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Harry Firth & Fred Gibson
Ford Motor Company
The Ford Falcon XR GT’s triumph in the 1967 Bathurst 500 was the first in the ‘Great Race’ for a V8 engine and was the spur for the intense rivalry between Ford and Holden that became a cornerstone of the Mount Panorama event. It was the sole victory as a driver for Fred Gibson, who’d go on to win Bathurst again on multiple occasions as a team owner, and the fourth as a driver in the ‘Great Race’ for guru car preparer Harry Firth, who’d claimed the final two runnings of the event at Phillip Island in 1961 and 1962 prior to its move to Bathurst in 1963 – which he also won. -
Bruce McPhee & Barry Mulholland
Wyong Motors
1968 was the first year that both Holden and Ford arrived at Mount Panorama with factory-backed efforts, yet it was a canny privateer who secured the General’s first Bathurst win. Bruce McPhee meticulously prepared his #13 Monaro, paying special attention to the car’s brake package to have a car that out-paced and outlasted all the Ford and Holden works entries. The win also gave co-driver, Barry Mulholland, his own slice of ‘Great Race’ history: the least laps driven by a race winner! Mulholland’s job was to drive a solitary lap in the middle of the race while McPhee ate lunch, had a drink and made a quick trip to the bathroom! -
Allan Moffat
Ford Motor Company
The most sacred of Ford’s muscle cars dominated the 1971 Bathurst 500, giving Allan Moffat his second of four victories in the race. The ‘Phase III’ version of the iconic GT-HO Falcon swept all before it – Moffat’s pole time on a resurfaced Mount Panorama was 11 seconds faster than his mark from the previous year! The big Falcons swept to a largely unopposed 1-2-3; in fourth place was the first Holden Torana XU-1, having its second tilt at the ‘Great Race’ after the company’s decision to replace the V8 Monaro with the nimble, six-cylinder Torana as its Bathurst challenger. -
Peter Brock
Holden Dealer Team
The 1972 race was a true battle of titans, with Peter Brock defeating Allan Moffat to secure the first of his nine wins in the ‘Great Race’. The pair battled head-to-head in the wet opening laps until Brock pressured Moffat into a mistake; the Torana pilot dominated the remainder to take a career-defining win. The race was the last run to the original 500-mile distance with 1000 kilometres becoming the norm from 1973; as a result, it was the last time drivers could tackle the whole race solo without a co-driver. 1972 also marked the last Bathurst for lightly modified ‘Series Production’ road cars. -
John Goss & Kevin Barlett
McLeod Ford
1974 was a year where another underdog claimed an unexpected triumph. John Goss and Kevin Bartlett prevailed in dismally wet conditions in one of the longest runnings of the ‘Great Race’ on record – they took almost eight hours to complete the 163-lap distance! The win made up for a near-miss the previous year when a clash with a slower car took them out of contention; the 1974 victory was open-wheel ace Bartlett’s sole Bathurst 1000 win and the first of two for Goss, who two years later achieved a unique feat by becoming the only ‘Great Race’ winner to also win the Australian Grand Prix. -
Allan Moffat & Jacky Ickx
Moffat Ford Dealers
There are few more iconic Bathurst 1000 images than that of the two Moffat Ford Dealer Falcons running side-by-side down Conrod Straight on the final lap of the 1977 race having crushed their opposition. Allan Moffat and F1 and sports car ace Jacky Ickx’s triumph over Colin Bond and Alan Hamilton was the culmination of a year-long steamrolling of Holden by Moffat’s factory-backed outfit. He’d lured Bond away from the Holden Dealer Team and they won as they pleased throughout the 1977 season; at Bathurst, the nearest Holden was a lap adrift. -
Peter Brock & Jim Richards
Holden Dealer Team
Of Peter Brock’s nine ‘Great Race’ victories, his 1979 triumph with Jim Richards was the most emphatic. The pair’s #05 Holden Dealer Team Torana not only took pole, it led all 163 laps, beat the second-placed car by six laps, and Brock broke the touring car lap record at Mount Panorama on the final lap of the race! The victory was just the tip of the iceberg of Holden’s dominance; Toranas made up the first eight placings, while just one Ford Falcon made it home in a distant 14th place. The race was the last for the iconic Torana, which was replaced for 1980 by the new-model Commodore. -
Dick Johnson & John French
Tru Blu
Victory in the 1981 Bathurst 1000 with John French completed an incredible 12 months for Dick Johnson. He’d mortgaged the family home to build a race-winning car in 1980, only for it to be destroyed when he hit a rock that had rolled into the middle of the track while leading. That triggered a wave of public donations that were matched by Ford, allowing Johnson to build a new car that he used to win the Australian Touring Car Championship as well as the ‘Great Race’ in 1981. The victory came 43 laps earlier than scheduled after a big crash at McPhillamy Park blocked the track and caused the race to be stopped. -
Peter Brock & Larry Perkins
Holden Dealer Team
The 1984 race marked the end of an era; appropriately, the most dominant driver of the era took the victory. Peter Brock and Larry Perkins led home teammates John Harvey and David Parsons for a Holden Dealer Team 1-2 in the final Bathurst 1000 run to locally developed Group C touring car rules, prior to Australia’s adoption of international Group A touring car rules for 1985. With big spoilers and guard flares, the final Group C-era cars were among the most spectacular touring cars raced in Australia, while the Holden and Ford V8s were matched against turbocharged Nissan, rotary-engined Mazda and six-cylinder BMWs. -
Dick Johnson & John Bowe
Shell Ultra-Hi Racing
Dick Johnson’s second Bathurst 1000 triumph capped a dominant era for his eponymous outfit. Dick Johnson Racing developed the fastest Ford Sierras in the world at a time when the little four-cylinder turbo cars were winning all before them around the world. Johnson and teammate John Bowe had finished 1-2 in both the 1988 and 1989 Australian Touring Car Championships before capping the latter year with an emphatic triumph in the ‘Great Race’. Johnson took over the lead down Conrod Straight on the opening lap and the #17 Sierra was never headed thereafter. -
Jim Richards & Mark Skaife
Gibson Motorsport
A controversial Bathurst triumph for one of Australian touring car racing’s most controversial cars. The Nissan GT-R was easily the greatest car of the Group A era; it romped to three Australian Touring Car Championships and a pair of Bathurst victories before it became obsolete with the end of Group A rules at the end of 1992. Its last Bathurst win came after a rainstorm with less than 20 laps remaining triggered a red flag after multiple crashes – including one that claimed the #1 GT-R. Under the rules the results were drawn from the last full lap prior to the red flag, with Jim Richards and Mark Skaife declared the winners. -
Larry Perkins & Russell Ingall
Castrol Perkins Racing
One of the great Bathurst drives saw Larry Perkins and Russell Ingall come from stone, motherless last on the opening lap to be first past the chequered flag 161 laps later. Perkins’ clash with polesitter Craig Lowndes off the start line punctured a tyre, and at one point the #11 Commodore lost a lap to the race leader. Perkins and Ingall regained the lost ground throughout the day, taking advantage of a late Safety Car to charge from fourth to first in the final 23 laps. Their win came at the expense of heartbreak for Glenn Seton and David Parsons; their Falcon led until engine failure with nine laps to go. -
Craig Lowndes & Greg Murphy
Holden Racing Team
A youth revolution in Australian touring car racing was emphasised by the maiden Bathurst 1000 wins for a then 22-year-old Craig Lowndes and 24-year-old Greg Murphy. The pair dominated the race through changeable conditions, capping a breakout year for both Lowndes and the Holden Racing Team. The combination had taken victories in both the Australian Touring Car Championship and Sandown 500, with the Bathurst triumph completing a rare ‘Triple Crown’ within a calendar year. The wins foreshadowed a move towards recruiting talented younger drivers by teams and an era of near-total dominance for HRT. -
Mark Skaife & Tony Longhurst
Holden Racing Team
Amid some of the strangest weather to strike a Bathurst 1000 – it hailed on top of Mount Panorama during the race! – Mark Skaife and Tony Longhurst saw off a late challenge from Brad Jones and British Touring Car Championship legend John Cleland to take the Holden Racing Team’s second ‘Great Race’ victory. HRT was at the peak of its powers by this point, with the Bathurst victory all but securing Skaife’s fourth Australian Touring Car Championship title, and the second of three in a row. The win was Skaife’s third of six at Bathurst and Longhurst’s second – his first had come 13 years earlier in 1988! -
Greg Murphy & Rick Kelly
Kmart Racing
Greg Murphy and Rick Kelly were unstoppable at Bathurst in 2003, armed with a Holden Commodore VY that was comfortably the fastest car at Mount Panorama that weekend. Murphy took pole position in the Top 10 Shootout with an astonishing 2m06.8594s lap – immediately known as the ‘Lap of the Gods’ – that was over a second faster than the next quickest car and over a second faster than the previous record; the mark stood for the next seven years! The victory established Kelly as the youngest winner in ‘Great Race’ history, having been just 20 years and 268 days old on Bathurst day in 2003. -
Craig Lowndes & Jamie Whincup
Team Betta Electrical
There have been few more emotional Bathurst 1000 victories than the one scored by Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup in 2006. The race fell just a few weeks after the tragic death of ‘King of the Mountain’ Peter Brock, who’d been a mentor and good friend to Lowndes during his career. Lowndes took part in an emotional tribute to Brock immediately prior to the race but pushed everything aside to drive a storming opening stint to take the lead. Pit strategy soon buried the car deep in the pack, but Lowndes and Whincup made crucial passes to regain the lead with 50 laps to go. -
Craig Lowndes & Mark Skaife
Team Vodafone
Among Triple Eight Race Engineering’s collection of Bathurst 1000 victories, few are sweeter than their 2010 triumph. Not only did Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife win the race, but teammates Jamie Whincup and Steve Owen followed them across the line in second place – they even had enough margin over the third-placed car to execute a ‘form finish’ across the line. The squad’s fourth victory in the ‘Great Race’ was also their first in a Holden, Triple Eight having replaced its Ford Falcon hardware with Holden Commodores for the 2010 season. A back injury for Skaife meant Lowndes had to drive a triple-stint to completing the final 78 laps of the race. -
Mark Winterbottom & Steven Richards
Ford Performance Racing
A decade-long ‘Great Race’ drought finally broke for Ford’s factory-backed team in 2013 with Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards taking Ford Performance Racing’s first win in the Bathurst 1000. FPR had secured multiple pole positions and led the race on a number of occasions but finished no better than second in its prior 10 trips to Mount Panorama. Its first triumph came in a nail-biting last lap showdown: Winterbottom had been fiercely pursued by Jamie Whincup through the closing stages, and the pair ran side-by-side into Griffin’s Bend on the final lap. The Ford emerged out the other side ahead and held the lead to the chequered flag.
