Doug Chivas
Doug Chivas (c.1922–2004) was an Australian rally and racing car driver. Chivas drove the first Lotus Mark 6 in Australia in the early 1950s winning many races.
In the 1960s and 1970s he drove for some of the most important racing and rally teams in the country, including the Mitsubishi works rally team, Alec Mildren’s Alfa Romeo team, the Holden Dealer Team and the factory-supported Chrysler Series Production teams of the early 1970s.
Chivas won the 1967 Surfers Paradise Four Hour race with Kevin Bartlett in a Mildren team Alfa Romeo Giulia Super. He registered class wins at the Bathurst 500 in 1963, 1967 and 1968 and won a hard-fought final round of the Toby Lee Series in 1971 driving a Chrysler Valiant Charger E38.
In 1972 Chivas achieved the best result for the Chrysler team at Bathurst by finishing third outright and second in class in a Charger E49.
Chivas is best remembered however for a sensational second place at the 1973 Hardie-Ferodo 1000, while co-driving for Peter Brock in the leading Holden Torana the car ran out of fuel and had to be pushed by Chivas, unaided, along part of pit lane. The exhausted 50-year-old had to be supported by pit crew after the effort of pushing the car in the hot conditions but the time lost may have cost the Brock/Chivas Torana a Bathurst victory.
Further reading
- Australia's Greatest Motor Race 1960-1999 (Chevron) © 2000
- Australian Motor Racing Annual 1971