Brock Daytona Coupe unveiled

"It's a beautiful race car, and Peter loved driving it," says museum owner and long-time Brock friend Peter Champion.  The nine-time Bathurst champion died in September 2006 when his Daytona slammed into a tree at a rally event near Perth.

Champion said most of the 40 people attending the unveiling on Saturday night shed a tear.  "It is an emotional thing but something had to be done to preserve his memory," he said.

"I've been living with it for four years but I still shed a tear. It's sad but it's a part of history."  Champion had the wreckage restored to its racing glory by the original builder, Richard Bendall, and his company Daytona Sports Cars, in Dromana, Victoria.

Champion would not disclose the cost of restoration for the 1960s-style muscle car.  "Put it this way, you could have bought a new one for the price we paid to restore it," he said.

A new Daytona coupe can cost between $150,000 and $200,000.  James Bendall, who did most of the restoration work, said it took about 800 hours over two years to complete.

"That's about how long it takes to build a new car," he said.  "It still has the original engine, gearbox, differential and suspension.  It was very gratifying to see it back in one piece again and a bit sad when it left the factory.

"We've copped a lot of criticism from people over the crash in the past few years which is fairly annoying, but we were very proud of how it came up in the end."

Champion said it was difficult to decide on how to display the car.  "We thought about putting it in a room on its own, but it would have become a shrine and personally I don't think there is any place for a shrine among over 40 of his cars," he said.

"It's like the last chapter of a book. It has to be part of the same story.  A good friend of mine was against restoring and displaying it but he changed his mind after visiting the Henry Ford museum in the US and seeing the car JFK was shot in. He said it was a tragedy but part of history."

Champion said he had thought about moving the museum to a more popular tourist location such as the Gold Coast.  "There has been a big push to get it moved to Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast,"

"If you wanted more people through it you'd have to be on the Gold Coast somewhere. Who knows, it may end up there some day."  Champions Brock Experience is the largest collection of Brock road and race cars in the country and features Brock's first 1956 Austin A30, Bathurst winners, rally cars and his Bathurst 24-Hour Monaro.

There is also a collection of highly modified road-going HDT Special Vehicles built in the 1980s by Brock until he parted with Holden in 1987.  The only Fords in the collection are a 1989 EB Fairmont Ghia Brock built after the Holden split and his Sierra Cosworth touring car.

Champion's collection of vehicles and memorabilia was sitting in a Blackwater shed until Brock suggested it be turned into a public museum.