Henry Leslie Firth (1918-04-18)18 April 1918 Orbost, Victoria, Australia
Died
27 April 2014(2014-04-27) (aged 96) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Awards
2007
Supercars Hall of Fame
Henry Leslie Firth (18 April 1918 – 27 April 2014) was an Australian racing driver and team manager. Firth was a leading race and rally driver during the 1950s and 1960s and continued as an influential team manager with first the Ford works team and then the famed Holden Dealer Team (HDT) well into the 1970s. Firth’s nickname was "the fox", implying his use of cunning ploys as a team manager.[1]
Firth won the Bathurst 500, including its predecessor at Phillip Island, four times (twice in the final two races held at the Island and twice at Bathurst). He also won the Southern Cross Rally and the Australian Rally Championship. He was inducted into the Supercars Hall of Fame in 2007.
Firth has often been described as a 'bush engineer', someone who could probably build a race winning engine from nothing more than a roll of wire, while leading Australian Motoring journalist and former part-time racer Bill Tuckey once wrote of Firth that as a driver, engineer and team manager, he was "As cunning as an outhouse rat".
On 27 April 2014, Firth died in his sleep surrounded by his family, he was aged 96.
^Geoffrey Harris (25 May 2009). "MOTORSPORT: Harry 'The Fox' Firth dies at 96". Motoring.com.au. Archived from the original on 29 April 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
reportedly wanted Firth to stay and help the team but Firth refused, stating that he had to be back in Australia for a rally. HarryFirth won the rally in...
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The race was held twice more at Phillip Island. In 1961 Bob Jane and HarryFirth, sharing an Australian assembled Mercedes-Benz 220 SE, were the first...
Jane and co-driver HarryFirth won the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, Victoria, driving a Mercedes-Benz 220SE. Jane and Firth, driving a Ford Falcon...
playing the father of the lead character. In 2016, Bisley appeared as HarryFirth in the two-part Australian miniseries Brock on Network Ten. The miniseries...
together under the management of HarryFirth and the Holden Dealer Team. The new team kicked off in August 1969 with Harry himself behind the wheel of an...
in the LH series (after an aborted attempt by Holden Dealer Team boss HarryFirth to introduce the V8 to the smaller LJ in 1972 which was stopped by the...
imported with a minimum requirement of 250 - built by and intended for HarryFirth in the 1965 Bathurst 500 was clocked at 118 mph down conrod straight...
across Australia. It was the inaugural Australian Rally Championship. HarryFirth and navigator Graham Hoinville won the Champion Driver and Champion Navigator...
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the purchase price (in Australian pounds) of the vehicle. Bob Jane and HarryFirth were the first team to complete the full race distance, taking victory...
quoted HDT boss HarryFirth as saying that the proposed Torana V8 model would be "the best handling, safest car on the road." While Firth was insistent...
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in Ivy Green. The factory racing team, led by veteran driver/engineer HarryFirth entered two cars, one for himself and Fred Gibson and the other for the...
champion Leo Geoghegan in Round 2 or Oran Park in Sydney. Brock's HDT boss HarryFirth later told that he let Brock race the Birrana to get formula racing "out...
2004 Fred Gibson Bob Morris 2005 Adelaide 500 2006 Jim Richards 2007 HarryFirth 2008 Larry Perkins 2009 John Bowe 2010 No inductees 2011 Glenn Seton...
to Holden Dealer Team boss HarryFirth) on Holden's 308 engine for its Torana SL/R 5000 that was released in 1974. Firth believed that developing the...
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