Peter Brock --- Brock05 The Ultimate Resource --- Mahogany Roadster's

Peter Brock reckons the VK Calais Director is the best car he ever built, and he expresses a particular fondness for the Spindrift Blue car that left HDT's fun factory early in 1986. he should know because that particular car was hand-built by the HDT Special Vehicles team, and Brock himself hand picked many of the parts that went into the engine.

Fifteen years on Mark Skaife reckons there are none better than HSV's VX Senator 300, and like Brock he should know as he's played a leading hand in fine tuning HSV's ultimate executive express.

Back in the free wheeling '80's cars were a passion for Brock, and those conceived and built with-in the walls of the small HDT factory in Melbourne had the personal touch of the master all over them. For people like Bruce Tregonning, now the owner of the "special" Spindrift Blue Calais Director, that's enough to make them very special indeed.

Tregonning was so besotted with the car when he saw it at the HDT Owners Club Nationals meet in 1986 , that he decided then and there that he would own one. What he didn't know at that time was that he would come to own that very car.

A few weeks later when he approached Brock's team with the request to build him a Director, he was informed that they'd stopped building VKs and had switched their attention to the new VL.

There was a car, however, they thought he might be interested in. It had been built for the Wheels editor Peter Robinson to road test , and had clocked up 21,000km, but was in as-new condition and had just about every option possible fitted to it.

"(Brock's Calais Director) was a racer for 'grown-up boys' who spent their days on mahongany row."

Tregonning couldn't believe his eyes when they showed him the Spindrift Blue car he had fallen in love with at the Nationals. There was no hesitation, he bought it, and then had the HDT team add some more goodies on top of the vast array of options it already boasted.

He had them swap the 15 x 7 inch wide Momo rims for wider 8 inch Momos, got them to fit a rear bumper apron and front airdam, and electric sunroof and cruise control.

Fifteen years later the Spindrift Blue Calais Director is still in showroom shape, now having travelled just over 40,000 very carefully driven kilometres.

In the years since Bruce bought the car Brock has seen it several times, and every time he seeks him out to talk about it. Even today the Bathurst hero has fond memories of the VK Director, and quite openly claims it as the best car he ever built.

"It was a damn quick car," he says. "I remember one journo acclaiming it as the fastest four-door sedan in the world. "It would do a standing 400 metres in around14.4s, and I remember it did 154mph (248km/h) or so top speed.

"People used to ask us what we'd done to it, but we hadn't done anything special, except to make sure everything was right."

The VK Calais Director was something of a departure for Brock whose previous models were mostly raw-boned 'boy racer' sports sedan with the emphasis clearly on performance.The Calais Director was different. It still had the Brock performance enhancements, the engine improvements, the ride and handling upgrades, but was aimed at a different buyer.

Its styling was anything but in your-face, and it was brimming with luxury fittings and features. It was a racer for 'grown-up-boys' who spent their days on mahogany row.

Brock's Director was based on Holden's Calais, which already had just about every comfort and convenience option box ticked when it left the factory.

The Calais already boasted air-con, power windows and mirrors, trip computer, Eurovox high-end sound, power antenna, and high quality carpet and trim, but that was the starting point for Brock who took Holden's quite complete luxury package and reworked it with a touch of his own magic.

For a start he tood the Holden 4.9-litre V8 engine and boosted it with some careful reworkings of the heads, big valves, a hot cam, and modified ignition. Add to that a cold air intake to improve the incoming charge, and a big bore exhaust to get rid of the spent gases quickly and you have the recipe for a very potent car.

And remember Brock too the time to personally select the engine components that went into the engine in Bruce's car to make sure that his engine sang like no other.

Out came the clunky M21 four-speed manual gearbox that was fitted to regular Holdens of the time, and in went a Borg-Warner T5 five-speeder which transformed the Director into much more refined road car.

Of course there was an ulterior motive for all of the work: you see, the Spendrift Blue Calais was to be given to Peter Robinson, then editor of Wheels magazine, for road testing.Robinson raved about the car's performance, which was extraordinary; particularly given that with all of the options it carried it was no light-weight, stripped-down race car replica.

No doubt Robinson wasn't aware that the car had been personally massaged by Brock and the HDT boys when he slapped on the Correvit and went for a dash down the quarter-mile. The secret didn't emerge until much later when Tregonning revealed that the build sheets, which he received when he bought the car, show that certain engine items were "hand-picked by PB".

According to Brock he simply "blue-printed" the engine, which means he carefully went through it, hand selecting the best parts and assembling them with the utmost care.

In short it was a rocketship. With 170kW on tap, testers had it racing down the drag strip in less than 15 seconds. The 0-100km/h time was recorded at around seven seconds flat, and the quarter-mile time around 14.5s.

Not only that, but it would reach the heady heights of 240-plus km/h, and Brock can recall seeing the digital speedo registering the eqivalent of 150mph (241km/h) in the old language on some back roads in country Victoria. And this was that the time European car companies were just beginning to break through the 250km/h mark.

It shouldn't be ignored that Brock had set BMW as his benchmark when building his cars. He regarded BMW as the leading maker of high quality. luxury sports sedans, and that's the sort of cars he wanted to build.

Accordingly there was more a Brock-built car that a hot engine, for the nine-times Bathurst champion valued ride and handling as much as he worshipped straight-line grunt.

Look under the guards of the VK Calais Director and you'll spot upgraded springs. Bilstein shocks, and heavier sway bars, and of course there's Bruce's 15 x 8 inch Momo alloys wrapped with the best of Bridgestone rubber.

Subtle styling enhancements characterise both car

The key to the Director though is that Brock tailored all of these components to the buyer, whom he thought would want more comfort than would be afforded him in one of the homologation specials Brock was most noted for building at the time.

The Director was still sharp in its respnse, and it had ferocious grip, but it also had a compliant ride that simply soaked up the bumps.

Under the rear of the car was a 90-litre long range fuel tank, while up front there were brighter,130/90W headlamps.Inside you’ll find Scheel sports seats, and a Leather-wrapped Momo steering wheel complete with the all-important Brock signature.

Brock built a hot Holden V8 for the "special" road test Director

HSV's happy to rely on grunt from sizzling Callaway-tweaked Chevy LS1 V8

In its time the VK Calais Director was a super car, capable of competing with the great sports sedans coming out of Europe, With the Euro stlye of the base Commodore, the experience of Australia’s greatest race driver dialling in the suspension, and some good ol’ Aussie grunt under the bonnet, it was a car that could hold its own on the world stage against the best the world could offer.

Today, HSV has replaced HDT as Holden’s performance partner, the company charged with building excitement machines in partnership with the mother company.

When Brock began there were no product planning committees, no executive meetings, or presentations to the board; HDT was tightly-knit band of mates who shared an enthusiasm for cars and a passion for racing. Not so today, for HSV operates in the way of all modern corporations, and Mark Skaife works his magic with-in a much more bureaucratic organisation.

Even so the two-time Bathurst champ, as a member of the all-important Product Group, manages to put his stamp on the products that leave HSV’s plant in Clayton in Melbourne.

Today’s Senator fill the role of Brock’s Director once filled, and Skaife’s formula for making it work for the sorts of buyers it might attract is not dissimilar to that used by Brock.

"The Senator is clearly aimed at buyers who appreicate performance, but don't want to be seen in a car that screams mid-life crisis."

The Senator is clearly aimed at buyers who appreciate performance, but don’t want to be seen in a car that screams mid-life crisis. The limited edition Senator 300 – just 30 are being built and all are pre-sold – is the ultimate evolution of what is already a super sports sedan.

"The GTS is our performance flagship, but we’ve found that a lot of professional people are looking for a luxurious performance car that has more comfort," said Skaife.

"That said they still want a car with the performance to impress their mates, so we built the Senator 300."

HSV over the years has become the master of the use of body kits to move a relatively mundane car out of the slow lane and into the grunt groove. The Senator 300 is a perfect case in point.

Starting with the already muscular shape of the VX Commodore HSV’s designers have subtly reshaped it to come up with a car that stands apart from it’s mainstream siblings, without resorting to the outrageous redesigns that mark the Clubsport and GTS.

Such is the power of modern design systems such as CADCAM that a relatively small outfit like HSV can produce body components to the same quality as the similar parts produced by the big boys. Without such design tools Brock had to rely on doing things by hand, often scratching ideas out in the workshop’s concrete floor, when he and his buddies conceived the body kits for their cars.

Where the Brock-built bits were often ill-fitting and quite often came adrift in service, the HSV parts are a seamless fit and hang tough for the life of the car.

Draped in HSV’s Racing Green the Senator 300 oozes class. At the front there’s a traditional GT-style egg-crate lower grille, itself uplifted with a classy strip of chrome.

Flowing side skirts give the flanks some depth and character, while the rear apron provides a substantial climax. The sporting character of the car is subtly emphasised by a couple of modest wings, one mounted atop of the boot and another on the trailing edge of the roof.

Filing out the uscular guards to the max are some of the most stylish alloy wheels around – 18 x 7 inch 10-spoke Chrome Shadow -- wrapped in 235/40 ZR 18 Bridgestone rubber.

On top it m;ight be smooth and sophisticated, but don’t be fooled because underneath it’s all roar power, from the hot Callaway-tweaked Chevy LS1 V8 at the front to the road-grabbing Hydratrac diff at the back.

The same engine that’s under the bonnet of the potent GTS, the all-alloy 5.7 litres V8 boasts ported heads, uprated ovoid section valve springs, big-bore throttle body, sequential multi-port fuel-injection, roller rockers, roller cam followers, eight-coil pack ignition, remapped electronics, and a low back pressure, high flow exhaust system.

It adds up to a ground pounding package that pumps out 300kW at 6000rpm, and 510Nm at 4800rpm.

Backed up by Borg-Warner’s T56 six-speed manual trans, and a Hydratrac diff running a 3.91 gear, the slippery Senator will sprint to 100km/h in just 5.3 seconds, and cover the new millennium quarter-mile (400m) in 13.9 seconds.

Sneak a peak through the fine-spoked alloys and you’ll see some of the biggest stoppers in the business, needed when the go side of the ledger is so hot. Up front there are huge, 343 x 32mm cross-drilled, ventilated discs, while out back there are 315 x 18mm discs, also cross-drilled and ventilated.

Four-piston callipers take care of the clamping on all four corners, and they’re monitored by the best of Bosch ABS electronics.

"With the Senator we can concentrate on making it a ride a little nicer (than the GTS) so that things like tram tracks, small road irregularities and road changes are soaked up," says Skaife. "The day-to-day comfort is the thing we wanted to get right.

"The grip threshold is about the same as what our Clubsport’s would be, but as a package to drive around every day it’s a more compliant ride."

Impressive performance aside for the moment, inside the Senator drips luxury, with 8-way power light shale leather seats, woodgrain instrument surround and Pewter highlights.

Like Brock’s Calais the Senator 300 buyer gets everything the Holden Calais buyer gets; there’s power windows, cruise control. Eurovox 10-stack CD sound, driver and passenger airbags, side airbags, traction control and auto climate-control air-con. To help keep the Senator looking pristine there’s a rear sonar parking aid to make sure you don’t reverse into unseen obstructions.

And like Brock’s Calais Director was in 1985, when it carried a sticker of $36,009, the Senator 300 is the most expensive Commodore derivative ever offered for sale, at $98,500.

Brock rightly remains proud of what he and his small team were able to achieve with the Director, while Skaife is equally enthusiastic about the Senator 300. Both are cars of which Australia can be proud, cars which stand the test against the best the rest of the world can offer.

UNIQUECARS - September 2001 Edition

This article is reproduced courtesy of Unique Cars Editor Graham Smith
Photography Ellen Dewar.