{"id":454887,"date":"2026-02-03T03:14:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/454887\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T03:14:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:14:19","slug":"holden-and-elfins-abandoned-bathurst-24-hour-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/454887\/","title":{"rendered":"Holden and Elfin\u2019s abandoned Bathurst 24 Hour challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE underpinnings of an abandoned Holden and Elfin attack on the Bathurst 24 Hour endurance race that didn\u2019t go ahead anyway have resurfaced.<\/p>\n

The chassis that was to underpin a Holden-powered Elfin Streamliner in the Mount Panorama enduro sits today in the Garry Rogers<\/a> Motorsport workshop, 22 years after the project was abandoned.<\/p>\n

Elfin\u2019s collaboration with Holden resulted in a concept MS8 Streamliner being revealed earlier that year at the 2004 Melbourne International Motor Show.<\/p>\n

After two victories in the 24 Hour via the seven-litre Nations Cup specification Monaros built and run by GRM in 2002 and 2003, plans were made for a V8-powered Elfin Streamliner to fly the flag the following year.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had designed and built the whole chassis, it was going to run a sequential gearbox, pretty much a Monaro setup,\u201d recalls GRM chief Barry Rogers of the abandoned project.<\/p>\n

However, Holden pulled the budget and the car was never completed.<\/p>\n

A check of the bulky Elfin history book, \u2018Elfin: The Spirit of Speed\u2019, published in 2020, provides further detail on the project as recalled by Bill Hemming, who co-owned Elfin Sports Cars at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially we did a special wide-body car that would take 12-inch-wide wheels and big splitters; an aerodynamic racing version of the Streamliner,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGarry Rogers Motorsport was commissioned to design and build the chassis. They went a long way down the line with that. We worked on the basis that Corvettes were winning their class at Le Mans, so something lighter with the same running gear should blitz it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Holden pulled the funding, so that ended. Garry has the chassis, and the body is over at Walkinshaw Performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The Monaros swept all before them in the 2003 Bathurst 24 Hour and finished first and second. Photo: an1images.com<\/p>\n

The chassis was built in GRM\u2019s former Glen Waverley race workshop before being taken to the team\u2019s current home in Dandenong. It spent time hanging from the roof there and later was stored in a shed at Garry Rogers\u2019 farm. Rogers passed away in October last year.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought it back here last November to the workshop and here we are,\u201d Barry Rogers told V8 Sleuth this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we just don\u2019t have a use or need for it, so we\u2019re going to sell it. If there\u2019s anyone out there interested, get in touch!\u201d<\/p>\n

The chassis is listed for sale here on Facebook Marketplace, there\u2019s more details and photos for interesting parties.<\/a><\/p>\n

As it turned out, the 2004 Bathurst 24 Hour didn\u2019t go ahead.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scheduled for November that year, it was abandoned after Ross Palmer\u2019s PROCAR handed back the rights to the event in the wake of its withdrawal from motorsport that year.<\/p>\n

The Bathurst Regional Council and CAMS (now Motorsport Australia) had limited time to search for a new promoter, however there were too many obstacles to overcome \u2013 including the likelihood of no TV broadcast deal \u2013 and the race was shelved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE underpinnings of an abandoned Holden and Elfin attack on the Bathurst 24 Hour endurance race that didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-454887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}