Bathurst 12 Hour

The Bathurst 12 Hour is an endurance event for production racing cars held at the Mount Panorama Circuit, near Bathurst, Australia. The event was inspired by the long running Bathurst 1000 touring car race, which began in the early 1960s as a race for cars with minimal modifications. As the Bathurst 1000 evolved the touring cars that raced moved further and further away from the minimal modifications of the original race. The Bathurst 12 Hour was re-created the original feel of the Bathurst 1000, while providing a unique test in the longer distance, rather than replicating the 1000 kilometre event.

The original race was run by Vince Tesorieo's (himself a previous Bathurst 1000 competitor) Forcefield marketing and utilised the Group E production car regulations then in use in the Australian Production Car Championship, or APCC. In the early 1990s the APCC was limited to passenger sedans, with turbo charged cars and V8 engined cars banned after the 1989 season. The Bathurst 12 Hour opened up the regulations and while mid-engined exotic sportscars and GTs were not allowed to enter, a wider range of vehicles than what was eligible for the APCC was.

The first race saw just 24 cars entered, spread over six different classes dependent on engine capacity and sporting specification. Despite the events length the competitors proved extremely reliable with 20 making the finish. The first race was won by Allan Grice, Peter Fitzgerald and Nigel Arkell racing Fitzgerald's 1989 APCC specification Toyota Supra. Second place was taken by the Ford Laser TX3 turbo of Ken Douglas and brothers Kent and Brett Youlden.

For the 1992 event the car manufacturers started to enter large teams with Mazda, Holden, Citroen and Peugeot each funding large teams. The Mazda team grew to dominate the event with their Mazda RX-7s, winning the event right up to the final race held in 1995, despite prominent teams using Honda NSX, Nissan Skyline GT-R, Maserati Shamal, BMW M5, Lotus Esprit and a factory-supported team of Porsche 968s which ran in 1993 and 1994, upgrading to Porsche 993s for the final race in 1995.

Facing rising costs the race was moved from Bathurst at Easter to Eastern Creek Raceway in November for the 1995 race but the event did not survive into 1996. The race was successfully revived in 2007 and was won by the BMW 335i of Gary Holt, Paul Morris and Craig Baird. The race had been previously revived in 2002, with a more open vehicle eligibility list as the Bathurst 24 Hour.

Races