Enzed Endgame: Sandown '88

The 1987 Sandown 500 had been run under a shadow, the prospect of the private enthusiasts who owned their own cars and competed mainly for the fun of it being pushed off the entry lists by the arrival of the big works teams from Europe – teams here to contest the World Touring Car Championship at Bathurst and Calder Park.

A year on, the WTCC was as dead as Communism, but the privateers were still here, padding out the Sandown grid to a total of 34 entries. If you're counting at home, that's seven more than showed up for the race in 2018, although it's true that in today's world some of those entries would be back in the supporting Super2 or SuperUte series. That said, at least none of the teams in 1988 were running stupid retro liveries – Supercars is already a retro series, for chrissakes, what do they need retro liveries for?

Anyway, in 1988 the race was backed by Larry Perkins' old sponsor, Enzed Fluid Connectors, for the first and only time. If the 1987 Sandown enduro had had an "end of an era" vibe about it, the 1988 edition didn't yet feel like a rebirth – but still, it would be the last time the race would be held on the longer 3.878km "Grand Prix" version of the circuit, with its tight, twisting infield that bypassed the fast and dangerous Esses. It was a sign the racing establishment in Australia was about ready to start facing facts, accept that some things weren't working and begin the pruning.

People Who Race, and Serious Racers
The entry list for the 1988 Enzed 500 was basically a who's who of those serious about their preparations for Bathurst, although not all of them could necessarily back it up. There was the works Nissan team, Gibson Motorsport, with a pair of Skyline GTS-Rs for Glenn Seton/Anders Olofsson (#15), and George Fury/Mark Skaife (#30). Behind them were a couple of privateers in older DR30s, such as the #14 Netcomm car of old hands Murray Carter & Steve Masterton (although they failed to qualify), and the yellow #42 Hella car of Matt Wacker & Larry Kogge. There was even a a non-turbo #88 Gazelle (or S14 S12 Silvia, if you prefer), which had been farmed out to Bryan Sala and Ross Burbidge (fun fact: Burbidge had been one of the first to race a Mazda RX-7 at Bathurst, way back in 1979, when they were only a class car and not the outright contender Moffat made them into).

Of the BMWs, in stark contrast to the situation in Europe, there were only three. Two were works cars, the #05 Mobil M3 of Peter Brock, and the backup #7 for Neil Crompton and David "Skippy" Parsons. Brock was once again giving the aspiring youngster Crompo a chance to shine on the big stage, pairing him with a fast and safe pair of hands in Skippy Parsons – although, as with last year, their main qualification was probably still that they came cheap. And Brock had almost certainly kept the team's best stuff for himself, choosing as co-driver the man with whom he'd won two Bathursts back-to-back in 1978 and '79, "Gentleman" Jim Richards. I'd love to know whether they went with Brock's Schnitzer setup or Richo's softer, more forgiving Frank Gardner settings, but honestly, as far as I can tell it's a coin toss – whether Brock would listen to what you were trying to tell him or stubbornly do things his own way depended on which day it was, and Richo was probably too easygoing to force the issue.

(The third BMW on the grid was the #87 Sommariva Concrete 635 CSi, which was actually Richo's ATCC-winning car from 1985. It was now owned and driven by Joe Sommariva, with co-driving duties from Darrel Belsky.)

Toyota Team Australia had sent along three cars to contest Class C, a single AE86 Sprinter coupé and two front-wheel drive FX-GT hatchbacks. They were backed up by the privateer AE86 of Bryan Bate Motors, and of course, Bob Holden's long-serving AE86 hatch. The only possible threat to a Toyota victory in the tiddler class was the #86 Gemspares Isuzu Gemini ZZ of Daryl Hendrick & John White, and it wasn't much of a threat at that.

Of the new Walkinshaw Commodores, there were plenty. No fewer than nine players had upgraded to the new bodykit and fuel-injected V8, spearheaded by the two works cars of Holden Special Vehicles. The #10 of team leader Larry Perkins (and co-driver, 1967 F1 World Champion Denny Hulme) was a new car, PE 005, built especially for the 1988 endurance season; the #11, shared by TWR regular Jeff Allam and 1985 Bathurst-winner Armin Hahne, was Larry's ATCC car (PE 004) upgraded to Walkinshaw spec.

Besides the works cars, two other Walkies on the grid were Perkins-built. The first was the powder-blue Everlast entry of Bill O'Brien, who was still racing PE 003, the very first customer car Perkins had ever built. "I needed two of those injected engines plus gearboxes and other trick parts," O'Brien told Australian Muscle Car #98, "and I soon worked out that I had spent over half a million in less than a year!" To help pay the bills, O'Brien accepted an offer from wealthy prestige car dealer Ray Lintott to buy a half-share of the car for Bathurst, bedding down their partnership in the crucible of Sandown.

The other Perkins car belonged to Tony Noske, owner-driver of the Kalari Transport outfit. He'd upgraded to a brand-new car, chassis PE 006, having sold off PE 001 to fund the transfer. PE 001, you'll recall, had started life as Perkins' 1987 ATCC car in Enzed colours; after racing it through the 1988 sprint season, Noske had advertised it in Auto Action as a bare shell, eventually selling it to a Melbourne wrecker who turned it back into a road car! It seems the wrecker had a written-off VK "Blue Meanie" in his possession, which he gutted of the running gear and installed into PE 001, turning it into a road-going VK Group A replica. The line between high-performance road car and racing car was reeeal fuzzy back then.

There was also the Beaurepaires Walky of Chris Lambden, which was actually HDT 16 – yes, the car in which Peter Brock had won his last Bathurst. Peter was too broke to put it on a museum plinth, so it had been sold off to fund his BMW campaign. Also present was the well-remembered Peter McLeod Yellow Pages car, which was actually nearing the end of its racing life. It had started out as a rental car bought at auction (yes, really), and McLeod had raced it as a VK in 1985, a VK Group A in '86, a VL in '87 and now a VL Walkinshaw in '88 – the car had changed its panels like socks. At least both these cars looked the goods, both Lambden's Bearepaires and  McLeod's Yellow Pages liveries looking absolutely sumptuous.

McLeod's Yellow Pages Walky, pictured here at Bathurst.

And of course, there were the Ford Sierras. Twelve months ago this race had seen the RS500's Aussie debut, where it had shown promising speed but precious little endurance. Only four had shown up for the race, and none had made the finish (two hadn't even made the start!). But twelve months had passed between that day and this: now most of the kinks were ironed out, it was the only game in town.

The Ford spearhead was of course the #17 of Dick Johnson & John Bowe, back from humiliating the Europeans and driving a brand-new car built for the enduros (DJR4; chassis DJR3 was still on the boat back from England). The #18, which had been entrusted to open-wheel star Alf Costanzo and former Toyota leading man John Smith, was actually DJR1, Dick's right-hand drive car from 1987, which had started life as an ordinary RS Cosworth. Backing them up, Tony Longhurst had put an attractive yellow Benson & Hedges livery on TLR1 to replace the Freeport colours he'd worn in the ATCC, while Colin Bond had brought along two cars. He'd planned to share his new car, CXT1, with 1980 F1 World Champion and sometime Alfa Romeo teammate Alan Jones, but once again the new car proved troublesome and it split a cylinder bore in practice. It couldn't make the start, which left the Miedecke-built rent-a-car (MM1) to former Miedecke team drivers John Giddings and Bruce Stewart, who'd have to fly the flag for Caltex alone. Andrew Miedecke himself would be driving MM3, the Sierra built to replace the one Don Smith had destroyed in practice here last year, now dressed in a minimal #8 Gulliver's Travels livery; he'd be taking relief from old partner Andrew Bagnall. Miedecke Motorsport's status as the Ford "B-team" was rapidly eroding, however, with all these other Sierra runners starting to get results.

Then there was Allan Moffat and his #9 ANZ entry.

Cloud #9
One of the most fascinating aspects of the 1988 season was how Moffat had done the impossible and wrangled a customer car out of Rudi Eggenberger, head of Eggenberger Motorsport, Ford of Europe's official factory team. Exactly how he did it is a matter of conjecture, but it probably boiled down to two things. Firstly, his international contacts: the Ford Motor Company had long been in the habit of rotating executives through Australia and the rest of the world to give them a nice broad experience base before bringing them back to Detroit, so it's likely some of Rudi's paymasters in Cologne had known Moffat when he was part of the Ford works team in Australia in the 1970s, and applied some pressure on his behalf. The other factor was that in the last couple of years Moffat had struck up a firm friendship with Will Bailey, boss of the ANZ bank, who'd become Allan Moffat Racing's main sponsor. That had given him unusually deep pockets – which were needed, because the car was rumoured to have cost $300,000.

Having now read Moffat's book, Climbing The Mountain, I think we can put a few of the rumours to bed. The price tag above seems to be accurate, but for that money it seems he got a new car built especially to race in Australia, not a refurbished Texaco car, which is why it didn't show up until the Wanneroo round of the ATCC.

It took a lot of persuasion. Undoubtedly, Rudi was somewhat peeved with Australia. And he didn’t build customer cars anyway. His job was to work with Ford to win championships. But I wore him down and he agreed to make me a car. From start to finish it was only a couple of months but it was a long-enough delay that I missed the first three rounds of the 1988 ATCC. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain

That might explain another mystery about the car, that nobody seems to know its chassis number. Eggenberger ended up having two different systems for numbering his cars, either a five-digit number for his own cars (the #1 ETCC car from 1988, for example, was chassis 99269), or "EGMO x/xx" for customer cars. Here the EGMO stood for "Eggenberger Motorsport," with the first X standing for a sequential number, and the others for the year. So the second Moffat ANZ car that would come along in a year or so would be EGMO 7/89, meaning the seventh car built in 1989.

The first Moffat car, however, is a complete mystery, with no chassis number recorded anywhere I can find. It's possible that, as the very first customer car he ever built, Rudi simply hadn't yet decided what his customer numbering system would be. It's tempting to unofficially dub it EGMO 1/88, but even that's slightly up in the air, as one rumour suggests Eggenberger also built a car for a Japanese team that year, which might've come before Moffat's, though I haven't found out who the team allegedly was. Either way, AMR-005 seems like another possibility (AMRs 001 to 004 were the Peter Stuyvesant Mazdas), but that seems unfair to Rudi. In the end, we'll probably have to stick to convention: each of the ANZ Sierras only ever raced with a single number on the doors, so this one's usually just referred to as the #9.

In the ATCC, however, the #9 had proved less than Moffat had hoped for, as demonstrated by the outcome of the Adelaide round – a race where Moffat was not only beaten by the Dick Johnson winning machines, but lapped.

I'd been hugely impressed with the progressive power of the Sierra, loved the way it pointed, but couldn't understand why in qualifying I was 1.5 seconds off Johnson's car. This was an Eggenberger machine, a world-championship contender. It looked good, in fact great, and it was beautifully engineered. My expectation, not unreasonably, was that I'd be on the pace right out of the box – even against people who had had more time with their cars. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain 

That prompted a re-think in his workshop on Malvern Road, Toorak, followed by a repeat of Dick Johnson's expedition to Europe to complain to the manufacturer. This time, however – either because Rudi was less of a crime boss than Andy Rouse, or because Moffat was rather a better diplomat than Johnson – the outcome was very different.

I was thinking deeply about all this. I'd bought a customer car from a works team. What had I expected to happen? The realisation was blindingly obvious and a real kick in the tail.

Of course I wouldn't get works-car treatment. I'd get a car that was well-built, bulletproof and not likely to cause a "warranty" complaint. But I wouldn’t get a car that could win.

I was on a plane to Switzerland to confront the gnome in his home. Even though I had an appointment, Rudi kept me waiting a mighty long time. If you ever want to feel like a total inconvenience, just turn up in Switzerland with a complaint.

I have to say the meeting was convivial. I left not with a box of parts or a blueprint of how to rebuild the turbocharger. I left with a computer chip.

A new reality was confronting me. I was an analogue man in a digital world. While I'd been used to manually tuning my cars, and I'd even been introduced to the early concept of engine mapping, this whole process of plugging in a Pac-Man game to alter performance was foreign to me.

I came through Customs feeling no compulsion to declare what I was carrying in my briefcase. I installed it in my Sierra, and won the 1988 Sandown 500. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain

Qualifying
Without Castrol stumping up the sponsorship dollars there was no "Castrol Chargers" or any other imitation of the Bathurst top-ten shootout, just a trio of 30-minute qualifying sessions to settle the order on the grid. From those sessions, Dick Johnson ultimately took pole for the second year in a row, stopping the clocks at 1:46.94, a second faster than Longhurst – an average one-lap speed of 130.5 km/h. The Nissans looked promising also, Seton putting his GTS-R 3rd on the grid despite having rolled it at The Chase at its Bathurst press launch, while the HSV Commodores lined up 6th and 9th.

Given this was the final year cars would run on the 3.9km layout, it was an opportunity to take stock of how pole times had changed over the years. In 1984, the first year of this layout, George Fury had taken pole in his turbocharged Nissan Bluebird with a time of 1:46.2, an average of 131.5 km/h. Given that was for the older Group C regs, though, it's not especially representative – Fury's engine was 200cc smaller than Johnson's, but had the advantage of an aggressive aero kit and two extra inches of rubber at each corner. Apples and oranges.

The first meaningful data comes with Peter Brock's pole in 1985, the first year of the Group A regs, achieved in a virtually-stock VK Commodore – 1:52.3, or 124.3 km/h. That was a hefty 6.1 seconds and 7.2km/h slower than the Bluebird, so this could be regarded as the natural pace of a Group A car before the evo specials arrived. The following year, 1986, it had fallen to Brock again in the updated VK SS Group A, at 1:49.84 – a solid two-and-a-half second improvement on '85. 1987's pole had been almost as big a jump, Johnson claiming the top spot with a 1:47.59, or two-and-a-quarter seconds better than Brock in the first hit out for the "big turbo" RS500. At only 0.65 seconds faster, 1988 had brought the smallest year-on-year improvement of the Group A era, although that was explainable by the fact that it was the first time nobody had brought a major new homologation package to the track – Johnson was running more or less the same Sierra package he'd debuted the year before, and probably running no more qualifying boost than he had then. The difference this year was race boost, which was sure to be much higher than last year: that's what Johnson and Eggenberger's expensive new computer chips had bought, and it remained to be seen whose would do the business over 500km.

Still, chalk up another all-time track record to George Fury. We hear all about his '84 Bathurst pole, but no-one ever seems to mention the Sandown pole that came before it.

Race Day
Sadly, unlike the '87 edition, the full telecast of the 1988 Enzed 500 doesn't seem to be on YouTube, just a 45-minute highlight reel. It's harder to tease out the way the race unfolded when five-sixths of the broadcast is missing, but then again Sandown '88 wasn't as tense or hard-fought as '87. The Sierras were here, and they were sorted, and they'd cast everything else into the shade. The only question was whether they could last 500km at a pace that could win.

The race got off to a bustling start, with lots of revs and tyre smoke filling the air in front of the grandstands as the field streamed away. Sandown is always a race of high attrition, however, and the green bottles started falling immediately. From 2nd on the grid, Tony Longhurst made a very slow start and limped around his first lap to go straight back to the pits, the team mechanics (in smart yellow B&H uniforms) swarming to check the rear axles. He'd been just a tad too aggressive with his start and broken a driveshaft, which would have to be replaced before he could continue. His race had ended literally as soon as it began.

On the other side of the circuit, everyone behaved themselves through the first series of corners, Johnson leading but chased hard by Miedecke's plain white Sierra, Seton's Nissan, Allam's HSV Commodore, the other HSV Commodore of Perkins, the second Nissan of Fury, and Moffat's ANZ Sierra. Lap 2 started with the same calm, determined ferocity, but it was here we had the first proper retirement of the race, a Toyota – the #29 AE86 Sprinter of Drew Price & John Faulkner, so a works Toyota, at that! That was a sure sign this race wasn't going to come easily, and indeed, on the same lap, Glenn Seton was seen touring very slowly up the back straight in his Skyline, having broken the gearbox, probably off the start. Nobody realised it then, but that had been Glenn Seton's final race lap in a Nissan.

It took a while before the TV commentators found out what had gone wrong, however. The broadcast team for this race included old hands Peter Gee (good), Will Hagon (excellent), and a guest in the form of one of the most colourful figures in Aussie motorsport history, "Captain" Peter Janson. This eccentric, deerstalker-wearing privateer had been responsible for bringing Larry Perkins back into the sport, giving him a co-drive after he returned from that unsuccessful tilt at Formula 1. Four years at the Mountain had earned them a 3rd, two 2nd's and a DNF before Peter Brock headhunted Perkins for the Holden Dealer Team, kicking his career into high gear. That was the substance of Janson's time in touring cars, but what he was remembered for was the style. It wasn't just the parties, which were legendary in their own right: it was little things like, when sponsored by Cadbury-Schweppes, he'd slowed down on parade laps to toss free samples to the crowd, in defiance of the safety regs. Then, when sponsored by NGK spark plugs, he'd sidestepped a rule that kept their logo off the car by legally changing his name to NGK Janson – hey, the rules required that you display the drivers' names...

So a larrikin like Janson was a welcome addition to the commentary team, but new pitlane mike-man John Thompson was rather more of disappointment. He seemed uncomfortable with the job, and forgot that with racing drivers you can't just wait for them to spill the beans, you've got to really squeeze it out of them!

Will Hagon: Down in the pits, let's hear from Glenn Seton as to what did happen to car #15.

John Thompson: I've got Glenn Seton with me, who's out of the race after just 3 laps, he was lying 3rd and third-fastest. Glenn, you must be dreadfully disappointed?

Glenn Seton: Oh, it's very disappointing. This sort of thing is just part of the game in motorsport – these things happen. The car’s still on a development programme, and hopefully we'll fix it for Bathurst.

John Thompson: Good luck at Bathurst, Glenn.

Will Hagon: Well we didn't find out what happened, and I'm not surprised he's disappointed!

Peter Janson: I don't think he wanted to tell us!

After 14 laps it was a comfortable DJR 1-2, Dick ahead of Costanzo, with Allan Moffat well in the shade. But it was early days yet. From 7th on the grid, Moffat had calmly but firmly dealt with George Fury, Larry Perkins and Jeff Allam to be 3rd by lap 3. Costanzo had worked his way up since then, but Moffat was too wise to fight him this early in the game. And behind them more cars were falling by the wayside: the privateer #91 Bryan Bate Motors Corolla and Lawrie Nelson's #28 Capri Components Mustang had already dropped out, while lap 16 saw the Giddings/Stewart Caltex Sierra overheat and stop.

And then on lap 24, it struck Dick Johnson as well, who slowed on the long climb up the back straight and so lost the lead to Moffat, who didn't slow down a jot. Johnson didn't fall away, hanging on to the back of Moffat, but it was clear whatever big advantage he'd held in the opening laps was gone. I have to admit, the first time I watched the replay I thought Johnson had simply turned down the boost: in a turbo car, the way to win an enduro was to turn up the wick and put in some blistering laps early on, then back off when everyone started to chase you, giving them the unenviable choice of breaking their cars trying to close the gap or just accepting their position and circulating behind you. Bill Tuckey had dubbed this the "Brock Crush," because it was exactly what Peter used to do at Bathurst, even in his non-turbo Commodores and Toranas. Now, I'd thought, it looked like Dick had used up whatever early firepower he'd planned on using and it was time to do the sensible thing and run the bulk of the race a little bit slower than everyone else – which Moffat would welcome, because his Eggenberger car was built to go precisely this distance, and wouldn't need to slow down one iota.

But no, that lap Johnson pitted and the mechanics lifted the bonnet tor reveal a water reservoir steaming and bubbling over, although whether that was the cause or merely a symptom of the pit stop was impossible to know. Something always seemed to curse Johnson at Sandown, a race he'd never won, and never would win under Group A regulations.

John Thompson: Dick Johnson, you must be dreadfully disappointed. An overheating problem with the Sierra?

Dick Johnson: Mate, the race is nowhere near finished yet, pal. We can pick that up.

John Thompson: What sort of problem is it?

Dick Johnson: I dunno, it's just started missing and carrying on about 15 laps ago. I tried to stay out there, but it got bad enough that I had to stop because the thing was stopping on me. It's just obviously getting water on the electrics. I dunno where it's leaking from.

John Thompson: Thanks, Dick.

A bit later, Thompson reappeared with another DJR team member by his side.

John Thompson:  We've got Neal Lowe with us, Dick Johnson's team manager. Neal, what was the problem with Dick's car?

Neal Lowe: Well we're not really sure. It started off by misfiring a little on one corner just entering the straight. We brought it in to have a look, and when you turn these turbo cars off from a race speed they tend to boil over. So whether we've fixed the problem or not, we're not really sure. But we filled it up with water, changed the fuel pump over and away it goes. Seems okay at the moment.

Dick rejoined, but he'd lost a lot of time and was well behind the pack, circulating back in 17th.
Rubbing in salt, the #18 car of Alf Constanzo was in not too long after with rear axle problems (Janson guessed it was the diff) – close enough that the team could treat it like a scheduled stop, putting John Smith behind the wheel, but early enough to throw a wrench in their pit strategy for the day. The team took their time servicing it, giving the windscreen a good clean and refuelling without undue haste, as the mechanics at the rear worked frantically to get the axle fixed.The #18 rejoined as well, but like the boss it was well behind the lead.

They were still in better shape than some. Daryl Hendrick's #86 Gemspares Gemini had already dropped out, while Peter McLeod's stunning Yellow Pages Commodore had visited the pits at the end of lap 1, rejoined to circulate with the leaders (a lap down), before stopping out on the circuit and being abandoned. A similar fate befell other Commodore runners, with no chequered flag on the horizon for Terry Finnigan (head gasket), Chris Lambden (oil leak) or later, Bill O'Brien (reasons unknown).

Not that the race leaders were getting a clear run either. On lap 48 Moffat brought the ANZ car in, and in a brisk 37-second stop the team re-tyred and refuelled it and put Gregg Hansford in the driver's seat for the lunchtime shift. Unfortunately, there'd been a problem with the dry-break fuel system – these cars didn't have screw-on filler caps, just a spring-loaded seal that could be pushed open by a refuelling hose and then spring back into place when it was removed. A problem with the O-ring meant this one hadn't sprung back into place properly, so when it returned to the track the car was seen gushing fuel in right-hand turns. Amazingly, Peter Janson told the viewers at home, "That's not dangerous, so they'll just let him go on that" – which made us wonder what planet he lived on, because it was, and they didn't. Within a lap Hansford was given a mechanical black flag and ordered to bring it back to the pits, so on lap 51 Hansford returned to pit lane, had the filler seen to and rejoined with the kind of ferocious haste that comes from being annoyed with yourself.

And while that was going on, Larry Perkins had brought the #10 Commodore in to hand over to Denny Hulme, who gave it a bootful and slid out of his pit box sideways, rejoining 3rd. The order thus had George Fury (who had yet to pit) leading for Nissan, Hulme 2nd, Hansford 3rd and Hahne 4th, putting us in with a good chance of seeing the new Walkinshaw Commodores lead a race for the very first time!

In a rare sign of trouble for the BMWs, on lap 42 Jim Richards started releasing big gusts of smoke from under his #05 M3 – not a constant flow, just at various points around the circuit. Janson quickly spotted that, "he's getting it when on surge" – the same principle that will make you spill your drink in a game of corners – "so it might be the top filler tank, and she's coming over the side and onto the manifold." Three laps later the car was in the pits with the bonnet up, so whatever was going wrong was bad, which was confirmed during Hansford's second unscheduled stop – we caught a glimpse of the Mobil mechanics pushing the #05 BMW into the back of the garage. That didn't necessarily mean whatever had gone wrong was terminal, but it did mean Brock was out of contention for the race he'd won nine times (including seven in a row) in his stellar career. Shortly after, John Thompson was talking to Graeme "Mort" Brown, Brock's team manager.

John Thompson: I've got Graeme Brown with me, the Brock team manager. Graeme, you've had a few problems with the Brock car, I believe an oil filter's split, and Brock's gone out in the second car, is that right?

Graeme Brown: That's correct, yes. When the filter split, Jimmy said it felt like the car lost some power, so we didn't think it had a very long life even after we replaced the filter. So to give the second car a bit more of a chance we've put Peter in it, and we've put Dave Parsons into Peter's car.

A team boss with a long history of cross-entry shenanigans at it again. I'll let you make up your own mind about it, but as with Phil Brock before him, Neil Crompton never got to drive. The #7 car suffered an engine failure on lap 59 with Brock at the wheel – Parsons had started it, Brock killed it, and Crompo was left kicking his heels on the sidelines. Lap 57 had already seen the #11 HSV Commodore stop with a broken axle, so the pond was starting to get awfully short of the big fish. If you could keep going – like Dick Johnson, Allan Moffat and George Fury – you stood a good chance of picking up a result even if you were short of outright speed.

Shortly after, Fury finally pitted to hand over to Mark Skaife, 21 years old and straining at the leash. While he waited for Fred Gibson to give him the go signal, Denny Hulme swept through to take the race lead – so for the first time ever, a Walkinshaw Commodore was leading a race! Sadly however, Skaife didn't get a chance to dispute the lead with Perkins, as on lap 94 the #30 Skyline snapped a propshaft and retired.

That was the last of the retirements, as all the other drivers seemingly got the message and drove gingerly to the finish. All except one – Hansford brought the ANZ Sierra in for his scheduled stop (or as scheduled as it could be given the amount of fuel it had thrown overboard in the early laps) and handed it back to the boss. Moffat climbed aboard for the run to the flag and zoomed out of pit lane like a man on a mission. His cause was helped when Hulme locked up the rear brakes and tipped himself into a spin at the end of the front straight, losing some crucial time. Whether it would've made a difference in the end is debatable as the Moffat Sierra was just faster, reeling him in and passing for the lead with so little drama it didn't even make it into the YouTube highlight reel (or maybe it happened when Hulme pitted to hand it back to Perkins). Although it's not quite true that Moffat and Hansford took the lead and then held it except for the pit stops, it is true that it had been a fairly serene and untroubled run for the ageing Ford hero.

Dick Johnson meanwhile had made good on his promise that it wasn't over yet, and with five laps to go he was back up to 3rd pace. Unfortunately, with four laps to go he ran into problems yet again, as Moffat came up and zoomed past between Turns 2 and 3, putting him a lap down. Given how sick the car was, that might've been a blessing in disguise – it didn't look like the car had four laps of life left in it! By then Dick had a five-lap cushion over the 4th-placed Graham Moore, at the wheel of the #26 Kalari Transport Commodore owned by Tony Noske, but the Moore was running at full pelt and Dick wasn't.

With the finish virtually in sight, the #17 dived into the pits and ignited a frenzy of activity from the mechanics. Moore was 5 laps behind and Moffat was only 3 from the flag. If they retired the car it was all over, but if they kept it running – just running, it didn't have to be fast – they were virtually assured of a podium finish. With steam whooshing from the engine, it didn't look good, but they pulled out every trick they had and it wasn't until Moffat came around to complete his final lap that we realised what they had in mind. As Moffat swept imperiously down the front straight to greet the chequered flag, the #17 Shell Sierra was coaxed back to life and limped into the pit exit road, still bleeding steam, and crawled slowly, slowly, toward the finish line. Down the main straight beside him roared Larry Perkins in the #10 HSV Commodore, the Walky taking its first podium finish, and still the dying Sierra limped on. One final push from the mechanics and it trickled the final couple of hundred metres on the starter motor, crossing the finish line and officially chalking up 3rd place in the 1988 Enzed 500! Noske & Moore protested of course, but the result was upheld.

The final results showed Allan Moffat and Gregg Hansford had won the 1988 Enzed 500 in 4 hours, 4 minutes and 11.26 seconds. 2nd was Larry Perkins and Denny Hulme in the #10 HSV Commodore, with 3rd – somewhat controversially – going to Dick Johnson and John Bowe in the #17 Shell Sierra. The Class B winners were Brock/Richards/Parsons in the #05 Mobil BMW M3, four laps behind Moffat and 7th outright, but it was virtually by default as the only other car in their class had been their #7 sister car, which had failed to finish. Class C had fallen to the #88 Sala/Burbidge Nissan Gazelle, 20 laps down, after all the Toyotas dropped out with mechanical dramas. The exception was the #13 Bob Holden Motors AE86 Corolla, which was still running at the finish, but with just 81 laps on the board it hadn't covered enough distance to be classified. Only 12 of the 32 starters had actually earned a result.

So it had been a bruising race, but one car and its drivers had proven more than enough to see off the competition. The post-race interview showed why Allan Moffat was able to bring together such fine machinery and talent – he worked that much harder to give his sponsors good value.

Peter Gee: Allan, congratulations. You must have some vintage champagne – well it's become vintage, it's been sitting in the fridge so long, waiting for this moment?

Allan Moffat: Well I have to say, I was thinking on the last lap, the last time we had such a nice victory [with his ANZ-branded baseball cap on] was when we launched our Trans-Am Mustang, and it was a very hard drive that day, it was a hard drive today!

Peter Gee: How long has it been since you've taken the chequered flag, first across the line?

Allan Moffat: It's the first win for our Eggenberger Sierra, and I'm delighted about that. It's taken a while, but all things come to those who wait. And I have to thank my crew for working so hard on the car, and Rudi Eggenberger for supplying us with a great car in the first place. And I was just the lucky fella behind the wheel today.

Peter Gee: You've won this race six times now, how does this one compare?

Allan Moffat: Is it? Well I'd like to thank Gregg, I couldn't have done it without him. Held the car together, when I got back in it I didn't even know I'd been out of it, he didn't hurt it at all. He kept the station for me, and the luck of the break with the pit stops and we came through. I am delighted. And I have to thank Dunlop for great tyres as well, we went all the way [switches to Dunlop cap] on Dunlop today.

Peter Gee: You're changing hats quite a bit here Allan!

Allan Moffat: These people helped me a lot!

Peter Gee: Gregg, what sort of instructions did he give you when you took over?

Gregg Hansford: Ah, just to bring the car back in one piece, and go as fast as I could without being too dangerous. I think I did what he asked me to do, and uh, the result was there.

Allan Moffat: He did a great job. I'm very happy and looking forward to Bathurst. If you can't do five-hundred you can't do a thousand.

Peter Gee: Did anything go wrong today?

Allan Moffat: Oh, I made a few mistakes myself, but I... Oh yes, one thing did go wrong! The fuel filler, rubber ring broke in the pit stop, but, uh that won't happen again.

Peter Gee: Well you're really looking forward to October the 2nd now?

Allan Moffat: I am. We've had to suffer some losses throughout the season, the car was never really built as a sprint car. And we had a strategic plan, and I'm happy to say with the support of ANZ we were able to stick to that. They stuck with me, and we got the result.

Peter Gee: Allan, fabulous performance and I think the crowd here are very pleased to see Allan Moffat back, number one. Gregg Hansford as well, well done this afternoon.

As noted, it was the sixth Sandown endurance victory for Moffat, having won it in 1969 (Falcon GT-HO), 1970 (GT-HO Phase II), 1974 (XB GT), 1982 and 1983 (Mazda RX-7). For the record, his last win first across the line had been the February race on the streets of Wellington, just last year. (True, he and John Harvey had won the Monza WTCC round since then, but that had come after the cars ahead of them were disqualified.) His last win with his own team had been the 1984 Valvoline 250 at Oran Park, a whopping 1,484 days ago, which coincidentally had also come with Gregg Hansford co-driving. Although it would've been the work of a pessimist to guess it at the time, it was also his final win on Australian soil, the final flourish for one of the most splendid careers in the business. But this one was all the sweeter because it was not the result you would have predicted after qualifying. Motor racing can be funny like that.

[Dick] took pole at Sandown and all I could muster was 7th. I was ready to spit chips.

But Rudi hadn't let me down. He'd given me a fast car that was bulletproof for 500 kilometres. Gregg and I steadily worked our way through the field and took over the lead at the quarter-distance, losing it only during the pit stops. There's an old adage: "He who wins Sandown never wins Bathurst." I’d proved that wrong as early as 1970 and, standing on the victory dais at Sandown, I was pretty certain the curse would not be on me this year. – Allan Moffat, Climbing The Mountain

Walkin' a Lonely Road

When it hit the streets in mid-1988, the VL Commodore SS Group A SV "Walkinshaw," better known as the Walky, was the fastest and most expensive Holden ever made. It was also, by a considerable margin, the most painful to look at.

Today, after thirty years of ever-more-yobbo Holdens aimed at the knuckle-dragging AC/DC crowd, it doesn't seem that outrageous. But in a decade when Holden was trying to market itself as urbane and European, the Walky was far from subtle, standing out in traffic even in its gentle Panorama Silver paint scheme. At the vehicle's launch, Holden executive John Crennan was prompted to state: "To some people it may be over the top, but everything on the vehicle is there for a good reason. In many ways this is the most advanced car ever produced in Australia."

...Which was mostly because it hadn't been developed in Australia at all. The most prominent and recognisable part of the car, its outlandish bodykit, had been developed by Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR), based at Oxfordshire in the U.K.

The Sleeping Lion: Holden Special Vehicles
Scott Grant, managing director of HSV for about five minutes there ten years ago, once claimed that, "The birth of HSV and the reveal of the very first VL Group A SS Commodore – commonly referred to as the 'Walkinshaw' – took place at the 1987 Sydney Motor Show." While that much is true, the big reveal was done via a giant giant billboard with a full-size cardboard cutout, not the machine itself. The display also featured a pre-production version of the new Group A racing engine, Holden's first V8 to be fitted with fuel injection, with the real gravy being a cutaway plenum chamber showing the huge induction trumpets and twin throttle bodies, a work of art by 1987 standards. A single example of HSV's new wheel design was also on show.

The only image I can find is from the brochure, ironically as cutaway as the engine itself. (Source)

However, there wasn't actually a single production-spec Walkinshaw anywhere in existence at that time. Indeed, the outfit that would build them technically didn't exist yet. The display itself carried the new legend "Holden Special Vehicles," as Holden managing director Chuck Chapman and TWR founder and namesake Tom Walkinshaw had chosen this very event to announce their new joint venture. So how could they show off a production-ready car and engine when the ink on the contract was barely dry? Because the Walky was never meant to be a Walky. If things had gone according to plan it would have been another Brock, put together in Bertie Street by the crew at HDT Special Vehicles.

Back up to 1986. With Peter Brock slowly losing his mind over the Energy Polarizer, Holden had gone looking for someone else build their high-performance offerings and run the race team, just in case it all went pear-shaped. By happy coincidence, about this time GM in Detroit had finally overturned their long-standing "no race" policy, which had been in place since the Le Mans disaster of 1955 and made subterfuges like the Holden Dealer Team necessary in the first place ("No no, it's our dealer network that's racing. No sir, we're certainly not subsidising them or providing free cars..."). With the ban lifted, Holden were able to be fully and publicly involved at long last, founding a new branch of the company especially to liaise with the racing teams – Holden Motor Sport, or HMS.

The first boss of HMS was one John Lindell, and it was he who brought British touring car, sportscar and later F1 outfit Tom Walkinshaw Racing into the Holden family. Having campaigned Rovers and Jaguars in Europe for several years, with great success, by 1986 the granite-browed Scotsman was on the lookout for his next big project, and his eye fell upon the humble VL Commodore. Tom seems to've nursed a desire to win Bathurst, not just as an entrant but as a driver, and having experienced the Commodore as a rival in his first two Bathurst campaigns (and then seen it beat all comers, against the odds, in 1986), he'd probably decided it was a case of horses for courses. In a Commodore, he’d have a better shot at winning Bathurst than with anything else being campaigned at the time – and, given this was pre-Sierra RS500, he was probably right.

Yes, I said two Bathurst campaigns – the year before the Big Cats, Tom entered his works-backed Rovers in 1984's Group A "preview" class. He'd carried that torch for a while, it seems.

Whatever his deeper motivations, Tom asked HMS to back a team of TWR Commodores in Europe. With the Brock issue still up in the air Lindell was only too happy to oblige, flying two plane-loads of cars and parts to TWR's Oxfordshire base at the end of 1986 so they could assess the VL's development potential. At this stage it was just a one-off development contract – "Please fix our aero, here's a couple of samples to get you started" – but that December, possibly strategically, Lindell informed Brock that they would be encouraging TWR's campaign.

I flew back from Japan after racing at Mount Fuji and found myself on the same plane as Tom Walkinshaw, who was putting a deal together to build special vehicles. I knew nothing of it, but it showed how far we'd grown apart in the latter part of 1986. – Peter Brock

Which really should've been clue number one-thousand or so for Brock to knock it off already, but he tended to just tune out things he didn't want to hear. In any case, TWR's preliminary aerodynamic work won them a purchase order to continue, as Lindell realised that the existing VL Group A would need a major update to stay competitive. He also had his eye on a possible export model and/or racing special that could show off the new fuel-injected 4.9-litre V8 globally. At that stage the plan was still to have TWR finalise the car and then contract Brock and HDT to build the production version and race it, which is what had happened with the previous VL Group A (the red one). That car had been signed off and finalised before HDT were allowed to touch it, and any extra input from TWR this time around didn't meaningfully change that equation.

But then of course, in February 1987, Brock found himself exiled from Holden over the HDT Director, a very necessary decision that nevertheless cost Holden their prized go-faster cottage industry. TWR's development work wouldn't be finished until July, which left a tight deadline if they were going to have the new car ready by November. Holden suddenly realised they had to get a whole new wing of the company founded, staffed, furnished, waltzed through the legal and paperwork minefield, and then put a brand-new car on the road – all in just 10 months.

To speed things up, the obvious trick would be to contract someone already established, someone with experience who could be relied on to know what they were doing, and it seemed inevitable that that someone would be TWR. Holden released the tender in May 1987, and sure enough, Walkinshaw's submission was the one chosen, beating out eight other proposals from around the world. On 15 October 1987, TWR signed the initial ten-year agreement that created Holden Special Vehicles.

The official opening of HSV came on 17 February 1988. Inaugural HSV chief John Crennan had reportedly been recruited at the 1987 Adelaide Grand Prix, leaving his job as national marketing director to become managing director of HSV. The all-important marketing and public relations job was given to a man hand-picked by Walkinshaw himself, Brock's faithful lieutenant and co-driver from the glory days, John Harvey. Slug's first task was finding HSV a suitable property to use as a base, and he settled on a site at Notting Hill in Melbourne's south-east industrial belt, even though he could foresee parking would eventually become a problem, especially when they had 500 VL Group As to build in short order. "We were running out of time," he said.

The Elephant in the Room: That Aero Kit
Cd, or coefficient of drag, was the Next Big Thing for car designers of the 1980s. Arguably it had started with the Audi 100 of 1983, which managed to combine a Cd of 0.30 with remarkably unremarkable styling – it was around 30% more aerodynamic than most other cars of the time, yet was neither a weird-looking experimental nor a svelte low-slung sports car (technically Ford beat them to the punch with the Sierra, but that was regarded as a very odd duck when it was new – the nickname "Jellymould" said it all). After the Audi, other manufacturers started adopting their shallow-angled rear glass, high boot lines and underfloor guidance panels chasing ever-greater open-road fuel efficiency and, yes, higher speeds.

Audi 100, the quiet revolution. (Source)

It was to this end TWR coughed up possibly the most elaborate bodykit ever put on a production car, comprising huge front and rear spoilers, door and sill side skirts, C-pillar fairings and a large bonnet bulge which incorporated cold air (engine) induction, hot air (radiator) extraction, and sufficient clearance for the new fuel injection system. This monstrosity was not the result of stylists working out of a think tank at Fishermens Bend, but of painstaking testing carried out in the U.K.'s MIRA windtunnel at simulated speeds of up to 240km/h – tests which, rumour has it, tended to strain the local electricity supply. The silhouette that emerged earned the car a plethora of nicknames, from the somewhat flattering "Batmobile," to the deeply unflattering but possibly more descriptive "Plastic Pig."

There were 21 or 22 fibreglass pieces, each of which had to be painted separately. It was a massive task co-ordinating suppliers and painters. It was the hardest I ever worked. I rented another property and put all the parts on newspapers on the floor so they wouldn't be damaged. I regularly left home at six in the morning and went to one painter for the day and one for overnight to get them finished. I’d get home at six or seven and worked weekends. – John Harvey

In a press interview in 1987, John Lindell admitted the Walky's aerodynamics had been honed to work on a race car at race speeds. The catch was the regulations required all bodywork on a Group A car to remain stock-standard, the idea being to preserve the link with the showroom product and ensure the racing really did improve the breed. Holden, however, was perfectly willing to do things the other way around and put this ludicrously impractical bodywork on a road car, even if it had a detrimental effect on sales. The bodykit did indeed prove too extreme for the street, and most dealers supplied the lowest skirts and lips in a box, allowing the owner to choose whether they wanted to apply the full racing look or be able to get over a speed bump. It also contributed to a noticeable weight gain, the Walky weighing in at a rather bulky 1,340 kilos, with the complex bodykit accounting for at least 65 of them.

Via Facebook page, "VL SS Group A SV - Walkinshaw."

But that didn't mean the fibreglass was a failure. Harvey – who had shared the Rothmans VL with Allan Moffat in 1987 on fast European circuits like Monza and Spa – knew firsthand how at high speed the car seemed to hit an impenetrable wall of air, and yet was unnaturally nervous through high-speed corners. TWR's own testing had produced similar conclusions. Ergo, TWR's aerodynamicists had worked hard to reduce drag and increase downforce, and they succeeded on both counts.

With a Cd of 0.40, the standard VL was bad even by the standards of the 1980s, which is why it took so much bodykit to correct it. At the front was a very deep air dam, in appearance similar to the one on the previous Group A, but in function quite different. The brake cooling ducts had been moved toward the centre of the car, and the standard VL grille was virtually blanked off – the large duct under the bumper provided adequate airflow, said John Lindell. More importantly, the used cooling air was extracted by way of a large vent in the bonnet: excess under-bonnet air pressure had been a major problem with the VL Group A, as it tended to create lift at the front end to the point of almost negating the effect of the air dam. New side-skirts were developed to help channel fast-moving air under the car and improve downforce. The skirts featured three vents on either side, which allowed a controlled leakage of air out from under the car. These vents allowed a good balance between low drag and racy downforce.

It was aft of the B-pillar that Holden's race special looked the most radical, however. The VL’s sixth window – the one that had been such a key to the success of the VK – was covered by a one-piece panel that extended aft of the C-pillar to form a "fence" on either side of the raised boot lid. This panel markedly improved the air flow around the C-pillar, although Lindell admitted at the time that it had taken quite a battle to get it accepted by Holden's styling department. It was claimed that together Walkinshaw's fibreglass panels dropped the Cd to a slippery 0.34, an improvement of about 25%, correspondingly lifting its top speed to 235km/h and making it far more stable at speed than its red predecessor.

Another via Facebook page, "VL SS Group A SV - Walkinshaw."

So it did the job, but TWR's elaborate body additions were a challenge for local suppliers, and not for the "official" reasons given. The Walky was largely built on Holden's Dandenong line, where the upgraded mechanicals and different interior trim, which included an all-new Holden sports seating package to replace the Scheels favoured by Brock, were fitted to standard VL bodyshells. The cars were then transported to the HSV factory in Notting Hill to have the aerodynamic bits and pieces fitted and finished. That the bodykit didn’t really fit has long been common knowledge, and traditionally it was blamed on the fibreglass pieces themselves. Because of the rush they were actually made in Britain by a firm called Dove Plastics, and at this time British manufacturing quality was proverbially awful, witness jokes about Lucas, Rover and Jaguar. But we had the wrong end of the stick entirely: the real problem was that Holden's antiquated build processes were delivering VL bodies that varied in critical dimensions by centimetres, when TWR's aero parts were designed to close up all the gaps. Poor Dove had actually supplied TWR with the components for its factory-approved Jaguar bodykits, so the quality was top-notch, but they ended up wearing the blame for a bodykit that nobody liked.

By My Deeds I Honour Him: V8
Thankfully, Holden made up for it with the engine, the latest version of their special 4.9-litre V8. By now there was no disguising that it was an iron-block, carb-fed, pushrod-activated throwback trying to compete in a turbocharged, computerised, DOHC world. It might have been well-developed and battle-hardened, but as a concept it was much more classic Trans-Am than modern BMW M division, let alone something that – god forbid – was now going to be hanging around well into the 1990s. It was well past time it was modernised.

Tom Walkinshaw had previously added fuel injection to the SD1 to create the Rover Vitesse and Vanden Plas, the cars the SD1 should've been all along, so he was well aware of the gains that could be made with this more modern and precise method of fuel delivery. This aspect of the project, however was all-Australian, the hard work done by a local team under the direction of Holden Engine Company engineer Warwick Bryce, with the dyno work to fine-tune the fuel injection system and inlet manifold design undertaken by Larry Perkins.

Early experiments from Bryce included this twin-plenum setup on vertical rams. (Source)

Mods to the engine started with a strengthened block with four-bolt main bearings – now cast iron instead of steel, as it was stiffer and easier to machine to the correct tolerances. The Formula 5000-based crankshaft was carried over from the previous model, as were the strengthened conrods (fun fact: rewind the clock far enough and the V8 would trace its lineage back to the L34 engine of 1974, which had been crafted by Repco based on their thunderous Formula 5000 engines, at a time when memories of Jack Brabham's two F1 World Championships were still fresh).

At the heart of it though was the new Bosch/Delco multi-point fuel injection system, featuring a totally different cross-ram inlet manifold with twin throttle-bodies (one for low rpm, one for high). Apart from provision for injector nozzles in the combustion chambers, the new heads featured a slightly different valve arrangement: hitherto the exhaust valves for the middle two cylinders on each bank had been set adjacent to each other. With the fuel injected engine, this was changed so that exhaust and inlet valves alternated all the way along the head, thus allowing for a more even distribution of heat through the heads.

In addition, new exhaust extractors were developed in conjunction with HM Headers (the same people who’d supplied the Phase III) to handle the flow of exhaust gas from the differently-configured cylinder heads. The new headers featured a two-piece version of the high flange developed for the previous year's Group A SS, which allowed race teams significant freedoms in exhaust design and development – the rules said exhaust systems were free after the first join, so once again Holden made that first join as early as possible to give the teams as much freedom as they could. A 65mm pipe, new three-way catalytic converter and a reworked muffler completed the road car’s exhaust system, however, damping down the power but meeting noise limits down at the RTA office.

Under-bonnet view wasn't exactly a work of art, but it all worked just fine. The boxy inelegant plenum was working around intake architecture designed for a carb. (Source)

In road trim the engine developed around 180 kW at 5,200 rpm, and a claimed 380 Nm of torque at 2,800, both healthy increases over the previous Group A's 137 and 345. It wasn't the most powerful Holden ever made – it couldn't be, in those emissions controlled, post-ULP times – but it was the most powerful in a long, long time. Which sounded promising, but the extra power had largely been eaten up by the weight gain: 0-100 remained a claimed 6.5 seconds (more like 6.9), and times over the standing-quarter hovered stubbornly around the 15-second mark (14.95 measured at one point), no better than the old VH "Brockmobile." In the brochure Holden also claimed the Walky would do a combined 9.2 litres per 100km – yeah right, on a long downhill, maybe. Call it 14.5, guys, and then we’ll talk.

All that said, there’s more to performance than volcanic power. HMS also spent a lot of time looking underneath Les Small's racing Commodores to see if there were any useful changes they could adopt, but in the end it was decided to leave the Group A's suspension unchanged from the previous model – meaning stiffer springs, stabiliser bars, and Bilstein gas-filled shocks all-round. They kept the previous car's 16x7 wheel dimensions, although they were not the Momo star pattern favoured by Brock, and fitted with sticky Bridgestone RE71 tyres. The drivetrain scored a higher-capacity clutch to handle the extra torque of the new engine, Borg Warner's excellent BT5G 5-speed manual gearbox, and the ever-reliable 3.08:1 final drive ratio with four-pinion limited-slip diff (made slightly more reliable by shot-peened gears). As long as it had some well-chosen ratios, the Walky felt fast and fun, able to outrun anything in those days that wasn't expensive and Italian. Compared to the wallowing donor car, which could spin an inside wheel even in the Maccas drive-thru, the Walky was a much tidier, more responsive beast. "Nor," promised the brochure, "is it spartan. This Group A is the most comfortably furnished ever, with luxury equipment such as power windows, power door locking, 4-speaker stereo AM/FM radio-cassette, air conditioning and a security system. Each car complies fully with Australian Design Rules, and carries a full Holden warranty."

Interior was functional but a bit bland, with none of the character of a Brock. (Source)

Despite that, it was still a difficult sell. After the spike of the early 1980s, petrol prices were now definitely coming down so there was a growing market for performance machines, but this one seemed especially hard to swallow. For starters, it was a Walkinshaw Commodore, not a Brock Commodore, and the price was almost as over the top as the gregarious bodykit, with an initial asking price of $47,000 (almost $100,000 in 2015). That really was ludicrously expensive for a Holden, beating the previous record-holder (the original VC-based Brock) by nearly twenty grand in contemporary dollars – and the VC had been an ultra-low volume special aimed at doctors and lawyers. When initial demand was strong, HSV made the mistake of adding another 250 units to their initial planned batch of 500, taking the total to a whopping 750. But the Walky, slated for release in November 1987, didn't actually enter production until 10 March 1988, with homologation not approved until 1 August. By then, the rival EA Falcon had arrived and made VL Commodores – all VL Commodores – look decidedly out-of-date. Everyone knew the next generation wasn't far off, and after the VN arrived in August, most of the second batch stayed on dealer forecourts (some of them for years) until sold cheap, or were even stripped of the bodykit and resprayed to hide the fact they were unsold Walkies. (Of course, since then they've become quite collectable, and the original, No.001 – which was given away as a prize at Bathurst later in the year – is now valued at up to $300,000!)

Early Days Are Always Strange
A bit off-topic, but it's so delightfully weird I just have to share. In the early days HSV had trouble getting enough cars together to satisfy their 50-plus dealers around the country – the fuel-injected V8 wasn't available for lesser models until April 1989. To fill the gap, HSV set about creating a more sedate Calais SV88 model, which was released in May 1988. Using the standard Calais V8 as a donor car, they added the last of the V8 carburettor parts originally intended for various Brock models, eking out just 136 kW, and then made it worse with a 3-speed Trimatic ("Traumatic") auto, the only driveline that was available. On the exterior, new front and rear spoilers were fitted, along with a louvered grille and a set of HSV alloys. The acres of fuzzy velour on the interior were too little to really justify a price tag above $40,000. Since it was aimed at the businessman in a hurry, it had Australia’s first onboard car phone and fax machine as a staggering $3,300 option. Only 150 were ever produced.

Later, HSV released their weakest and most hilarious offering, the SV1800, a rather tepid tweak on the LD Astra hatchback (which in itself was really an N13-series Nissan Pulsar). A part of the Button Plan jigsaw aimed at getting volumes of individual models above 40,000, the Astra/Pulsar had dropped in sedan and hatch versions in 1987, powered by Holden’s 1.8-litre Family Two engine, putting out a respectable 79 kW. There was no sports model in the lineup, leaving the door open for HSV to work its magic. Sort of. The engine wasn't touched, and instead the SV1800 came with a bodykit, new wheels, tweaked suspension and some stickers. That was all. 0-100 in 11.7 seconds and a 400-metre time of 17.5 was slower than the standard car, and a world away from the 9 seconds claimed by HSV. Braking was compromised by rear drums – unforgivable when the Pulsar came with discs as standard. In the end only 65 of the "Baby Walky" were produced before production ceased in early 1989, an obscure footnote in HSV's history.

Never mind that, what was the real thing like on the track?
As a racecar the Walky held a certain amount of promise. In race tune the V8's 180 kW would become more like 335, achieved at a bellowing 7,000rpm, roughly the limit of valve spring technology in those days (and as per the rules, its kerb weight would become a slightly lighter 1,325kg). Late in 1987 Larry Perkins and Allan Grice had started receiving support from HMS, part of the new branch's efforts to ensure privateers had access to all the latest homologation parts and data. John Lindell believed Perkins and other top Holden race teams such as Les Small's Roadways would ultimately develop their own fuel injection electronics using the Bosch/Delco system as a base. Privateers, however, would be able to buy a range of microchips from HMS which enabled them to tune the standard system to suit varying circuit, ambient temperature and altitude conditions. (This sort of thing, by the way, is why you still see so many more Commodores on the Supercars grid than Falcons – 8 to 14 at the moment, which is still more Blue Ovals than we’ve seen on the track in a long time. HMS will look after you, keep your team supplied with parts and technical data even if you're regularly finishing 22nd. By contrast, with Ford you're more or less on your own.)

But fuel injection fundamentally changed the character of the engine: the carburettor versions had bags of torque low down, but while the fuel injection gave it more top-end power, torque was not as much improved as it should have been. Peak power and peak torque were also felt to be too close together. That said, the V8 remained responsive to exhaust system modifications, so this was still an area where a privateer team, if prepared to do a little homework, could find some useful power gains. Race teams also typically used the Ford 9-inch diff (as used in Johnson's Sierras and Brock's Bathurst-winning VL the previous year) rather than Holden's LSD, because it was tough, inexpensive and ratios were easy to come by – and as long as it fit in the standard housing, the Group A rules said you were all good anyway.

Would a Walky have made a huge difference to Perkins' ATCC campaign? Doubtful. Would he have turned down the extra performance it offered? Also doubtful!

Chief among these teams would of course be the official factory squad. The name "Holden Racing Team" first appeared in 1988, but it wasn't the same entity as the later Lowndes/Skaife golden age. The task of setting up HSV was so vast it was too much to ask Tom to run a race team as well, so the job had been farmed out to Larry Perkins, who ran a single-car team for the 1988 championship. The car (chassis PE 004) ran a splendid but not classic red, white and black livery with "Special Vehicles" along the sides, but Perkins' own sponsor Castrol on the nose. Under the skin, this HRT was actually Perkins Engineering, who was contracted to build and run the cars for two years on behalf of HMS with a handful of people from HSV and TWR helping out. So although this was the "factory" team, Holden was really only on board as a sponsor.

The Walky made its race debut in Australia in September 1988 – unless it was in August, or possibly July, and not in Australia after all. Yeah, it's like that. Everyone remembers Sandown as its first dance, but I'm afraid the reality is messier and less patriotic than that. Ideally it would have made its debut in the hands of Perkins early in the 1988 ATCC, but it was delayed in the changeover from HDT to HSV. Instead, as recently recounted in Australian Muscle Car #102, the car made its world racing debut at Amaroo Park in early July.

(Source)

The word "car" is doing a lot of lifting there, however – it was a tube-framed Sports Sedan, not a Group A touring car, and it had started life as a Torana A9X. In the tail of 1987, owner-driver Bob Tindal had simply decided he wanted to upgrade and went with the upcoming Walkinshaw VL. A set of the fibreglass panels were "found" (ahem) and the team took moulds of them to make their own copycat panels (interestingly, the fibreglass originals were felt to be too heavy for a Sports Sedan), before Tindal returned them with sudden and suspicious haste. Where he borrowed them from has never been established, but we know that when the car was taken off the trailer for its first hit out at Amaroo Park, Round 3 of the Toledo Tools Sports Sedan Series, HSV's people went white and threatened to sue. Tindal called their bluff and raced anyway, preparing to argue that it was just coincidence and his car couldn't be a Walkinshaw because he'd never seen one, they hadn’t been released yet, and got lucky when their bluff really was just a bluff.

It's a good story, but a curious footnote rather than real history. The debut of the car proper, not just the panels, came on 21 August in Round 10 of the 1988 Dunlop British Touring Car Championship, held at Brands Hatch in Kent. At the wheel was BTCC regular Mike O'Brien, who'd been driving this particular ex-Allan Grice VL for Alan Docking Racing for several months now. (The forum experts reckon it was the VK Gricey had brought to Europe for the 1986 ETCC, but I disagree. I'm guessing it was the orange Bathurst car from 1987 – in a test drive, the Motor Sport writer expressed surprise over its power steering system, which also caught out Win Percy at Bathurst, and surely you wouldn't fit power assistance to a racecar on a whim, especially one destined for the sprint-based BTCC. The interior trim in the Motor Sport article looks more like Grice's '87 car than his '86 as well, but these things can be changed. And of course, I could just be wrong.)

(Source)

O'Brien had taken the car to many and varied – but never consistent – results, a pole at Oulton Park and a win at Snetterton rather offset by carburettor woes that refused to let the car run cleanly and cracked cylinder heads that led to frequent overheating. Upgrading to Walkinshaw spec was a welcome break, as was gaining full Autoglass sponsorship, who provided the rather attractive red-on-white #7 livery. With the upgrades O'Brien found an improvement of 2.2 seconds a lap compared to his previous visit in July, but such was the pace of development he was only one place further up the grid. He eventually steered it to 13th place, which was okay for a brand-new car but well off the pace of the dominant Sierras. What the car really needed, the Docking team decided, was a thorough testing and development programme, but that was something they were not in a position to undertake – literally, as their position was the U.K. Holden was fairly apathetic, and even the token assistance they got from Vauxhall apparently kicked up a fuss within GM. Go figure.

Tom Walkinshaw himself got to drive his new toy a week later at the Birmingham Superprix, Round 11 of the BTCC, on 29 August. His mount was TWR 022, the car he'd first raced as a normal VL at the Nürburgring WTCC round the previous year. Now it was upgraded to Walky spec (indeed, the photos pretty strongly hint it had been the prototype), still dressed in the same yellow-and-purple #12 Herbie Clips livery. The headline event at the Superprix was an open-wheel race, in this case for FIA International Formula 3000, but like our Gold Coast Indy the crowds were really there to see the tourers.

The new Commodore brought in plenty of excitement around the narrow turns of the street circuit especially with Walkinshaw behind the wheel. He did really well considering he took a year out earlier on and his Holden was missing fourth gear. Also he never used his Yokohama qualifiers so his 5th place on the grid was very impressive. – 8w, Birmingham Superprix – Britain's most controversial circuit?

Note that Walkinshaw only qualified the car: he never got to race it. Formula 3000 driver David Hunt (brother of James) lost control of his Lola at Loctite Turn and had, in his own words, "a monster shunt." The car tore right through the tyre barriers and punched a hole in the brick wall of a wholesaler; thankfully Hunt walked to the ambulance under his own power to be kept overnight with concussion (he remembered nothing of the day prior to being in hospital), but the car was carried away on two separate recovery vehicles. This, plus another shunt that triggered lengthy delays, ultimately saw the other two races including the BTCC round cancelled, as the organisers were legally obliged to return Birmingham’s streets to the public at 6pm. Still, 5th on the grid against Sierras, without sticky qualifying tyres and missing a gear? That was pretty solid verging on impressive.

Fast, narrow and dangerous: Birmingham had a few things in common with Bathurst. (Source)

On the same day (but slightly earlier thanks to timezones), the Walky made Australian racing debut in Oran Park's Pepsi 250 enduro. Unusually, there was only one Sierra on the grid, a new one dressed in the colours of Colin Bond's Caltex team. No longer leasing MM1, the ex-John Giddings car, this was a new one put together by Bondy himself, chassis CXT1. As a brand-new car it wasn't quite ready for the event, demonstrated by it failing with just 15 laps done, which couldn't have impressed co-driver Alan Jones much.

With none of the big Sierra teams fronting, the 100-lapper became a race between the Peter Brock/Jim Richards BMW M3, and the GTS-R Skyline driven by George Fury and the rising youngster Mark Skaife. In the event the Mobil team made their one pit stop and got the #05 M3 back on track quicker than the Gibson crew, and Skaife couldn't quite pedal the Skyline quickly enough to make up the difference. Peter Brock took the win, his first and only in the BMW, and his first on the road since Wellington 18 months earlier.

A race so minor, the only image I could find was a Pressreader sample of an AMC listicle.

Garry Willmington meanwhile shared his #50 Walky with John Leeson, qualifying only 14th and then suffering a DNF after just 4 laps. That the car could do a lot better, though, was revealed by its fastest race lap – 1:18.02, or more than six-and-a-half seconds faster than its qualifying time! That was a warning for the future if ever there was one, but few were there to see it – with the Australian Endurance/Manufacturers Championship not running this year, this was a minor, stand-alone event that had drawn a tiny 17-car grid and crowds to match.

Just five days later Tom got his second chance to drive the Walky in anger, this time in the RAC Tourist Trophy at Silverstone, Round 10 of the ETCC. His car was most likely TWR 022 once again, still in its Herbie Clips colours but this time with the #46 on the doors, because the ETCC of course was a different series. Tom and co-driver Jeff Allam qualified 9th but had a disappointing race, running behind most of the Sierras with the M3s to finish 15th overall. Walkinshaw found the Commodore's performance level to be about the same as the factory Nissan Skyline GTS-R, which was a pretty good sign considering it had about the same power, but was much heavier – clearly, that low-drag bodywork had done its job. With all the Sierras buzzing around they'd also set the tenth-fastest lap of the race, which was faster than all the BMWs and some of the Fords, but not the sort of thing you could spin to sponsors. Nevertheless, Tom must've felt at least somewhat confident: this was surely the car that would deliver him that longed-for Bathurst win.

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With that though, the foreplay was almost at an end. Next on the calendar was no standalone minnow, nor some exotic overseas venture, but a major local event sure to bring out the best in Australia – and perhaps more than just Australia. Next up was the Sandown 500.