HDT 30th Blue Meanie special

It will join the three Heritage Retro series models that HDT Special Vehicles have produced since long-time Peter Brock friend Peter Champion bought the company in 2007. Heather Smith who manages Champion's Brock Experience, a museum in Yeppoon near Rockhampton, says the anniversary car will be limited to 30.

"We're still costing it up but it will be about $80,000 to $120,000 depending on options," she says. "There are no orders yet because people don't know it's coming. No one has even seen it yet. We have good security at our workshops."

Smith says the anniversary car will feature the same performance package as the current series Blue Meanie. The Blue Meanie in standard trim has an 350kW V6 but can be optioned up with a supercharger and a seven-litre V8 engine, bringing peak power to as much as 800kW. By comparison the HSV Club Sport produces 325kW.

The Holden Dealer Team was Holden's unofficial racing team from 1969 until 1987. In the 1980s, Brock produced modified high-performance Commodores under the HDT name until his break with Holden. The brand had been dormant since then with two different owners producing parts but not cars until Champion, a Central Queensland mining equipment millionaire, bought the company.

Smith says that in the past 18 months they have produced about 70 vehicles in three models at their Smeaton Grange workshops in western Sydney. The Heritage Retro VC, VH and VK Blue Meanie are based on the VE Commodore SV6, SS and SSV models.

"We're going to do a VL next year and a Champion Series next year with a modern look. It won't be a heritage series as we have had. Our cars are not like a HSV, they are more powerful and exclusive. Only 250 Blue Meanies are being made. The Blue Meanie has been our most popular so far."

HDT also makes spares and reproduction parts for the old HDT cars produced in the Brock years.

"Holden has a commercial relationship with HSV, but we're on our own," Smith says. "Our business is growing. We believe there is a market for performance vehicles. Most of our buyers are diehard Holden supporters who are passionate about the Brock name. Some Holden dealers sell cars for us but not HSV dealers. Holden tends to frown on dealers that sell them. We're not even a blip in the numbers that HSV or Holden sell, but we don't want to rock any boats."

The Brock Experience museum features most of the HDT vehicles built by Brock, including a 1989 Ford EB Fairmont Ghia Brock built after the parting with Holden. The museum started as Champion's private collection of all things Brock over two decades. It was sitting in a Blackwater shed until Brock suggested to Champion that he should turn it into a public museum.

The museum features many of Brock's race cars, including his first Austin A30, Bathurst winners, rally cars and his Bathurst 24-Hour Monaro. The only other Ford in the collection, apart from the HDT Fairmont, is his Sierra touring car.

There are also trophies, race helmets and suits, videos, memorabilia and even an "Energy Polarizer", a mystical invention that Brock believed gave his cars more power and better handling. Smith says they are in the final stages of restoring the Daytona coupe rally car in which Brock died. Tour guide Emma Holmes says it will be exhibited in a separate extension yet to be built. "It will be a personal choice whether you want to see it as it may upset some people," she says. "People do get emotional. We have a man who has been to seven of our special events and he leaves here crying every time."

The museum attracts 10,000 visitors a year.