Andrew Moore and his R8 Gordini were at the first national Gordini meeting for the AMHF
The name Amadee Gordini is well remembered in French car circles around the world. The magnificent Schlumpf National Automobile Museum, in Mulhouse in the south-west of France, features many Gordini sports and racing cars. Gordini came to be known as the Le “Sorcier” de la Mecanique for his uncanny ability to extract large amounts of power from small engines.
In Australia Gordinis are commonly connected to the Renault marque. The first Renault Dauphine Gordini was sold in Australia from 1961. It featured a small amount of extra power over the regular Dauphine and a four-speed gear box. Despite underwhelming performance, it enjoyed significant rally success in Europe.
In the 1960s Renault hit its straps in Australia. In 1963 the R8 was the inaugural winner of the Wheels Car of the Year award. The first R8 Gordini (1134) was introduced to the Australian market in 1965. Equipped with the same 1108 cc engine as the R8, its significant extra power came from a hemispherical cylinder head and dual carburettors. By the standards of the time the 1134 Gordini was a quick car, particularly in terms of top speed. Nonetheless, at the car’s launch at Sydney’s Warwick Farm motor racing circuit Renault overegged its performance credentials by insisting that only journalists who had a CAMS competition license would be allowed to drive it. Few of the motor noters present had one and those that didn’t walked out. The test day was a wipe-out.
Bruce Collier, a prominent Sydney mechanic, motor garage proprietor and rally driver, quickly noticed the car’s potential as a rally weapon. He negotiated to buy two Gordinis at a discount price from Renault. In January 1966 a semi-official rally team was born. The cars were not trouble free. By February one required a major engine rebuild. There were persistent problems with the underbody of the car rubbing on the sump and cracking it. After 2500 miles the car had also developed significant cracks in the body. There were ongoing electrical problems. The first of Collier’s cars came to a sticky end in that year’s Snowy Mountains Rally colliding with an iron bark log that had fallen from a timber jinker. Bruce was seriously injured.
As Bruce later reflected, in essence the 1134 Gordini was a lightly built car engineered for the boulevards of France rather than rally roads of Australia. It was fragile, with valve rockers, crankshafts and other internal engine parts likely to break, sometimes all at once. Nor was its gearbox especially strong. Bruce made notes of the car’s weaknesses and how they could be addressed and sent them on to Renault Australia and to the factory’s Competitions Department in France. It is apparent that the French factory took Bruce’s advice on board. The car’s successor, the quad headlight R1135 Gordini, was a distinct improvement, as Bruce enthused, a ‘beaut little car’.
Bruce Collier was right. The R1135 Gordini was a superb rally car. Not only was it rugged and reliable, but it was also quick and sure footed on dirt. In the hands of Bob Watson, it took out the 1970 Australian Rally Championship, as the advertising of the time said, ‘by the widest margin ever’. On top of the Australian championship in 1970, Bob Watson and Jim McAuliffe won all five rounds of the Victorian Rally Championship.
In the early 1970s rallying in Australia enjoyed as high a public profile as circuit motor racing. The Southern Cross Rally, usually conducted in the forests around Port Macquarie, was as big a drawcard and publicity magnet as the annual long distance sedan car race at Bathurst. With the ‘halo’ effect in mind in 1971 Renault imported six R12 Gordinis, putting them in the hands of the State’s leading Renault rally drivers: this meant Collier in NSW, Watson in Victoria, Tom Barr-Smith in South Australia, Rod Slater in the West and Brian Michelmore in Queensland.
Though more powerful than the R8 Gordinis, the R12 Gordinis’ results were disappointing. Tom Barr-Smith’s second place in the South Australian round of the ARC in 1972 was possibly the car’s best result. In large part the much more powerful, six-cylinder Torana XU1, in the hands of the brilliant all-rounder Colin Bond, came to dominate. If there is a car as charismatic as an R8 Gordini in full rally trim, all front mud flaps, matt black bonnet and Cibie Super Oscars, it is a Torana XU1 similarly set up.
More than 50 years later later, the first National Gordini gathering in Clare, South Australia, offered an opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate the achievements of the marque. Gordini enthusiasts came from all over Australia, including NSW and Western Australia. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the Gordini gathering was that all six of the original R12 Gordinis, plus one tribute car, turned up. It was the first time all of them had been seen in one place at the same time in Australia.
The Gordini gathering was superbly organised by Clare local Trevor Naismith, Robert Lee and John Sanders (who owns and restored the R12 Gordini Watson drove in the East African Safari in 1972). Clare proved an ideal place for the event to be held. After morning events in a local park (for instance a ‘Show and Shine’), a spirited drive in convoy through ‘roads less followed’ ensued, leading to lunch at a local vineyard. Then, after lunch, another interesting drive ended up with another tipple at another vineyard and dinner at a local pub. How good is that? The generous support of local businesses such as vigneron Jim Barry, as well as local community and sporting groups, who organised barbeques, was a notable feature of the weekend’s activities. Australia’s Gordinistas were made to feel very welcome in the Clare Valley.
In all nine genuine R8 Gordinis and a number of tributes showed up. Thirteen had been expected but at least one broke down on the way to Clare. At the time, 1967-1971, there were just 60 R1135 Gordinis sold in Australia in three batches of differing colours. All were assembled at Renault Australia’s West Heidelberg plant. The fully imported R1134 Gordini is the rarest of the marque sold in Australia. There were just 29 sold in Australia with just one present at Clare. A number of R1135 Gordinis were sourced from South Africa. At least one of them also appeared.
At the end of event dinner at a local pub when prizes were awarded there was a heart-warming recognition paid to the three individuals who did most to advance the Gordini cause in Australia, Bruce Collier, Bob Watson and his side kick/ business partner/ mechanic Bruce Shepherd. Bob Watson is now a well-preserved octogenarian, as is Bruce Shepherd. Bruce Collier died in 2023 so Andrew Collier and his daughter Samantha represented their father and grandfather. Andrew now owns a beast of a car, a tribute Gordini that began life as an R10, with a mock up R1135 Gordini front end, lots of fibreglass and a stove hot Alpine engine. In the hands of its previous owner, who completed most of its modifications, the car was extremely quick at Renault Car Club track days, but chronically unreliable. Andrew and his modern day ‘Sorcerer’ brother, David, seem to have fixed the car’s unreliability for the car ran faultlessly. Ironically, the Colliers’ tow car from Sydney to Clare, a modern Ford Everest, developed an electronic problem with its turbo charger. Temperatures above 17 degrees Celsius would cause the car’s electronics to shut down. Driving the 1400km back to Sydney at night and in the cool of the early morning must have been tedious.
The highlight for me was a brief occasion one afternoon when I found myself travelling in the convoy between John Sanders in his R12 Gordini and David Cavanagh’s yellow R8 Gordini. The R8 is generally regarded as Australia’s finest Gordini, having been beautifully restored in its full rally war paint. In Mal McPherson’s hands this car won the 1971 Victorian Rally Championship.
Back in the day I fancied my chances as a European rally champion, hampered only by then owning a stock standard Renault R10 rather than a Gordini or A110 Alpine. My own R1135 Gordini, purchased in 2018, has a McPherson pedigree, albeit a slight one compared with David Cavanagh’s. Still, owning a R8 Gordini has enabled me to buy back part of my youth. I am grateful to the car for that as I am to the organisers of the Gordini gathering for sharing my passion!
