W ith no added sugar to weigh it down, it’s far too quick! It’s the only cereal in the history of motorsport to have beaten Johnson AND Brock!
That was the breathless tongue-in-cheek ‘course-commentary’ voiceover in the 1984 Vita-Brits TV ad, as young ‘Vita-Brits kid’, driving a Vita Brits-on-wheels, wows the crowd as he takes the chequered flag to defeat both Dick Johnson’s Greens-Tuf Falcon XE and Peter Brock’s HDT Commodore.
This memorable moment in Aussie television was brought to AMC’s attention some years ago when photos emerged of what appeared to be Brock’s HDT VH Commodore sans Marlboro logos and sporting an unusual white with orange/yellow striping livery. No Brock/HDT Commodore ever raced in this trim; further investigation confirmed that the distinctive paint job had been knocked up especially for the TV ad.
The ad itself is intriguing viewing – and not just because the two biggest names in touring car racing are beaten by a kid in a Vita-Brits on wheels. The presence of Johnson’s XE shows it was clearly 1984 – but if so, why was Brock driving what appears to be a 1982-spec Group A Commodore racer?
Turns out, not only was it not a current model Commodore race car, but it wasn’t even one of Brock’s HDT race machines. It was the former Re-Car VH Commodore, the ex-David Parsons machine, which the HDT had
