The race was first held in 1991 for Series Production cars and moved to Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway in 1995 before being discontinued.
Despite the short deadline, twenty-four cars were entered for the first race, spread over six different classes based on engine capacity and sporting specification.
[2] Facing rising costs, the 1995 event was moved from Bathurst to Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney, and from the Easter weekend to August, before the race was discontinued in 1996.
The races were run by Nations Cup owners PROCAR and were dominated by the Holden Monaro 427Cs of Garry Rogers Motorsport.
The Bathurst 24 Hour only lasted two years before PROCAR owner Ross Palmer was forced to abandon the race due to rising costs.
[7] The win was ten years after Morris and Baird had won the 1997 AMP Bathurst 1000 in a BMW only to later be disqualified for exceeding driver time regulations.
The 2007 Subaru entry of rally drivers Chris Atkinson, Dean Herridge and Cody Crocker would be the only other manufacturer to finish the race in the top two between 2007 and 2010.
[9] Despite this, the number of entries dropped dramatically as many of the production car teams, disillusioned by the move towards GT, decided not to race.
[5][10] The German-based Joest Racing dominated the 2011 event, with the team's two Audi R8 LMS GT3s finishing first and second, a lap ahead of the third-placed Porsche.
[14] Erebus Motorsport took the first win for an Australian team under the GT regulations with German drivers Bernd Schneider, Thomas Jäger and Alexander Roloff taking their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG to victory.
[27] This meant that the Audi Sport Team WRT entry of Robin Frijns, Stuart Leonard and Dries Vanthoor took the flag, despite doubts over whether they had the fuel to win the race if there was no disruption.
After dropping from first to fourth in the final pit-stop phase, Matt Campbell completed three overtakes, including one on Chaz Mostert that required a post-race investigation, to take Porsche's first victory in the race alongside Dennis Olsen and Dirk Werner.
[35] Twenty cars entered the race, which featured extended pre-dawn running, cooler temperatures and rolling fog due to the autumn date, plus intermittent rain throughout the day.
Having finished second in 2018, Kenny Habul, who owns a property on Conrod Straight, led his SunEnergy1 Racing team to victory.
In 2014, a trophy was introduced for the fastest time in qualifying, named after Allan Simonsen who died at the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans.
[17] Despite the name, the trophy is given to the fastest qualifying time, not the car that starts on pole position in the case of a grid penalty, as initially occurred in 2019.
[38] In 2014, Simonsen's former team at the 12 Hour, Maranello Motorsport, narrowly missed pole to Maro Engel by less than a tenth of a second.
[38] Later, the car was excluded from the Top 10 Shootout for a technical infringement, granting the trophy to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Raffaele Marciello.
[44] Over the sessions, Chaz Mostert became the first driver to win the trophy for the second occasion, taking pole by the smallest margin in the race's history.
[46] In 2012, the event received its first live coverage since the 1990s, with pay television network Speed airing the final 90 minutes of the race, as well as producing a three-hour highlights package.