Not much good has come of the coronavirus pandemic. But we can thank Covid-19 for this car. Because without the pandemic, this stunning 7.0-litre Holden Monaro race machine simply would not exist today. This car is the end product of what is surely the ultimate Covid lockdown project: a replica of the 2002/03 Bathurst 24 Hour Monaro 427s, built by the same Garry Rogers Motorsport operation responsible for the original cars – and even involving many of the GRM crew members who worked on those cars back then. It bears Garry Rogers’ name and his trademark 34 race number on the doors, which is fitting not just because it’s the work of Rogers’ own team, but because he had planned on building and racing a Monaro 427C just like this in the 2005 Nations Cup season. Here then, in a sense, is that car, 16 years later.
The sparkling cream-and-olive coupe first broke cover when Rogers and son Barry unveiled it at Sandown in June earlier this year. It’d been roughly 12 months in the making – not bad considering that little more than a year ago it didn’t even exist as an idea.
If there was a starting point for this build, it was March 17, 2020. That was the Monday morning after the covid-cancelled Australian Grand Prix. That race meeting was to have been a kind of crowning glory for the GRM team, with 15 GRM-built Rogers AF01/V8 S5000 openwheelers set to start in the opening round of the 2020 Australian Drivers’ Championship. But it was all over after the Friday practice and qualifying sessions.
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