Murphy was the most successful of them, winning Bathurst four times and finishing second in the V8 Supercars championship twice.
While he's confident one of the talented young Kiwis in the field can do what he couldn't, he says they'll have to be with a big team.
Coulthard (Brad Jones Racing), van Gisbergen (Tekno Autosport) and McLaughlin (Gary Rogers Motorsport) have all stood atop the podium in the past two years.
However, all three are with smaller teams who do not have the vast resources of the likes of Red Bull Racing Australia (RBRA), Prodrive Racing Australia (PDRA) or the Holden Racing Team (HRT).
"I glad we're continuing to put talent into different categories around the world and not just V8 Supercars. However, focusing on Supercars this weekend, it's great that there are four guys racing in the category.
"The thing about it at the moment, and no disrespect to Andre [Heimgartner] as he's a rookie in the series, is we have three guys who are world class doing us proud and performing at the highest level and can genuinely win races.
"Next year is going to be better, with the guys being genuine contenders to win a championship.
"At the moment, I don't realistically see that, just because of the environments they are in compared to who is winning races and challenging for the title.
"That's no disrespect to the teams they [Kiwis] are driving for at the moment, it's just a fact of life that the smaller, private operations can't achieve what RBRA and PDRA can.
"Next year, though, Shane moves to Red Bull and Fabian goes to DRJ Team Penske, who are just going to rise and rise now that they have expanded into a two-car team.
"We [Kiwis] are now in good shape to have a real promise of winning the championship in however many years it's been."
It's a sad fact of life that in any form of motorsport these days, you need to have a big team with big dollars behind them to have any chance of being consistently fast enough to be a contender. Murphy is no stranger to such situations.
"I didn't end up in the right environment either. I was with teams that delivered good performances but not consistently enough great performances, and that was just the way it was," said Murphy.
It must be ironic for Murphy, who has now traded his racing gloves for a microphone, to watch Coulthard, van Gisbergen, McLaughlin and Heimgartner knowing that they probably at some time all sat on the hill at Pukekohe cheering on Murphy.
He dominated at the South Auckland track when the V8s raced there before the move to Hamilton in 2008, winning nine races and four of the seven rounds in total.
"Well, yeah sort of. There were plenty of other guys around who also had a big part to play in getting youngsters to go racing.
"I suppose the thing that was fortunate for me was that I had so much success here in New Zealand.
"Pukekohe was a huge building block for me in Supercars and was such a huge part of my career. You've got to remember, though, that from about 2005 onwards, things slowed down a whole lot.
"I had a golden era at the right time when these guys were watching from the grandstands. It's cool to think about that, but there were many more parts to it all in making these guys the racers they are now.
"I was completely selfish at the time because I was doing it for me. It's good to look back now though, to realise what I was doing back in the early 2000s was making a difference to how youngsters were looking at the sport," he said.
In just a short time in his commentary role, Murphy has established himself as a crowd favourite with his interview style and banter with the drivers up and down pit lane.
It probably helps that he's just recently put his helmet on the shelf and raced against most of the field in one category or another.
"I just treat everyone just the same. At the end of the day, you need everyone to give you the information you need.
"It helps that I was racing until very recently, so understand what they are going through.
"The feedback has been good and I'm enjoying the job.
"I still get a bit twitchy at some events but I'm enjoying it nonetheless," said Murphy.
When asked who of the Kiwis might go well over the weekend, Murphy reckons van Gisbergen comes to Pukekohe in good form, McLaughlin will be a threat as he was fast at the Gold Coast, and that Coulthard has always gone well and wants to win the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.
He went on to say that it could be Heimgartner's turn to shine on a track he knows well with the only New Zealand-based V8 Supercars team.
There are two sprint races today following qualifying and tomorrow there is another qualifier for the big 200km race.
V8 Supercars
Points after 11 rounds
1. Mark Winterbottom 2599
2. Craig Lowndes 2341
3. David Reynolds 2281
4. Garth Tander 2141
5. Fabian Coulthard 2096
6. Shane van Gisbergen 2061
7. Chaz Mostert 2017
8. Jamie Whincup 1792
