" Catalina is now closed for a long time 2018 cobra club had a meeting to " walk around the track only " it rained in the morning I arrived lunchtime weather beautiful I was only one there so " I drove my ac cobra replica around the circuit slowly " then drove carefully but drove : fast on the straight 3 times !" Laugh 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 😂 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 ahhhhh
Great to see it in its heyday! I did a SuperSprint around here in mid 80's, scariest track I ever drove around, and most exciting. Philip Island was the only other one that was close for excitement.
Thanks for saving and loading this footage❤️ A bit like watching paint dry compared to today but a great comparison of the machines of those days vs today’s. Thank you
Watching this race ,I’m thinking Holden made a vital mistake bringing the Torana into motor sport in 1970 I think the Monaro had still a little more time left and watching the attitude of the Monaro against tyre chooses against the falcon.. I’m thinking Colin bond could’ve done a Bathurst win with that ht….. great race
I watched this while researching EH Holdens. My son has a restored EH wagon with 15 inch jelly bean mags, decent sized roll bars , 4 speed, HR front end and a nice warmed over motor. He didn't want a perfectly original one, feeling that he'd like mods that we'd have wanted to fit if we'd had it new. It was so easy back then to transform an old Holden into something much more roadworthy and trackworthy. As it is now it moves along with modern traffic easily, and just as easily at motorway speeds.
comparing these cars to racers of only 10 years later - it must have been the biggest performance change in the history of Aussie racing. Like the music of the time actually - the early 60s pop was incomparable to the choices we had 10 years later. We'd lost our naivety.
I'm frilled. My Dad, Frank Walters owned the So-Cal Special, from 1954 for many years. I have always wondered if the old girl would pop up on UTube. Tonight I found the So-Cal on your Channel. I hope to come across more footage. Thankyou
Wow good stuff...I was a flaggy there back in the day (early 70’s) remember I use to be stationed on the approach to creek corner. I recall flagging at Amaroo as well, not too sure abt Oran Park....my poor old brain struggles a bit these days. Good to stumble on these films.
Yet another priceless treasure trove of memorabilia & documentation. Some very rare footage of some significant cars & some drivers who went on to achieve great things when Australians elected to adopt sedan car racing as our number one & most popular form of motorsport. Red 48Series Sedan is Des West. Amazingly; this thoroughly developed car still survives in exactly the same state & configuration as seen in this wonderful footage. Olive green FE is Bruce McPhee who went on to win Bathurst in a 327 GTS HK Monaro in 1968. Bruce's win was the very first for a Holden at Bathurst & Des West very nearly followed suit in a 350 GTS HT Monaro with Peter Brock when they came home third at Bathurst behind Colin Bond & Tony Roberts who won on the day in their Monaro. I see Barry Seton also in an early Holden before he went on to campaigning V6 Capris & then V8 Falcons with Son Glen. Worth noting are the wild variations in cubic capacities of the Holden engines declared in the entry list. Both West & McPhee indicated their engines were out to nearly 160 Cubic Inches! This was really stretching things! Only a very few blocks could survive such a staggering overbore coupled up to the stresses associated with all the other modifications that went into these venerable little engines which started life at only 132.5 Cubic inches in capacity. A thoroughly race prepared Grey Engine could churn out 160 Brake Horse Power which is way more than twice the power these poor little things were designed to produce. I lived in the Western Suburbs of Sydney as a kid in the mid '60s. Occasionally you'd hear this roaring thing burst into life nextdoor on a Saturday arv. I was only 5 years old at the time & still hoping for a Malvern Star, but even then there was something about that growling coming from nextdoor that grabbed my attention. I used to climb up on the high paling fence & watch the guys nextdoor as they toiled away working on a fiercely hotted up FJ Holden WITH RACING NUMBERS ON THE DOORS! This was a very big deal for an infants school kid whose dad owned an FJ. I recall watching them replace a gearbox one weekend. No fancy ramps or expensive hydraulic jacks required! . . . A bunch of these blokes simply rolled the car onto it's side on a mattress to access the gearbox! It was like living right nextdoor to the Bathurst Pit Area. This "CUMMINS ARCHIVE" is truly golden. For those of us who incurably fell in love with adorable Early Model Holdens as kids back when they were often "the star of nearly every show", this material is thoroughly magnificent. The Red Des West 48Series Sedan was featured extensively in AUSTRALIAN MUSCLE CAR MAGAZINE upon rediscovery in a shed only a few years ago. As an old Early Holden Nut, I was pretty much stunned at how much thought & effort had been funnelled into the myriad modifications uncovered in that car. Des West was without doubt, a truly gifted engineer who fully understood exactly what was required to build performance & durability into what had started out as affordable, reliable & economical transport for average Australians. Most average Australian enthusiasts in the 1960s could not afford the purchase price or the high maintenance costs of even a Mini Cooper, let alone a Jaguar. Many cars raced on weekends were actually driven to work through the week. It wasn't until Holden Released the GTR XU-1 in 1970 that anyone in Australia on a fairly tight budget could drive out of a new car dealership in a properly developed & fairly fast "family car" which was backed up by a new car warranty & a service plan. Oddly enough. . . That first XU-1 with it's high compression Triple Carb 186 Cubic Inch Engine delivered 160BHP which was the best one could generally hope for out of a very highly modified Grey Engine as raced by the likes of Des West & Bruce McPhee. Countless thousands of Holdens were raced. Millions of spectators enjoyed this madness. Hundreds of them are still raced in Historic Categories like Group N & I encourage everyone to contact their nearest racing circuit & spend a weekend getting right up close & personal with the gifted mechanics & drivers who still to this day, put on a great show in racing these wonderful old cars as has been going on since the early 1960s.
Thanks John for your great synopsis and wonderful car related memories. Des West's surviving 48-215 is an amazing find and a credit to his abilities. We moved to Sydney in 1967. In Annandale there weren't many garages so greyhound racing was the chosen hobby of most around us. Dad (Ian) did regularly take us to Warwick Farm and Oran Park for the racing, then in the 1970s and '80s he got involved in Historic racing. I found the reels of film amongst his stuff, i don't know where they came from but after getting them digitally copied I thought they needed to be researched (to the best of my limited ability) and put up for prosperity. I was surprised that the ones from the 1950s were in colour. Unfortunately i don't have any more to upload but hopefully others may have more. Regards, Paul
What a beautiful piece of automotive art, more a sculpture than a race car. Can't imagine driving that on a wet road with those old Pirelli Cinturato tyres.
My first year at Bathurst for the Easter event following the car racing. I thought the motorcycle racers were crazy! But 5 years later bought my first motorcycle and there followed thirty years of adventure and the best years of my life!! Now 81 and have also been to the motorcycle races at Daytona (1979) IOM TT (1992) and 30 years of Bathurst. Sure to get into Bikie Heaven!! Cheers Maynard from Oz 🏍👍
I have lived in the area since the late sixties and as a child I remember the odd mention of a racetrack. But no one can tell me the exact location where the track use to be. Maybe someone can provide some info??
Initially the runway of a disused WW2 airfiled was used and then the track was extended into private land which is now Whalan Reserve. The airstrip is gone but apparently some sections of the old track is still there. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Druitt_Aerodrome
i thought that too but when the Daimler SP250 flies past other cars, i think they were just slow. The other thing to take into account is the steepness of Mount Panorama.
@@paulc5525 Ok. These SP250's had a fairly powerful hemi-head V8. I have always really liked them, they sound great, and their looks grow on you. Leno did an episode on his.
I've driven Paddy Hopkirk's cooper s from this race, it's then owner needed my panel van to move his sister's furniture, so I got "Paddy" for 3 days, it was miserable, apparently it being a British works car had no valve guide seal ( it constantly oiled up it's plug coming down from Skyline to the dipper) for three days it oiled it's plugs constantly in Sydney traffic which was annoying at best and when it would randomly clear them you'd shoot off a a rate of knots towards the car in front. Its nice knowing I've driven it but I wouldn't go out of my way to do it again. Many thanks for the old Bathurst footage, takes me well back, I noticed my dad's cousin bob seaton was competing in a mini too, I bet you he was happy to graduate to a Capri later on.
thanks for the insight. I guess it needed to be constantly at high revs (or at least that was probably the theory) so definitely a 'orrible city daily driver.
it was an airfield that was disused after WW2. Initially the runway was used and then the track was extended into private land which is now Whalan Reserve. The airstrip is gone but apparently some sections of the old track is still there. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Druitt_Aerodrome
I wonder if they were allowed to fit Michelin Radials - standard crossplys would have been awful to race on. I remember driving on them but zero fond memories :)
Well the French Citroen and Renault cars had Michelin radial tyres as standard, so definitely they would be allowed to use the standard tyres. Other cars possibly.
We loved out 1500s back in the day - then the 125s were even better. I had an 1100D Riviera in my drive in theatre days - the front seats folded flat for a huge space which was often put to good use :)
