VK: BROCK’S PERFORMANCE SMORGASBORD

By mid-1984, the performance Commodore scene was becoming complicated. Think of it like this: back in the days of VB there were just the GM-H variants (4.2 or 5.0 litres) with a choice of manual or automatic and a range of final-drive ratios. Next came the VC and a similar deal until Peter Brock’s first production car cut into the action late in 1980.

With VC there was just one Brock Commodore – the lavishly equipped HDT – but with the VH, the choices multiplied. Come 1984 and the VK brought a veritable Disneyland of options. A Brock Commodore was no longer easy to define or even visualise.

GM-H option pack BTI gave the Australian Police forces their Holden pursuit cars, but also provided a basis for the VK SS. Essentially, BTI brought a sports suspension package – Brock’s specification, big-valve cylinder heads, a tachometer and anti-glare mirror. Cars actually destined for the Police force scored an extra control check on the speedo.

But although the BTI pack was there from the start of the VK in March 1984, the SS didn’t arrive until well into the second half of the year. Meanwhile, the BTI provided Special Vehicles with an excellent basis for various specials. One was the LM 5000, which was sold between February and August 1984. This was just a BTI with a cosmetic kit and trick wheels.

The VK SS started as a BTI that was fitted with a lot more equipment at Special Vehicles. This was in strong contrast to the old VH model, which never entered the Brock workshops. Brock had selected Scheel front seats and herringbone-pattern wool blended trim. The SS also acquired newly developed HDT alloy wheels, shod with Uniroyal Wildcat ER60H15s. More importantly, perhaps, it was also fitted with extractors, without which the big valve heads never showed their potential. Other changes included the fitting of the familiar Peter Brock-style Momo wheel and footrest. This time around the, those SS decals were justified; it was a serious sports sedan.

At $18,495.00 this was a performance bargain. The sports suspension provided a much firmer ride than that of any standard Commodore and around town it could verge on the unpleasant. But the suspension paid off at higher speeds, when the car really did feel like a grand tourer. It was a definite advance over the old red taxi VH version.

The VH SS had not won itself any adulation and the Group One and Group Two variants had certainly not started any riots among buyers. How much more sensible, then to make the SS a genuinely separate model and eliminate Groups One and Two!

For those who could manage without the full-on Brock imagery, the SS was fine, with the exception perhaps of its rear dampers, which were too firm (the settings were modified during production). It could run the standing 400 metres in 15.6 seconds, with zero to 100 km/h in 7.0 seconds. Top speed was 192 km/h at the 5000 rpm redline, although brief forays beyond this were permissible (but not to the blokes in the ETIs). Five-five brought a top speed of 210 – easily achieved and demonstrating the Brockmobile’s greatest shortcoming – the lack of a five-speed gearbox.

Actually by VK time, Peter Brock was in possession of a limited number of Borg-Warner T5 gearboxes, but these added a hefty $3,500.00 to the price tag. Few SS buyers would have been willing to dig this deep, but there was a growing coterie of V8 Commodore enthusiasts who were. Thanks mainly to the efforts of the Brock organisation and the example set by the HDT Commodore, the General’s family sedan was becoming more sought after by those buyers willing to pay big money for something genuinely distinctive.

Thus throughout the run of the VK, we began to see magazine cover stories on the "$40,000.00" and even the "$50,000.00" Commodore. Special Vehicles lent their skills to such tasks as swapping the 5.0 litre Holden engine for a 350 Chevy. Blokes with a new Calais took them to Brock for the full treatment and sometimes the result was practically a full-fledged racing sedan with all the luxury gear.

From the advent of the VK, it was clear to Brock and his team that the Calais was an obvious target for the treatment. I remember visiting the workshop around Easter 1984 and there were several Calais in various states of disarray, awaiting the kiss from Brock. Buyers were ordering the HDT-improved package on a Calais at a rate that showed scope for a latter-day version of the HDT.

And so the Brocked Calais earned itself a special name. By the second half of 1985, the HDT was officially offering its Director package for $5,355 on top of the cost for a standard V8 Calais.

This money brought what Special Vehicles called a "Bathurst Group Three SS" inlet manifold – reworked heads with larger valves, high-capacity air cleaner with chrome cover, cold air intake, blueprinted exhaust headers (painted with heat-proof paint), a heavy-duty brake master cylinder, chrome rocker covers, oil-filler cap and various other items. Closing the bonnet and looking underneath the car, you might be able to determine that the Director differs from a standard Calais in having HDT front and rear springs, HDT front and rear roll bars, beefed-up top mounts for the MacPherson struts, gas-filled strut inserts, gas rear shocks and revised geometry.

The of course, there were the 15x7 HDT aero-covered alloy wheels shod with Pirelli P6s. Colour-coded front and rear bumpers, side moulds, headlight surrounds, Momo wheel, footrest and decals completed what seemed to be money well spent.

But this certainly didn’t represent the limit of what you could lavish on a Calais, in pursuit of the ultimate road going HDT special. The five-speed box for example, at $3,500, a 90-litre fuel tank at $316, a full sports exhaust at $350 and so on. The Calais, which started at around $22,000 could easily be coaxed across the 30-grand barrier.

The knowledge that well-heeled enthusiasts were prepared to part with big money in exchange for the HDT decals that justified them, had prompted Brock to embark on another ambitious program during 1984. The fact that it finally came to nothing was not because of the idea itself, but rather because the thriving Special Vehicles operation had taken on more than it could handle.

Remember the HDT Monza? Simply this was an Opel Monza coupe that had received the HDT treatment. Out with the heavyweight straight six (built for 200 km/h down the autobahn rather than low-down urge and weighing more than the Aussie 308) and in with a Group Three engine. The front suspension was completely reworked in the Brock style, while the independent rear end – beefed up, of course – joined the coupe bodywork in distinguishing the Monza from any other Brock car. Brock himself was completely confident in the first quarter of 1984 that this car would be sold against top-line BMWs and Mercedes.

What had begun as a small operation in 1979, with Peter Brock raising $50,000 to buy the Holden Dealer Team name when GM-H officially declared that it had withdrawn from racing (interesting, in view of the fact that officially the corporation had never been involved), had bourgeoned by the mid-80s into a kind of Aussie equivalent to AMG; what AMG could do for Benz’s, HDT could do for Holden’s.

Despite the appearance of the Calais Director, the Group Three was still Brock’s most prominent model, at least until the release of the evolutionary Group A in 1985. How did the VK Group Three compare with its predecessor? In the first place, it was less different from the base SS than had been the case with VH, when the red SS was just another production line Holden. The VK Group Three used exactly the same (V5H) engine used on the VK SS and on the VH Group Three. Maximum output was 188 kW rather than 126 as in the standard GM-H engine.

On the road and against the stopwatch, however, the newer cars could not quite match the original Group Three. The reason probably was standardisation of the exhaust system, thanks to the Australian Design Rules. That exhaust zapped some zing from the performance. Nevertheless, this aggressive looking car, could whip its snout across the standing 400-metre line in 15.6 seconds. No, this was no faster than the base SS, but the car certainly looked faster!

So the price premium charged for the Group Three over the SS brought many cosmetic and suspension advantages. Where the SS had the Police-pack suspension (Munroe gas struts up-front and Bilsteins behind) the Group Three scored Bilsteins up front along with heftier anti-roll bars.

Peter Brock was still gaining excellent co-operation from within Fisherman’s Bend. Former head of the styling, Leo Pruneau, had penned the HDT car of 1980 and his successor, Phil Zmood, can claim credit for the VK Group Three with its super shark style snout. The bodykit comprised front air dam/bumper assembly, the revised (postbox) grille, rear boot lid spoiler, huge air intake on the bonnet (not helpful in supermarket parking manoeuvres) and the wind splitters (colour-keyed on VK).

This time around, the most prominent Brockmobile scored 16-inch alloy wheels. These were developed by HDT under strong Chevy Corvette influence. They were shod with 225/50x16 Pirelli P7s. On smooth surfaces these tyres proved fantastically suited to the Group Three, but did encourage to pick up ridges or irregularities over less satisfactory surfaces, as well as to follow the chamber. In short, premium rubber was a mixed blessing – great on the track but not the best for fast cruising in varying road conditions.

Since the base SS already had Brock’s Scheel seats, interior changes were comparatively minor. The Group Three boasted slightly nicer door trims plus a pair of real head restraints. The rear seat scored a centre armrest and there was an improved sound system and a standard Cobra burglar alarm – for the oh-so-obvious reason.

With VK, the Brock production repertoire had diversified considerably. The Group A – covered in another chapter – took this process further. Come VL, however, and the possibilities confronting Brock and his organisation would seem almost boundless.