Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Four weeks later they arrived in Sydney-or at least half of them did.
The others lay in ruin along its 10,000-mile route. Unimaginable
now in either concept or execution, the marathon captured the rapt
attention of the countries through which it passed, and of the world,
as it created front-page news. It was more than a car race, more than
a rally, more than the trials that opened up outback Australia only a
decade before: it was the world's most gruelling test of driver and
vehicle.
For Australians, the race became a focal point of the rivalry between
local car-manufacturing giants Holden and Ford, as the Monaro
Coupe and the iconic Falcon GT went head to head. Neither was to
win, but the story of their duel is motor-sporting legend.
John Smailes was a young journalist at the time, covering the race
for the Sydney Daily Telegraph. Fifty years after this extraordinary
race was run, John's dramatic, compelling and utterly fascinating
story-drawing on his own first-hand, eyewitness account and
enhanced by in-depth interviews over the intervening years with all
the race's key participants-brings the marathon vividly to life.