THE Holden Racing Team Commodore that Peter Brock drove in his last Bathurst 1000 event appearance in 2004 has been offered to market via the V8 Sleuth Online Showroom.
The highly-collectable Holden Commodore VY – chassis HRT 048 – was shared by Brock and Englishman Jason Plato in the ’04 October classic, though the British Touring Car Championship legend touched the wall in the early stages and was collected by John Cleland while limping back to the pits.
The crash sent Cleland’s Falcon into a barrel roll and Plato off into the sand with huge rear end damage.
“It was genuinely a misunderstanding with Cleland,” Plato told V8 Sleuth a few years ago.
“I got nailed for it but I left him heaps of space, Cleland was trying to take advantage of a yellow flag and I was there. There was a big shunt and I felt terrible because it put Peter out of the race. I came under a fair bit of flak and needed security! Peter felt bad for me, but he was just lovely about it all.”
While Brock didn’t actually get to step into the car in the actual race given Plato’s accident, it is without question his last Bathurst 1000 race car.
In fact, as Alan Gow recently discussed on the V8 Sleuth Podcast Powered by Timken, James Courtney was the first choice to share the car with Brock on that weekend in 2004, however a calendar clash with his Japanese program put paid to making his Bathurst 1000 debut alongside ‘The King’.
The car returned to racing the following season with Rick Kelly driving it for the HSV Dealer Team; it was restored in 2010 to its Brock/Plato HRT livery and has been owned by a private collector for the last eight years.
View the car’s advertisement in our Online Showroom here.
There’s no doubt the list of former drivers of this car only underline its amazing history.
It was raced by Brock, Mark Skaife, Jim Richards, Todd Kelly and Tony Longhurst during its time with the factory Holden Racing Team and by Rick Kelly for the sister HSV Dealer Team squad.
The car challenged for victory at Bathurst in 2003 in Skaife’s hands, however he was black-flagged to the pits while in pursuit of eventual winner Greg Murphy in the closing stages to tape up a flapping rear door.
Todd Kelly won the 2004 Darwin round at Hidden Valley in this chassis and brother Rick took pole for the 2005 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide in it.
The younger of the Kelly brothers also drove it in unique ‘Team Buick’ colours in that year’s Eastern Creek and Shanghai, China rounds.
Holden fans need to get on board quickly too so they don’t miss out – pre-order our ‘Racing The Lion’ Holden illustrated motorsport history book here now, a 400 page celebration of Holden in racing in Australia.
