Harry Firth commentary on early footage of the Rob Roy Hillclimb
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ส.ค. 2018
- Harry Firth was born in Orbost, Victoria, in 1918, and began his working life in a country garage.
In this 2012 video Harry gives us a commentary on home movies taken by the Whalley Family of two Rob Roy meets, one on the original dirt track, taken in either 1937 or 1938, and another on the sealed track, possibly in 1948.
Producer Sophie Boord
Archival footage courtesy of the Whalley Family
This film forms part of the Speed, Style, Spirit story on the Culture Victoria website cv.vic.gov.au/stories/sportin...
Great to see this footage with Harry's insight and recollection. Rob Roy hillclimb is still running to this day.
IT WAS GREAT TO SEE HARRY, HE LIVED IN MY STREET, HILLTOP AVE, ALSO WORKED FOR MY FATHER AT A.F HOLLINS WE WERE A MOTOR RACING STREET, INCLUDING ME. 5 PEOPLE.
The greatest mistake anyone could ever make was to upset extremely capable Go Fast Guru Harry Firth.
The Aust branch of the Ford Motor Company made this exact mistake when they dismissed Harry & replaced him with American Al Turner to run their GT Falcon racing program after Harry had diligently delivered for Ford for several years.
Harry immediately signed on with Holden & got busy belting Ford severely with the HDT HT350 GTS Monaro at the annual pinnacle Bathurst event in 1969.
Not satisfied that that pounding was enough of a humiliation for Ford, Harry took on Holden's Torana GTR XU-1 racing program & developed the Torana into an angry hornet compact Bathurst weapon of mass destruction in time for the big Bathurst shindig of 1972. The Harry Firth developed LJ Torana GTR XU-1 with a highly tweaked but comparatively tiny 202 cubic inch Holden six & soon to attain legendary status; Peter Brock outgunned a potent armada of massively powerful Ford - 351 Cleveland - TopLoader 4 Speed - 9 Inch Diff - GTHO Falcons at Bathurst.
Beating Ford's factory team at Bathurst with a dinky little Holden six was about as brutal as you could get. Typical Harry on a mission of: Here, cop this!
On that fateful day, Harry stuck it up his former employers so severely, nothing else can ever compare.
Harry was the magician of making cars go fast. No matter what you had or what had been previously done to it, Harry would inevitably make it go faster.
Once he got onboard with Holden & his good friend Moffat got into bed with Ford Australia in 1969, a bizarre arms race ensued. These two extremely talented & crafty characters fighting against each other all over Australian Touring Car Racing caused rapid improvement in Aust built high performance cars like nothing before or since.
Harry's contribution to our local racing heritage is so immense, it simply cannot ever be completely calculated. He made everything go faster. He had a gift. He demonstrated that gift. There'll never be another Harry Firth.