1953: The Monte Carlo Rally

Motor racing in Australia didn't start with Holden – the Australian Grand Prix is actually one of the oldest in the world – but the Holden's arrival still kick-started the process for weekend warriors across the country. The fleet-to-first-car pipeline had opened up, with thousands of Holdens finishing their year or two on the job and being palmed off on second-hand buyers for far less than their retail price.¹ So it was only a matter of time until some of our biggest names had the bright idea to bring one to a major international event...

Gaze, Davison and Jones after the finish in Monaco (Source: Primotipo)

The Rally of Rallies
The Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo – or just Monte Carlo Rally, en Anglais – was first held in 1911 as a way to demonstrate the capabilities of the motor car. The original concept was a "concentration rally", where competitors would start in various different cities across Europe and make the journey to Monte Carlo, where they would be put through a series of special stages. In its early days the winner was not necessarily whoever arrived first, with winners instead determined by a panel of judges who based their decision on a number of criteria, including the elegance of the car, the comfort of the passengers and the condition in which they arrived (a very Monagasque way of looking at things). That would change in the years ahead, and by 1953 the rally was no joke, taking place amid the snow and ice of January in the northern hemisphere, on a continent where the greatest war in history was only seven and a half years in the rearview. So it was a big deal that a team of Australians had decided to pitch Australia's Own against the best Europe had to offer.

Those Australians were Lex Davison and Stan Jones, already legends in their home country. Jones, 29 at the time, was the owner of Superior Motors in Abbotsford, Victoria, and would go on to win the 1958 Australian Driver's Championship in a Maserati 250F (and he was already the father of a 6-year-old boy named Alan, who needs no introduction). His partner in crime was Lex Davison, also 29 and the proprietor of Paragon Shoes in Collingwood, and destined to win the Australian Grand Prix a total of four times (a record Michael Schumacher would equal, but never surpass). 

Start of the rally outside the Royal Automobile Club of Scotland, Blythswood Square, Glasgow (Source: Primotipo)

Jones and Davison were both friends and rivals in Australia's burgeoning open wheel scene, but it wasn't until the intervention of one Peter Ward that they finally joined forces. A friend of Lex who occasionally spannered on his cars, Ward had arranged for the two to share a Holden in the Experts Trial of November 1952, where they finished 3rd overall (with Ward navigating) – in the process, learning they made an effective team even under the stresses of competition. As fate would have it, earlier that year Australian racer and 1952 Australian Grand Prix winner John Barraclough had secured two entries for the following year's Monte Carlo Rally – one for himself and John Crouch, one for Lex and Stan. It would be an immense logistical challenge, however, and in the end it was only possible thanks to the third leg of the stool, someone Barraclough pushed into the equation – Tony Gaze.

Gaze is one of those drivers who doesn't get enough credit here in Australia. Aged 32 at this time, he'd been a fighter pilot in World War II credited with 12½ kills (11 solo and 3 shared), and had also become the first Australian to compete in the F1 World Championship. He'd already committed to racing his Alta in European F2 events in 1951, when the FIA made the decision to run the 1952 and '53 championships to F2 rules, prompting Gaze to enter several of the proper Grands Épreuves to get some experience. By 1952 he was racing an Aston Martin DB3 and met Barraclough at London's Steering Wheel Club that year, becoming the third member of Lex and Stan's crew. It was Gaze who was in a position to submit the team's paperwork, and he who walked the car through customs when it arrived in the U.K.

The Monte Carlo Holden
The car itself was a 1952 Holden sedan with 6,000 miles on the clock, bought second-hand rather than donated by the factory – the team had no support from GM-H at all, in fact, and in any case there was still a waiting list for brand new Holdens. They did however score some support from Melbourne's Replacement Parts Company, or Repco, as Repco research manager Charlie Dean was responsible for building the Maybachs Jones raced in open-wheel events. Not only did Dean give them access to one of the biggest parts suppliers in the country, he called in favours from all corners of the Melbourne motorsport world, and even donated his own home in Kew (in what was then Melbourne's outer suburbs) to house and work on the car.

Preparing the car was a fraught exercise, given there was just a two-week window before the cargo ship left Melbourne on 25 November. Thankfully, the rules allowed only minor modifications anyway. The Holden was fitted with a Buick speedo that read in kilometres per hour (necessary to hit the precise average speeds required), a slightly larger 10-gallon fuel tank (up from the 9.5 Imperial gallons of the standard car), a pair of driving lights on the bonnet, and extra fog lights recessed into the front guards below the headlights. An emergency electric fuel pump was mounted on the bulkhead with a change-over switch on the dash. A "rug rail" running between the B-Pillars behind the front seats added some extra chassis stiffening.

To get more power and reliability out of the 132ci Grey engine, Dean fitted stronger conrods, bigger Buick valves, "and an inlet manifold which had been carefully sliced in half, internally enlarged, then welded back together and returned to standard external appearance".² Not quite in line with the rules, maybe, but it's only cheating if you get caught!

Dean also gave the car windscreen washers (with the washer reservoir located next to the exhaust to keep it warm), and – very necessary for the icy nights ahead! – a heater-demister for the cabin. As a final touch, he painted the whole thing a deep green, with "Australia" and a kangaroo along the side in gold, in honour of Australia's newly-registered national racing colours. Primotipo quotes Lex Davison's comments to Motor Sport after the event:

It was considered that this car had to be an example of Australian workmanship, that nothing should be skimped, and no short cuts taken, as one of the main reasons for our making this journey was to endeavour to show that industrially, Australia has come of age, that we have an engineering industry, quite a capable one, and that we are no longer a country of aborigines³ and back country sheep herders.

By the time all of the luggage, spares and passengers were aboard, the Holden weighed 400kg more than the standard car, but events down the line would show it was no slower. For his efforts, Dean was paid £550 each by Lex and Stan, and the whole effort cost the friends a hefty £4,000 (over $171,000 in 2023).

The Monte Carlo Holden is prepped by the wharfies at Station Pier, Port Melbourne (Source: Primotipo)

The car arrived in Britain on 1 January – coincidentally, the same day Davison rolled his Alfa Romeo P3 at Port Wakefield, where all three races were won by Jones in his Maybach 2. Lex wasn't seriously hurt, was discharged from the hospital and by 7 January both men were on their way to join the car in Britain. In the meantime, Tony Gaze had borrowed a Holden used by Lucas as a development mule to get the feel of it, and was suitably impressed with the rally car's performance despite all the extra weight.

In the press, much was made of the trio's lack of rally experience, and the Feb '53 issue of Motor Sport delighted in repeating the trio's claim that they'd never seen snow before. Primotipo has pointed out, however, that this was likely a bit of PR spin on their part, given Gaze had resided in the U.K. for several years, Jones grew up at Warrandyte and Davison lived in Lilydale, the latter two places not far from Mount Donna Buang, where snow falls every year. All the same, it's likely none of them had ever seen Alpine conditions of the kind they were about to encounter.

Annoyingly, I can't find any good maps for the '53 route, just a poor-quality scan in this Trove article. But it was broadly similar to the '52 route above.

Long Road Ahead
There were 440 entries for the 1953 running of the Monte Carlo Rally, of which 404 made the start on 20 January, departing from one of seven cities – Lisbon, Glasgow, Stockholm, Palermo, Oslo, Munich or Monte Carlo (the last of which would apparently involve a loop through the south of France). Being loyal members of the Commonwealth, the Australians of course made their start in Glasgow. The first three days were driven non-stop through thick fog, following a 3,300km route through Wales, London, Lilles, Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris and Clermont-Ferrand before hitting the Alps. There, on the fourth night, the Australians said they, "encountered a nightmare of falling snow and icy roads" (Motor Sport described the conditions as generally kind...). 

Lex and Stan were completely unprepared for driving conditions like these, and soon the crew decided to abandon the sleeping roster to make use of Tony's knack for quick driving in fog (though in any event only Lex managed to fall asleep on the back seat, set up as it was to allow someone to lie sideways. During Stan's stint on the ice, a truck they were overtaking swerved across and hit the side of the car only inches from Lex's sleeping head, but he slumbered through blissfully unaware...). Getting a feel for the Holden, by the end of his stint Lex was using the frozen snow banked up on the outside of the corners to help turn the car!

The Holden was one of 253 cars that clean-sheeted on the trip to Monte Carlo (i.e. accrued no time penalties at all), which was a source of some disgust for one Sidney Allard, winner of the rally the previous year and also writer for Autosport magazine, where he was able to publish his grievances. In his view, it had all been a bit too easy: Only 15 cars had managed a clean sheet in 1952, which he said illustrated how much greater the challenge had been compared to 1953. But "easier than last year" doesn't mean it was objectively easy: "Doc" Hardman and Cyril Corbishley copped some hard luck when a flying snow chain from another car shattered the windscreen on their Lanchester, forcing them to drive several hundred kilometres into an icy slipstream. And Graham Howard's biography of Lex Davison, Larger Than Life, recalled the scene after driving under the finishing banner in Monaco, where they were, "…escorted to a large marquee on the Boulevard where we were offered drinks, and we stood beside the sea-wall sipping brandy, blinking in the sun. We were terribly tired, and I noticed that Tony was fast asleep standing up leaning against the sea-wall."

The next event was a combined acceleration and braking test. The quickest time was 21.9 seconds, but with Stan at the wheel the car posted a time good enough for equal 9th (level with Stirling Moss in a Sunbeam-Talbot), the Holden showing some pretty good straight-line performance in a top group comprised of an Allard, a Riley, a Porsche, a Ford V8 and three Jaguars. As a result of the braking test, 98 cars qualified for a final regularity test – a 74km run over the Col de Braus above Monaco. Distances between the controls had been announced in advance, and a set speed through the six controls was to be drawn early on the Sunday morning. Unfortunately, nobody on the team had any experience of this stretch of road beyond a single sighting lap, riding aboard another competitor's Volkswagen late in the day. Expectations were low.

For the final trial, the top hundred cars were marked out by a yellow wash, hence the different front guards here. This is apparently the first major turn of the Col de Braus route, on the main road from La Turbie to Legett. (Source: Primotipo)

Primotipo found this gold nugget, from the June '97 edition of Motor Sport:

We had a good run. Before the final test I think we were in 6th place and then we had an argument.

Stan wanted me to drive the final test because he felt I was better on ice than Lex, but Lex said he had put all the money into it and was determined to drive that final stage.

That did it. Stan sulked.

He was navigating and I was braced in the back with the stopwatches. I suppose Stan might have been feeling car sick but he wouldn't read out the markers and we finally came in 64th out of 100 finishers. It was probably a good thing because if we had done well they [the scrutineers] would have torn the car apart. – Tony Gaze

Graham Howard likewise mentioned the incident, Lex recalling:

Stan "went on strike", and for at least part of the test could not be bothered calling out distances. It would have been a typically Stan Jones flare-up, gone as quickly as it arrived, because there were also sections of the test where Stan was sitting sideways and using his feet to hold Lex in place as the Holden hurried around the endless hairpin corners.

By the end of the test the team were sure they had got several sections close to perfect, and others very wrong. The results were announced at 9:00pm that night, and under the circumstances, 64th outright wasn't too bad. It might sound like a bit of a nothing result, and it was, but for a car built in a country that a few years ago had been the world's largest sheep paddock, it was a moment of pride indeed.

Naturally enough, the rally had been won, in the end, by a Ford – the Mk.I Zephyr of Maurice Gatsonides and Peter Worledge, which finished ahead of the Ian and Pat Appleyard Jaguar Mk.VII, and the Panhard Dyna X86 of Roger Marian & Jean Charmasson. Gatsonides had spent his four-week Christmas break lapping the Col de Braus loop and learning its every contour – a greater contrast to the Australians, who went in all but blind, can hardly be imagined! Sadly, this car did not survive, as it was hit by a drunk truckie during the 1954 Wiesbaden Rally and written off. Thankfully, neither Gatsonides nor his co-driver were injured.

Eurotrip
Following the rally, Davison and his mates elected to pay a visit to Alfa Romeo in northern Italy, "…where Guidotti, having many years before driven Lex's Alfas, now drove the Holden. Bacciagaluppi, manager of the Monza motor racing circuit and one of Tony's many European racing contacts, helped them to get the rally car onto the track, where, three up, they averaged a higher lap speed than the road-tested maximum for a standard Holden." Gaze confirmed, saying:

On the way back we stopped off at Monza and our best lap average with three up and all of our luggage was 5 mph faster than a standard Holden's top speed!

For their part, People magazine wrote:

They had certainly not run out of steam, for immediately after the rally they took the Holden to Monza where its lap speed was 73 mph and its maximum 90 mph which was impressive as road tests of the day put the car's maximum at 81 mph … the checking from stem to stern that was carried out must have included some skilful tuning.

From there, they drove the return journey through Switzerland back to the U.K., where Gaze shipped the car back to Australia, along with some spare parts for the ex-Sterling Moss HWM open-wheeler Lex had bought from Gaze before leaving Europe. With those parts fitted, Lex went on to take the 1954 Australian Grand Prix at Southport – the first of four.

GM-H were so delighted with the result that they invited Lex and Stan to a luncheon at Fishermans Bend⁴ where they were each given a new Holden FJ and a cheque to cover some of the expense. Gaze, however, was apparently forgotten and never received so much as a thank-you note. A shame, as Tony arguably could've used the support the most: Finding his groove in sports car racing, he would attempt to set up the Kangaroo Stable, the first all-Australia international racing team, recruiting a young and green Jack Brabham for the project. Unfortunately, the Le Mans disaster of 1955 would see many events cancelled, and Gaze would be forced to wind the team up at the end of the year.

Back in the land down under, the Holden was rallied by Davison's wife Diana, who contested The Sun Four Day Rally out of Melbourne. Lex won outright, defeating 122 other cars in a new Holden shared with Peter Ward, but Diana was 2nd in the women's section in the Monte Carlo Holden shared with Pat Wilson.

The Holden was then used in several trials by Lex and Peter Ward, including one in mid-1953 when Lex left the road on a hillside and hit a telephone pole – getting away with it only because the pole was too rotted to be much threat! Peter Ward later bought it for £500 (over $21,000) and used it as a road car for the next eighteen months, before selling it on for £750 (over $31,000!).

Sadly, that was the last we heard of one of the most important Holdens ever built, as it dropped off the radar and in all likelihood ended its days in a metal crusher somewhere. Not exactly the museum plinth it deserved, but legacy is arguably more important than any display piece. It might have been the first Holden to take on the world, but it wouldn't be the last...

¹ Trove has classifieds from November 1953 advertising second-hand Holdens with 8,000-15,000 miles on them for between £650 and £800 (under $28k to just over $34k in 2023 money). A brand-new FJ replacement started at £1,023, or nearly $48,000.

² I'm not sure who Primotipo's quoting here. He pulls quotes from at least two Motor Sport articles, as well as Graham Howard’s biography of Lex Davison, Larger Than Life, but it's not clear to me which was the source here.

³ This being Australia in the '50s, it goes without saying everyone involved was remarkably racist. I don't know exactly what Lex meant by that, but it's a beautiful day, let's not lift that rock and find out what horrible things are living under it...

⁴ Later the pair would become Holden dealers as Monte Carlo Motors, on the corner of Punt and Swan Street, Richmond, Melbourne.