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Holden HQ Monaro GTS350 Sedan driven by Ron Dickson and Pat Crea in the 1974 Hardie-Ferodo 1000. The word ‘Monaro’ instantly conjures up images of Bathurst victories for Holden fans, namely the 1968 win by privateer Bruce McPhee in his GTS 327 and the 1969 win by the improved GTS 350 of Colin Bond and the Holden Dealer Team. But the change in philosophy by Holden to the light and nimble Torana for 1970 meant that the Monaro was put into the shade.
But that didn’t mean that the Monaro nameplate would go missing from the Mountain forever.While no Monaros competed in the 1971 or 1972 races, there would be one, a four-door HQ model, on the grid in both 1973 and 1974.
The ’73 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was the first run to the extended distance of 1000 kilometres rather than 500 miles. Muir Motors entered a ‘308’ Monaro HQ GTS in the race with Ron Dickson and Bob Stevens as its drivers, the same car having finished 14th overall (and 12th in Class D) in Dickson’s hands in the lead-up Sandown 250 endurance race in Melbourne. Six years before Channel Seven’s Racecam system debuted in Peter Williamson’s Toyota in 1979, the mighty Monaro also put itself into the Bathurst history books and carried a movie camera onboard during the race! The driver could operate it when he felt like it and, while it was not patched into the TV telecast, vision from it is clearly visible in the opening lap sequence of the 1973 Bathurst race coverage available on Chevron Publishing’s The Great Race DVD series.
Entered in Class D for over three-litre cars pitted against the V8 Falcons, six-cylinder Torana XU-1s and a handful of Chargers, the Monaro qualified 20th with a 2m46.6s, some 13.2s slower than the pole time set by John Goss’ Falcon XA GT. While all eyes were on the fight at the front between Goss, Allan Moffat’s XA GT, John French’s Bryan Byrt Falcon and the Holden Dealer Team Toranas of Peter Brock and Colin Bond, the Monaro quietly chipped away and by mid-afternoon was up to sixth in class behind Moffat, Bond, Brock and the John Harvey/Bob Jane and Dick Johnson/Bob Forbes Toranas. But the added race distance brought the Monaro undone, retiring after 130 laps with valve problems in the 308 cubic inch engine. Had the race been 12 months earlier, they would have finished the 500-mile, 130-lap distance just in time!
The Monaro returned to the Mountain in 1974, though this time upgraded with a 350 cubic-inch engine onboard to replace the ‘308 and a new co-driver in Pat Crea to pair up with Dickson. The car qualified 17th in 2m48.3s, slower than its 1973 qualifying time but three positions higher on the grid! The 1974 race is well remembered for the terrible wet weather that affected the second half of the race and, while John Goss and Kevin Bartlett splashed to victory in the longest-ever Bathurst 1000 race held, the Dickson/Crea Monaro finished 23rd overall and eighth in class, completing – you guessed it, 130 laps!
They actually crossed the line 24th out of the 27 finishers, though were elevated one spot after the sixth-placed Class B-winning Alfa Romeo 2000 GTV of Jim Murcott and Mal Robertson was excluded from the results post-race. The Monaro had been affected by gearbox problems since the very early stages of the race, having lost second and third gears from lap six onwards, before then dropping onto seven cylinders for the remainder of the race. But they finished and with it came the finish of Monaro’s time at the Mountain in the ‘1000.
The 1974 Dickson/Crea car remains the last Monaro entry to compete in The Great Race at Bathurst and the only HQ Monaro to compete in the race in its history. The Muirs Motors Monaro lives on today in the hands of owner Jason Cawthorne, who has had the car on display for fans at the annual Australian Muscle Car Masters event at Sydney Motorsport Park.
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