A fabulous era in Australian motor sport commenced at Phillip Island, Victoria, with the 1960 Armstrong 500 for production cars. This inaugural torture test for showroom makes was taken out by Frank Coad and John Roxburgh in a Vauxhall Cresta. A year later the combination of Bob Jane and Harry Firth tasted victory in a Mercedes Benz 220SE and in 1982 the same team won the classic in a Ford Falcon.

The endurance race moved from the Island to Mount Panorama, Bathurst in 1963, and so commenced the era of the galloping Cortinas and the start of the greatest annual motor racing spectacle in Australia, commonly known as the Bathurst 1000.

A change in location did not prevent the talented Bob Jane writing two more chapters into the motor racing history, taking out the race in both 1963 with Harry Firth and 1964 with George Reynolds.

Bo Seton and Midge Bosworth broke the Jane four race domination in 1965, steering a Cortina GT500 to victory and in 1966 the mighty Mini of Bob Holden and Finn Rauno Aaltonen scored the marques first outright win. The first seven years of Australias Greatest Motor Race makes compulsive viewing and is indeed a collectors item.