This weekend the club went to the Shannons Eastern Creek Classic, an annual event for cars of all makes and models, organised by the Council of Motor Clubs, and held at the race-track. Between 1800 and 2000 cars are on display, making it the biggest car show in the southern hemisphere, I believe.

Our club had 15 cars on show, including both Ted's toy and Phil Illfield's FE racer, a faithful reproduction of Bruce McPhee's green beast (bottom of left of photo).

However, the story I want to talk about is "the Grey Pussy", on display one club over at the Jaguar Drivers' Club of Australia :

This is one of the very cars to have a podium finish in the inaugural Gnoo Blas race in 1960. Originally owned by David McKay, it was in the hands of Ron Hodgson for that very first Touring Car race.

Here are some of the details from the display board with the car:

Affectionately known as the "Grey Pussy", this Mark 1 Jaguar was built on July 25th 1958. It then spent six weeks in the Jaguar factory competition workshops being prepared for its life as a racing car to emerge on September 4th 1958. Delivery was taken at Jaguar's Browns Lane factory in Coventry by David McKay, who shipped it to Australia in time for its first race at Bathurst in October of the same year.

Appearing then as it does today, painted grey with the cheeky addition of the red, white and blue stripes of its sponsor Ampol, it caused a sensation with on-car advertising being banned at the time. The car bore McKay's favoured race number of 71 and it went on to become the most famous and successful racing touring car of its time, winning many races in his hands.

Ampol withdrew McKay's sponsorship in 1959 and the car was sold to Sydney car dealer Ron Hodgson, who raced it with considerable success. David McKay obtained another sponsorship and acquired a new Mark 1 ('the red car'), at the same time as one was acquired by Bill Pitt. It was these three cars that dominated the first Australian Touring Car Championship at Gnoo Blas in January 1960 with McKay first, Pitt second and Hodgson third in the Grey Pussy. Hodgson sold the car to the Geoghegan family after the Easter races at Bathurst in 1960 and acquired his famous red Mark 2.

McKay's red car was destroyed when driven by Bill Burns at Longford in 1964 and all that remains of Pitt's car is a rusting body resting in Queensland. Bob Jane's Mark 2 has been restored and is now owned by him in Melbourne. The Grey Pussy is the only known "Appendix J" car of any from that era still racing, and, as far as we know, is the only factory-prepared Mark 1 Jaguar still racing in the world.

Given its significance in Australian touring car history, the Grey Pussy is now raced only occasionally in historic race events, but displayed as often as possible.

Chris R. Haigh.

There are always some amazing vehicles on display at the Shannons Eastern Creek Classic, but it was great to see this one.