Attracting a record entry of 61 cars, of which 58 arrived for practice, the race was run in perfect conditions, fine and mild - certainly not the usual for Bathurst weather.

Highlight of the race was the performance of the GT Cortinas which were not only the fastest cars on the circuit but had the reliability to match. The winning car was driven by last year's winning combination, Bob Jane and Harry Firth. The car ran like a train throughout the race with only routine pit stops for fuel.

By contrast the biggest disappointments were the much ballyhooed S4 Holdens which struck trouble in the first 100 miles, the Scuderia Veloce Vauxhall Velox and the Mini Coopers. The perfomance of the Minis, although gaining a class win, would hardly inspire confidence on the part of a would-be purchaser with four out of 12 starters failing to finish. Of the remaining eight, one was running on top gear only and at least one other was minus second gear for the greater part of the race. The number of gearbox failures must no doubt be causing quite a bit of consternation at BMC.

The large number of enthusiasts who make a bi-annual pilgrimage to Bathurst began arriving late on Friday afternoon and continued to pour into town all day Saturday so that by 6.45 am on Sunday morning the roads from the town to the circuit were jammed with cars.

Practice had claimed only one victim, the Fallu / Kratzman Vauxhall VX490 which had rolled at Forest Elbow during the last practice session on Saturday afternoon, although several other pit crews burnt the midnight oil on Saturday night to see their cars to the starting grid.

When the starter's flag fell at 9 am Sunday, 57 cars screamed away towards Hell Corner on the first of 130 laps.

From my mobile grandstand at the wheel of the little Fiat "770", I had a first hand view of the biffing, pushing and shoving that went on as the field headed for that first corner up to six abreast, using the dirt on both sides of the road and seeming certain to leave at least a couple of cars hanging on one of the fences... miraculously enough, everybody got through and the race was on.

At the end of the first lap the leaders were Warren Weldon (Studebaker Lark), David McKay (Vauxhall Velox), Kevin Bartlett (Holden S4) and Alwyn Rose (Valiant). On the third lap the Jane / Firth Cortina GT moved into second place behind the Lark and ahead of Bartlett, the Geoghegan brothers' Cortina GT and McKay who made the first of his pit stops, rejoining the race some nine minutes later.

By the sixth lap the two Cortinas were in front of the Lark with Bartlett still leading the Holden challenge and throwing the S4 around with gay abandon.

After 10 laps Firth had a five second lead over the Geoghegan car with a further seven seconds to Weldon who was in turn eight seconds ahead of Bartlett followed by the Brian Muir / Spencer Martin Holden.

The P. and R. Williams entered Mini Cooper, driven by Brian Foley and Peter Manton, had a five second lead over Charlie Smith's similar car in Class B followed by the other two P. and R. Williams's entries driven by Stewart / Bolton and Martin / West with Sid Howard in fifth place.

Class A (under £900) was providing the closest dicing of all with George Reynolds and Bill Ford, both VW mounted, circulating nose to tail and often side by side only two seconds ahead of Vaughan and Lane's Morris 850 driven by Don Holland and Lindsay Little, with another Vaughan and Lane Morris 850 driven by Nicholson and Gibson only four seconds behind them.

At 9.36 am McKay, who was already three laps behind the leaders, made another pit stop and two minutes later the Stewart / Bolton Mini Cooper pulled in with a broken windscreen but after hasty repairs was back in the fray after a five-minute delay.

At 9.50 am Brian Muir was in the pits with broken rear shock absorber mountings but was mobile again after only two minutes.

About this time I was passed around the top of the mountain by the Brian Lawler / Bill Burns Humber Snipe Automatic, but through the esses I was almost able to park the Fiat in the boot of the Humber which looked to be handling like a high speed blancmange.

By this time the pace which had been really on from the start was beginning to take its toll. On the 16th lap Doug and Graham Kelley retired their Mini Cooper with a broken gearbox and two laps later the Sid Howard/Les Welley Mini Cooper also retired with gearbox trouble.

Two minutes later McKay dropped a valve in the Velox and that was that.

Almost simultaneously the Humber Snipe limped into the pits with a valve through the top of a piston and the pit crew immediately began working to remove the offending piston and valve in an effort to qualify as a finisher at least - even if on five cylinders.

At approximately 10 o'clock I negotiated Forest Elbow to find the Heldon Motors' Holden parked at the beginning of Con-rod Straight with a pair of feet belonging to Brian Muir poking out from underneath. For several laps I noticed Brian in this unenviable position until at last he was able to remove the broken tailshaft, coast down Con-rod Straight and around Murray's Corner and push the car to his pit where a replacement was fitted.

By now the Scuderia Veloce pit was looking particularly crowded as the David Walker / Ron Clarke Renault R8 had been parked there for some time.

Frank Kleinig jun. had a relatively short drive, taking over the Morris 850 after team mate Tony Hill sideswiped the fence at Hell Corner only to retire with transmission failure a few laps later.

While all this drama was being enacted the Firth / Jane and Geoghegan GT Cortinas were running like clockwork. Both had made their first pit stops - the Geoghegans took 1 1/2 minutes while the Victorians took less than a minute.

At 11.45 am I handed over to my co-driver Les Howard and examined the lap charts to find that the order after 40 laps was as follows:

Class A: Ford/Ferguson (VW); Reynolds/McEwan (VW); Holland/Little (Morris 850); Nicholson/Gibson (Morris 850); Andrews/Tresise (VW).

Class B: Chivas/Wilkinson (Mini Cooper); Donnelly/Marchiori (Mini Cooper); Gates/Nedelko (Mini Cooper); Foley/Manton (Mini Cooper); Caelli/Abbott (Cortina 1500).

Class C: Firth/Jane (Cortina GT); Geoghegan/Geoghegan (Cortina GT); Bartlett/Reynolds (Holden S4); McPhee/Ryan (Cortina GT); Grant/Marden (Holden S4).

Class D: Needham/Weldon (Lark); Reynolds/Allen (Valiant); Russell/Raeburn (Zephyr); Wright/Fergusson (Lark); Coe/Fisher (Peugeot 404).

By this time the Foley / Manton Mini Cooper had lost the use of second gear and Charlie Smith's Mini Cooper was suffering from the same ailment.

At 11.50 am Bill Reynolds lost a wheel shortly after taking the Holden over from Kevin Bartlett, damaging the bodywork slightly in the ensuing tangle with the fence.

Bartlett also lost a wheel on the same car but in more spectacular fashion, motoring the length of Con-rod Straight at 80 mph plus on three wheels, negotiating Murray's Corner on the brakedrum and entering the pits with sparks flying from the brakedrum, much to the delight of the spectators.

At 12.20 pm the Graham White / Greg Mackie VW rolled at Murray's Corner but was pushed back onto its wheels and restarted.

At 12.30 pm the Geoghegan Cortina made an unscheduled pit stop which delayed them several minutes allowing the Firth / Jane car to increase its lead to more than a lap.

At 2.15 pm Les Howard pitted the Fiat for fuel and it was my turn to re-enter the fray.

By this time the race had settled into a fairly regular pattern with the exception of Class A, in which the Holland / Little Morris 850 and the Ford / Ferguson VW were staging a tooth and nail battle for the lead, not only were they on the same lap but passing and repassing each other and this after some six hours of racing. This dice was destined to hold the interest of the large crowd until the chequered flag.

At approximately 3.45 pm I approached McPhillamy Park corner to find Warren Weldon feverishly winding the jack handle under the Studebaker Lark which at this stage had a comfortable lead in Class D. Two laps later he was still there and the Russell / Raeburn Zephyr had taken the class lead. When he was finally mobile Warren limped into the pits for further attention to the front wheel.

Arriving at McPhillamy Park corner a couple of laps later, Jim Wright in the other Studebaker Lark lost a wheel and took to the scrub on the inside of the circuit, trying unsuccessfully to defy the law of gravity as the big car took a short cut down the mountain, fortunately without injury to the driver.

With a little over half an hour to go I arrived at XL Bend (the fast right-hander beginning the climb out of Mountain Straight) to find the Cook / Rose Valiant lying on its roof with wheels still spinning some 30 feet down in the gully, further depleting the field in Class D.

Meanwhile the Geoghegan brothers had been making up a little ground on the leading Cortina until a blown head gasket spelt finis to their efforts and a disconsolate Leo began the long walk back to the pits.

At this stage the Russell / Raeburn Zephyr only had to keep going to take the honors in Class D but a tyre blowout in the closing stages relegated them to second place behind the Reynolds / Allen Valiant.

Meanwhile the Humber with only five pistons made a reappearance to complete one lap and so qualify as a finisher with the grand total of 21 laps (approximately 75 miles).

As mentioned earlier the battle between the Morris 850 and VW continued right to the finish with both cars "on the limit", the VW going "underneath" the Mini in the braking area at the bottom of Con-Rod Straight only to be repassed going up the mountain.

On the last lap Little rolled the Mini at Murray's Corner while in the lead and with only 100 yards to go to the finish, marking a dramatic end to probably the hardest fought battle in the history of the "Armstrong".

The Mini was man-handled back on to its wheels to be driven across the line to gain a class second amidst wild applause from the crowd.

Some minutes after the winners had finished, Charlie Smith limped across the line with the off-side wheel of his Mini Cooper lying out at about a 60 degree angle.

Probably the most disappointed competitors were W. Coe and S. Fisher who brought their Peugeot 404 across the line third in Class D, only to be excluded from the results at Monday's scrutineering when a carburettor jet was found to be oversize.

The smooth and efficient organisation of the meeting leads us to hope that the Armstrong 500 will be held at Bathurst again next year, just as we hope that the success of Harry Firth and Bob Jane will justify the Ford Motor Company in their support of motor racing and possibly encourage some of our other leading motor car manufacturers to show similar confidence in their products.

Harry Firth and Bob Jane.

Ford Cortina took top honours in Australia's most gruelling stock-car endurance race, the 1963 Armstrong 500, held at Bathurst, N.S.W., on Sunday, October 6.

Cortina G.T. finished ahead of all other competitors to be "first across the line". Winning drivers, Harry Firth and Bob Jane, who have now won 3 Armstrong 500's in a row, said the race was the hardest they had ever driven in.

The track was so tough, and the going so hard, that 15 of the 57 starters could not finish.

But the Cortina came over the line ahead of all makes and models - including cars of almost double its price and horsepower. The Cortina's run was completely trouble-free. During the race its bonnet was lifted only once - and it required no oil or water. Nor did it require a tyre change.

It took the lead after the fifth lap, after starting from number 20 grid position, and held its lead over the field for the remainder of the race.

In its quest for victory, it recorded a top speed of 105.88 miles an hour in "Con Rod" Straight, and burned into hard elbow corners at 75 m.p.h.

Engineering for the Cortina G.T. is basically the same as in the standard Cortina 1500 which is available from your Ford Dealer. Prices start at only £943, including tax, for the 2-door model; and £968, including tax, for the 4-door. There's a choice of 2 engines with both models - the Cortina "1200" engine, or the record-breaking "1500" engine.