sport plans from its Australian HQ and assembly plant at Heidelberg in Melbourne. It approached Watson to drive a Renault 16TS in both ARC and VRC rallies. The Watson-McAuliffe team would win their second VRC in 1969, this time in a funny French car and not a Holden.
Holden was busy with its new Dealer Team planning for Bathurst and the upcoming 1970 Ampol Round Australia. So Watson driving for a manufacturer like Renault, didn’t bother GM-H management too much, and they were happy to let him drive the French machines.
However, with Firth ramping up a rally programme in 1970, particularly with his young
Bathurst winners Bond and Roberts, there was renewed scrutiny on Watson’s extra-curricular activity with Renault, given his results meant that he was shaping as the favourite to lift the Australian title.
“I was even less popular with Harry and it escalated from there,” Bob says.
“The chief engineer called me into have a chat. He said driving a Renault in the state title was OK but it wasn’t a good idea for a Holden engineer to be beating Holden Dealer Team drivers in an opposition product, and that Bagshaw was not happy. So he told me I had a choice: stop driving the Renault or resign from Holden. I asked whether I could drive one of the Dealer Team cars but was told that was against company policy.
“I had a chat to the people at Renault and they offered me a job as competition manager, so with an ARC title in sight and a
Below: Renault had a strong presence in rallying in the early ‘70s - including the shortlived rallycross craze. Top: Watson in the R8 lined up against Barry Fergusson’s superquick VW and the legendary supercharged HDT XU-1. job offer on the table I resigned from Holden and went to Renault.”
Of course, Bob went on to take the ARC in 1970 and also clinch his third straight VRC title in a very fast Renault R8 Gordini.
Harry Firth, meantime, had Bagshaw’s attention and with wins at Bathurst and in the 1971 and 1972 ARCs, and of course third in the 1970 Ampol Trial for Colin Bond as well as the 1973 ARC for Peter Lang, he was very much in charge and had the run of things.
With Holden’s dominance in the rapid Toranas, Renault’s commitment faded in 1973. While Watson won some rounds of the VRC in a Renault R12 Gordini, the French decided they had achieved all they could from rallying and closed the programme down mid-season, leaving Watson without a job, as well as a drive.
Harry Firth had built a HQ Kingwood 308 for the Mallee Desert Rally in 1973. It was pretty standard, but Firth had given it what he called a ‘haircut and shave.’ In other words, they shaved the head and cleaned up the valves to make it breathe better, but apart from that it was just rally prepped and otherwise standard.
“Since I was now a free agent, having left Renault, and despite Harry and I having been adversaries for some time, he offered me the car to drive nal in the Victorian Rally Championship rounds, and it enabled me to win a fourth title.”