Harry Firth was born in Orbost, Victoria, in 1918, and began his working life in a country garage.

As a race and rally driver he won the Bathurst 500 four times, the Southern Cross Rally and the Australian Rally Championship. But he was also an ingenious and highly talented engineer and team manager. Arguably the most indelible mark he left on Australian racing history was through his achievements as team manager at the Ford Works Team and the Holden Dealer Team. Harry co-designed and race-developed the Cortina GT 500, the GT Falcon, the Torana XU1, L34 and A9X, was responsible for launching and mentoring drivers Colin Bond and Peter Brock (nine times winner of the Bathurst 1000), and lead teams to victory at five Bathursts, five Australian Manufacturers’ Championships and four Australian Rally Championships, making an immeasurable contribution to the history of the Australian muscle car and Australian motorsport.

In this 2012 video Harry gives us a commentary on home movies taken by the Whalley Family of two Rob Roy meets, one on the original dirt track, taken in either 1937 or 1938, and another on the sealed track, possibly in 1948.

Many thanks to the Whalley Family

Background

The Rob Roy Hillclimb, Australia’s oldest purpose-built Hillclimb, was established in 1937 at Christmas Hills, about 30 kilometres from the centre of Melbourne. Hillclimbing, in which cars are driven uphill one at a time against the clock, is one of motorsport’s oldest events and was first held in 1897 in France.

Cut out of the bush, the Rob Roy course included an uphill, half-mile, graded dirt road. In 1939, the track was sealed and became one of only three bitumen-surfaced purpose-built hillclimbs in the world, the other two being the Shelsley Walsh and Prescott courses in the UK.

The Rob Roy Hillclimb attracted professionals, enthusiasts and amateurs, along with their often specially modified Bugattis, Elfins, MGs and Holdens, and has a special place in Australia’s motoring history. Drivers who competed here include Jack Brabham, Harry Firth, Stirling Moss, Jean Behra, Reg Parnell, Stan Jones, Lex Davison, Bill Patterson, Doug Whiteford, Peter Whitehead, Reg Hunt and Len Lukey, drivers who also tackled and in some cases vanquished the Formula One circuit.

In 1962, bushfires ravaged the Rob Roy course, and it lay in disuse for 30 years until the MG Car Club of Victoria secured a lease on the property and faithfully restored the track to host a bustling schedule of Hillclimb events every year.

Sources: Leon Sims, A history of Rob Roy Hillclimb - 1937 to 1961 - The Hill, The Drivers, The Cars

Further Information

TRANSCRIPT

Who am I? (Laughs) Oh, it's hard to say. I'd better get my book and read it out.

Rob Roy was an institution because there weren't many race meetings then and this was like a weekend... get-together with the sporting fraternity, and they could get boozed and carry on and rush up and down the hill, you know, walk around in their fancy gear and that.

It was sort of an introduction to motorsport as far as I was concerned. And I used to go to all the meetings.

This is 1947. First meeting after the war.

That's a homebuilt car.

Now, this is John Barraclough in the NE Magnette.

That's an SS Jaguar. Yeah, a much more exotic car.

But everything's stripped off to make it go faster.

(Speaks indistinctly) These are MGs and things lined up.

That's a Ford V8 Special.

Well, especially as a homebuilt car.

Yeah, you get a whole heap of bits from the disposals or wherever, or it's laying under people's houses. You could put it together and make a car.

And the homebuilt cars were better than the factory ones, 'cause they were purposely built to go up Rob Roy.

And this is a speed car. Now, they would drive these on the speedway, but they decided that they'd run them at Rob Roy. And the strange thing is they beat everyone. So they banned them.

See, where they went up round there... you aim about a yard in over the dirt. By the time you got there, you'd be just on the edge of the track and drifting the car and pointing straight up the hill.

You either got it right or wrong. There was no in-between.

(Speaks indistinctly)

You see? Just look at it, look at it. It was a dirt track.

And you're doing upwards towards 100mph.

And this was later. This is a bitumen track. This was 1950.

And see how the track is a lot better?

This is a typical Rob Roy family gathering. Yeah, the picnic basket, the Esky.

You weren't supposed to drink until after the meeting. But if you weren't competing, they didn't worry about that.

That's Alan Whalley. He was the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. And he liked motorsport.

Now, cars like this were driven on the road.

As long as it had a number plate and a horn and a registration label. That's all what was required. It didn't matter whether they had a body, a loud exhaust or whatever. That's the way it worked.

Now, they'd take all the mud guards and everything off, you see, because it would go faster like that.

And that's Barbara Whalley. Now, no crash hat or anything like that. She drove in this scarf.

The last time I ran there was... I had a very famous MG. It was the fastest MG in the world.

And this American came out here, and I'd take him for a ride around where my house was at 12 o'clock at night, you know, burning around the back streets and everything. You know. And... we headed to Rob Roy. I gave a demonstration run, and broke the class record. So that was the last run I had at Rob Roy in that sort of car.