Holden Commodore VC HDT Brock Special
There was a raging oil crisis in the late 70s and early 80s. There was not enough crude to go round. The price of a barrel of oil was going through the roof. In New Zealand you could only run your car for six out of seven days a week. Our fine friends in the Middle East must have been pissing themselves laughing at us all. We needed their oil and we kept paying the price. However, not everybody was concerned about the oil crisis. Peter Brock had brought the Holden Dealer Team at the tender age of 34 and the cars he went on to build pretty much gave the oil crisis the big one fingered salute.
“With the dealers behind him, Brockbrought HDT in December 1979 and it was renamed HDT Special VehiclesOperations PTY LTD”
Brock had already secured his place in the hearts of the Ozzie racing fan. In fact, he was practically a household name. He had been racing Holdens for the Holden Dealer Team since the early 70s with legendary success. He had a short break from HDT late in the 70s and then came back to the team in 1978.
In 1979 Holden withdrew its support from HDT and its then owner, John Sheppard, put it up for sale. A few of the hard core Holden dealers like Warren Smith from Melbourne and Vin Keane from Adelaide came up with an idea that Brock could build a limited run of special Commodores using the HDT name. These special cars could only be sold only through dealers who supported Brock s Race team. Of course, this would provide hype in the middle of the oil crisis and vehicle sales should all go through the roof. There were 50 dealers who jumped up with their hands in the air offering support.
With the dealers behind him, Brock brought HDT in December 1979 and it was renamed to HDT Special Vehicles Operations PTY LTD.
Building the V8 Beast
Since the early 70’s Holden had been supplying Brock with cars and he could never leave them standard. He’d lower them, put wide wheels and tyres on them, extractors, different cams, sort the heads out — the list went on. These were company cars, not racing cars — just Brock’s daily drivers. When the dealers asked him to make them the special Commodores, it was as if his dream had come true. He could make these Commodores go harder, just like he had been doing with the earlier cars and they’d pay him for them. Bring it on. Vin Keane from Adelaide supplied HDT with a light blue VB Commodore, 253cui V8, M20 four-speed gearbox and a horrible diff.
This VB was to be the first HDT Special Vehicle — the development donkey. Out came the 253: bin the M20 gearbox and toss the diff. The bigger 308 V8 was inserted, an M21 gearbox put in or a TH350 three-speed auto, if you wanted it and a limited slip diff out the back. Also, a lightened flywheel from the L34 engine was put to use with the manual cars. They wanted to put the big valve L34 heads on too, but GM said no. So, Brock figured out how to use the L34 porting in the new heads so he could get bigger valves in. HDT also did some machining of the inlet manifold so it would breathe better. HDT had developed the engine to an almost fire breathing stage. Because they had improved the engine’s ability to breath so much, they needed to get more fuel and air into it.
They found the L34 fuel pump ran a few psi more than the standard pump — so in it went. The standard air cleaner was pathetic (vehicular asthma), so it was binned in favour of a much better breathing unit. During the build process, Brock found himself in the GM parts and accessories department where he came across an isle with these huge air cleaners. They turned out to be air cleaners for the Chev Silverado Ute that they had been importing. “Lets try one of those,” says Brock. “It’ll never fit mate, it’s too big,” was the reply. After a bit of twisting and realigning, it fitted. Brock was told “It’s too big mate, the bonnet will never close”. Slam! Guess what? It fitted and it breathed.
Brock wanted to fit extractors to the engine, but GM-H said no because they rust out. GM-H had the final say on this because they were the ones that guaranteed the cars and they didn’t want any rusty bits falling off their cars¦ sigh. Plus, the car had to pass the GM-H; the exhaust emission tests, which it did with flying colours. So, at the end of engine redevelopment, they had a hot little number that could get up and go hard. Brock wanted it to handle as hard as the engine went. So, in went Bilstein gas shocks on all four corners, heavy duty springs that had been lowered, reworked cambers and castor and bigger anti-roll bars front and rear. And, of course, it just had to have fatter rubber under its guards to grip the road and get the power down. No ordinary wheels for this baby.
The original Blue VB had a set of 15 x 7-inch Simmons rims on, but Brock wanted something a bit different. He found the German company Irmscher made these Aerostyled 15 x 7-inch rims and he fell for them. Brock liked them so much they stayed on HDT cars until the early LM5000 VK Commodores. On to these rims went Uniroyal 225/60/15 tyres that were pretty wide for the time.
Leo Pruneau, head of Styling for GM-H, was responsible for the look of the car. Brock wanted a brutal-looking road car. The bodywork had to be able to fit those wider rims and tyres, so flares similar to the A9X Toranas were fitted. A front dam and rear deck spoiler were also fitted, giving the car the look of the racing cars — just on a more refined scale.
The 500 VC
They had sorted what they wanted it to look like, go like and sound like. So, the question begged which model of VC Commodore to use. Dealers like Vin Keane, Laurie Sutton and Reg Hunt had a good deal of influence over the luxury SL/E model being chosen. They wanted a car they could offer that would stack up against the BMWs and Mercedes that were being imported at the time.
“The HDT team started building these cars in late 1980 and by
June 1981 they had built all 500 road cars plus the 12 Race of
Champions cars”
Certainly, with the luxury interior and Brock’s modifications, the dealers would have a serious weapon to attack them with. The plan was to build only 500 of the HDT VC. They were to be offered in only three colours: Palais White, Firethorn Red and Tuxedo Black. All were to have the three-colour stripe running down the side of the car. The only additions to the well-appointed red luxury interior was a four-spoke Momo steering wheel that had the car’s build number etched into it, a wooden gear knob and a driver’s foot rest next to the clutch. In order to create an appetite for these HDT Special Vehicles, a two race series was organised to coincide with Bob Jane’s 1980 Australian Grand Prix at Calder Park. It was called The Race Of Champions — a celebrity race using only HDT VC Commodores. Twelve of these cars were specially built. The only difference between these and the road-going HDT cars was the fitment of a half roll cage and a different build number on the steering wheel.
Both local heroes and international drivers lined up to have a crack at the race. The races were a success, but what HDT were not prepared for was how hard the drivers would cane the cars: they flogged them mercilessly. HDT had to patch them up and these cars were sold off to the public as well, but they weren’t part of the 500 road cars. With the success of the Race of Champions and word of mouth, the HDT VC Commodore popularity grew.
With only a small factory to work out of, Brock and his team had a few logistical problems. They would get the cars from the Holden plant and have nowhere to park them except on the street. But there was a three-hour parking limit outside the factory, so the parking wardens would try to ticket the cars. The cars weren’t registered, how could they ticket them? It was an on-going battle that took a while to work out. The bodywork gave the team a few headaches. Making sure the holes for the flares were drilled in the right place was nerve-wracking to begin with. These were brand new cars they were drilling into, so they wanted to get it right. The red cars took the longest to fit the bodywork to because if there was any filling to be done it also had to be repainted.
The back cars were the easiest because if there were any gaps they just couldn’t be seen because it was black on black. The white was easy too — the filler they used was the same colour and therefore didn’t need to be repainted. Every piece of bodywork was visually and mechanically inspected after it was fitted.
When the cars were finished, Phil Brock, Peter’s brother, would go for a test drive with five guys in the car doing 140kph over railway lines to see if the tyres would rub out on the flares. Any rub marks had to be fixed and repainted.
The HDT team started building these cars in late 1980 and by June 1981 they had built all 500 road cars, plus the 12 Race of Champions cars.
Brock and the team had no budget to speak of. Cars and parts came together and went out the door to be sold. The sales of these cars went up exponentially wit h dealers screaming for more. The Commodore VC HDT was a huge success and, riding on that, HDT Special Vehicle Operations went on to be a huge success also. Oil crisis? What oil crisis?
VC HDT Godzone
I knew that I was going to see a man with a genuine VC HDT Brock Special. I knew the shape of the car. I knew a bit of its history. But nothing ever prepares you for actually meeting one of them. Oh, that’s just an old ‘Dore with some fibreglass tacked on. Nah, not even close to scratching the surface.
As you have read, these things were totally sorted; from front to back, top to bottom and inside out. Brock wanted to make the most of an already good car and he did a damn good job of it.
Greg’s fine-looking Palais White example sat outside his house as I drove up. An immaculate example, it seemed out of place sitting in a driveway. I sort of expected it to be locked away in a garage. I slowly walked up to the house while taking the car in from every angle and Greg walked out of the house to meet me. Greg is the sort of person I instantly like — he threw me the keys and asked if I’d like to take it for a drive. Ah, hello!
Driving
Getting into the car, I’m reminded that this was based on the luxury version of the Commodore. Maybe today’s standards are a bit different, but back in 1980 this would have been heavenly. The door closes with a reassuring thunk — no slam required. The chunky Momo steering wheel feels good in my hands and there’s that number. I’m sitting in number 322 of the 500. The engine starts easily first time and settles into an even idle. Damn, its quiet in here. Greg reminds me that it’s the luxury SL/E with lots of sound deadening in it. Still, there’s no escaping the distinct sound of the 308 breathing through a single muffler. Into reverse and out of the driveway — into first and off we go. It has a tight gearbox with quite a long movement between second and third — but no dramas to be had.
That 3.36:1 diff means that the car just surges forward and I’m busy through the gears in no time at all. I must remember I’m on a suburban street, suburban street¦ We head for the motorway to give it a bit of a squeeze. This thing sits immaculately through the turns, corners very flat, accelerating out of the corners, snarling at us with that exhaust note. Suburban street, slowing down¦ damn it.
Onto the motorway and oh looky looky, a queue of cars going up the on-ramp. Hold it in gear and give it the command — yeehaa!: front of the queue. Nice. The noise as it opens up is bloody awesome. Out on to the motorway and cruising with the traffic. Fast lane, no need to change down, just jump on the gas and suddenly you’re getting to your destination fast. It’s silly grin time again.
Back into suburbia again and back to Greg’s place. What a blast. These cars don’t have ballistic amounts of power, but you can get all it does have down on to the road and have a fantastic time playing. It’s a serious grin car. I can only imagine how wide the grin would get on a racetrack. I’m sorry to get out of it — I’m sure it’s telling me to take it round some more corners and to try a bit harder. If any car can actively encourage you to lose your license, it’s this one. My overriding impression of driving this car is that its like driving a brand new car. Everything is firm and the ride is excellent. The interior looks like new, there are no rattles or squeaks and it goes like a new car – indecently fast.
Dream Car
For Greg, buying this car was a given. When you grow up watching Brock doing his thing at Bathurst in the early 80s, it leaves an impression on you. Back then, Bathurst was the only Australian racing we got to see on TV. There just wasn’t anything else televised. Greg was content at the age of nine to be watching these cars flying round The Mount. Greg found this one for sale in 2004 in Queensland, where it had been stored for the last eight years. It had one trip out in all that time to travel down to Bathurst in 1997 where Peter Brock signed the car.
The first owner had it from new in 1981 till 1996. Mr Storage was its second owner and Greg is its proud third owner. It still has less than 100,000km on the odometer. When Greg got it back into New Zealand, it took him about two months to shake all of the bats out of the attic. The car arrived just as you see it, but all of the seals, o-rings, gaskets and hose lines had just dried up during its eight-year rest. You can imagine any storage in Queensland would be an oven during summer.
After that initial two months worth of leaks and bursts, there haven’t been any other problems. Greg showed me the HDT build sheets for this car and its authenticity certificate. On the last page of the build sheets, under the road test section is written “This footrest would be ace if I had a club foot, otherwise okay”. Ha! A man with size 10 feet. The car doesn’t get an easy life.
When Greg gets into it, he drives it as it should be driven: hard. It’s what it was built for. Peter Brock and the team at HDT Special Vehicles Operations got this beast right on the money. Cheers to Greg for bringing it to New Zealand and letting me drive it. Cheers to the late Peter Brock and to the HDT team of the time for building it.
Peter Geoffrey Brock 1945—2006
By Steve Homles
The motorsport world was stunned by the sudden death of Peter Brock in September, when the replica Cobra Daytona he was driving in the Targa West tarmac rally left the road. Brock’s death came as a double-blow for Australia, as the ‘crocodile hunter’ Steve Irwin had been killed just days before. Peter Brock was a motorsport legend in Australia and New Zealand. He was one of the few motorsport celebrities recognised by the general non-motorsport public and the media alike. In New Zealand, where motorsport takes a back seat to other higher profile sports, Brocky is a house—hold name.
Brock’s first race car was a self-built Austin A30 sports sedan, which he cobbled together in a henhouse. The little blue and yellow A30 featured massive wheels and tyres, housed in monstrous flares grafted to the Austin’s guards. Under the bonnet was a straight six Holden engine. The A30 propelled Brock to over 100 race wins from 1967 to 1969. During 1969 he drove a one-off race for a local Melbourne Holden dealer in a hot—rod HR Holden that had been built for drag racing.
The dealer was having trouble selling the car and asked Brock to race it at Winton in the hope that a good showing might help shift the car. Brock fitted equal-sized wheels to the HR and was the quickest of all the Holdens at Winton. Also present at Winton was Harry Firth, who’d just set up the Holden Dealer Team (HDT). Firth was impressed by Brock’s skills and later phoned him to offer him a drive at Bathurst. With his new employer’s ‘works’ Holden HT GTS350 Monaro under him, Brock drove to a brilliant third overall at his Bathurst debut in 1969. He took his first Bathurst victory in 1972, in a rain-soaked event which provided great equality between the nimble little Torana XU-1s and the mighty XY Falcon GTHO Phase IIIs.
He won the Sandown 500 in 1973, then the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) in 1974. In 1975 he parted with HDT and set up a privateer Holden team, driving an L34 with backing from Melbourne engineers Norm Gown and Bruce Hindaugh. He went on to win the 1975 Manufacturers Championship (Man-Champs), and Bathurst. 1976 saw Brock borrow cars from other teams throughout the ATCC, before setting up Team Brock, with backing from Holden dealer Bill Paterson. Although competitive running his privateer team, it was really when he re-joined HDT for 1978 that he came into his own.
He won the 1978 ATCC, the ’78 Bathurst, finished a close second to Bob Morris in the ’79 ATCC, then simply destroyed everyone at Bathurst the same year — setting pole position, leading every lap, winning by six laps (37km), and setting a new lap record on the last lap. 1980 saw a change from the dominant Torana to the new four door Commodore. It also saw Holden withdraw its ‘factory’ support, as Ford had pulled the plug a year earlier and the Holdens were simply running around racing themselves, which proved nothing.
Brock kept the HDT team going and won the 1980 ATCC and Bathurst. Dick Johnson dominated proceedings in ’81, but Brock won Bathurst in ‘82, and ’83 — the latter requiring a switch to the second HDT Commodore when his own car failed. 1984 saw a limited ATCC campaign as he was racing a Porsche 956 sports car in Europe, including the Le Mans 24 hour race. He returned to win yet another Bathurst; his two day-glo Commodores finishing first and second. 1985 saw the switch to International Group A regulations, which Holden struggled with. Brock nearly took his ninth Bathurst victory that year, but his Commodore failed when chasing down race leader John Goss’ Jaguar XJS in the closing stages.
He won the 1986 and ‘87 Wellington Street races, and ’86 saw an ambitious European tour including the Spa 24 hour race. He took his ninth and last Bathurst victory in 1987; finishing third on the road, but later promoted when the winning European Sierra Cosworths were disqualified. His close relationship with GM-H ended bitterly in 1987, over ‘new age’ technology he’d invested in which he called the Energy Polarizer. A device he claimed when attached to a car could improve its performance.
In ’88 he switched brands, picking up the ’87 ATCC winning team of BMW M3s, previously run by Frank Gardner. Then did the unthinkable; changing to Ford in 1988, running a Sierra Cosworth. By the early ‘90s, he and Holden had ‘made up’ and he headed the Holden Racing Team (formed in 1990), before retiring in 1996 to concentrate on — among other things — driver road safety, anti-drink driving campaigns (his racing number 05 referred to the blood alcohol limit in Victoria) driver training and promotional work for Holden. He also nurtured the racing careers of young drivers, including Craig Lowndes.
Although retired from front-line competition, he was soon back behind the wheel running in Targa events and a brief stint in his own Team Brock Commodore at Bathurst, paired with regular driver Craig Baird. He also drove a Torana XU-1 in historic races and won the Bathurst 24 hour race at the wheel of a Holden Monaro.
Throughout his career he was a regular starter in all manner of machinery, from HDT—built V8 Torana sports sedans and rallycross cars, to a Chevy Monza sports sedan, to off-road vehicles, to a space-frame Camaro in New Zealand. Brocky was massively successful as a driver and with his special vehicles company, producing low volume performance road cars and homologation specials. But, the accomplishments and the cars are just a part of what made Brock a legend. It’s the ever-smiling enthusiast, the positive nature, the energy, the competitive spirit and the endless hours dedicated to his loyal fans that made him an irreplaceable icon. He will really be missed.
FROM ONE LEGEND TO ANOTHER
By Greg Murphy
Some years ago, Peter Brock did an advertisement for long time sponsor/supporter Bridgestone. The ad’s plot is based around Brock showing off the amazing qualities of Bridgestone’s latest tyre technology. A guy jumps into the passenger seat next to Brock and quickly announces, “Hey you’re that racing driver bloke Peter Brooks”.
‘Brooksy’ looks at the guy with an ‘I’m going to scare the shit out of you’ look on his face and blasts on to the track. This is one of the many things that stick in my head about Peter ‘Perfect’ Brock and probably more so because I still occasionally called him ‘Peter Brooks’ just to get a reaction out of him. I think I had a pretty good relationship with Pete. After being star—struck by the bloke for many years, I met him for the first time in 1988 in Wellington in one of the wharf sheds preparing for the Nissan/Mobil street race. I then became his team-mate in 1995 — so, it was a strange feeling to hear that he had been killed. I was shocked and in disbelief, especially after the death of Steve Irwin earlier that week.
It has been hard to put into words the real emotion of it. This is because Brock’s philosophy was all about enjoying life and living life to the fullest. “Having a red hot go,” was one of his favourite things to say and it really did fit the man’s make-up. He was always very positive and always had a different way of looking at things when they didn’t go as planned. I’m sure he would have an interesting story to tell (if he could) about what happened on that road a few weeks ago.
The man was a genius behind the wheel and loved driving and competing. We have to remember that he announced his retirement in 1997! Yet, he was still behind the wheel, competing and pushing the limit nine years later. He returned to Bathurst for the last time for HRT only two years ago. My wife asked me the other day if Brock was at his peak in today’s V8 Supercar Series, how would he go against the current crop of drivers? The simple answer is that he would be a hard man to beat!
Peter’s life had changed in recent times, but he still loved competing and, unfortunately, he lost his life doing what he loved. I feel very privileged to have spent the time I did with him. He gave a lot, especially to his fans and that is what set him apart from most. He is a legend and an icon and will be missed by many.
Driver Profile
Greg Blyth
Age: 33
Occupation: IT Consultant
Previous cars: An RX-2 and an RX-3. (Forgive him, it was 15 years ago)
Dream cars: The one you see before you, VH Group Three, VK SS Group A Blue Meanie and a VL SS Plus Pack
SPECS
VC HDT
Engine: 308 V8, GM-H big valve heads, machined GM-H inlet manifold, Quadrajet carburettor, Silverado air cleaner with cold air intake
Driveline: M21 four-speed gearbox, 3.36:1 LSD
Suspension: Lowered heavy duty springs with Bilstein gas shocks on all four corners, heavy duty anti-roll bar front and rear
Wheel and Tyres: Irmscher 15 x 7-inch alloys with Yokohama 225/60/15 on all four corners
Performance: Top speed (when new) — 210kmph, quarter mile — 16.1 sec, 0 — 100 kph — 8.4 sec
Words: Lachlan ChambersPhotos: Quinn Hamill and v8yearbook.com Brock Special
Holden Commodore VC HDT
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