THE latest edition of Australian Muscle Car Magazine shares a few untold stories from one of Peter Brock’s most unlikely Bathurst 1000 triumphs.
1975 was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the future ‘King of the Mountain’, after being dumped by the Holden Dealer Team at the end of the previous season.
Instead, he claimed all three major touring car enduros – headed by his second ‘Great Race’ win alongside Brian Sampson – driving for privateer Holden squad, Gown-Hindhaugh.
The cover story of AMC Issue 152, penned by veteran journalist and Brock confidante David Hassall, takes a deep dive into Brock’s year in exile with new insights offered by Gown-Hindhaugh mechanic Bob Gracie.
One of them shares one of the yellow and blue Torana’s speed secrets … and how he and Brock nearly blew themselves up trying to execute it.
Brock arrived, one day, at the team’s Box Hill workshop with two big tins of chemicals that, when combined, created expanding foam.
The trick was one he’d brought with him from the HDT: it would fill the cavities in the Torana’s bodyshell and make it much stiffer.
Except there was one problem.
“I said, ‘Well, how much do you put in?’” Gracie told AMC.
“He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a gallon of this and a gallon of that, so I guess it’s 50/50…’
“So we found an empty five-litre petrol can or something and took it outside into the narrow walkway between the two factories.
“We put in a cup of this and a cup of that, screwed the lid on, and just put it on the ground.
“After a while the can started expanding and shuddering, and Brock and I stepped further back into the street.
“And then all of a sudden it exploded like a fucking cannon. Just went BANG!
“It wasn’t just a bang, it was a cannon, and the air force was incredible. It just exploded into dust!
“Next thing we know, there’s the police, the fire brigade, bloody everyone came down…”
Neither of them owned up to anything; they later found out the proper ratio was closer to 10:1!
The Brock feature is one of a few focused on 1975, including a look at that year’s Australian Touring Car Championship season and a gallery of largely unseen pics from that year’s Great Race.
Wayne Negus is the focus of the Muscle Man feature, the Western Australian racer that was uniquely employed as a driver and a mechanic at different times of his career.