A racing driver usually wants to be in the latest and greatest car, but if you were a Holden tin-top racer in the late 1950s and early 1960s the latest wasn’t necessarily the greatest.

There’s no doubt that when Holden released its all-new FE sedan in July 1956, the Australian public instantly warmed to the more modern lines of ‘Australia’s Own Car’ even if that wide-held affection didn’t translate to the race track.

There was no confusing the ‘Humpy’ 48-215 and FJ models with the all-new modern styling of the FE sedan, which rode on a 2.0-inch (50mm) longer wheelbase and slightly wider track than its predecessors. However, there were only minor upgrades to chassis, suspension and drivetrain including a slight increase in power from the venerable 132 cid (2.2 litre) inline six cylinder ‘Grey’ motor.

Some of the mechanical improvements should have appealed to potential Holden racers though, including more powerful 12-volt electrics to crank over high compression racing engines. The longer wheelbase and addition of a front anti-sway bar and recirculating ball steering improved the handling. And a drop in wheel diameter from 15 to 13 inches resulted in a lower centre of gravity and sharper acceleration due to the smaller wheels’ lower gearing.

The only glaring deficiency in the new FE from a racer’s point of view was its 40 kg-plus weight increase over the FJ. The face-lifted FC of 1958 was heavier again. 

In the outlaw world of 1950s touring car racing, as indeed in any form of racing, weight was a dirty word. That’s why the most popular Holden racer at that time was the original 48-215, mainly because it was lighter than the FJ model that replaced it.  

So in that context, the even heavier FE-FC’s lack of track appeal is easier to understand. And although illegal weight reduction in touring car racing was rife in those days, a heavier car just meant more illegal weight loss to try and hide.

Max Stahl, a prominent Humpy Holden racer in the early 1960s and founding editor of Racing Car News magazine, told Shannons Club that the FE’s limited take-up by early model Holden racers in the late 1950s and early 1960s had more to do with just the weight issue.

“I suppose you could say there was a lot of tradition and affection attached to the 48-215 and FJ,” he explained. “Years of racing development had gone into them before the FE arrived, they were getting a lot of performance out of them by then and they were still very popular with both drivers and spectators. 

“I’m sure if a guy like Bruce McPhee had turned up in his FE and blown everyone into the weeds then of course we would have all switched to the new model straight away, but the FE had the same mechanicals and wasn’t any faster, so why would we change?”

There were three distinct eras in which the FE-FC Holdens competed. The first was the wildly modified ‘outlaw’ years of the mid to late 1950s. The second started in 1960, with the introduction of a national set of touring car rules and an Australian Touring Car Championship title. The third was the Sports Racing Closed or Sports Sedan era, which started in the mid-1960s and encouraged the most extreme modifications of all.

1950s case study: Bob Holden’s ‘Repco-Holden’ FE 

One of the fastest FE Holdens to compete in the 1950s, when rules were scarce but cars were plentiful, was prepared and driven by evergreen touring car veteran Bob Holden.

Many years before he won the 1966 Bathurst 500 with Rauno Aaltonen in a works Morris Cooper S Bob was a young Melbourne-based mechanic. His daily driver was a black FE Holden – a high mileage ex-country taxi - in which he would regularly clock up more than 300 kms a week on work duties.

However, on weekends at race circuits and hill-climbs, Bob would unleash the beast that lurked within. And with 142 bhp - or more than double the Grey motor’s 70bhp standard power output - plus a gob-smacking (at the time) top speed approaching 115 mph (185 km/h), Sports Car World magazine claimed it “now takes the honours as the fastest edition of Australia’s Own in the country.” 

Quite a claim given that the 48-Series Holden ‘guns’ of the late 1950s were Brisbane’s John French and Sydney’s Leo Geoghegan, driving cars that were so fast and heavily modified that their links to the showroom products they outwardly represented were wafer thin.

That was because in the 1950s, there was no national set of rules for touring cars. Races were staged by promoters in different states, who all had their own sets of rules. As a result there was virtually no limit to the modifications being performed. The cars became increasingly fast – and dangerous.

Towards the end of the decade, things were clearly getting out of hand. By then, at least one 48-series Holden racer featured an engine bay stuffed full of a Waggott twin-cam cylinder head conversion. There was also an Austin Lancer with a full MGA twin-cam donk shoehorned into it. Peugeots, Morrises and Austins were running full-blown superchargers.

However, it was this run-what-ya-brung acceptance and close relationship with the showroom products which also ensured touring car racing’s rapid rise in popularity. 

A pivotal factor in that growth was that it wasn’t too difficult or costly to squeeze some decent speed out of Holden’s readily available 48-Series and FE-FC model Holdens.

They were in plentiful supply, cheap to buy and maintain and responded well to modifications. As a result, it wasn’t long before a thriving aftermarket industry evolved supplying a smorgasbord of locally-developed Holden performance parts. Extreme measures to reduce weight were also employed, including stripped-out interiors, removal of bumper bars - even production of lightweight panels. 

Bob Holden nicknamed his black FE “Gussy” by stretching out the GSY letters displayed on the car’s rego plates. He clearly held some affection for the car, in which amongst many wins he claimed the 1958 Victorian Saloon Car Championship held at the old Fishermen’s Bend track in Melbourne.

The main secret to Gussy’s speed was its ‘High Power’ cylinder head designed by Repco’s brilliant research engineer Phil Irving.  Amongst his glittering list of achievements was designing the all-aluminium Repco-Brabham V8 that powered Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme to consecutive World F1 Championships in the 1960s.

Irving had identified the standard Grey cylinder head’s poor gas flow, so in 1956 he designed another cast-iron head that would bolt directly to the standard Holden cylinder block without modification. 

It was supplied as a complete across-the-counter kit for £167.00, which would prove very popular with Holden racers crying out for an economical race engine.

The High Power head was a simple but clever 12-port cross-flow design, with the inlet valves inclined at 23 degrees from the vertical exhaust valves and set in a ‘polyspherical’ (or semi-hemi) combustion chamber. The long square inlet ports were arranged in two groups of three, with the short round exhaust ports exiting on the opposite side and the spark plugs set in deep recesses in the upper head face.

Specially designed lightweight pushrods were matched with cast iron rockers mounted on individual shafts. The High Power kit included inlet manifolds, exhaust manifold plates drilled to accept 1 5/8-inch diameter pipes, a trick cast-aluminium rocker cover and engine side plate set plus all screws and gaskets needed for assembly. 

The High Power’s free-flowing design really opened the lungs of the humble 2.2 litre inline six and spurred some rapid development amongst Holden racers.

Initially Repco had its own black FE that it used as a development mule, which was raced on occasions in touring car events by AGP winner Stan Jones. When Repco management discovered these clandestine weekend activities, though, they put a stop to it.

So in late 1957, chief engineer Charlie Dean arranged for Bob Holden to take delivery of all the hot running gear from the Repco FE and install it in his own black FE, which turned the former high mileage rural taxi into one the country’s fastest racing Holdens in 1958.  And Repco continued to provide ‘back door’ support to Bob as part of the High Power head’s race development.

Blueprinted and balanced with a pair of twin-choke downdraught Webers, hot camshaft, higher compression ratio, free-flowing exhaust extractors and twin pipes, Bob’s Repco-Holden was claimed to have 142 bhp at 6000 rpm – more than double the FE’s standard output – and yet could still perform relatively docile road duties each week without complaint.

Gussy’s impressive trophy haul from Victorian and interstate road circuit and hill-climb events was also due to some thoughtful tweaking of the car’s suspension, which was lowered to improve the car’s centre of gravity along with much stiffer spring rates, heavy duty shocks and a thick front anti-sway bar. 

Traction rods were fitted to the rear leaf springs to stop spring wind-up and violent axle tramp during hard acceleration. The four-wheel drum brakes ran special linings made from an asbestos/sintered brass mix designed to withstand high temperatures in the heat of battle and a myriad of other tuning tricks.

Its top speed of more than 115 mph (standard was about 80 mph) was almost a match for the sensational new teardrop-shaped Jaguar Mk I 3.4 and most GTs of the era short of a Ferrari. 

Bob Holden has driven many touring cars in his long and colourful career, but the Repco-tweaked black FE with the GSY plates will always be a stand-out.

1960s case study: Bruce McPhee’s FE (Appendix J)

For 1960 a new set of National Competition Rules for Touring Cars - Appendix J - was created along with the first Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC), which would be held annually and contested over a single race of at least 50 miles (80 kms). 

Put simply, the highly-modified ‘outlaw’ sedans of the 1950s would compete in a new hybrid Grand Touring class called Appendix K where they would share the track with closed sports cars. And Appendix J would cater for the new breed of touring cars, which would compete for the new ATCC title. 

Appendix J was a simple, sensible and cost-effective set of rules - standard road cars with a few little hot-ups here and there. It was designed to encourage more drivers to compete and also appeal more to spectators on Sundays, by better showcasing the same cars they could go out and buy from their local dealers on Mondays.

Arguably the hottest FE racer in the new post-1960 era of touring car racing was Bruce McPhee. In just three years the 30-something racer from Wyong on the NSW central coast enjoyed a meteoric rise from obscurity to be one of Australia’s fastest Holden pilots.

His pragmatic car preparation and mechanical sympathy as a driver, particularly in long distance racing, would see him score several podium finishes at Bathurst epitomised by his historic win in the 1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500 driving a self-prepared HK Monaro GTS 327.

Back in the early 1960s, though, his weapon of choice was a hot FE Holden which started life as a high-mile Sydney Water Board fleet hack, which he bought cheap in 1960 from an ex- government vehicle auction. 48-215s and FJs company cars were long gone by that stage.

According to Max Stahl, McPhee chose the FE’s unusual but distinctive lime green colour to make sure it stood out amongst the usual early Holden hues, so that the car was easily spotted by busy time-keepers and lap-scorers. The spectators and photographers no doubt appreciated it, too.

With the help of Wyong Motors’ dealer principal, Phil Levenspiel, McPhee converted the ex-fleeter into a firecracker in which he scored many wins in circuit racing and hill-climbs and set numerous lap records. His successes included popular Holden-only races like the inaugural Sandown Holden Trophy, in which his FE dusted some very quick 48-215s and FJs.

Stahl recalled that McPhee’s engine bristled with technical input by Sydney tuning whiz Ken Waggott. Bored out to 2420 cc, the carefully blueprinted and balanced inline six could rev strongly beyond 6000 rpm, with a roller cam, sky-high compression and 100-octane fuel fed through a pair of 1 ¾-inch SU carbs. 

A track test by Sports Car World in 1962 claimed 137 bhp, which was impressive compared to the slightly higher figures claimed for Bob Holden’s Repco-headed FE and given the inferior breathing capabilities of the standard head required under Appendix J.

SCW also noted some typically well-thought out touches by McPhee, including a hydraulic throttle linkage adapted from ex-Army vehicles (which he often bought and sold) that ensured more accurate synchronisation of the twin SUs than conventional mechanical linkages.

It was also equipped with a huge aircraft oil filter which held a full gallon (4.5 litres) of lubricant. Despite its extra weight, this set-up not only kept the oil surgically clean but the combined volume of the filter and its plumbing provided a big increase in the engine’s oil capacity and therefore its ability to dissipate heat and extend engine life.

If you dropped an ear to the ground for a peak underneath, you’d have seen the usual Holden chassis tuning of the era. These included lowered front and rear springs, heavy duty shocks, thicker front sway bar, traction rods on the rear leaves to eliminate axle tramp and a Panhard rod to provide positive lateral location of the rear axle.

The four wheel drum brakes squeezed inside widened steel rims had competition linings of course, plus drilled backing plates with cold air ducting via scoops and flexible hoses to control heat and reduce fade. The front drums were also fitted with larger slave cylinders to increase total braking effort on the front and avoid locking the rears.

According to Stahl, this was also when the opposition got its first glimpse of what became a McPhee trademark at Bathurst in the 1960s. Each set of new Michelin X tyres had their treads buffed down to barely 2.0 mm of tread depth, to minimise tread distortion for better handling and to greatly extend tyre life. 

The highest top speed recorded by McPhee’s FE on the ‘old’ Conrod Straight at a Bathurst meeting in 1961 was a mighty 112 mph (179 km/h). He was lapping Mount Panorama in 3 min 18 secs at the time, which was much quicker than the 3 min 21 secs laps recorded by the smaller, lighter 1.6 litre Cortina GTs that dominated the early Armstrong 500 races held there a couple of years later (1963-64).

The impressive performance of the Bob Holden (pre-1960) and Bruce McPhee (post-1960) FE Holdens show that the model’s relative lack of popularity had more to do with timing than anything else. 

“Bruce certainly got his car going very well, there’s no doubt about it, but a lot of guys in 48-215s and FJs that wanted to update just skipped the FB, EK and EJ models and waited until the EH came out (August 1963) with the first of the Red sixes in it,” Stahl concluded. 

“The early model (Grey motor) Holden racing era didn’t last for long after that, particularly when the new Improved Production rules came in for 1965 which limited the amount of cylinder boring allowed.” 

Sports Sedan case study: Barry Sharpe’s FE V8 

As Max Stahl mentioned, Appendix J was replaced by Improved Production in 1965; a more restrictive set of rules that once again made cars from the previous touring car era obsolete. 

And rather than sentence these Appendix J orphans to the scrapheap, they were also given a second life by competing against sports cars in a new hybrid class called Sports Racing Closed. 

Thanks to visionary race promoters like Oran Park’s Allan Horsley, the owners of these old tourers were encouraged to let their creative juices flow, as there were virtually no limits placed on modifications to improve their performance and spectator appeal. 

It was, in effect, circuit racing for hot rodders and it soon took hold. History shows that promoters like Horsley were in fact planting the first seeds of what would blossom into the spectacular Sports Sedan class that rocked our world in the 1970s.

Sports Racing Closed produced some lethal-looking cars in the 1960s, as lots of crudely-built backyard specials started appearing at race tracks around the country. There were none more famous (infamous?) than Bathurst king Peter Brock’s self-built Austin A30, with a 179 cid Holden straight-six sitting so far back in the chassis to improve front/rear weight distribution that it sat right next to the driver’s legs.

A prolific car builder and driver in those days was Barry Sharp who in partnership with Sydney speed shop owner and racer Bill Warner built an FE Holden that epitomised the wild engineering and brutish behaviour of those late-1960s creations.

The FE was powered by a light but powerful 283 cid (4.7 litre) small block Chev V8, backed by a rugged four-speed GM muscle car gearbox and leaf-sprung heavy duty diff. A complete HD Holden disc brake front-end was controlled by a left-hand drive steering rack, which obviously seated the driver on the opposite side of the car.

When interviewed in the early 1970s, Warner said the decision to use LHD was nothing more scientific than the fact there was no rule which said they couldn’t do it and that Sharp probably had an unused rack lying around, such was the ‘spare parts’ approach to building these cars. 

Even so, such a design had its advantages beyond removing the standard FE’s heavy steering box and linkages. It also placed the driver on the preferred side of the car in terms of lateral weight transfer at circuits like Oran Park, which had mostly left-hand turns and where the car often raced.

The standard unitary steel bodyshell was stripped to the bone to lose weight and most external panels were re-made in lightweight fiberglass with large wheel arch flares to shroud the widened steel wheels and fat racing tyres.

With all that tyre-frying V8 grunt, in a car never designed to cope with such excess, it was a bullet in a straight line but a brute to slow down and manhandle through the turns, despite Sharp’s best efforts to improve the handling.

Warner, though, openly enjoyed the FE’s wayward behaviour, particularly its ability to snap into power oversteer with a prod of the loud pedal. With his dirt track speedway background driving high powered Super Modifieds, this tail-out style of driving was the way Warner liked to race and he always had a lot of fun each time it was his turn behind the wheel.

It was a fast car, despite its many compromises. Sharp drove it to victory in two of the popular Holden vs Ford challenge races at Oran Park in the late 1960s and provided some stiff competition for dominant cars of the era like Don Holland’s very quick lightweight Mini.

The Sharp/Warner partnership was not to last, with Warner eventually taking sole ownership of the FE. However, rapid development in the Sports Racing Closed category and the arrival of increasingly sophisticated professionally-built cars like Bob Jane’s defining LC Torana, with its all-aluminium fuel-injected 4.4 litre SOHC Repco V8, would soon make cars like Warner’s home-built FE obsolete. 

Even so, the spectator appeal of the Sharp/Warner FE and many backyard-built FE-FC specials like it played a pivotal role in the rapid evolution of Sports Racing Closed into what became the booming Sports Sedan class.

Protect your Holden FE. Call Shannons Insurance on 13 46 46 to get a quote today.