A Brief History of Bill Patterson - business man and race driver

Ahead of our review of the Race Sport enhanced Commodores, a former employee of Patterson Cheney regales us with a brief history of the man who started it all, co-founder Bill Patterson

After WW2 Bill Patterson imported one of the very first MGTC sports car into Australia, stripped it down modified it and began his motor racing career.  Over the next few decades he raced in numerous events all over Australia and at such famous tracks as Bathurst, Longford and even winning an Australian Grand Prix in Caversham, Western Australia.

In 1954 he won the Australian Hillclimb Championship at Collingrove in South Australia and in the same year competed in the Redex Around Australia Trial, finishing second outright behind Jack Murray in a Peugeot.

In an era known as the Golden Age of motorsport he competed against and beat the very best Aussies; Reg Hunt, Bib Stillwell, Lex Davison and Stan Jones as well as the great champions from Europe.

Bill Patterson purchased and competed in a Cooper Climax and in 1961 won the Confederation of Australian Motorsport Gold Star.

In the early 1970s, his Holden dealership helped fund Harry Firth's Holden Dealer Team during the early development of the Bathurst Holden Torana XU1s.

An employee of Bill Patterson Motors, Henk Woelders won the 1971 Australian Formula 2 title in an Elfin.

During the mid 70s Bill Patterson Holden won a contract with Holden to modify the Torana A9X race cars which were trucked to the Dealership in Ringwood, where wheel arch flares were added and other minor modifications made, before being sent back to Holden in Dandenong for distribution to the Holden race teams.

In 1976 Peter Brock obtained a small sponsorship package for his Team Brock Torana L34 from Bill Patterson to run at Bathurst and finished third outright.

During this time Bill Patterson BMW purchased a South African race prepared BMW 3.5 CSL for Peter Brock to take and compete at the 1976 24hr Le Mans.

Mid to late 1970s, Bill Patterson, through his Holden, BMW and Isuzu Dealerships supplied the support vehicles and sponsorship for the Sandown 500.

1977 saw Peter Brock sell his racing team to Bill Patterson.  It was then renamed Bill Patterson Racing and a three car team was sent to Bathurst.  Brock and brother Phillip finished fourth outright, the other two cars were driven by Doug Chivas / Tony Roberts who finished seventh and Englishman Gerry Marshall and South African Basil Van Rooyan DNF.  It was a huge effort.

The late 1970s also saw Bill Patterson sponsor a young Alan Jones who raced a Formula 5000 for a wealthy Hong Kong businessman, Teddy Yip.

In 2002 the long-standing Patterson Cheney Holden and the new Ringwood Honda Dealerships employed 1983 Bathurst winner and HSV stalwart, John Harvey, who commenced a very popular comprehensive defensive driving training and road safety program.

2009 saw the truck division of Patterson Cheney joining forces with the new Kelly Racing V8 Supercar team, supplying two Westar prime movers to haul the team all over Australia.  While in 2010 the three-car team of Brad Jones Racing / Team BOC has the Westar truck branding on the rear of their V8 Supercars.

Well over 50 years of involvement in motorsport in one form or another is a pretty good racing heritage in anyone's eyes.