Our second Open Day for the year was another great event, again fully booked out with a bevy of rabid enthusiasts descending from all over Australia to tour our significant collection of cars and see where the inspiration comes for our kick ass car care!
Dan upstairs running through the Phases.
We had our usual tour running for about 4 hours, telling a lot of the personal stores around each car we have here, it’s achievements and that of the great drivers who peddled them. With a late break for lunch, our hungry hoards got our traditional Aussie BBQ and all seemed to be running well on time.. Well mine was anyhow, Chris’s group got an extra 15 mins which allowed my group to get stuck into the big BBQ feast a bit earlier!
Chris's group downstairs in some real Group A territory.
Our guest for this days tour has great racing credentials and carrying a last name well known to anyone with petrol in their veins, Phil Brock. He arrived driving in his brother’s famous 1979 Bathurst winning A9X Torana (the first time he had driven it). Phil is a tall bloke, but he fitted inside and drove straight into the sheds to meet our crew and gave an in depth talk on his racing and family life (it’s all one thing with the Brocks).
Phil showing how he exited the Torana's at Bathurst 1977.
A great story was from Bathurst 1977, this is the year where he shared the Bill Patterson A9X hatchback with his famous brother. In the last stages of the race, he caught and passed the Hardtop of Moffat by flying up the inside of him at the super hairy McPhillamy Park corner. All this from being pepped up by hearing the screams of Holden Supporters on the top of the mountain chanting out “Brock, Brock, Brock!! His humble approach saying that he was sure all the supporters thought it was Peter in the car, but he just went for it anyway! They were there with a real chance to win that year, as the A9X was a great package and fast, but dramas with their choice of tyres put end to the battle, with the 1-2 Moffat/Bond hardtops winning and the brothers finally finishing in 4th place.
David Bowden and Phil share a laugh as they chat about the great old racing days.
Also noteworthy were the stories of the early days of working at HDT, building the special Brock road cars and all the great times he shared with Peter, Harvey and others. Perhaps the funniest story was them hiring Jeff Grech only for the reasons that he was wearing a Collingwood AFL team shirt, the Brock families favourite team!
Phil signs our Legends wall, note the shirt, from Mark Webbers first F1 race!
It was an absolute honour to have Phil come up and share his stories with us all, he really added another big element to the day.
The Camaro comes to life, making a nice end to the day!
We ended it with the traditional bringing the beasts to life. Tru Blu, KB's Camaro the Beechey Monaro and the mighty Moffstang all rattled the walls and again you could tell by the happy grins of delight it was a great way to end this 5 hours soaking up the automotive goodness. We know that all those who were lucky enough to get in the tour left with some great stories that they can share with their mates for the next few years to come.
If you would like to come along for one of our big Open Day tours, you can check out the link here. Hope you can make it to the next one.
Check out even more images from this day on our Facebook photo album by clicking here.
Love your car,
Dan
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