MOTORSPORT: Harry 'The Fox' Firth dies at 96

One of the grandest old men of Australian motorsport, Harry Firth, has died just days after turning 96.

Fox was a legendary race driver and later team manager, most notably of the Holden Dealer Team with which Peter Brock rose to prominence and went on to become the "King of the Mountain" for his record victories at Bathurst.

Firth, known as "The Fox", died in a Melbourne hospital at the weekend after a battle with cancer.

He teamed with Bob Jane to win two Armstrong 500s – 500-mile or 800km races - at Phillip Island in the early 1960s – in a Mercedes-Benz 220SE in '61 and a Ford Falcon XL in '62. That endurance race was moved to Bathurst in 1963 and Firth and Jane won again in a Ford Cortina Mark 1 GT.

Four years later Firth won yet again, this time with in a Ford Falcon XR GT, six years before what has become "The Great Race" was stretched to 1000km.

In 1968 the versatile Firth won the first Australian Rally Championship in a Cortina.

He had run Ford's motorsport program but then was pivotal in the establishment of the Holden Dealer Team, which installed a young Peter Brock and also the talented rally driver Colin Bond. It became the halcyon era of Australian motor racing, with HDT a dominant force in the sport against the arch-rival Ford team run by Al Turner with Allan Moffat as its star driver.

HDT won multiple Bathurst crowns, including Brock's famous solo drive in 1972, two Australian Touring Car Championships, four national rally titles and many other events.

Firth retired as manager of the team in 1977 and became the national chief scrutineer for the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.

In later years, and even up until quite recently, he was a regular at race tracks selling memorabilia. He was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2007.

Funeral arrangements are not known yet.