Return to LaurieM's garage

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Published on 25 February 2019

[quote]g'day laurie could you please give us some history of the car pictured[/quote] Hi Keith, The car is an original 1968 London to Sydney Marathon car and is one of only two Vauxhall Ventoras entered in the event. It finished in 52nd place following issues in Turkey involving severe injury to one of the occupants. The Ventora is a 3.3Ltr 6 Cyl 4 Speed with Overdrive. The car was built and entered by the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School at Snetterton in the UK. The car was driven by David Walker (AUS), Douglas Morris (ENG) and Brian Jones (Wales). David Walker was team mate to Emerson Fittipaldi in Team Lotus Formula 1 in 1972. We understand from David that the car was built with Vauxhall Factory support out of Luton (ENG) as well as by Bill Blydenstein who built all of Gerry Marshall's cars. The car has only ever had 3 owners in Australia and has covered only 45,000Miles. I tracked it down in 2018 when I was researching a rerun of the Australian Section of the Marathon to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Marathon. I purchased the car and it completed 3500kms of the Marathon's original route to South Australia and return in December 2018. The car had most of the external rally items removed by it previous owners as neither wanted to own an ex-rally car. Fortunately I have been able to contact people to assist me with the process of returning the car to her 1968 Marathon specification, including David Walker who came to Sydney last December to drive the car on the final stage of the 50th Anniversary run. The photo shows David Walker with the car at the finish of the 50th Anniversary run beside KAG-001 the Ford XT GT driven by Harry Firth, the Gerry Lister Volvo and the Tony Fall BMC Austin 1800.