It was wet, cold and far too early, and it almost made me famous for all the wrong reasons. Eastern Creek Raceway – now known as Sydney Motorsport Park – was beckoning.
A dark, brooding racetrack covered in a thin film of water as misty rain constantly leaked from the grey skies above.
I’m sitting on a hard race seat, clutching a thin-rimmed black steering wheel with fog filling the visor of a race helmet borrowed from my editor, Andrew Maclean – whose name you’ll also see at CarExpert these days.
The car I’m sitting in is truly irreplaceable.
A true icon, it’s the #76 Holden Dealer Team (HDT) Torana A9X that raced at Bathurst in 1978 and 1979.
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I cannot contain my excitement to drive a car that had sat across from its sister car, the #05 of Peter Brock – one of the most dominant race cars in Australian motorsport history.
Brock won the Bathurst 1000 twice in an A9X – the last time, in 1979, famously by a staggering six laps, after setting the fastest time in his final lap around Mount Panorama, in perhaps the greatest performance ever seen in The Great Race.
Is six laps much? Well yes, given the lap at Bathurst is just over 6km long…
The Torana A9X is a legend, but the HDT A9X is the pinnacle of the A9X set. They simply don’t come any better.
The #76 was the second HDT car. Race driver Charlie O’Brien famously crashed it into the wall at Bathurst in 1978, but by the time I got my hands on it, the late, great Jason Richards was running it in Muscle Car Masters.
My first car was a V8 Holden Commodore, but the privilege, honour and responsibility of driving a genuine piece of history was both salivating and somewhat daunting.
Jase needed it back – and, well, if I binned the thing, I’d be .
The car later sold for close to $1 million, following rumours of $2 million being offered for another #05 car.
That’s how important these cars are to Australia’s motor racing history, and to passionate rev-heads like me who grew up on HDT, hot Holdens and a ferocious hatred of all things Ford.
It was an enormous responsibility, layered on by the rain. Oh, and slick tyres, and a 2:60-to-one Detroit Locker diff.
That’s right, a young journalist in the age of smart differentials, electronic failsafes and – frankly – much better tyre and brake tech was about to be let loose in an ancient, priceless war horse. On a wet racetrack.
The A9X was raw. I mean, raw. As a race car, it ran a 780cfm Holley carb, and the hatchback body was chosen so HDT could fit wider rear tyres for the track.
The interior still had carpet and a dash with excellent racing dials, classic white-on-black, and the race seat was bolstered but had less grip on me than a brand-new HSV road car at the time.
There was a long, conventional, chromed shift lever capped by an oddly white cue ball knob, which looked out of place in the dark, sinister cabin.
The passenger seat was road-car stock, meaning flat and wide, behind a glove box lid signed by the legendary Harry Firth – the former Holden race boss who plucked a young Brock out of obscurity for the team in 1969 – and the #76 car’s former custodian, 1983 Bathurst winner John Harvey.
Compared to the plastic and leather of modern cars – and now bright touchscreens and ambient lighting – the A9X was steampunk, industrial. It was heavy, steel, and raw, old-fashioned fire-breathing power, back when you could make grunt anyway you knew how.
“Holy shit” I think as I turned the A9X’s ignition key (yes, it had a turnkey, not a fancy starter button), and the 5.0-litre Holden V8 rumbles to life. What a sound to complement what’s in front of me: my mind now knows this is real.
“You know the circuit, right?” asked the team boss before I trundled out. I had never driven it. “Yes, of course,” I replied. Nobody was taking this moment away from me.
The three pedals are heavy. I put it into first to move forward. But I don’t. I stall it like a 16-year-old does the first time they’re allowed to throw the L-plates on mum and dad’s car. The blokes in the garage are chuckling. Bastards.
Second time, I get it done – hopefully that’s the only issue as I get to know this famous Australian.
Now it was time to not look like an idiot (again) by driving too slow or too fast and binning it.
I didn’t want to look like they’d lent a Ducati to my mum, but I also didn’t want to put my name on the map by burying an HDT icon into a wall. Sure, it’s repairable, but no – that’s just not on.
As I tip-toe around the wet, fast and undulating layout – check out that slippery, shiny surface in the pics – I get a tad more confident. Just a tad. But that’s tempered by the wheelspin in second, third and fourth along the main straight.
This thing needs Brock heroics, and his driving skill was missing from my DNA. The steering is heavy; the steering wheel itself is quite large, to provide the necessary leverage as there’s no power steering.
Power? Well, there’s plenty, but officially it was around 400hp (300kW) – and more than I could handle despite the race-tuned Torana chassis.
Nevertheless, man and machine bonded after a handful of laps, before the final run almost made me famous.
As I ventured down the still-wet main straight, then negotiated the long left-hander that leads up to Mountain Straight, I dropped – I think – a wheel onto the white shiny kerbing paint on the outside of the track.
In a flash, I’m heading backwards – still with a bit of pace – and my mind says “stop the car”. Brake. Clutch in. Silence. My mind rushes – what did I do? Did I hit anything? Not a smudge, or a dint – just a smirk on my face.
I just got away with it. So I thought, “Damn I hope the photographer got it!”. Sadly not.
I venture back, knowing that I’ve pushed the envelope enough to be able to say I had a go, but I’m able to return this legendary car back to Richards – who’d raced it the previous weekend – intact.
Never, ever have I driven a car in circumstances so daunting. I mean, it seemed more forgivable to trash an exotic supercar than bin a Bathurst-winning HDT A9X.
But you’ve got to say yes to this stuff, because it never comes up again.
That day came from an odd combination. Lexus wanted to show off its ISF Safety Car, so it put the concept together based on both cars having 5.0-litre V8s.
A tenuous link, but one I’m glad was made. I jumped into the ISF after the A9X, and it felt like driving a supersonic jet after riding an almighty medieval catapult. The grip and the power delivery were incomparable, thanks to the Japanese car’s modern road tyres, power steering, fuel-injection, and more.
Yet there’s one thing it couldn’t match: the pure, unadulterated connectedness and engagement of the Holden. It’s why it was such a success: it inspired confidence in an era of big-bore muscle cars, enabling Brock, Harvey, and Jim Richards to dominate Aussie touring car racing in the late 1970s.
Come 2025, and it’s the ISF that’s long gone and we’re now farewelling somewhat of a collector car as the final version of the IS500 – not sold here – rolls off the production line in Japan later this year.
Ironically, a derivative of its 5.0-litre V8 will be on the Supercars grid in 2026, competing in the modern-day equivalent of the Australian championship won by the A9X multiple times.
The Bathurst 1000 takes place this weekend, sadly without a Holden in sight after General Motors retired the homegrown brand in 2020 – before its final win at The Mountain in 2022.
Yet Lexus’ parent company Toyota will be there in 2026 with its Supra, as Australia’s most famous motor race rolls around once again, building more legends in the process.
Even if none may ever become as iconic as Brock and the #76 HDT A9X.
