The Story of the Holden Monaro 427C

[@fossilfuelenthusiast]

Love how Gary thanked and mentioned his team several times.

[@jhensby1]

What a great story.. and a great project.. Gary Rogers is one of the true greats of Australian Motorsport.. he has fostered so many drivers.. and the sport in general... how I would love to do a few laps in that car.

[@PontiacBanker]

Really enjoyed this video. Proud to be the owner of a Holden-built 2009 Pontiac G8 GXP manual transmission car that has seen over 100 laps at speed at Road America. These big Holden cars love high speeds on Road Courses!

[@panagiotis1519]

Great to hear, our Aussie cars are truly awesome! Mix of the best of US & Europe. They drive fantastic, look fantastic, sound fantastic & they're still a source of pride owning one today. Cheers mate!

[@lesflynn4455]

The US spec G8 had much better equipped interiors than the Australian-sold Commodores. You have a good one, sir.

[@David_in_Thailand]

Those cars sounded beautiful going over Skyline. It's a testament to the genius of Gary Rogers. I can happily say I was there for both 24hr races to take it in.

[@neilperry2224]

He should be in the Australian Motorsport Hall of fame. Because he deserves it. He's brought so many drivers into the sport and internationally, plus he's still kept his cheeky side ..

[@laurieradford9632]

isnt garry in there? thats a joke surely smdh... hes one of the greatest personalies to exist in the sport an from what i seen a great example of an aussie an with what hes achieved thats rediculous....

[@mickqld3003]

I watched much of that race live back then and am now very pleased I found this vid. Thanks! I have 1/18 high quality models of both 427 Monaro's Yellow & Red. Now very collectible. Always been a big fan of GM engines in GMH cars! My old school 427ci BB Chev powered 1971 Holden was so cool. And though not ever factory fitted, they seemed made for each other :) Of course, many US GM Engines were factory fitted to several Holden models and some petrol heads just preferred that over the locally made Holden V8's. Which were certainly not lacking anyway. Though we got stopped having Big Block Supercars, Phase 4's, Big Mopars etc, we did get some pretty good cars from the late 60's on. Seeing this modern Monaro win that day, had me jumping around the loungeroom.

[@mworld]

What I want to see next: Monaro 427C in Germany lapping the Nurburgring Nordschleife. They have a 24 hour race too.

[@georgewinters3191]

Great to hear the story and to see all who were involved way back when in early 2000’s. Had a Monaro as a young fella in early 70’s . Thanks for documenting the history of the 427 and it’s success.👍

[@harrywalker5836]

maybe watch bathurst 1989, & see holdens ban ford for winning..boo fkn hoo.. 4 laps ahead. its rigged, allways has been..wake up..

[@harrywalker5836]

ford won le mans, 3 times, 427 FE, gt40..1965...holdens,,only ever,,won bathurst..

[@lesflynn4455]

An excellent video of a great Australian motor racing story. Thanks for posting.

[@brittenv1000]

That's awesome. Thanks for making the documentary 👍

[@DarylEssex]

loved it.....Thanks Gary & team

[@stuartkcalvin]

39:45 OMG - proper sign writers!!! My Dad was a sign writer in the 1960's.

[@TheTobes99]

There's a Bathurst Based sign writer that's always in and amongst things at the 12 hour. Can't remember his name...

[@ganatas9597]

Nice upload. Cheers for the MEGA link BFG

[@TheTobes99]

Nathan Pretty could've been a V8 Champion if he had more money behind him. Always drove the car like he had to fix it himself if he binned it. Super underrated driver.

[@ufargarnidgit1927]

Special thanks to General Motors for the demise of the Holden.

[@davidburne9477]

Thank Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey and the rest of the LNP whose hatred of unionised workplaces saw them killing off an industry.

[@grahamglencorse307]

Abbott & Hockey opened the door and gave GM the boot!

[@Mercmad]

Don't forget ,GM is owned by the US taxpayer since the GFC and they don't give a damn about Australia.

[@stevenleades]

Australian drivers killed Holden by buying Camry's and Prado's as family cars

[@johnavendano9866]

No John Button Started the demise... stop with abbot and hockey... I'm not defending them but they knew GM was gonna pull the pin way before they said NO MORE TAXPAYER MONEY.

[@rickyvarady5682]

Thats so cool ,,, Love your work grate to see GRM as the people who are so good at what there do for racing and car builds thank to Gary for doing a grate job keeping the history of car alive..

[@355sle]

Funny how it would take another 20 years before Supercars decided to use LS based engines for the GM platform

[@baddaddy8718]

This was a great story!

[@125israel]

They should make a couple of these as road-homologated specials, they will sell so quick....

[@johncunningham4820]

They would sell , Yes . High side of $500,000 I would think . Quite literally Hand-made Exotics .

[@llewsid]

Well they tried, the 427 Monaro but it wouldn’t make any money. Very disappointing because most ‘hero’ cars don’t make money. Lexus LFA for example.

[@AsinineComment]

@@llewsid, but you simply cannot compare an industrial behemoth like Toyota, releasing their LFA and losing money - with a tiny, distant, _closed_ GM franchise, that would be hand-building a handful of near race-spec specials that loses money.

[@thethirdman225]

@@llewsid I drove a W427 around Calder. HSV were planning to make 427 of them but at $155,000 each, it was a limited market. For all that people wanted them for the big block motor, the thing that impressed me was how good the chassis was. You could point it anywhere and it just went. It’s behaviour was very predictable. So much so that I didn’t really notice the engine that much. Was it really that much better than the 6.2? I don’t know.

[@matsinkal]

@@thethirdman225 I beat a W427 in a roll race in a mildly modified FG XR6 turbo easily walked away from it the look on the owners face was priceless

[@davidmcleod9892]

Really appreciate the insights and an excellent success story of a relatively small, but truly dedicated team ( all of them). Shame that you just cannot prevent or stop the “carpers”. Just enjoy it fella’s. 😊😊😊

[@ylilycam]

It kind of worries me that the Monaros winning at Bathurst was 20 years ago lol

[@redbackspider]

Love Bathurst - love the 24 hour and was watching this when I happened. I STILL have the button up yellow/black Just Car Insurance Team Shirt that I wear on special occasions.

[@rbowe6]

Really good, but although it was "Australian built" the thing was competing against production GT cars on the basis that fifty or so would be built. Should have had to build the fifty first before being allowed to race it. A shame there were only a couple and that these were no road cars.

[@m1sfit138]

Went down well with the amazing variety of international competitors. "we entered a race car into a production gt class and destroyed them!" righto, well done you.

[@ivanjulian2532]

Agreed. Homologation rules exist for a reason, and the rules were bent way out of shape to allow this car to race.

[@madmick3794]

Was originally 10 track unregisterable cars, about 10 or so semi track cars permitted on club road rego with cages and windows modified accordingly and 10 road going versions. The first track 10 were the only ones signed off on, GM never gave the green light on the rest, just the idea of the rest.

[@motoxray]

@@ivanjulian2532 And they said the only whine was the gearbox!

[@DrJRaven]

Absolutely fantastic

[@alexmartin9951]

Depressing what happened to the Aussie built muscle cars. We had a great run for such a small country.

[@pipco121234]

You can thank Tony Abbott for literally bringing down the whole Aussie car manufacturing industry. What a knob!!

[@panagiotis1519]

Truth be told, it was always going to happen eventually with the globalisation malarkey going on which stated with Howard/Abbott & is still going on now with Scomo/Albo. And don't discount the journos that crapped all over our great cars relentlessly! It's all in the game, sadly. I miss my VY Acclaim RIP since the March floods in Sydney.

[@ChumpyChicken2]

It was gone well before that mate!

[@tomnewham1269]

It had nothing to do with the government. It just does not make economic sense to build cars here in Australia. To make economic sense Holden would have had to sell 200,000 cars of the same model here even before you add up export numbers. Considering the top selling model in 2022 sells around only 50,000 units, there is your answer there. On top of that GM admitted that they did not plan on making cars here after 2020 no matter what the government did.

[@commodorenut]

There was so much more to it than that, and many different issues combined. BTW, Ford announced their local closure in May 2013. Rudd was still PM for another 3.5 months before Abbott go in. The Button car plan was hatched in the early to mid 70s, which identified the low local volumes, and kicked off the consolidation of models (badge engineering in the 80s) and greater use of global models to improve economy of scale, but assembled locally (Gemini, Camira, Laser, Telstar, Astra etc). That, coupled with scheduled reductions in import tariffs that previously protected the local industry, consumers no longer buying the cars being built locally, an increasing level of cost to assemble locally, and not much enthusiasm from the global management of each of the companies for Australian factories, and the writing on the wall started 40 years before it all closed up. Australia was the only western country dumb enough to pretty much remove all the import tariffs. Other western countries may have claimed “no tariffs” but had exhorbitant import duties - some almost tripling the sell price of an Aussie made car in their country (look up the Territory tax in SEA countries). The tariffs were arguably the largest contributing factor. People are quick to forget that we nearly lost Holden in 1984, and the V8 was killed off - luckily resuscitated by the “V8 till ‘98” media campaign. If it wasn’t for the VN success, Holden would have gone 20 years earlier. Button also killed off the local electronics industry almost overnight in the early 70s by removing tariffs - suddenly making imported Japanese televisions and hi-fis much more affordable for the Aussie consumer, and consumers lapped it up. Through the later 90s the entry level Hyundai excel dropped its drive away price nearly $1000 each year - the result of Button’s plan and tariff reductions. It says so much about the talent of our local engineers, designers, and other car company employees, who have either maintained their jobs locally, still doing design or R&D for global markets, and the many who were headhunted for high level roles in global icons like Prodrive, Ricardo, McLaren etc.

[@branshippo7590]

What's literally got to do with it

[@georgiethecockatoo1087]

Love you Holden rip

[@dallascowboy23]

awesome! thanks for uploading!

[@FASTNORTON]

Great doco

[@nakeddrifter4685]

I am australian but a realist. I think personally that a monaro with almost nothing monaro left in it vs factory built ferraris and winning really takes the magic out of it.

[@noelwebb6843]

They weren't all production models

[@pkjmfineart1593]

Is there a bit of carpet at/near the GRM location that the public can drop to their knees and give thanks to these guys? That's what should have been happening for about, oh -> 20+ years. 🤩😉

[@79series]

What a wonderful watch. Great build. Why choose the vz body over the vx are they better for some reason? Quite a luxury race car with factory cup holders.

[@raykaufman7156]

Great story!

[@Sanderly1820]

The uk this was the vauxhall vectra vxr why they stopped production for the insignia baffles me, I wasn't a vaucgall person, but after driving a vxr, I was a changed man

[@karstenbrumme6133]

Great Upload!!!! Gimme more

[@drewtarrant7321]

Great video guys

[@timcollins3484]

i hope my sons David and James are watching

[@Steveaustin007]

Yes they done well for a car that wasn’t homologated .

[@ivanjulian2532]

Agreed. When Porsche exploited a gap in the rules to enter a 917 at Le Mans, they still built 25 homologation specials BEFORE they tried to enter the car. In this case, Holden "promised" to homologate the car AFTER the race, and they never did. But they kept the win. In my view, a hollow victory indeed.

[@Steveaustin007]

@@ivanjulian2532 GRM done a great job - world class engineering . Motorsport in Australia always has needed an anti corruption investigation. My uncle was high up in the board room in the 1970’s and would tell us the winner of Bathurst months before the race . It’s still going on today .

[@spaceinvader992]

Should be racing these now in a newer model. I can't believe they never raced these overseas.

[@brendo7363]

Wouldn't be allowed in any other series that Holden's marketing team couldn't lean on heavily.

[@panagiotis1519]

The bottle neck was always GM, not Holden. The Brock saga is all you need to see that. They looked for an excuse to stop him selling the brand overseas & did it. No other reason. Australia always made cars better than the US & Euro crew. We had the best of both worlds!

[@060racing8]

15:45 a Subaru Brumby displaying Australian Eureka and Confederate flags flanked by 2 Holden Commodores it was a different time back then

[@brendo7363]

V8 supercar chassis with a 7 liter, Le Mans winning race engine against production GTs with race seats. We've not seen an overdog story like this since the Ford GT40.

[@philipbrown2514]

First drive friday..... Gold

[@shanemumford3051]

Thanks for uploading this. I missed it when ut was originally on. Do you anything else like this. Thanks

[@BFG9K]

keep an eye out, I'll be uploading my archives over the next few days

[@shanemumford3051]

@@BFG9K legend

[@BFG9K]

so youtube slapped it all down with copystrikes already but tinyurl.com/yyutdpnd

[@andrewreid7717]

Great story. THE BEST homage to Holden’s motor racing history.

[@antzw]

Im deciding what colour its going to be ... Im funding it .. Classic

[@F14-talktomegoose]

I like it and I'm paying so thats it ...... go Gary !

[@datsungarageaustralia]

Great story! What’s with the Datto 1600 in the back yard?

[@CHEGTO]

Yes Hank you so much

[@PeterLynch-md3kb]

amazing

[@AussieRevhead]

So chassis 4 was never really built for Gary it was build for Adrian from lmct+ got it.

[@cv8plumber18]

Really miss our car industry

[@MarleyDocherty-Gallagher]

Anyone know if that car was run to its full potential?

[@simeonorive145]

Bit of a cake walk a proto type competing against homologation cars.

[@no-namecrown5510]

respect !!!

[@georgetiedtke3509]

where are the cars now?????

[@paulheywood2116]

Will never see this stuff happening with Australian manufacturing up shit creek it’s sad we won’t get to see it again

[@UFO-racer]

The Car that was NEVER a Production Car

[@TheWretchedWorld]

Yeah I see a lot of those production mosler mt900s on the road

[@jimclarke1108]

Number 1 Holden ever

[@maelradec6766]

pretty sure ford won that war son

[@jimclarke1108]

@@maelradec6766 Does that include my FGX😁

[@jimclarke1108]

And my FGX

[@PapaBaush]

So are you ready to get back into supercars Gaz/Baz?? Please

[@panagiotis1519]

Who still cares about supercars? No Holden, no love from me!

[@formulafish1536]

Is Mitch any relation to Broc Feeney? I honestly thought Broc was doing fabrication when he was talking til I saw Mitch pop up 😂

[@whitemetro99]

Do this have a Ford 9” rear axle ?

[@stevenleades]

Hand built motorsport diff

[@whitemetro99]

@@stevenleades surely not standard monaro?

[@JoeyCowen]

no as factory it has the BTW made in Australia LSD and as all Aussie cars from 1996 onwards Fully inderpendant rear suspension !

[@whitemetro99]

So what dif and dif casing did it use !!! We run the british GT CAR . And now run a Ford 9” in a alloy casing with irs !!!

[@mlsmcv9591]

That car looks a lot like the Pontiac GTO .

[@Riley180sx]

Because the gto was a monaro

[@JoeyCowen]

thats because that is were u got your GTO from ! our Holden Commadores and Monaros !

[@mlsmcv9591]

@@JoeyCowen Probably the other way around pal !

[@CJColvin]

That's because the 04-06 Pontiac GTO is nothing but a rebadged Holden Monaro from Australia unlike the original GTOs from the 1960s.

[@noelwebb6843]

​@@mlsmcv9591 wrong GTO's are rebadged Monaro's, Pontiac G8's are VE Commodores, & Chev SS is VF Commodore, the magnotech suspension in the Corvettes comes from VE Commodores

[@brianhoffman4861]

Part of the big plan

[@biastv1234]

20:26 , the mighty TJ Magna !

[@vman7321]

It did more a longer race than the 427 😅

[@llewsid]

Amazing car, but mystifying as to how they were allowed to run a car that didn’t exist.

[@F14-talktomegoose]

gary's son is a chip off the old block !

[@allancarson5708]

And all it took was an illegal car with an engine with twice the cc's of everyone else!.

[@coolshark6816]

wasnt racin against no ford tho

[@noelwebb6843]

The Commodores were & the Falcons finished behind them.

[@GlennLittleford]

Just goes to prove how overrated these European sports cars are. When an Australian car maker decides to take the challenge on, it wins. Happens time and time again, remember the Torana's, nothing could touch them.

[@panagiotis1519]

It wasn't a manufacturer (Holden) that built them, it was GRM, a race car builder.

[@harmankardon478]

didnt even drive it hard at the end and all that talk that its a race car...

[@brianhoffman4861]

Blame the electric cars and the devil

[@bushmanphotos]

Sorry but this was just confusing for me. The engine was hardly mentioned yet that was the most critical factor and there has never been a production run of Monaro 427ci cars to the best of my knowledge so the whole thing is just a scam really... all the rules bent way out of shape just to let an anomaly run and win. Full credit to the team all the same but this video is very misleading.

[@JoeyCowen]

HRT made 145 of these cars for road use and all are locked up in peoples garages as collectors items !

[@andrewoats3620]

Colour is a bit cringe. A bit like the Gulf liveries. Should have been Phantom Black. Sorry Garry.

[@thefreedomguyuk]

All about taste, innit' ? I've got a Porsche in Gulf colours, I think it looks great. Got a silk black one as well, looks pretty cool. But all about taste.

[@steve2me414]

The GM from AUS is the problem now.

[@matsinkal]

It was cheating really 7lts is taking the piss when everyone else is in a 3.5lt or less.

[@rainman3269]

Should race this instead of the Camaro next year ... The Mustang and Carmaro race cars are nothing like the road going car ... Race on Sunday ... Sell come Monday went out the door 20 odd years ago ... Its an Australian Tintop series ... Not American series ... Pathetic

[@rbowe6]

You do know the Commodore was just a tinkered with Opel (so European) and the 427 was a Chev (USA). Did you watch the video till the end, this was hardly a "road going car". Cool as it was, the thing was a V8 supercar with a 427 going up against cars one could buy at the time. Really cool would have been if they'd made the fifty they said they would make - but didn't. And since when have V8 Supercars (which I assume you allude to when saying "Mustang and Camaro" in Australia's premier race series) been anything like "road cars". The Commodore was quite mediocre in Group A days. Maybe go back to Group C? Or 70's touring cars - which is what the Monaro was sort of entered as for the 24hr against things people could actually buy (and we come full circle back to where I call it a V8 supercar again). Sure keep racing Falcon's and Commodores, but in the end - nothing like road cars just like the Mustang and Camaro.

[@panagiotis1519]

@@rbowe6 The base chassis & floorplan was still a Monaro. And a production GT3 was a race car anyway, with decades of testing, understanding & victories.

[@rbowe6]

@@panagiotis1519 An altered Monaro body and chassis. Which was originally Opel. A production GT3, is still a production car. Had they built the "promised" fifty before it raced then you get a fair playing field. By your measure a non-compliant Monaro is okay, so then Porsche or any other manufacturer should have been allowed to play by the same rules. Subaru or Mitsubishi could have taken bitumen spec WRC cars and stated "it's okay we are going to build fifty" (and then not built them).

[@panagiotis1519]

@@rbowe6 so not an Opel. Look up the history of the Commodore released in 1978, in Australia. The Opels broke in half during testing 🤔

[@rbowe6]

@@panagiotis1519 They couldn't even come up with an original name, Opel had used the Commodore names since the 60's. The original "reworked" chassis began with an Opel. Holden didn't start with a blank sheet of paper but tinkered with an existing design and you know very well they stuck with a third of it still being Opel. It's almost as if you think Holden was an entity in it's own right and not part of General Motors. The two 427 (now three) were (are) cool cars for which the rules of competition were bent for. It's a shame Holden and Ford are gone as Australian car manufacturers, but not in light of the massive government grants that kept being taken. Winning 24hr races did not correlate with a quality product or a product that the general public wanted. It stopped being a car manufacturer and became "work for the Dole". If Holden had perhaps stuck to leather work and their small SA they might still be around, but instead they tinkered with and dressed up Opels, Suzukis, Isuzus, Chevs... and, had some success then failed.

[@MrIZZIT]

Pity it was just more cheating. This was never a production car even tho they said it would be. More Aussie shame.

[@okanui]

dork. it wasnt for a super car race, it was for a 24 hour race.

[@MrIZZIT]

@@okanui Never said it was GM promised they would build it so they could run it but didn't. Only good part is I have parts from it for my Commodore racecar.

[@tezzrterry7485]

I don't think there were too many Moslers on the road either.

[@MrIZZIT]

@@tezzrterry7485 Many more than this mob did

[@karlpokorny7130]

Would have lost if it ran the same resrtricter plate the Ferrari did. It was impossible for anyone esle to win.

[@JoeyCowen]

they had no restrictor plate , thats non sense ! the 7 litre just goes well , have you ever driven a Ferrari ? a very fragile motor that has to be driven by an expert to go well as aposed the a LS based motor a 16 yearold kid could go fast in , simple pushrod motor does not mean slow, as we all know now , just look at Ford after all this DOHC motors they go back to push rods in the 7.3 Godzilla motor , what was it stock oh thats rite 500 hp stock !!

[@mikemoore5929]

If anyone from GRM is watching , i believe i have the original 4 way Ohlins shocks from one of the two cars . Possibly the rears ?