1976 Hardie-Ferodo 1000

The 1976 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 was the 17th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on 3 October 1976 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The race was open to cars eligible to the locally developed CAMS Group C touring car regulations.

The race was dramatically won by the Ron Hodgson Motors enterred Holden Torana of Bob Morris and British driver John Fitzpatrick. The car slowed in the final laps trailing smoke but made to the finish. Second on the same lap was Holden Dealer Team Torana of Colin Bond and John Harvey. Peter Janson and Kevin Bartlett completed a second consecutive podium clean sweep for Holden Torana. Toranas filled the top seven finishers.

The three litre class saw Capris drivers Barry Seton and Don Smith took a one lap victory over the Mazda RX-3 of Don Holland and Lynn Brown. Another Capri, the car of Graham Moore and emerging driver Dick Johnson were a further lap down in third.

The two litre class also saw one lap margins between the top three cars with the Ford Escort of Eric Boord and Tom Tymons beating the Alfa Romeo GTV of Phil McDonnell and Jim Hunter. The Bob Holden run Ford Escort of Lyndon Arnel and Peter Hopwood was third.

The John Roxburgh run Datsun Sunny of Bill Evans and Bruce Stewart took a two lap victory in the 1.3 litre class over the Honda Civics of Brian Reed and Ian Chilman, and Roger Bonhomme and Doug Whiteford.

The 1976 race continues to be a source of controversy, as it has been claimed that a lap scoring error caused the HDT Torana of Bond and Harvey not to be counted for a lap, thus robbing them of victory. However HDT, the team backed by Holden, did not appeal the results; some have claimed this is because Holden did not want to appear to be doing a disservice to the Morris/Fitzpatrick team which was run by Ron Hodgson Motors, one of Holden's largest car dealerships. The lap counting error has been denied by others, including the race winners, and an appeal of the results was not lodged prior to the expiration date meaning the results as published are final. In 2003 Holden offered Harvey an apology for not appealing the results, at a testimonial dinner for Harvey who after retiring from racing had gone on to become a senior executive with Holden Special Vehicles.