Craven Wild!
Gary Chick is a Holden man. Over the years he and wife Karen have owned a succession of Holdens (including a unique VR dual-cab ute – custom-built years before Holden brought out the Crewman in 2003), and now they are the custodians of the Craven Mild Commodore VC which Allan Grice and John Smith drove to seventh place in the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000.
Gary bought the car in 2012 and now, eight years later after an extensive restoration effort to return it to its 1980 Bathurst trim, it is ready to race once more. In a unique symmetry of scheduling, it hit the track at this year’s annual Phillip Island Classic historic race meeting almost exactly 40 years to the day since Bob Morris gave the car its race debut at Symmons Plains, in the first round of the 1980 Australian Touring Car Championship.
As the photos in this feature show, bringing this old Group C racer back to life was a huge undertaking. Gary can feel justifiably proud of the magnificent job he has done in restoring what is a very significant Holden racing machine.
For all of that, though, owning a historic racing Commodore like the Craven Mild VC wasn’t something that was ever really on Gary’s radar. He is a Holden man, but Toranas, not Commodores, are more his thing. He was not looking to buy a Group C Commodore when the Grice car became available – but, as a peculiar set of circumstances unfolded, over time he did become interested in it. In the end, it was only because the Commodore was not a Ford Sierra that
