Peter Brock holds the record for the most wins at Mt Panorama. Nine is the number and in 2004, he gave it a red hot go to up the number to double digits.
Or, rather, would have if it weren’t for the misfortune of his U.K. based co-driver Jason Plato. 27 laps into the 2004 race, Plato was at the wheel of the 05 HRT Commodore and after tapping a wall with the front right, was easing the stricken vehicle down Conrod Straight.
At the exit of the Chase kink, an unsighted John Cleland dodged one car only to slam into the right rear of the 05 car, ending with terminal damage to the Commodore and the Falcon of Cleland on its roof. Brock has not spent one second of the race behind the wheel.
The chassis of the Commodore was purchased by the D’Alberto racing team after Todd Kelly raced it in 2005. It saw action in the 2006 Fujitsu V8 Supercar series before being retired for good.
In 2020 Centaur Racing revealed that the car had been fully restored, and over 90% of the car is rebuilt from the parts of the car from 2004.
In mid 2020, the car was sold via the v8sleuth.com.au website. It had been advertised for $495,000, with the buyer an American based Australian named Kenny Habul.
Habul is no stranger to motorsport. As CEO of SunEnergy1, the fifth largest developer of utility-scale solar projects in the US in 2017 according to Solar Power World Magazine, he’s well able to indulge his passion for racing.
He’s raced in the V8 Supercars Development Series, Formula 3, and the Intercontinental GT Challenge. Habul worked for Brock at his factory in Melbourne in the early 1990s and recently purchased a sought-after property on Mountain Straight, just below the summit of Mt Panorama.
The car had been with a private collector for eights prior to being onsold to Habul. The final sale price is not known.