Vale Peter Wherrett

Peter Wherrett was a man who didn't mince his words. As the presenter on the groundbreaking television series Torque he was quick to highlight a car's shortcomings.

Torque was an early prototype for Top Gear, but without the laughs. Arguably it succeeded in informing viewers where Top Gear entertains viewers. Wherrett brought to his program a sense of gravitas and the sort of print media principles that have been a rarity on free-to-air motoring programs produced since.

Not hamstrung by the need to observe niceties for the sake of advertising revenue -- since the program was broadcast by the public-funded ABC -- Wherrett was frequently outspoken about the respective virtues and vices of the cars he drove. Volkswagen won't appreciate being reminded of this, but the company's very first Passat, the first front-wheel drive water-cooled product sold by the company in Australia, was found to jump out of gear over rough Australian roads. It was Wherrett who demonstrated this -- in the full glare of national TV.

Wherrett ran an advanced driving school, worked as a print media journalist and was a racing driver of some note, campaigning an Alfetta sedan in touring car races -- in the days when touring cars were just that and not V8-powered papier mache mobiles.

He's also remembered as the presenter of another TV series, Marque, which explored the history of the car. Broadcast in 10 half-hour episodes, the ambitious series covered a century of motoring, with each episode looking at a specific decade of automotive progress. Wherrett had almost unlimited access to some of the world's oldest and most expensive cars ever for the series.

After the demise of the two ABC TV shows, Wherrett remained in the media spotlight by being the brains behind the 'Wherrett Sigma', a tweaked version of the Mitsubishi mid-sizer which sold in limited but significant numbers during the early 1980s.

Wherrett will also be recalled for taking the lead on a project to dump a 2.6-litre Mitsubishi Astron engine into an example of Holden's VC Commodore. His point was that the relatively large displacement four, with its balance shafts, alloy head and overhead cam gave the Commodore the fuel efficiency and refinement it lacked in its six-cylinder 'blue' motor.

Furthermore, collaboration between the local manufacturers would reduce costs if they supplied each other with components that could be shared across multiple model ranges. The 'hybrid' Astron Commodore pre-dated the Button plan by years and was a paradigm of sorts for the unlamented period of badge engineering that was an inevitable outcome of the Button plan during the late 1980s and 1990s.

This period produced such cars as the Toyota Lexcen and Holden Apollo, which were far removed from Wherrett's original intent. Perhaps a better example of how he intended the local industry to work together is the case of the LD Astra (Holden) and N13 Pulsar (Nissan), both of which shared body shells from Nissan and drivetrains from Holden.

In later years Wherrett became a recluse and lived out the rest of his days at Lake Macquarie in NSW. He had been married three times and each marriage had ended in divorce. Aged 72, he passed away earlier this week.

Image: abc.net.au