The 1954 Australian Grand Prix was a motor race held at the

Southport Road Circuit Southport is a coastal town and the most populous suburb in the City of Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. It contains the Gold Coast central business district. In the , Southport had a population of 36,786 people. Geography Southport is ...

Official Souvenir Programme, 19th Australian Grand Prix, Southport Road Circuit, Queensland, 7 November 1954 near

Southport Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

on 7 November 1954. The race was held over 27 laps of the 5.7 mile (9.17 kilometre) circuit, a total distance of 153.9 miles (247.6 km). It was the nineteenth

Australian Grand Prix The Australian Grand Prix is an annual Formula One motor racing event, taking place in Melbourne, Victoria. The event is contracted to be held at least until 2035. One of the oldest surviving motorsport competitions held in Australia, the Gran ...

and the second to be held in Queensland. With no suitable permanent circuit available, a course was mapped out on roads in sparsely settled coastal land 2.5 km south west of Southport, and just to the north of later circuits, Surfers Paradise Raceway and the

Surfers Paradise Street Circuit The Surfers Paradise Street Circuit is a temporary street circuit in Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Surfers Paradise, in Queensland, Australia. The beach-side track has several fast sections and two chicanes, having been shortened from an origi ...

. The Grand Prix race meeting was organised by the Queensland Motor Sporting Club and the Toowoomba Auto Club in conjunction with the Southport Rotary Club. The race, which was open to Racing and Stripped Sports Cars, had 28 starters. The race was won by

Lex Davison Alexander Nicholas Davison (12 February 1923 – 20 February 1965) was a racing driver who won the Australian Grand Prix four times between 1954 Australian Grand Prix, 1954 and 1961 Australian Grand Prix, 1961 and won the Australian Drivers' ...

, later to become the most successful driver in the history of the Australian Grand Prix. It was Davison's first win in the Grand Prix having finished in the top three as far back as

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country i ...

. Davison drove a

Formula 2 Formula Two (F2) is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009 to 2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name returned aga ...

HWM re-engined with a 3.4 litre Jaguar engine. Davison finished a lap clear of Curley Brydon's

MG TC The MG T-Type is a series of body-on-frame open two-seater sports cars that were produced by MG Cars, MG from 1936 to 1955. Known as the Midget, the series included the TA, TB, TC, TD, and TF models. Although the design was contemporary in the ...

special and two laps ahead of third placed Ken Richardson in a

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

based special. The gaps were caused by attrition amongst the fastest drivers.

Jack Brabham Sir John Arthur Brabham (2 April 1926 – 19 May 2014) was an Australian racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from to . Brabham won three Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won in , and , ...

was out on the second lap with a broken engine in his Cooper; Rex Taylor was black flagged for receiving outside assistance after spinning his Lago-Talbot; Dick Cobden retired his Ferrari after a spin and Stan Jones crashed heavily while leading after the chassis of his Maybach Special failed. It would be the last race for Maybach Mk.II, with Charlie Dean's team rebuilding it as Maybach Mk.III.

Classification

Results as follows. * Pole position: Rex Taylor (Allocated by the race organisers prior to the event) * Winner's average speed: 83.7 mph (134.7 km/h) * Fastest lap: Dick Cobden (Ferrari), 3:52s, 88.45 mph, 142.3 km/h * Attendance: More than 60,00060,000 at Southport motor race, The Courier Mail, Monday, 8 November 1954, as archived at trove.nla.gov.au
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References

External links

Advertisement, Australian Motor Sports, October 1954, page 11, as saved at photobucket.com
{{coord, -27.9673, 153.4141, type:event_region:AU-QLD, display=title

Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural ''Grands Prix'') most commonly refers to: * Grand Prix motor racing, a form of motorsport competition ** List of Formula One Grands Prix, an auto-racing championship *** Monaco Grand Prix, the most prestigious ...

Australian Grand Prix Sport on the Gold Coast, Queensland