Marv’s Garage: Larry’s Iron Lion takes the Chevs to pound town
I could tell so many stories of Larry Perkins legend, like his last-place-to-first run in the '95 Bathurst 1000, or how he was largely responsible for engineering the HDT hat-trick of wins at Bathurst in '82, '83, '84 (which he co-drove in too). The Kid from Cowangie ran in Formula One and World Sports Cars, but became a hero at home as a privateer driver in the Australian Touring Car Championship (later V8 Supercars) with the Perkins Engineering Holden Commodores he put together himself.
However, when someone says "Larry Perkins" i think first and foremost of Bathurst 1993. As Group A had finished at the end of 1992 most of the field moved to 5L V8 Ford Falcons and Holden Commodores, the precursors to V8 Supercars. Everyone running Commodores chose to drop the Holden V8 in favour of a Chevrolet 5L race small-block... except Larry.
Larry Perkins, a renowned engineer, went to Holden and got changes made to the Holden 304ci head and block castings to make them legal for homologation, and to work with his innovative slide throttle set-up. Oh how the other teams laughed at Larry for persisting with the old "plastic" Holden V8. They were surely going to beat him like a tribal drum with their flash Chevy V8s.
As it turned out, Larry smoked 'em all at Bathurst that year. He scored the pole position and led from there all Sunday, sharing the drive with legendary Gregg Hansford. It was a fitting send-off to the mighty Holden V8 after decades of action, as the iron lion copped the ban stick from the other Holden teams who protested that Larry had an advantage over their Chevy engines.
If you want to read more about the engine that walloped the Chevs, you can read this story I did on the restored ‘93 Bathurst-winner for Street Machine (CLICK HERE).
Larry's VP Commodore was sold the following year and raced into the 2000s after being updated to later VR/VS sheetmetal. Perkins Engineering bought it back a few years ago and restored it to its Bathurst '93 specs.
