Early days in Bathurst and beyond
Tony Mulvihill was born in Bathurst in 1948. His father was a warder at Bathurst jail and would later become its Governor. He grew up near the Mount Panorama circuit, and the famous track was a major influence in his formative years.
“When I was seven I built a billy cart from a tea chest,” Mulvihill told AMC. “We didn’t live far from the track. From that young age I knew I wanted to race cars. When I was 12 my cousins and I would go to the track at both meetings (Easter and October) to collect lemonade bottles. It was good pocket money back then. I went to (nearby) St Stanislaus College and we used to jog around the track for footy training.
“At seventeen I joined the Bathurst Light Car Club and bought a Ford Anglia 105E. I used to do hillclimbs and sprints in it until I blew it up. Around that time I used to run sheep at the track (in the paddock…) between race meetings to keep the grass down!”
It would be a path that he would return to later in life.
At eighteen-and-a-half Mulvihill went to Sydney and joined the NSW Police Force. After six months of general duties in the city he was promoted into his dream job. “I was fortunate that I got a role as a police driving and riding instructor driving Falcon GTs and Mini Cooper S at the Police Driver Training School at St Ives,” he recalls. “When I did my driver test the failure rate was high because the standard was so high. I passed and was asked back to be an instructor, which suited me to the ground. I had the weekends off to go motor racing!”
Mulvihill started his motor racing career in 1969 at Oran Park in the ubiquitous Mini. “I bought a clapped out Mini 850 in Bathurst and turned it into a sports sedan. A mechanic by the name of Jim Morgan used to prepare the Mini in his mother’s shed at North Ryde and Mike Dyer, who later went on to race Appendix J (in the ‘80s), helped me out with engines.”
Over time the Mini’s engine grew to 1275cc but Mulvihill was a mid-field runner at Oran Park and Amaroo where he raced. He did venture back to his hometown for the Easter meeting in 1972 and ’73 where he came up against some of the fastest sports sedans in the country, including Colin Bond in HDT’s XU-1 V8. “I spent part of my honeymoon in Bathurst at the (last) Easter meeting (in ’73).
