THE Kmart Commodore VY that Greg Murphy and Rick Kelly drove to victory in the 2003 Bathurst 1000 has changed hands.
The car, made famous by Murphy’s ‘Lap of the Gods’ pole position lap from that year’s ‘Great Race’, has been purchased by a private collector in New South Wales.
The collector also owns the ‘Golden Child’ Holden Racing Team Commodore that Mark Skaife drove to victory at Bathurst in 2001 alongside Tony Longhurst and alongside Jim Richards in 2002.
This car, which Skaife also used to win the 2001 and 2002 V8 Supercars Championships, had been placed on the market in early 2022 with an eye-watering price tag of over $2.8 million.
Now presented in VY specification as it won the 2003 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, the ‘Golden Child’ currently has HRT engine 025 under the bonnet.
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This powerplant is the same engine that Murphy used to set his ‘Lap of the Gods’ time in October 2003 at Mount Panorama – creating a unique link between these two cars as they currently sit in the collector’s private facility.
The ’03 Bathurst-winning car has been part of the collection of Queensland’s John Anderson for some years and was restored to its 2003 Bathurst livery and technical specification in 2011.
Murphy drove it at Bathurst in 2012 as part of the Bathurst ‘Great Race’ 50-year celebrations at Mount Panorama that year.
The two cars won the Bathurst classic three years in a row between them and each hold a special place in the history books of V8 Supercar racing.
The ’Lap of the Gods’ Kmart Commodore started its life as a VT Commodore with HRT driven by Craig Lowndes in 2000.
Lowndes and Skaife used the chassis – HRT 043 – to win the 2000 Queensland 500 in the former’s last year with the team before it later was upgraded and converted to latter body styles.
