Australian Tourist Trophy returns

This year’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour will feature the addition of some more extraordinary silverware.

Competitors at the Bathurst 12 Hour will be eyeing off the Australian Tourist Trophy, considering their names could be engraved alongside the likes of Stirling Moss, Bib Stillwell, Ian Geoghegan, Frank Matich and Allan Simonsen.

The Australian Tourist Trophy will make its return to the Australian motor sport landscape in 2017, and will also be awarded to the winners of the Bathurst 12 Hour for the very first time.

CAMS General Manager Michael Smith mentioned that awarding the trophy to the winners of the Bathurst 12 Hour was a good first, given the previous history of the award.

“The Bathurst 12 Hour is increasingly attracting some of the best drivers in Australia and from around the world, increasing the prestige of the event year on year,” Smith said.

“The Australian Tourist Trophy’s strong sports car history made it an appropriate fit with the Bathurst 12 Hour event, with future winners joining the likes of past Australian Tourist Trophy recipients Stirling Moss, Bib Stillwell and Frank Matich.”

The trophy is a CAMS sanctioned award, originally contested between 1956 and 1979 by sports cars.

It was first awarded in 1956 and annually from 1958, until the introduction of the Australian Sports Car Championship in 1969.

After a brief break the trophy was reinstituted in 1975 and was then restricted to Production Sports Cars for the first time.

A year later the Production Sports Cars were contesting under the Australian Sports Car Championship, the Australian Tourist Trophy once again became a contest for purpose-built Group A Sports Cars, until the trophy was once again discontinued in 1979.

After a 27-year sabbatical, the Australian Tourist Trophy made its return in 2007, going to the winner of the Sandown GT Classic.

From 2009, the trophy was then awarded to the driver who accumulated the most outright points at specific rounds of the Australian GT Championship.

The trophy was last presented to Christopher Mies in 2015, and after a motor sport review from CAMS it was decided that from 2017 onwards it would be awarded to the winners of the Bathurst 12 Hour.

The Australian Tourist Trophy will be presented to winners of Australian international endurance event for the first time, with all of the action to kick off on 3 February.

Previous winners

1956 Stirling Moss1958 David McKay1959 Ron Phillips1960 Derek Jolly1961 Bib Stillwell1962 Bib Stillwell1963 Ian Geoghegan1964 Frank Matich1965 Ian Geoghegan1966 Frank Matich1967 Frank Matich1968 Frank Matich1975 Peter Warren1976 Stuart Kostera1977 Ian Geoghegan1978 Greg Doidge1979 Paul Gibson2007 Allan Simonsen/Tim Leahey2008 Allan Simonsen/Nick O’Halloran2009 David Wall2010 David Wall2011 Mark Eddy2012 Peter Hackett2014 Richard Muscat2015 Christopher Mies