Brock couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he now circled the car that was his ultimate, and final, statement on what an Aussie car should be. "I’m a person who focuses on where I am right now and where I’m going for the future," the former boss of HDT Special Vehicles said, "so it’s a bit of a shock to see what captured your imagination all those years ago. "Back then I wanted to make a sophisticated car that didn’t owe a great deal in terms of looks and performance to it’s parent, and looking at it now I think we achieved our objectives pretty well."

Like Brock, Blair Warren also couldn’t believe his eyes when he first laid his eyes on the Director. But when the President of the Brock Owners Association first saw the car that would become his obsession for the next 20 months, he was shocked to find out it was in such a shabby condition for a car that he’d been told was "in good nick".
Warren had bought the Director – one of only 12 built by HDT Special Vehicles before the company went under amid the controversy triggered by Brock’s unyielding belief in the Energy Polarizer – sight unseen from a Queensland collector and was shocked to see how neglected it had been when it arrived at his Melbourne home on the back of a truck in July 1999.

So distraught was he when he saw the car that he considered selling it straight away. "It looked pretty clean at first but the interior was dirty and dusty, " Warren explained. "The leather seats had grease marks all over them, and the outer bolster on the drivers seat was badly worn." "When I went to lower the driver’s window there were flakes of red paint on the window switches which freaked me out because you don’t expect to see that sort of thing on a car that was supposed to be as good as new. I couldn’t believe a car could be in such bad condition with just 10,000km on it. I really thought it (the speedo) had been wound back."

His alarm heightened further when he realised the unique Yamaha CD-player was missing, as was the infamous Energy Polarizer, which should have been mounted on the firewall in the engine bay. To his dismay the previous owner had also added some gold pin striping to the glorious Maranello Red paint work, and had a "Brock Director" sign made to replace the original "Peri Integration" sign on the car’s nose.

For Warren they were signs that all was not necessarily what it should have been, which made him sceptical about the rest of the car. According to the car’s build sheets it should have had the optional stroker V8 motor, four speed auto trans, and independent rear suspension, but there was no telling from the outside if they were still fitted to the car. Still shaken from the first impression, Warren and his wife, Sonia, weighed up their options. They could simply sell the car again, and recoup their money, with possibly a small profit, or they could commit themselves to returning it to the pristine condition it would have been in on that wintry night in June 1987 when Brock handed the keys over to Toowoomba Holden dealer Rees Edwards.

Edwards put just 3000km on the car in the five years he owned it before selling it "in great nick" to a collector in Toowoomba, from whom Warren eventually bought it. There was no way of telling if the motor in the car was the 5.6-litre stroker motor it was thought to have been built with. Warren’s fears were somewhat allayed, though, when a check of the engine number showed that it was the correct engine for the car.

Further comfort came when a friend, and fellow Brock devotee, Martin Hayden was able to tell him how to check if the transmission was the correct THM700H4 four-speed auto the car was built with. Satisfied that it was correct, he was able also to get under the car and confirm that it still had the Opel-sourced independent rear suspension.

For Warren, owning an immaculate Brock VK Group A wasn’t enough; he wanted a show-stopping car, and among the cars built by Brock none have the potential to stop a show like a Director. Having made the decision to press on with his dream of building the ultimate tribute to one of Australia’s greatest sporting hero’s, Warren had to decide how to tackle the daunting project.

Once he was able to look past the accumulation of dirt and dust, the grease marks on the light tan leather, the grime caked on the Momo alloy wheels, the warped body kit panels, the ugly pin stripes, dodgy badges and the few missing components, Warren was able to see that what he had was a complete car in good, if neglected condition. It didn’t need a total restoration; what it did need was mostly a thorough clean to return it to as-new condition.

Not one to do things in half-measures, nothing short of concours condition would do for Warren. He wanted to do the car as much to show the world what Brock was capable of doing as to attract any accolades for himself. To that end he vowed that only close friends and trusted associates would get to see the car before it was finished. "If I had shown the car to anyone in the condition it was in when I received it I would have been embarrassed, " he said. "I have high standards and I didn’t want anyone to see it in a condition below what it should be. No-one was going to see it until it was in superb condition."

His first step was to remove the car’s interior, and everything but the dashboard came out. For weeks he painstakingly cleaned the seats and door panels, applying leather cleaner to small area’s using cottonwool balls. He kept going over the same area, regularly changing the cottonwool balls until they were clean after being wiped over the area. He’d then move to the next area, and repeated this process until the seats were spotless. He then applied leather food and kept nurturing them until they became soft and supple again.

The bolster on the outside of the driver’s seat, worn over time by people getting in and out of the car, had to be replaced, so he approached noted Melbourne trimmers, Blackman and Sons, who found the original Howe leather’s grain, if not its colour. With the grain matched, Blackman reckoned it could re-colour the Connolly hide to match the Director’s original light tan. "I told them they shouldn’t even start if they couldn’t get it right, " Warren recalled. "It had to be perfect."

Even after going to that trouble Warren wasn’t happy with the result, but decided to treat it the same way he’d already treated the rest of the leather trim, which brought it up to the same standard, much to his delight.

Next came the boot – still complete with the original unused spare wheel and tyre – which was also painstakingly stripped, cleaned and re-assembled. From there he moved to the front of the car, to the engine bay, on which he spent as an estimated 300 hours removing components, meticulously cleaning them and replacing any tarnished nuts, bolts, washers and clips before refitting them. He removed the exhaust headers so they could be sent away for recoating in the original VHT white, and while they were away he set about painting the engine its original black, without removing it from the car. He simply unbolted the engine from its mounts, jacked it up as high as he could within the confines of the engine bay, and hand painted it. "I didn’t want to take the engine out of the car," he said, "because it’s never been out and I want the car to be as original as possible."

Warren then turned his critical eye to the underside of the car. There lying on his back for hour after hour he laboriously cleaned the underbody, carefully removing the grime that had attached itself to the car’s exposed belly without damaging any of the protective coating applied at the factory. He even cleaned above the auto transmission, which is barely visible from the outside. While underneath he also scrubbed clean the fuel and brake lines until they were spotless, then ran over them with an abrasive pad to remove ant hard deposits he hadn’t removed with the scrubbing process. He also cleaned the auto transmission, making a special tool to clean in areas above the gearbox that he couldn’t see from below.

And then there was the prop shaft, and front suspension and the IRS which were all cleaned until they were in the same condition they were when the Director left Brock’s factory. Warren didn’t want them to appear better than they were when new, just that they had to be the same. Once satisfied they were in the condition he wanted, he gave them all a light coating of clear VHT "to seal in all the factory colours."

He then turned to the 16 x 8-inch Momo five-spoke alloy wheels, which were heavily coated in road grime. He began by degreasing and scrubbing them to lossen the baked-on grime, which was very heavy on the rear of the wheels. Once cleaned he hand-painted the rear of each spoke, then polished the outer face of each wheel and the rims. Five or six hours went into each wheel to bring it back as-new condition.

It’s hard to believe, but the Maranello Red paint is the original paint applied by Holden; it’s just been cleaned and polished to bring back the original gleam back.

The Body kit, however, provided Warren with plenty of headache. Parts of the original 21-piece body kit, personally styled by Brock to change the character of the VL Commodore that still exists underneath, had shrunk and warped over the years. Added to Warren’s woes parts of the body kit had been removed by the previous owner who had them slapped back on without much care and attention. There was no way out for Warren but to remove it, very carefully so the paint on the body wouldn’t be damaged, and replace the parts that were beyond repair. New fibreglass door panels, flares and A-pillar caps were sourced, but even these did not fit very well, and required many hours to mate them to the underlying body shape. For Warren the new body kit parts had to fit the car without any distortion, and without any gaps, which meant that he and mentor John Van Roosmalen had to add filler to the rear of each panel and shape it until it fitted up to the body perfectly. They also had to adjust a couple of the door panels by adding to some areas and taking away from others so they all matched up once installed. No, where fitment of the original body kit was a little slap-dash, the new parts fitted precisely.

For Brock, the Director was to be the ultimate car in the line that began in 1980 when he built the first HD/T model based on the VC Commodore. In those early days Brock built cars under the HD/T banner to generate funds to keep his racing team going, but by 1986 he had ambitions beyond racing, and wanted to take his product to the world. He wanted to become a car maker in his own right, which threatened the harmonious association that existed with Holdens.

When Brock conceived the Director he wanted to show the world that Australians could build a car capable of competing with BMW’s; cars he saw as epitomising what a sporting luxury car should be. His ambition was to sell them across the world, so to stimulate interest from potential dealers he built two prototypes and took them to Europe and America and pitched them against the acknowledged class-leading cars in a winner-takes-all challenge. Their reception was rapturous, and dealers lined up to sign on, but there was a problem brewing back home.

Holdens, increasingly concerned about what Brock was doing without their blessing, warned him that agreements they had with their Detroit parent prevented them from building cars that would compete with the likes of Chevrolet, Pontiac and other GM divisions in their home market. The relationship between Holdens and Brock had become testy because of Brock’s increasing desire to do his own thing, and Holdens’ desire to reign him in.

Brock fearing that Holdens wanted a greater slice of the lucrative special vehicle market he’d successfully pioneered with HDT Special Vehicles, wasn’t prepared to relinquish control of his growing business, and indeed wanted to expand it further.

Communication suffered as the stand-off intensified, to the point that it became evident to both parties that the successful ‘marriage’ that had existed between them had broken down and was beyond repair. The Director was the final straw. Built behind closed doors I the HDT Special Vehicles service garage, only a handful of people were privy to what Brock was doing, and while Holdens had heard rumours of the projects existence, the company was outraged when it was unveiled without their knowledge. "Holdens wanted to get quite closely involved in what we were doing, and I felt they wanted to be in charge of saying ‘no’, "Brock said, "so I preferred to keep them in the dark about a lot of things I was doing. "In hindsight that wasn’t a very wise decision, because I think there were people at Holdens who were enthusiasts and would have been supportive if they had been privy to what we were doing. "Holdens were saying they wanted to be more involved in what we were doing, and the more they insisted the more I dug my heels in, and the worse things got."

It wasn’t until Brock found out by accident that Holdens was negotiating with Tom Walkinshaw to set up what would become Holden Special Vehicles that he realised how far his relationship with the company had deteriorated. "I flew back from Japan after racing at Mount Fuji and found myself on the same plane as Tom Walkinshaw, who was putting a deal together to build special vehicles, "Brock said. "I knew nothing of it, but it showed how far we’d grown apart in the latter part of 1986."

The relationship completely broke down in the wake of the Director’s launch early in 1987, and Holdens withdrew all support for Brock’s operation. The company refused to supply Brock with cars like they had done previously, forcing him to buy cars through normal retail channels to keep his business going. It wasn’t long before Brock’s business was facing ruin and he sold out to concentrate on racing. It was a difficult time, and Brock admits he was bitter about the way he perceived he was treated by Holdens for some time. "For some time I harboured the idea that it should have been me doing that (building the special vehicles)," he admitted. "I did try and buck it for a while, but then after some time I realised that I was far better off to be involved with people in the community than on the business side of it."

Just 12 directors were built before Brock closed the HDT Special Vehicles doors for the last time. The first two were prototypes, without the full body kit, which were sent around the world to drum up interest, the third car was used for the launch and subsequent press evaluation, and the fourth was the Maranello red car now owned by Blair Warren. It carried virtually every option available, and priced at $87,000 it was the ultimate Director, itself the ultimate car Brock ever made.

Judging by the twinkle in its creator’s eyes when he saw it for the first time in 14 years, it still has a special place in his heart. "I used to say to people that there’s a bit of Bathurst in ever car we built because we built our race cars with the same idea, "he said. "That was to keep them simple, make them grip like hell and go like buggery."

As much as he was moved by the chance to look back, Brock couldn’t resist the thought of what the Director might be today. "Imagine what it would be like with a Chev LS1 V8 in it," he pondered, "and ABS and traction control, and…"

It’s unlikely that the red Director will ever be driven hard again, unless of course Brock asks if he can take it for a run. Maybe when Warren can experience the same thrill the car’s first owner felt all those years ago.

Body

• Four-door sedan, 21 piece body kit,
• Maranello Red.

Engine

• 5.6-litre HDT-enhanced Holden V8,
• Quadraject 4bbl carb, Genie extractors,
• HDT cold air intake.

• 231kW @5400
• 536nm @3200

• THM 700 H4 four-speed auto

• limited-slip, 3.08: 1 ratio

• front – McPherson Strut with Bilstein inserts and coil springs,
• 30mm anti-roll bar; rear – independent (option) with Bilstein shocks,
• coil springs, anti-roll bar.

• 16 x 8-inch Momo five-spoke alloys
• Bridgestone RE71 245/45x16 tyres

• four-wheel discs; 289mm front; 230mm rear

• Sports seats,
• Momo steering wheel, light tan Howe leather.

• $87,000 (incl options)