History buffs will know the first three editions of the Armstrong 500 or later to be known as the Bathurst 1000 occurred at Phillip Island and it was a British marque winning the first event.
Frank Coad and John Roxburgh took the flag in a Vauxhall Cresta clocking up 167 laps or 501 miles on the original version of the Phillip Island permanent circuit in 1960
Strange now, but the outright winners weren’t acknowledged in this race nor the first five or so long distances races of this type.
The race for locally made or assembled models was organised by the Light Car Club of Australia promoted by shock absorber manufacturer Armstrong York Engineering PTY LTD.
Classes were based on pricing, with a wide variety of manufacturers including Renault, Simca, Volkswagen, Triumph, NSU, Lloyd, Fiat, Austin, Hillman, Morris, Peugeot, Singer, Ford, Humber, Mercedes-Benz, Standard and of course Vauxhall.
Prize money was also only given to class winners going all the way up to E. Coad and Roxburgh dominated Class D beating a Standard Vanguard by five laps driven by Norm Beechey and John French.
There is some contention about the outright winners due to the difficulty of this being a class-based race, each category was left at 10s intervals at the start, however Coad and Roxburgh have been regarded as the victors after a comprehensive investigation by CAMS.
Vauxhall later competed in the Super Touring Bathurst 1000s of the late-1990s, but the Cresta used was a six-cylinder sedan and was prepared by the two drivers for three or four months prior to the event including a 500 mile test under race conditions.
Clocking an approximate 98 mph or 157 km/h down the main straight on a rather questionable surface due to the inability for bitumen machinery to get on the island, Coad and Roxburgh’s experience proved priceless.
The classic saying ‘race on Sunday, buy on Monday’ was coined during this early period of the race and the Vauxhall’s popularity definitely went through the roof as proven by the Melbourne dealer selling out of the limited model.
The pair returned the next year in a Vauxhall Velox finishing second in Class A.
Roxburgh passed away in 1993 and Coad in 2021, with the Cresta still remaining today.
Although there was no Holden representation in the original edition, the Australian-based manufacturer did contribute to the success as it assembled the local Vauxhalls and went on to win the race for the first time at Bathurst in 1968, four years after its move from Phillip Island.