The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was Holden's semi-official racing team from 1969 until 1986, primarily contesting Australian Touring Car events but also rallying, rallycross and Sports Sedan races during the 1970s. From 1980 the Holden Dealer Team, by then under the ownership of Peter Brock, diversified into producing modified road-going Commodores and other Holden cars for selected dealers via HDT Special Vehicles.
After Holden terminated its association with Brock's businesses in February 1987, the team became the factory BMW team racing M3s race team in 1988. Further into 1988, Brock sold off his HDT Special Vehicles road car business, and under various ownership continued to modify Holden vehicles.
The First years After showing an increasing interest in motorsport during the 1960s, Holden decided to form a team to enter both Touring Car and Rally events in 1969. However, Holden's parent company, General Motors forbade its manufacturers from officially entering motor sport circuit racing events worldwide. Holden was able to circumvent this directive by naming its team the ‘Holden Dealer Team’ which was officially owned by its dealers. In reality Holden bankrolled the entire operation and Holden executive John Bagshaw, who was the driving force behind the establishment of the team, created the financial framework which allowed the HDT to be funded without Detroit's knowledge. Holden appointed former Ford Works Team manager Harry Firth to run the operation.
The Holden Dealer Team's race debut was made at the 1969 Sandown 3 Hour.Rare historic HDT Monaro on market, v8sleuth.com.au. Retrieved 26 September 2017 A single Holden Monaro GTS350 was entered for Kevin Bartlett and Spencer Martin, the car retiring after suffering brake problems, crashing and catching fire.
Harry Firth hired six drivers to contest the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500 for the Holden Dealer Team including two talented, but relatively untested, drivers in Colin Bond and Peter Brock. These two would form the backbone of the team over the next few years. The team's three HT Monaro GTS350’s tasted success, finishing first and third, with Bond winning with co-driver Tony Roberts, while Brock finished third with Des West.
Concerned at the ongoing development of rival Ford's V8 powered XW Falcon GTHO Phase I, in 1970 Firth opted to run a much smaller race car based upon the Holden Torana with a 6-cylinder engine. The LC Torana GTR XU-1 was a match for the larger and more powerful Falcon GT-HO at most circuits, but at Bathurst, with its long straight and steep 'mountain' climb, the car was less competitive, and Ford's Allan Moffat dominated both the 1970 and 1971 Bathurst events. However, in the wet 1972 Hardie-Ferodo 500 the Holden Dealer Team with its LJ Torana GTR XU-1 broke through Ford's domination, with Peter Brock winning the first of his nine Bathurst victories in a solo drive in the last of Bathurst's 500-mile Series Production race formats During Firth's time at HDT Brock had his day winning Bathurst in 1975 on a dry track in his No. 05 Holden L34. This was a win for HDT as well for they masterminded the fastest Holden ever built, the L34. The HDT developed L34 got 1st, 2nd, and 3rd that year and the first 7 places in 1976. Never had Holden been so dominant at the mountain. The A9X used the L34 motor for its victories as well as the HDT Commodores. The big brake light car concept brought about by Firth with high-performance small motor dominated Holden's thinking moving from the cumbersome Kingswoods to the Torana-like fleet of foot Commodore of the eighties.
Rallying and Rallycross Holden had been supporting rally adventures since the early 1960s and had made use of the brand's successes in its advertising ... support had often been arranged via dedicated state 'dealer' teams, however, it was not until 1969 that the whole arena of rallying and Holden motorsport, in general, was grouped together under the management of Harry Firth and the Holden Dealer Team. The new team kicked off in August 1969 with Harry himself behind the wheel of an HT Monaro GTS 253 rally car, but he soon after announced his retirement from active driving, handing over the rally Monaro to his old rival, Barry Ferguson. Colin Bond and Tony Roberts, both of whom had considerable previous rallying experience, then joined in as additional members of the rally team.
In 1970, the rally team ran a Monaro GTS 350 for Bond whilst Ferguson and Roberts each drove the new Torana GTRs. As the team progressed, Colin Bond in partnership with George Shepheard won the Australian Rally Championship three times in 1971, 1972 and 1974 driving the LC Torana GTR XU-1 and later the LJ Torana GTR XU-1 while team mates Peter Lang and Warwick Smith won in 1973 making for four consecutive titles for the HDT. During this period, Peter Brock proved himself to be very successful in Rallycross races at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria, Catalina Park in New South Wales and in Mallala in South Australia, driving HDT's famous Holden Torana GTR called "The Beast". In Brock's hands this supercharged version of a LC Torana GTR proved virtually unbeatable. At the time Brock was sweeping all before him in Rallycross, young team mechanic, test driver and sometime race driver Larry Perkins also raced Rallycross with the HDT with some success.
LJ Torana GTR XU-1 V8 In 1972, Harry Firth began developing a V8-engined version of the LJ Torana GTR XU-1, to be able to compete with Ford's anticipated XA Falcon GT-HO (Phase IV) and Chrysler's mooted 340 cui V8 Charger at Bathurst (Chrysler continue to this day to say that the Charger R/T V8 was a myth and that their intention was to continue with the 265 cui Hemi-6, but Ford's GT-HO Phase IV was no myth as 4 examples were built with two surviving as of 2015). The first V8 Torana was fitted with the small block 253 cui (4.2L) V8, but this was soon upgraded to the 308 cui (5.0L) version. This car was built to Series Production rules at the time but Harry Firth had Colin Bond race the car, disguised as a Sports Sedan, at the 1972 Easter ATCC race meeting at Bathurst. Bond took an easy victory in the five lap support race with a lap time some four seconds faster than the team's 6-cylinder Series car ran on the same day. Production plans were terminated following the 'Supercar scare' of June/July 1972.
The road handling of the V8 XU-1 remains a contentious point. While Firth maintained until his death in 2014 (at the age of 96) that the V8 actually handled better than the 6 cyl XU-1, his rival at the Ford Works Team, Howard Marsden, believed that the V8 would have brake issues due to its greater speed, as well as other handling problems (with Firth making a similar counter-claim about the Phase IV). While Firth continually dismissed this, Marsden's claims were later backed up by Peter Brock who also raced the car in sports sedans. Brock claimed that while the V8 was faster in a straight line, its handling was in fact terrible due to the extra weight and that the XU-1's chassis was never built to take the greater torque of the V8 engine. Brock also told that the first time both he and Colin Bond used full acceleration in the car in testing, the greater torque of the V8 actually cracked the windscreen.
Of the four V8 XU-1 prototypes built, none survived as Holden crashed them in an effort to re-coup the costs involved in its development. Firth claimed that he personally lost some A$55,000 of his own money on the cars with the HDT carrying out almost all of the development work.
LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 and LX Torana A9X In 1974 Holden was able to keep the V8 engine eligible for racing when it released the larger, but significantly more powerful LH Torana SL/R 5000. Peter Brock dominated the Australian Touring Car Championship that year, using both a LJ-series GTR XU-1 and then the new LH-series SL/R 5000. Both Brock and Bond suffered engine problems with the new L34 version of the SL/R 5000 at the Sandown 250 and the Bathurst 1000 in 1974. Engine problems put the Brock/Sampson car out on lap 118 of the Bathurst race when it was six laps in front, while the Bond/Bob Skelton car was black flagged for an oil leak which lost the car time and they eventually finished in fourth place. Despite these failures in the two high-profile endurance races for the year, Holden, thanks largely to the Dealer Team, did win the 1974 Australian Manufacturers' Championship after Bond had won Round 1 in Adelaide (Chesterfield 250), Round 4 at Surfers Paradise (Chesterfield 300) and the final round at Phillip Island (Repco 500K).
1974 also saw Dick Johnson make his one and only start for the HDT when he drove the team's spare LJ GTR XU-1 Torana (#2) in Round 6 of the ATCC at Surfers Paradise on 19 May. Johnson, who in the 1980s would become a Ford folk hero and one of the Dealer Team's chief rivals, finished third in the race won by Brock with Bob Morris finishing second.
At the end of the 1974 season Brock left the HDT team, whilst Colin Bond continued on as the team's sole circuit racing driver. The L34 option was homologated for racing in 1975 which cured the V8's oil surge problems and Bond went on to win the 1975 Australian Touring Car Championship whilst also competing in rally events for HDT in a LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34. While the L34 solved the engine problems, the Torana still had one major weak spot in that the axles on the car were easily broken. In later years drivers such as Bond, Brock, Bob Morris and Allan Grice would all tell how carefully they had to drive the cars in order for them to finish races.
HDT's circuit racing presence returned to a two-car status for 1976, initially with South Australian Formula 5000 driver Johnnie Walker joining the team, but following his departure along came former speedway and open wheel driver John Harvey who would remain with the team until its split from Holden in early 1987. In 1977, Colin Bond departed HDT to join Allan Moffat's semi-works "Moffat Ford Dealers" team where he went on to finish second behind Moffat in both the ATCC and at Bathurst that year. In 1977, John Harvey became the HDT's principal driver with young Queenslander Charlie O'Brien signed to drive the team's second car.
The 1977 touring car racing season also saw the debut of the LX Torana, the new A9X performance option replacing the L34 version and available in both four-door "SL/R 5000" sedan and two-door "SS 5.0" hatchback body types. Other than the hatchback body, the most visual difference between the L34 and the A9X was that the A9X had a rear-facing bonnet scoop designed to feed cool air to the engine resulting in more horsepower. However, due to teething troubles with this new homologation special, the Holden Dealer Team struggled against the two-car Moffat Ford Dealers team, with Allan Moffat winning both the 1977 ATCC title and also the big one, the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at Bathurst, though Peter Brock, driving for former racer and Melbourne Holden dealer Bill Patterson, gave the A9X Hatchback a dream racing debut when his privately entered car won the 1977 Hang Ten 400 at Sandown Park.
After a solid eight years as team manager of the HDT, and a 29-year career in motor racing that had begun with preparing the 1948 Australian Grand Prix winning BMW 328 for Frank Pratt, 59-year-old Harry Firth retired at the end of the 1977 season. He later told how he had become increasingly frustrated that Holden weren't listening to his advice on what was needed to be successful in Australian touring car racing. Firth would go on to be the chief CAMS scrutineer for touring cars from 1978 to 1981 alongside Frank Lowndes, the father of Craig Lowndes.
Sports Sedans
The Holden Dealer Team debuted a Sports Sedan in 1973, the car using a Repco Holden Formula 5000 engine in a Holden LJ Torana body.Bondy’s Bathurst Beast…, 12 October 2016, primotipo.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017 The car was driven by Colin Bond and Peter Brock.