IN a workshop in Melbourne, one of the most violently damaged Supercars in the sport’s history is slowly being restored to its former glory.
Paul Morris’ iconic Big Kev Holden Commodore VS was all but destroyed in a fiery start-line crash with Mark Larkham at the Oran Park round of the 2000 championship.
Despite sustaining a back injury when the fire extinguisher bottle slammed into the back of the driver’s seat, Morris recovered to take part in the next round at Calder – but in a different car.
The wrecked VS sat at his Norwell Motorplex for the next two decades, a testament to the severity of the impact.
A couple of years ago, Super2 team owner Ben Eggleston sealed a deal to buy the wrecked car from Morris with an eye to restoring it to its original state.
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The extensive repair began last December with a familiar name on the tools.
Eggleston recruited none other that master fabricator George Smith to complete a restoration once thought to be impossible.
“It was one of the biggest smashes I’ve ever seen,” Smith told the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
V8 Sleuth Aaron Noonan chats one-on-one with icons of Australian motorsport. Along with the big wins and the big moments, Noonz digs a step deeper and unearths a few forgotten tales and funny stories from their life in racing.
We’ve had an incredible chat with George Smith that set a new benchmark for the longest recording in the history of the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
He shared so many stories from a career in the sport that has seen him in the middle of many of its most memorable and iconic moments that he and Noonz ended up chatting for almost four hours!
We’re releasing the first two parts this week. In Part 1, he talks about his current project: restoring the Big Kev Commodore that sat untouched for over 20 years following Paul Morris and Mark Larkham’s horror start-line crash at Oran Park in 2000.
He then shares stories from his days with Dencar, his chassis building company with Dennis Watson that was responsible for underpinning many of the Holden Commodores that competed in touring car racing from the early-1990s to the mid-2000s, including a tale involving the production line in Elizabeth that Holden executives certainly didn’t find funny at the time…
He then talks about how he got involved in the sport in the first place in Tasmania, landing a job with Harry Firth at the Holden Dealer Team, then linking up with Colin Bond’s Sydney-based HDT outpost.
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V8 Sleuth Aaron Noonan chats one-on-one with icons of Australian motorsport. Along with the big wins and the big moments, Noonz digs a step deeper and unearths a few forgotten tales and funny stories from their life in racing.
We’ve had an incredible chat with George Smith that set a new benchmark for the longest recording in the history of the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
He shared so many stories from a career in the sport that has seen him in the middle of many of its most memorable and iconic moments that he and Noonz ended up chatting for almost four hours (!) and we’re releasing the first two parts this week.
In Part 2, he talks about Colin Bond’s defection from the Holden Dealer Team to Moffat Ford Dealers for 1977 and shares an incredible story about an unexpected mechanical problem that hit Allan Moffat’s #1 Falcon on the morning of that year’s Bathurst 1000.
He then talks about his move to Datsun/Nissan, initially to work on its rally cars before being a foundation member of its Bluebird Group C touring car program – and he shares a few tales and confirms/dispels a few myths and rumours about the hidden technical trickery the turbocharged rockets possessed.
Find the right Castrol product for your vehicle or equipment here with the Castrol Product Finder >>https://www.castrol.com/en_au/australia/home/oil-selector.html
V8 Sleuth Superstore >> https://superstore.v8sleuth.com.au/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
“The impact finished at the back of the driver’s seat; there was nothing savable from there back. It was just a mangled wreck.
“When I started cutting some of the parts out to get to bits that we could repair, the right-hand air jack was like a pineapple with a skewer in it – the pineapple part was just condensed metal around the air jack.
“When I cut that out, I showed Ben and he’s gone, ‘I’m gonna go and mount that; that is unreal!’
“That just describes how much impact, how much force happened in that second of time.”
The irony is that Smith already helped to bring the car to life once.
The Big Kev Commodore is Dencar 36, one of over 50 Holden Commodore touring car chassis built by the fabrication company that Smith was partners in with fellow motorsport veteran Dennis Watson.
The car started its racing life with the Holden Racing Team in 1997 before being sold to Morris in 2000.
Once repaired, the chassis will be restored to its 1998 guise, when it contributed to Craig Lowndes’ second Australian Touring Car Championship title.
