Historic Holden Monaro up for sale

Thursday, 25 June 2020

The Holden that spawned the Holden Dealer Team (HDT) is going under the hammer for more than AU$1 million (NZ$1.06m).

Lloyd's Auctions is offering the #57D Holden HT Monaro GTS350 racer, built in 1969 by driver and team manager Harry Firth and debuting at that year's Sandown 500.

Unfortunately the car crashed just 45 minutes into the event due to brake failure.

The car that started it all (the Holden Dealer Team, that is) is up for sale. It won't be cheap.

According to the auction description, Frank Lowndes would later say the reason for the crash was because the car was still using road pads from testing instead of the race pads it was supposed to wear.

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Firth stripped and rebuilt the car, engine included, to a higher specification, leading to a win at Bathurst later in 1969. The first-placed car was driven by Colin Bond and Tony Roberts while another Monaro came third, driven by Des West and Peter Brock, on his Bathurst debut.

The car was powered by a 350ci (5.7-litre) Chevrolet V8 paired with a Saginaw four-speed manual. It has a hair over 40,000km on the clock, most of which would have been at full noise.

“This car is a significant piece of Australian motorsport history, not only shaping the success of Holden as a company, but also setting the stage for the domination by Holden and Peter Brock for the following two decades,” said Lee Hames, Chief Operating Officer of Lloyd's Auctions.

If you're interested, check out the auction listing here. Bidding kicks off online on Saturday, June 27.