Description

Peter Brock 40th Anniversary Lithograph Framed

It was the race 40 years ago that launched a legend: the Hardie-Ferodo 500 at Mount Panorama, Bathurst on October 1, 1972. Up until this point, Peter Brock had been a ‘coming man’ of Australian motorsport. He’d been signed up by Harry Firth as part of the Holden Dealer Team and had three years of experience in Monaros and Toranas at the event. It would be in his fourth start that Brock would break through and take victory – a win that opened the floodgates for the talented lad from Hurstbridge. Eventually he would be deemed ‘King of the Mountain’ for his final all-up tally of nine wins in the race.

Brock, driving the nimble six-cylinder Torana XU-1 as teammate to Colin Bond, was pitted against the mighty V8-powered GT-HO Falcons steered by men of the ilk of Allan Moffat, Fred Gibson and John Goss. The #28 Torana qualified fifth and race day dawned wet – exactly the conditions which Brock and the lightweight Holden could exploit to their advantage. And Firth had an ace up his sleeve too. He’d arranged for the Dunlop tyre technicians to hand-groove the team’s dry-weather slick tyres and the softer rubber gave Brock superior grip to his rivals. When the 500-mile, 130-lap race started, the conditions were terrible and immediately Brock and the Torana pack latched onto the back of the big Falcons in the slippery conditions.

The pressure applied then paid off as Moffat spun on lap 28 near Reid Park, allowing Brock to sail through to the lead. By now he was the sole-surviving HDT Torana after Bond crashed and rolled in the early stages. Brock shared the lead with French and Moffat as the conditions improved, but then he picked up a one-minute penalty on lap 90 for restarting the car too early after refueling. But it wasn’t enough to stop him as others had their dramas. French had a puncture and Moffat picked up two one-minute penalties, also for refueling miscues. The-then 27-year-old Brock would simply not be caught as he charged home to win, one lap clear of French’s Falcon and two laps up on Doug Chivas’ Charger. It was the day the Brock legend was born and the day that ‘David’ beat ‘Goliath’ at Bathurst …

Each piece features his facsimile signature along with his famous saying of the time, “Live your Dreams”.