It is often said, and with a fair degree of truth, that nobody remembers who finishes second at Bathurst. To that we might add the lack of recognition for class winners, even though these contests were fought with the same intensity as the battles for Outright. The original Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island was a race for class honours only, and taking the chequered flag delivered no particular kudos.
Once the event moved to Mount Panorama, the quest for ‘line honours’ became more important, but many of the country’s best racing drivers would still hop aboard some of the slowest cars in the race and slipstream each other at 120km/h for the glory of a Class victory.
Initially, the categories were based on participating cars’ retail prices, leading to V8 Dodges and Studebakers battling Alfa Romeos at one end of the field, while VW Beetles and Hillman Imps slugged it out at the other.
By 1968 when the ‘500’ had become a Holden vs Ford event featuring big cars and V8 engines, the back end of the grid was still dominated by four-cylinder models, crewed by well-known drivers determined to beat rivals in various brands of ‘shopping car’.
Later years would see engine capacity determine class eligibility with each category delivering an array of contenders and governed by a convoluted system of compensating those without rotary engines or turbochargers.
Datsun 1200
It was called the ‘tiddler’ category, yet Bathurst’s Class A was fought with all the vigour and commitment of a battle for outright honours.
The cars were mainly Japanese – 1.1 to 1.3-litre Toyotas, Mazdas and Datsuns – but rule changes over the years allowed other brands to participate. Datsun’s initial Class A success came in 1966 with its Bluebird sedan, followed in 1967 by a win for the new 1000 sedan. Three years then passed before the first 1200 sedan took honours in 1970, just half a lap ahead of Mazda’s new 1300.
The following year, while Datsun also dominated Class B with its 1600, the category was won in the Stewards’ Room when a 1200 driven solo by ‘Wild Bill’ Evans survived its own protest, while the Mazda that had crossed the line first was excluded.
Mazda at that point tossed in the towel and let Datsun’s fast, five-speed 1200 Coupes do battle over the extended 1000-kilometre race distance against an eclectic range of rivals including a Fiat 128SL coupe, Honda’s new Civic and a bunch of revitalised Cooper S Minis.
First time out in 1973 the 1200 kept its record intact, but 1974 and 1975 saw Coopers take the rosette. In 1976 when the categories were again reshuffled, a 1200 prevailed in what would be the last ever Battle of the (Class A) Tiddlers.
Alfa Romeo GTV
From finishing half a lap short of outright glory in 1967 to being 13 laps off the pace but still winning its class in 1976, Alfa Romeo’s GTV had seen the Bathurst enduro from a range of perspectives.
Early 105 Series cars with 1570cc engines, all-round disc brakes and five-speed gearboxes were very nearly a match for the Falcon V8s in 1967 and would win the ‘expensive car’ Class E at every outing until 1970.
A rule change in that year pitted them directly against the GT-HO Falcons and XU-1 Toranas, obliging Alfa to step away from the 500 Mile race for a couple of years.
Further changes to the new 1000 Kilometre event in 1973, saw 2.0-litre GTVs eligible again for a keenly contested Class B. First time out an Alfa won by five laps from the best-placed Mazda, but in the rain-affected 1974 race, things were closer with a GTV finishing only a lap ahead of the surviving Mazda RX4 with the first of the Alfetta-bodied GTVs taking third place in the class.
In 1975 brought more rule changes and opposition from a clutch of specially imported, German-spec Ford Escort RS2000s. Even then, a lone Alfa prevailed, thanks to the combined talents of French rally specialist, and Bathurst’s only female class winner, Marie-Claude Beaumont who was paired with F5000 racer John Leffler. The year 1977 brought exit time for the 105 Series, but not before the lead Alfa crewed by Le Mans winner Derek Bell and local Gary Leggatt held off Bob Stevens’ Escort for the narrowest of wins, a decade after the Alfa’s first appearance.
Toyota Corolla Levin / GT
Corollas had featured in Bathurst Endurance events since their launch in 1967 when an 1100cc model would finish second in Class A before going one better at the 1968 and 1969 events.
Celicas then took up the running for much of the 1970s, achieving Class wins against Alfa Romeos and Ford Escorts before eligibility changes during the 1980s Group A era brought new opportunities for the Corolla. The 1985 race, won for the only time by a Jaguar, brought victory in the Under-1600cc class to the Japanese-spec Corolla GT of John Smith and Drew Price. Their result was followed a year later by John Faulkner/Mike Quinn who won the category in an AE86 Sprinter.
In 1987, amid torrential rain and controversy, saw Bob Holden’s Sprinter stagger across the line in 23rd place to win the class and also be the final car classified as a finisher.
A year later the scenario for Toyota was vastly different, with John Faulkner’s 1.6-litre car finishing an incredible ninth outright. Following closely in 11th and 12th places were two more Corollas for a category whitewash. Under-1600cc cars would continue to run at Bathurst until 1993, with the category dominated every time by Corollas, sometimes crewed by drivers who were virtual unknowns but would go on to achieve far greater prominence. The names of future superstars included future Bathurst 1000 winner and Two Litre Touring Champion Paul Morris, Jason Bargwanna winner of the Bathurst 1000 in 2000, and multiple Australian Rally Champion Neal Bates.
Ford Capri V6
The car they called a Mustang in Miniature didn’t make its Bathurst debut until 1975 but when finally it did, there was plenty of support for a model that hadn’t graced a Ford new-car showroom in years.
A class devoted to Under-3 litre cars provided a platform for the Capri, pitting it against rotary Mazdas, BMWs and, on one occasion, a 242GT Volvo.
At the car’s first Bathurst 1000 appearance, Capri stalwart Barry ‘Bo’ Seton led Class C almost all day before a mechanical problem towards the end sidelined the car for several laps and pushed him back to third in the category.
Seton and co-driver Don Smith returned in 1976, winning the class by a lap from the second-placed Mazda. Another Capri co-driven by Dick Johnson, who was making his final appearance on the undercard before looking for an outright win, was third.
Seton would win the class by two laps in 1977 and finish seventh Outright. However, for the next two years he would campaign an A9X Torana, leaving Class B honours to young star Steve Masterton who financed a Capri for himself and Phil Lucas.
For 1980, Seton and Smith were back, winning their class and again in the Top Ten ahead of numerous V8s. A year later, Colin Bond joined Smith in another Capril to again finish 8th, but they were beaten to a win in the new Six Cylinder & Rotary classification by Allan Moffat’s RX7.
Mazda RX3
Rotary Mazdas were described by some racetrack rivals as Penny Bungers; light them and wait for the explosion, but after some early disappointments with R100s, the Mazdas with their raspy exhausts began finding ways to win.
As Allan Moffatt was later to demonstrate, the twin-rotor engines could develop prodigious power without compromising reliability, but regulations during the 1970s would stifle much of the creativity displayed by Moffat’s front-running cars.
The year 1974 saw RX3s entered in Class B against Alfas and Escorts and also in Class C with virtually no opposition apart from a pesky Datsun 240K driven by veteran Doug Whiteford. Still, the Mazdas finished 1st, 3rd and 4th in Class C and 2nd in Class B before coming back to beat the 3.0-litre Ford Capris to win Class C in 1975.
Ford got them back in 1976 though, with Barry Seton’s Capri V6 a lap ahead at the finish from Don Holland’s Mazda. That finishing order remained the same during the 1977 and 1978 races, but with its Improved Production career coming to an end, the RX3 said goodbye to Bathurst in the best possible way with a 3.0-litre Class win for Barry Lee and John Gates in the 1979 event where they finished six laps ahead of the second-placed Capri.
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