LARRY Perkins has celebrated the upcoming 30th anniversary of his famous 1993 Bathurst 1000 victory by returning the winning Castrol Commodore to the race track.
PE 017 turned laps at Calder Park in Melbourne today following a painstaking seven-year restoration by Perkins Engineering under the guidance of Larry’s son, Jack.
The father-and-son duo both spent time behind the wheel during a faultless total of 60km, coincidentally matching Supercars’ current mileage limit for shakedowns!
“There was a little bit of emotion,” Jack Perkins told V8 Sleuth of the occasion. “I started this project before I met my wife and now I’m married with two kids!
“The hardest part of the restoration was getting the car and that was an eternity ago, it lobbed at our workshop in February 2016.
“I’d hate to think how many hours we’ve done on it, but it’s very rewarding to finally get it finished.
“The car ran with no issues and Dad was quite happy, it felt very familiar for him. He did a few laps, said ‘I’m just wearing it out now’ and handed it over to me!”
The full history of this special car is detailed in V8 Sleuth’s book, Perkins Engineering – The Cars: 1986-2008, of which limited copies remain available.
Perkins debuted it in Round 3 of the 1993 Australian Touring Car Championship at Phillip Island; the first Castrol Commodore built to the ‘winged’ five-litre rules.
He was joined by former motorcycle ace Gregg Hansford for Sandown and Bathurst that year and became the last to win the Great Race with a Holden V8 engine.
While other leading Holden teams switched to the new Chevrolet V8 at the start of 1993, canny privateer Perkins was not keen to invest in the new powerplant.
Instead, he worked with contacts at Holden and had its engine foundry produce a special run of blocks and heads that addressed shortcomings in the older motor.
PE 017 completed just one more event in Perkins’ hands after Bathurst, winning the opening V8 heat at the 1993 Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Adelaide.
It was subsequently sold and raced by a succession of privateers, filtering down from the main game to the Development Series and eventually Sports Sedans.
The Perkins family reacquired the car through collector David Gardner and set about returning it to the specification in which it was presented at the 1993 Tooheys 1000.
They plan to have the car back at Bathurst this October to celebrate both the 30th anniversary of the 1993 race and the event’s 60th.
“The whole idea of giving it a run at Calder was to get it ready for Bathurst to be part of the celebrations there, and it’ll do some track running if it’s dry,” says Jack.
“Now that the car ran faultlessly on the shakedown, we can do some basic mechanical inspections and preparations ahead of the trip to Bathurst.”
Jack detailed the extensive work, which included converting the car from a VS model back to a VP, in a series of videos on the Perkins Engineering YouTube channel.
A video will also be produced documenting the shakedown.
Jack will be in action at the 2023 Repco Bathurst 1000 as co-driver to Will Brown at Erebus Motorsport, while Larry will feature at V8 Sleuth’s sold out Open Night.
