Twenty-two years ago, the Monaro 427C roared to victory at Bathurst 24-hour

By Felix Harding

Nov 4, 2024

The Holden Monaro 427C is, a true Australian racing legend now on display. Photo by Bree Harding

Designed, engineered, and built in Australia, the Holden Monaro 427C arrived at Shepparton’s Museum of Vehicle Evolution in September of 2023.

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“I saw the car on Garry Rogers Motorsport’s social media, and I already had a good relationship with their team”, MOVE’s Andrew Church said.

“So, I reached out to them and said I’d love to display it.”

The Monaro features a 7.0-litre V8 engine and produces no shy of 600 horsepower.

The Holden Racing Team declined the offer of developing the beast, so Garry Rogers Motorsport took matters into their own hands.

They used the Monaro body, the Chevrolet Corvette engine and the huge responsibility of using the vehicle as a race car.

“It’s just such a cool piece of Australian history that I want to show the world”.

In 2002 the Bathurst 24-hour race attracted cars from all over the world, such as the Lamborghini Diablo GTR, the Ferrari 360 N-GT and the Chrysler Viper ACR.

However, all these cars would race with the engine that they came out of the factory with, meaning Monaro’s original 5.7-litre Chevrolet engine would be unsuitable due to unknown eligibility criteria, hence the 7.0-litre engine swap.

Garry Rogers Motorsport had to create a body kit to suit both the regulations and the aerodynamics of the car.

They fitted a much wider rear spoiler (for increased downforce), coil springs and thicker anti-roll bars.

They used lightweight magnesium wheels to assist with weight reduction.

The 427C features padlocks on the hood, so when the car is idle in the pits, nobody can come and peak at the engine setup.

“It really is such a dangerous weapon”.

The Monaro was raced by Garth Tander, Nathan Pretty, Steven Richards and Cameron McConville at the Bathurst 24-hour in 2002.

During the race, the car suffered a collision with another car, a flat tyre and pit lane races to see who would get their car on to the track first after a pit-stop. The durable car battled its way through and successfully won its debut race by an impressive 24 laps.

The car went on to compete in the Australian Nations Cup in 2003, and the Bathurst 24-hour once again.

By then, a second version of the race car had been built.

Driven by Peter Brock, Jason Bright, Todd Kelly and Greg Murphy, that car won by 0.3035 of a second.

Tander, driving the 2002-winning car, was just overpowered by a yellow flag due to a car that was near the racing line.

Felix Harding is a Greater Shepparton Secondary College student who recently completed work experience with The News.