KEY POINTS:
One of the factory-backed Holden Commodores which dominated the gruelling 1979 Repco Reliability Trial discovered after a 28-year hibernation is heading off around Australia again in September.
New South Wales rally driver Barry Ferguson discovered the famous Commodore in which he, Wayne Bell and Dave Boddy finished second in the 18,885km, 14-day event in a time-warp state just 30 minutes from his New South Wales home.
"It was incredible," says Ferguson, who is now rebuilding the famous car for the Red Centre to Gold Coast Trial from September 8-20.
"It was if we had just stepped out of it after the Repco. All the spare parts were still in place. The brand new spare tyre behind the driver's seat still had the nibs on it.
"Even the car's special 'high-tech' external bonnet release - a piece of bent wire - was still there."
Ferguson, who won the NSW Rally Championship nine times, the Southern Cross Rally twice, finished second four times and also came second in the 1964 and 1979 Round Australia events, was toying with the idea of entering this year's Red Centre to Gold Coast Trial when the Commodore unexpectedly resurfaced.
"I wasn't looking for the car, but we had always wondered what had become of it," says Ferguson, who is now in his 70s.
"My eldest son Peter sold a rally car last year and found the phone number of the Commodore's last owner in papers he was handing over.
"He insisted on ringing the number even though we knew that the man had died about 20 years before.
"It transpired that when the last owner died, his widow moved to a unit on the coast, but came to an arrangement with the purchaser of their home to leave her husband's collection of old cars there, including the Holden.
"The grapevine had been running hot for years wondering where the car was. It's probably the only prominent car from the 1979 Repco of the 13 that completed the whole course that is still in its original condition."
Ferguson, Bell and Boddy led the event a number of times, but ultimately it was Peter Brock, Matt Phillip and Noel Richards who headed the 1-2-3 form finish, with their team-mates Shekhar Mehta, Rauno Aaltonen and Barry Lake third in an identical George Shepheard-prepared Marlboro Holden dealer team car.
"That was the toughest of all the Round Australia trials and most of the cars that finished were just scrap metal," says Ferguson.
"However we kept our car in very good shape so we could challenge for the lead near the end, but that wasn't to be."
The three Commodores were specially built for the Repco event and featured alloy boot lids and bonnets, XU-1 spec six-cylinder engines, heavy-duty gearboxes and 200-litre fuel tanks.
"We've returning it to the exact spec that it ran in the event, right down to all the correct decals," he says. "My old Southern Cross navigator David Johnson will be coming with me."
Ferguson's Repco Trial navigator Dave Boddy is also entered in the Red Centre to Gold Coast Trial, navigating for Mark Pickering in a Mazda RX-7.
