John Lemm’s fabulous portrait of five-star racer, engineer and industrialist Peter Holinger as he awaits a run at Collingrove Hillclimb in South Australia’s Barossa Valley during 1973. His machine is a self-built Holinger Repco RB620 4.4-litre V8.
Let’s not ponder fireproof racegear and six-point harnesses in Australian hillclimbing at the time…
Peter won the Australian Hillclimb Championship in 1976 at Bathurst, 1978 at Collingrove, 1979 at Mount Cotton, Queensland and finally, 1988, at Fairbairn Park, Canberra in another Repco V8 powered – 5-litre Repco 720 – Holinger Repco.
Peter Holinger’s life and the business success is well-told here: http://holinger.com.au/the-holinger-story
Holinger aboard the car below at Lakeland, Victoria in 1976.
When Peter’s great friend and Repco colleague, Rodway Wolfe, purchased Brabham BT31-1 Repco – Jack’s 1969 Tasman machine – from Repco in 1971, Holinger stored the car for Rod and took photographs and the dimensions of it with Wolfe’s blessing, the Holinger Repco was the result.
Rod recalled, ‘He duplicated the chassis so well that years later at Morwell Hillclimb he borrowed the shock absorbers and a few bits from BT31 and won the event with some of my suspension parts.’ See here: https://primotipo.com/2015/02/26/rodways-repco-recollections-brabham-bt31-repco-jacks-69-tasman-car-episode-4/
Lemm’s perfectly focussed shot of Holinger at Collingrove ’73 with a ‘touch of the BRMs’ as the car was then configured. Lemm wrote that the single-rear-disc brake set up comprised a rotor and caliper donated by a Renault R8.
‘The 4.4-litre 620 series Repco had special camshafts made by Peter to give greater low end torque,’ wrote ex-Repco Brabham Engine Company engineer, Nigel Tait. ‘He started to make that engine not very long after we’d moved (Repco Brabham Engines) from Richmond to Maidstone. Apart from being a very clever guy, Peter was an absolutely delightful person,’ Nigel said. Everything you ever wanted to know about the RBE 620 V8: https://primotipo.com/2014/08/07/rb620-v8-building-the-1966-world-championship-winning-engine-rodways-repco-recollections-episode-2/
Holinger knew a thing or two about these engines having machined and assembled the very first 2.5-litre RB620-E1 V8 together with its designer, Phil Irving – Irving drew every single RBE620 design drawing – in February-March 1965. Indeed, Holinger was present in the Repco Engine Laboratory in Richmond when that engine was fired up for the very first time on March 26, 1965.
Peter was already hillclimbing another self built machine, the Holinger Vincent s/c during this period at Repco, and when he first went out on his own. The two shots below are both at Silverdale, NSW, in 1966 and 1969.
The ongoing evolution of the Holinger Vincent was also typical of Peter’s subsequent two hillclimbers, the shots below are of the Holinger Repco ‘BT31’ taken at the daunting, fast, Mount Tarrengower, Maldon, Victoria in 1978. The wings are the obvious change from the earlier shots, this car copped a 5-litre Repco 720 V8 at some point too.
The good news is that the three Holinger hillclimbers are still with us. David Nash – a Repco colleague of Peter Holinger’s – wrote a while back that he was rebuilding engine E1 4.4 – the same engine built by Peter and Phil in 2.5-litre form in 1965 – to go back into the Holinger ‘BT31’.
The final Holinger Repco 5-litre (shots below) was rebuilt at Holinger Engineering after Peter’s death in 2009, and shifted to the premises of the Victorian Historic Racing Register in Box Hill, Melbourne, on long term display/loan in March 2017. It always warms the cockles of ‘me heart to see it…
Etcetera…
Holinger, very close to his Warrandyte home, on Templestowe hill, September 11, 1966 with Autosportsman reporting times of 54 and 53.9 seconds.
Dick Willis’ amazing photograph of a posse of Australian Hillclimb Champions taken during the 1996 championship weekend, April 4-7 at Mount Panorama, Bathurst.
Left to right are Kym Rohrlach 1980/82/86/87, Stan Keen 1975/93, Peter Holinger 1976/78/79/88, Warren Brown 1984, Ivan Tighe 1964/85/91, John Davies 1992/95 and Roger Harrison 1983/94.
Arcane trivia is that – I think – the final in-period championship won by an RBE V8 anywhere in the world was Roger Harrison’s victory in the ’97 AHCC at Mount Leura, Camperdown, Victoria on October 16-19. His weapon was an ex-Alan Hamilton/Alf Costanzo Tiga FA83 Formula Pacific machine fitted with an RBE740 V8, capacity folks? Hamilton had Jim Hardman restore that car to RBE spec five or so years ago, it may have sold recently.
I love this Repco Brabham Engines family shot taken at the just-moved-into Maidstone premises in mid-late 1966. Back-Kevin Davies, Eric Gaynor, Tony Chamberlain, Fred Rudd, John Mepstead and Peter Holinger. Middle-Vic Mosby, Howard Ring and Norm Bence. Front-David Nash, Rod Wolfe and Don Butler.
Credits…
John Lemm, Auto Action, Repco Archive via Nigel Tait, Australian Motor Racing Annual 1970, Kerry Power, Geoff Williamson, John Bowring, Stephen Dalton
Finito…
primotipo... 
Mark,
Correct me if I’m wrong! I think the Hollinger Vincent used the Davo Cooper Irving donk – I recall him showing it to me under a bench in his workshop.
Tarrengower startline photo I think shows you mate Nick Langford on the spoon with Alan Elliot consigned to chock duties.
B
Even after Repco Brabham wound up, Hollinger still made valvetrain components for REDCO for use in the Repco Holden motor.
Did any other RB employees make the transition to REDCO?
Laurie,
Yes Laurie, he may have done RBE bits and pieces too.
The answer is yes to employees transitioning across from RBE to REDCO, a list is much harder, I don’t think Mal Preston spelled out names in his book, I’ll look when I am back home in a few days.
Maybe some of the Repco boys will chip in.
Engineer, Brian Heard did, and gets a Repco-Holden F5000 design co-credit together with Chief Designer Phil Irving who was ‘brought back in from the cold,’ as you know. Rod Wolfe went across for a while at least. There will be others too.
It’s a very good question, one we need to answer to give credit where it is due…
Mark
I have probably got the answers here somewhere, but no time to look right now.
The workmanship in that first Repco powered car was brilliant.
Cheers Dale,
I’m sure I never saw it run Dale, I wish I had!
Auto Action have a lot of shots of the Hillclimb Top-Guns of the day – Holinger, England, Judd, Bingham, Abbott etc, etc – in their photo-files. Bruce and I have agreed I’ll do a feature about The Seventies, I just need to prioritise it. I guess this article was part 2 of the research, part 1 was spending time with Chas Talbot and the Ausca VW when Chas had it to sell on behalf of Paul’s widow 2 years ago. Soon…
m
Hi Mark,
The second photo 1976 ‘unknown location’ is Lakeland hillclimb just east of Lilydale Vic. It is turn 3 which was a fast downhill approach into this 170 degree left-hander, then up around the ‘shelf’. What a track!! I cannot begin to convey the intense tight roller coaster of a track Lakeland was to people these days who are used to acres of run-off and sand traps. A bit of armco, drop-offs and trees…the plunge into the ‘Carousel”!! They have NO idea! A 10/10s run up there it was a serious buzz! I ran various Alfas up there until it closed.
I worked for Paul England at that time. He had just retired the twin-VW special in recent years.
Cheers, Vin Sharp
Thanks Vin,
I only ever ran there once, it may well have been the very last MSCA ever before it closed in my road Sud Sprint, not a quick car. Be great to talk to you about Paul England at some stage, what an engineer!
Mark
Hi Mark,
I worked for Paul England’s for 10 years, from 1976 fresh out of school, until I went out on my own to further my Alfa interests about ’86 when the automotive part at England’s was sold off by then.
I also knew Peter Holinger who lived & worked locally in Warrandyte at the time, he did some gear & shaft work for me, while Ron Harrop also did a few bespoke components for projects.
I will say that Paul, (universally referred to as ‘P.E.’ around the workshop), was not at all the same type of problem/solution/design/machine to finished item engineer as Peter & Ron. Paul was more a business & ambitions/ideas man who assembled the right people to perform those tasks within the business. A number of them came out of the Repco research days. Keith McCubbery was really THE glue who kept the whole workshop coordinated & functioning. Greame Gerbert , Mike Exel, John Ramsdell were excellent machinists/engineers who could pretty much work out any task. Dave May & Eric Gaynor were race engine builders. Jack Collins & Glen Johns on the crank grinding. Lots of others too: I think in the late 70s there were 35 people there.
Paul England Pty Ltd was very much the sum of good people working there, most of whom are unknown names publicly. I was very fortunate to be offered the apprenticeship & job position by Paul at that time when the auto/racing work was probably at its peak. Paul also took an interest in his employees & offered funded further training courses at TAFE for those interested. It gave me the knowledge & skills to build on later when in my own business, plus a number of very good friends & contacts to offer advice & bounce ideas off over the years.
Vin.
Rolled gold insights Vin,
Who is the Ron you refer to?
Kerry Luckins was GM in your time?
I remember Graeme Gerbert well, he built an FV engine for my brother in law when I sold him my Elfin NG Vee. Graeme raced a self-built Vee too. Top bloke, operated that aspect from his Melton home.
The number of ex-Repco Research people is not a surprise, it would be great to make a list of all the people who passed through Repco Research, Repco Brabham Engines, and REDCO-Repco Engine Development Co, the Repco-Holden F5000 entity; it would be a mighty long and fine list!
One final thing, where did Jack Godbehear fit into the mix. Official or unofficial member of the team??
regards,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Peter & Ron referred to were Holinger & Harrop respectively, both running their own engineering businesses at the same time as Paul England, but as I eluded to, coming from a different perspective.
Kerry Luckins was the general manager, his office jokingly referred to as the Essendon branch of the Light Car Club Australia. Not much work was done in that after the frequent LCCA lunches down at St Kilda Rd….the volume of ‘foreigner’ jobs via KL was legendary! I’m not sure if PE was aware or just turned a blind eye…. My first hands on racing car restoration experience was helping out on KL’s Mk1 Lola.
‘Old Jack’ Godbehear had a Froude dyno in a garage on his small orchard farm property, somewhere in north Ringwood or thereabouts. (I went there with PE quite a few times, but can’t seem to find it these days) It was his dyno that all the engine dyno work was done on. If I recall Jack was an uncle to Tony Stewart whom PE had supported in F2 in the early 70s. I think Jack installed the dyno specifically for that purpose initially.
Cheers, Vin