Ben Eggleston has revealed plans to bring the trio of Holdens back to life ahead of key anniversaries.
Super2 team Eggleston Motorsport has an immense collection of famous V8 Supercars, including a swathe of machines built and raced by the factory squad.
The three cars in question are currently undergoing restorations at the hands of ex-HRT fabricator George Smith.
“It’s 30 years since Craig Lowndes won Sandown and Bathurst in the 1996 HRT VR, so that one will come out around Bathurst,” Eggleston told Speedcafe.
“So will the [Peter] Brock ’97 car, which was obviously on pole with Mark Skaife, and Craig’s 1998 championship winner will be out as well.
“So we’ve got three big ones coming up at the end of this year. It’s going to be really busy getting them bang-on, but I’m looking forward to getting them out so people can see them.”
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The Commodore debuted by Lowndes midway through 1996 is one of the most famous Aussie V8 touring cars ever, due to both its success and design.
It features a roll-cage bar running diagonally to the passenger footwell that was included for chassis stiffness but banned in subsequent machines due to concerns over driver extraction.
Unraced since a crash at the Gold Coast in 1999, Eggleston bought the car 10 years ago and has previously expressed a desire to get Lowndes back behind the wheel.
The 1997 Brock and 1998 Lowndes VS Commodores also had grim ends to their racing lives.
Brock’s car was heavily damaged when Todd Kelly crashed due to tyre failure at Eastern Creek in 1999, while the Lowndes VS was all-but destroyed at Oran Park in 2000 in the hands of Paul Morris.
Eggleston finally convinced Morris to part with the wreckage of the Big Kev car in recent years in order to return it to its Lowndes HRT glory.
The weekend’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival featured the public return of another long-time Eggleston pursuit – a HRT VT briefly raced by Lowndes in 2000.
That car had been unseen for 22 years since its last race in the hands of Paul Romano.
“I’ve got basically one model of every Craig Lowndes car at HRT – that was one that I needed and wanted,” Eggleston explained.
“I wore down Bap Romano over a fair few years and Bap’s a ripper bloke, he let it go along with a few other bits and [we’ve] got it in the 2000 livery that Craig ran for a couple of rounds.
“I reckon it looks awesome, the red [makes it] a really striking car. It’s a ripper.”
Lowndes’ 1995 Bathurst pole-winning VR was also among the Eggleston-owned V8 Supercars at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival.
The stars of the show were Eggleston’s 2010 Triple Eight Bathurst 1-2 Commodores, recently restored to their TeamVodafone colours.
Other HRT Commodores in the Eggleston collection include Lowndes’ 1999 Calder rollover car and the Bathurst 1000 winners from 1990 and 2005.
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