Peter Turnbull started racing in 1964, competing in hillclimbs and motorkhanas with the North West Car Club and the Morris 850 Club before taking up circuit racing.

But even before going circuit racing, Peter and Tony Hamilton built the first Turnham race car in what was to become a long line of Turnhams over the next 50-plus years.

The Turnham name came from Turn for Turnham and Ham for Hamilton and the first Turnhams were built at Turnbull’s Bodyworks at Wynyard.

The first car to be built was Tony’s Turnham Sports, followed by the Turnham Ford clubman for Peter.

Peter met with some success as a driver in his home-built cars, including finishing third in the Symmons Plains round of the 1974 Australian Sports Car Championship.

He also spent some time racing in New South Wales in 1976, proving more than competitive in qualifying and heats of the in the NSW Tourist Trophy, before being taken out of the main race when he was hit from behind by another car.

During his racing career, Peter has competed at 45 different motor racing circuits around Australia.

Back home in Tasmania, Peter also met with success with wins and placings in numerous races at Baskerville and Symmons Plains between 1969 and 1984.

The Turnham cars he built also had considerable success and it was not uncommon in the early 1970s to see up to five cars built by Peter competing in the same race.

The first Turnham sports racing car was raced by Tony Hamilton, but the next two - the Turnham Climax GM6 and the Turnham TS8 Turbo - have only ever been owned and raced by Peter and then fellow Tasmanian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee, Geoff Jacobs.

Although Peter was making a name for himself by building race cars, his competitive spirit never left him.

Peter took up off road motorcycle racing in the early 1980s, winning the Tasmanian over 40 enduro championship in 1986.

The loss of an eye in an industrial accident in 1990 ended Peter’s racing career prematurely when his licence was cancelled by Motorsport Australia (formerly CAMS).

Moving to NSW in 1994, Peter was still able continued to compete in hillclimbs and regularity events and won the Formula Vee category of the NSW hillclimb championship in 1998.

The formation of the AASA (Australian Auto Sports Alliance) in 2003 saw Peter able to regain a full racing licence for AASA events, with Motorsport Australia eventually allowing Peter to race again in 2010.

Over the years, Peter built and fabricated a number of sports cars, clubmans and Formula Vees.

Between 1966 and 1978, Peter built three sports racing cars and three clubman cars, but they were known by 15 different names and underwent modification to more than 20 different motor and body configurations.

In 1995, Victorian driver John King, who purchased a Turnham Clubman the year before, entered it in Targa Tasmania, but failed to finish when the left front suspension collapsed on the Tarraleah stage on the final day.

One of the most successful Turnham cars was the Turnham Bandit, built for Andrew Walker in 2003 for hillclimb racing in NSW.

Over the next 10 years, Andrew, and Peter, who drove the car occasionally, had considerable success, with Andrew winning his class and setting a course record at the King Edward Hillclimb, Peter winning his class and setting a class record at the Ringwood Hillclimb, and Andrew finishing on the podium for his class on three occasions in the NSW Hillclimb Championships.

The final car was the Turnham Steel City Special, constructed in 2022, and raced by Peter at historic events.

At the time of induction, six Turnham cars were still racing in Australia.

Nine of the Turnham cars have had over 40 different owners but at the time of induction, five of them were back in the Turnbull family.

Peter has three (the Glenn Warren clubman, the TS8, and the Mako C – built in 2005), and his nephew Clinton has a Formula Vee and also the Turnham Rotary in partnership with his son Alex.