They called him 'Peter Perfect', but to motor racing enthusiasts around Australia, whether in the red or the blue corner, he will be remembered simply as 'Brocky'.
Best known for his record nine Bathurst 1000 and nine Sandown 500 victories at the wheel of a string of Toranas and Commodores, Peter Brock made his racing debut in 1967 at the wheel of the Holden-engined Austin A30 sports sedan that he built at home in Hurstbridge, Melbourne.
His talent immediately shone through and he was headhunted by the boss of the just-formed Holden Dealer Team, Harry Firth, to co-drive with NSW driver Des West in one of a trio of new Holden Monaro GTS 350s at Bathurst in 1969. They finished a sensational third.
He then dominated the new sport of Rallycross in a supercharged Holden Torana built by Firth and in 1970 embarked on his full-time touring car career that was to make him the dominant figure in the sport for the next 25 years until he officially 'retired' from this branch of the sport in 1997.
In 1972 he won the first of his nine Bathurst 1000 races, with his final victory coming in 1987, earning him the unchallenged title of the 'King of the Mountain'.
However perhaps his greatest achievement of them all came in 1979, when he and co-driver Jim Richards won The Great Race in a Holden Commodore by an astonishing six laps - the greatest margin in the event's history.
It was a purple period for Brock, as the same year he won the grueling 19,000km around-Australia Repco Reliability Trial outright at the wheel of another Commodore, proving beyond doubt his versatility. He was a passionate enthusiast who could drive just about anything better than most . . . at Bathurst, Sandown and even Le Mans in 1984.
Brock's legend status extended well beyond the racetrack. The high-performance HDT Commodores that he built in the 1980s are now rapidly-appreciating classics, while more recently he set up the Peter Brock Foundation, using his own popularity in Australia to support community programmes for young people in need. And in 2000 and 2004, he was a mentor to the Australian Olympic Team.
Just six days before he died tragically in an accident on a special stage during the Targa West rally in Perth, he had been racing a purpose-built 'FX' Holden in the annual Goodwood Revival historic race meeting in England, scoring an impressive fourth outright in a field that included Jaguars and other much higher-performance cars, with his team earning the 'Spirit of the Meeting' award from the organisers.
Appropriately, it is that 'spirit' that Brocky will be remembered for by so many.
