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1965 Australian Touring Car Championship


The 1965 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title open to Group C Improved Production Touring Cars. It was contested over a single 40-lap race staged at Sandown Raceway in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 11 April 1965. It was the sixth Australian Touring Car Championship title to be awarded and the first to be contested by cars complying with Group C regulations.

The championship was won by Norm Beechey, driving a Ford Mustang. It was the first ATCC victory for a V8-engined car and the first of five ATCC titles won by drivers of Ford Mustangs. It was Beechey's first of two Australian Touring Car Championship wins.

The change in regulations from Appendix J to Group C had disadvantaged most heavily those driving Holdens, like Norm Beechey and Brian Muir, and Bob Jane's Jaguar, as the practice of overboring engines was effectively outlawed, making 4.1 litre Jaguars and 3.4 litre Holdens ineligible.

Jane qualified his new Ford Mustang on pole position, recording a time of 1:20.9. Beechey, also in a Mustang, had lapped in 1:20.8 in Friday practice, however transmission problems prevented him from setting a time in official qualifying and he started from the back of the grid. John Raeburn, driving a Ford Galaxie, and Jim McKeown, driving a Ford Cortina Lotus, completed the front tow. The reigning champion Ian Geoghegan lined up in eighth place on the grid.


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