“The big bitch nearly killed me!” screamed Lex Davison after the multiple AGP winner narrowly escaped serious injury following a big crash in Sir Gawaine Baillie’s 7.0 litre Ford Galaxie at the 1964 Sandown International Six Hour race.

Davison’s outburst has become almost as famous in Australian motor sport folklore as Jim Richards’ equally emotional “you’re a pack of ****holes!” podium response to booing spectators after Nissan’s controversial win at the 1992 Bathurst 1000.

Local racing hero Davison was renowned for his bravado behind the wheel of purpose-built single seater racing cars. 

Therefore his Sandown outburst gave fans a new appreciation of the courage and commitment that had been required to race such a huge and powerful touring car, capable of ballistic 140-plus mph (230 km/h) speeds on Sandown’s long straights that were way beyond what its feeble brakes could handle at the end of them!

Why this ferocious American muscle car was created and how it ended up on the other side of the world in a six-hour touring car race is a fascinating tale that captures the highs and lows of the Ford Galaxie’s short, spectacular racing career in Australia.

 

Lightweight – but no lightweight

Sir Gwaine Baillie was a wealthy Englishman of royal descent, who combined a successful career as an engineer and industrialist with the quaint hobby of stamp collecting. 

And racing touring cars in his spare time. This occurred during the early years of the British Saloon Car Championship in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, which was dominated by Mk I and Mk II Jaguars. 

This dominance prompted Baillie to look further afield for a car that could beat the popular British sedans. John Willment, who owned numerous Ford dealerships in the UK, also wanted to break the Jaguar stranglehold on UK tin top racing for obvious reasons. 

Ford’s now legendary motor sport contractor Holman-Moody in the USA was requested to produce some road racing versions of Ford’s latest 427cid Ford Galaxie factory lightweights, which had been developed for NHRA Super Stock competition on the quarter mile.

Except for a few of the early cars, these 1963 ½ Galaxie lightweights (212 made in one batch) all emerged from the factory as white two-door Sports Hardtops with red interiors.

Some featured a Ford 300 series chassis frame made from lighter gauge steel. All body sound-deadening compounds were deleted and lightweight fiberglass replaced steel in construction of the boot lid, bonnet and front mudguards (some had fiberglass doors and inner front guards as well). They also had aluminium front and rear bumpers mounted on lightweight brackets. 

The interiors were threadbare too, featuring unpadded rubber floor mats, thin-shell bucket seats and no radio, heater or clock. Reportedly the first 25 cars produced even deleted the interior dome lights to save weight!

The engine specified was Ford’s legendary 427 cid/425 bhp ‘side oiler’ V8 from the famous FE big block family with 425 bhp and a choice of ‘High-Riser’ and ‘Low-Riser’ cast aluminium manifolds running huge dual four-barrel carbs. The High-Risers ran in NHRA’s Super Stock division with the Low-Risers in the slightly tamer A/Stock bracket. 

Standard-issue transmission for these quarter mile monsters was a Borg Warner T10 four-speed manual gearbox with cast-aluminium main casing to save more weight, equipped with a stronger set of close-ratio gears and bolted up to a lightweight cast-aluminium scatter-proof bell housing.

The venerable Ford nine-inch rear axle with short 4.11:1 final drive got all the big block grunt to ground through suspension that featured heavy duty springs, shocks and four wheel drum brakes inside 15-inch steel wheels.

The weight reductions were substantial. With a standard 427 Galaxie Sports Hardtop tipping the scales at just under 1900 kgs, the lightweight versions were a massive 290 kgs lighter. Those equipped with fiberglass doors and front inner guards dropped that figure another 40 kgs.

As a result, the 1963 ½ Galaxie lightweights were capable of low 12-second passes on the quarter mile, allowing Ford flyer Dick Brannan to set 22 track records on his way to 65 victories - the first Ford ever to set an NHRA record in Super Stock.

And it was these astonishing Ford factory lightweights that laid the foundation for the handful of cars produced by Holman-Moody for road racing duties in export markets, one of which was the Sir Gawaine Baillie car. At around 1600 kgs, they were now competitive with the Jaguars in weight but with around 500 bhp on tap from the monster V8, they had demonstrably more power! 

Like the drag cars, these circuit racing rockets were also equipped with lightweight fiberglass front guards, bonnets and boot-lids, aluminium bumper bars and stripped-out interiors.

Holman-Moody also developed a front disc brake ‘kit’ to replace the standard 11-inch drums, based on Jaguar 12-inch diameter solid rotors clamped by Girling two-spot callipers mounted on heavy-duty spindles.

Other H-M tweaks included steel wheels with immensely strong double-thickness centres developed for Grand National (NASCAR) stock car racing. The booming exhaust system was also NASCAR-inspired, featuring huge 3.0-inch diameter open pipes neatly routed through the chassis rails that exited in front of the rear wheels. 

Shock absorber mounting positions were also altered with most equipped with two shocks per wheel. Some of the export cars, including Baillie’s, were equipped with an additional shock absorber on the rear axle which through suspension movement pumped diff oil through a remote oil cooler to control rear axle temperatures during races held in warmer climates.

The Holman-Moody Galaxie lightweights (with either Low-Riser or Medium-Riser 427 engines) were very successful. John Willment’s car soon shook Jaguar out of its complacency in the BSCC, proving dominant in 1960s UK tin-top racing where it was prepared by John Wyer (of Gulf GT40 fame) and driven by Jack Sears and Graham Hill.  Another 427 Galaxie campaigned by Alan Brown Racing in the UK also proved highly competitive, driven by such luminaries as Jim Clark, Dan Gurney and Sir Jack Brabham.

Baillie had his share of success in the UK, too, but was keen to explore the Galaxie’s potential beyond the British Isles. In 1964 he escaped the bitter northern European winter by shipping his car to the Southern Hemisphere to compete in touring car races in South African and Australia.

The 1964 Sandown International Six Hour Race 

On Sunday November 29, 1964, a diverse field of 38 cars representing 23 different makes formed up on the starting grid at Melbourne’s Sandown Park Raceway for the inaugural running of this new Six Hour marathon, for touring cars complying with FIA Group I and Group II regulations.

Every manufacturer globally had been invited to compete, which prompted works entries from BMC and Alfa Romeo and an impressive international driver line-up including Indy 500 winner Roger Ward, rising F1 star Jackie Stewart, rally aces Paddy Hopkirk, Timo Makinen and Rauno Aaltonen and Alfa works driver Roberto Bussinello. There was even a young Canadian by the name of Allan Moffat in an ex-works Lotus Cortina.

At the head of the pack, though, was the booming 427 Galaxie to be co-driven by its owner Sir Gawaine Baillie and Australian racing great Lex Davison, who had already gained considerable local experience manhandling another Holman-Moody prepped Ford giant in the form of Len Lukey’s 406 cid V8-powered ‘Big Red’ Galaxie four door in 1962 and ’63.

Davison had literally blown the other 37 cars off the planet in qualifying at Sandown, exploiting the 427’s immense straight line speed to take pole position with a 1 min 23.7 second lap – almost 10 seconds faster than the next fastest car, a V8 Studebaker Lark driven by Warren Weldon and Roger Ward!

Unfortunately, pre-race preparation of the Galaxie was severely compromised due to major shipping delays in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. Although the monster US coupe was successfully unloaded from one ship, another carrying the car’s crucial racing spares, wheels and tyres was stranded off-shore as it was unable to find a berth to unload its precious cargo in time. This delay would prove disastrous.

More than 27,000 spectators had filled the grandstand and lined the fences in anticipation of seeing this earth-shattering US muscle car in action. And when the race got underway, Davison and the Galaxie certainly didn’t disappoint judging by race reports at the time.

Racing Car News: “The flag fell sharply at 11am and two mighty roars rent the air. First was the exhaust of the great 7.0 litre Galaxie, sounding like a low-flying Super Fortress with Lex Davison at the wheel. The second, of course, emanated from the throats of 27,000 incredulous spectators!”

Australian Autosportsman: “The Baillie/Davison Galaxie was quite fantastic – a noisier brute would be hard to imagine – and while it went, it went like the clappers.”

Australian Motor Sports: “The Galaxie was fantastic. With a thundering roar it launched away from the start, was well in the lead by the first corner, the length of the main straight in front as it came around for the first time and started to lap the tail-enders as it completed the second lap. Davison had his work cut out as he carved his way through the still tightly-packed field.”

Davison’s early pace was astonishing. After only 12 laps he passed the second-placed Weldon/Ward Studebaker to put a lap on the entire field!

At 11.35am with 24 laps completed, the Galaxie was more than two laps in front. About 30 minutes later, though, when it was looking like Davison and Baillie would have enough time to stop for a three-course lunch and still win, came the first sign of trouble as the Galaxie arrived all crossed up into Peter’s Corner at the end of the old Pit Straight.

Davison spun the big mother rearwards into the stout wooden fence, inflicting heavy damage to the rear bodywork of the car. As he slowly returned to the pits with smoke pouring from the front disc brakes, it became clear what the problem was - too much engine and not enough brake, in true American muscle car fashion!

The Legend of ‘Galaxie Gap’

After a long visit to the pits to change the worn-out front brake pads, the crew discovered with great alarm that the brake pads and their steel backing plates had worn right through leaving just the calliper’s hydraulic pistons pressing directly on the brake discs!

Making matters worse was that due to their supply of parts still stranded in Port Phillip Bay, Baillie’s crew had only had one spare set of brake pads on hand to replace them. The first set had lasted just 40 laps, so with more than 200 laps expected to be completed during the six hour race they would need many more.

This sparked a public appeal to spectators and a frantic search around the circuit for any Mark II Jaguars that could be cannibalised for parts, as they shared the same front brake hardware as that developed by Holman-Moody. It is not known for sure how successful this strategy was in terms of finding some donor parts. In any case, the Galaxie’s insatiable appetite for front pads continued.

Baillie took over from Davison for a while but was lapping much slower than his Australian team-mate and clearly unhappy with the car. He pitted again for more attention to the brakes and to hand  back to Davison who tried his best to drive around the problem. 

He continued to record some remarkably quick lap times, given the car’s gargantuan proportions and the need to constantly weave through traffic without punting slower cars off into the scenery.

However, at 2.04pm running in 26th position and many laps down after several pit visits, Davison suffered a heart-pounding moment when the brake pedal suddenly dropped to the floor approaching Peter’s Corner after a hydraulic slave cylinder in one of the rear drums (which had been working overtime) popped out at as he rushed past the pits at 80 mph (160 km/h).

Davison frantically stabbed the shifter back into second gear to slow it down but missed the final shift down to first. The Galaxie plunged straight ahead into the wooden sleeper fence unabated at around 130km/h and exploded right through it. And waiting just beyond was a sheer 10-metre drop into a deep water reservoir that threatened to swallow the big coupe from stem to stern! 

Fortunately for Davison, one wooden fence plank jammed hard against the car’s centre pillar, holding it precariously suspended over the edge of the cliff face. With smoke pouring from the car, Davison – who felt he had just stared death square in the face - feared that the car was either going to burst into flames or topple into the murky depths below. 

He managed to struggle free, emerging uninjured but deeply shocked. Little wonder the crash area soon became known as ‘Galaxie Gap’.

The big car remained stuck there until the end of the race, which after six gruelling hours was won by the works-entered Alfa Romeo of Roberto Bussinello and Ralph Sachs. 

The little Italian sedan never looked like it was going all that fast, but importantly ran without a hitch for six hours and a marathon 230 laps to win by eight laps from a variety of Mini Cooper S and Ford Cortina entries that filled the first six places outright.

Sir Gawaine’s Galaxie was eventually repaired and appeared at other Australian race tracks during 1965, including Sydney’s Warwick Farm and Tasmania’s famous Longford road course. Sadly it is not known today what happened to this car after it returned to the UK. Baillie said he thought it was written off in a road accident after he sold it, but that has never been confirmed.

Even so, the short-lived Sandown Six Hour (which only ran for two years 1964-65) is remembered more for the appearance of this mightiest of American muscle cars, its courageous Australian driver and its spectacular race exit more than anything else!