Posted 02 January 2008 - 06:26 PM
howdy folks,so many questions but good to see the interest...i'll start here..the car is not the beast mk 1,but it does have a lot of the components that were on that car. some are still on the engine, some have remained with the car in the parts box. the blower is not the one from KLD-158,that is in ian tate's posession. i have a letter from peter brock to the previous owner in which pb says that the idler pulley and other components look to be as he remembered,but the blower had 'finer'ribs on the casing than the one on the car now.
the car is currently logged and has been since 1976 when it was bought from janson by alan lukins...in a deal with another hdt car which was also owned by janson at the time, ' saggy sarah' (which janson named the car,not bruce watt)made its way to bruce watt and nick burgess who turned the car into a sports sedan. the pic of the car earlier in this thread as a blue and white car is as it was in 1978( note the cams stamp on the edge of the pic). part of this paint scheme remains intact under the left rear flare!
the registration no recorded in the log book from this period is BJD-440...now if you read the '74 giant killers article'four long years ago' it gives a mostly correct history of BJD-440,..'started life as the 10th xu1 produced and was given suitable legal tuning, then as a holden dealer team entry in the 1970 sandown 250 and later the hardie ferodo 500 at bathurst' it was driven at both events by colin bond'....the car also did lakeside,oran park and the winton 1500 with bond at the wheel, add a night meeting at oran park with bob morris at the wheel. that's 1970.
the thing that is not correct in the article is that is says the car stayed in sydney and was used in some early '71 races. incorrect because in jan. '71 this car was competing in the new caledonian safari. george shepheard has confirmed this as BJD-440 was " made from col's old bathurst car,that's our first rally car. the girl's car became BOI-812 our second one"
the car was painted green when it was converted to the rally format prior to noumea.... this was confirmed by george shepheard,colin bond,barry ferguson,joe felice and peter janson.....others who have contributed to the history "hunt" are .........peter byrne, graham alexander,of course ian tate and frank lowndes who have both verified the car( frank has also checked the log book), wayne mahnken, ian splatt,don grant,craig bowring,jim middleton, daz who has had several discussions with HF about the car. also max stahl and ray berghouse for there assistance and david blanche(autopics)
the car is also the one in the movie about hdt,' when your hot your hot' and is on the cover of the 'LC' issue of AMC,flying through the air with all 6 lights ablaze!
the info. i have been able to get from publications of the day has been priceless, Racing Car News, giant killers,the history of holden in motorsport,auto action which contained an add from 1983 that michael tate found when bruce watt had the car for sale( it had the red and white dealer team inspired paint at this point)
i hope this will answer some of the questions and give you some insight as to the amount of research that has been done, i've only told you about the race history to jan '71.......it has around 100,000 racing miles on it !
cheers for now laz
