Harry Firth

Firth was awarded the Medal of the order of Australia on 26th January 1999 for services to Motor Racing as a driver, team manager and engineer.

In 1962 the Firth Motors workshop at Queens Avenue, Auburn (Melbourne) became the base for the Ford works team.

The first nine finishers in the race all drove the famed Cooper S. 1967 saw Firth notch up his last victory as a driver in the annual 500 mile race at Bathurst, winning the 1967 Gallaher 500 with a young Fred Gibson in a Ford XR Falcon GT, the first Australian made Ford Falcon to use a V8 engine.

Firth and Gibson were actually flagged in 2nd behind their Ford works team mates, Ian and Leo Geoghegan but following a re-count of the lap charts (after Firth protested the result resulting in long term animosity between himself and the Geoghegans), were correctly awarded 1st place later that night.

[4] That year he also led a three car Ford Australia assault on the inaugural London–Sydney Marathon, preparing a trio of XT Falcon GT's for the event which started on 24–25 November at Crystal Palace in London and traveled through Europe, the Middle East and South Asia before arriving in Bombay, India on 1–2 December.

Because of General Motors worldwide factory ban on motorsport at the time (dating back to the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans disaster that killed 80 people), the team's cash flow from Holden had to come through the 'back door' to avoid alerting GM headquarters in Detroit.

Bond and Tony Roberts won the 1969 Bathurst 500 for the HDT in a Holden Monaro GTS350, with Des West and Brock finishing third in a similar car.

Over the next eight years the Holden Dealer Team under Firth achieved many notable race and rally victories and championship wins.

Included among these are: At the end of 1977, Firth retired as manager of the Holden team but continued his involvement in motor racing as National Chief Scrutineer between 1978-1981.