Article: Bathurst 1964

[Steve Holmes]

Here is the other Stude, the Weldon/Needham car. You can see its a later third generation Lark, so essentially the latest 1964 model.

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[Spgeti]

I am really enjoying these pics Steve....not only the variety of cars but the road conditions and that flaggie, glad he had a good footing. A far cry from what we have today.

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Bruce, I'm glad you're enjoying them.

[GN1]

This is my Dad's car. He ran the Armstrong for a few years in Class D quite successfully, always in Studebaker. I believe he was one of the few people to actually roll a car going UP the mountain as they had problems with the wheel studs breaking under load through the corners.
I think this car came up for sale a couple of years ago in WA.

[Steve Holmes]

This is my Dad's car. He ran the Armstrong for a few years in Class D quite successfully, always in Studebaker. I believe he was one of the few people to actually roll a car going UP the mountain as they had problems with the wheel studs breaking under load through the corners.
I think this car came up for sale a couple of years ago in WA.

Thats a hell of a cool intro! Thanks for posting. Good to know the car still exists. Do you have any recent photos of it?

[Noo Noo]

The steepest section of the track is The Cutting, a cruel left hand bend that really puts the cars under a lot of stress. I imagine heading up through The Cutting in Series Production cars in 1964 must have left them gasping. But speed is a relative thing. Check the attitude on the Bill Barnett/Don Johnston Humber Vogue, leading one of the Renault 8's. This was the bizarre nature of the class structure at the time. The Humber was in Class D, and up against the V8 Studebaker Larks etc.

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Steve, you're right about gasping. In 1976, my wife and I were travelling around Australia and when we hit we hit Bathurst I wasn't going to miss the opportunity of getting in a few laps. The steepness of the cutting really took me by surprise. Our poor little Escort van with it's 1300 motor and full load of camping equipment etc struggled up it in second gear and I was close to dropping to first. On a more recent visit I walked a lap, took me 1 hour 20 minutes and I can tell you that the cutting is even steeper when you're on foot, lol.

David Hunter

[Ray Bell]

It's not called a mountain for nothing!

I don't recall a Studebaker rolling on the way up the hill, however. In fact, I don't recall a Studebaker rolling at all. But I wasn't there prior to Easter '63.

Cars I do recall rolling on the way up the hill were Bernie Haehnle's Mazda (there are famous photos of him trying to right it using a fence post) and Grahame Ward's Lancia when Moffat crashed him off the track. And on You Tube you can find my nephew rolling an HQ in Tomlins Bend when he left room for another car he thought was trying to outbreak him.