Tony Edmonson was a two-times Australian sports car champion, but is remembered for being more than just a driver.

Tony first started racing in 1970 in Ford Cortina 1500, moving several years later into a BMW sedan powered by a Repco Brabham V8 engine.

In 1976 he took over a car built by another great Tasmanian racing engineer, John McCormack, which was an awesome performer.

 In 1978 Tony formed a partnership with two colleagues to form K. and A. Engineering.

One of the new company’s first race-oriented projects was to build an Alfa-Romeo sports sedan to be raced by Tony.

The distinctive Alpha burst onto the Australian sports car championship scene in 1979 and Tony was well placed in the series when he was involved in a serious accident at the Surfers Paradise International Raceway in August that year.

He sustained severe burns and was not expectedd to live.

But just as he was a fighter on the track, Tony was also a fighter in life and after three months in a Brisbane hospital he was ready to return home again, but more importantly to also return to the racetrack, performing strongly in his return race at Adelaide late in the same year.

In February of the next year (1980) he won the first round of the national championship at Sandown (Vic.) and went on to win the series, and again repeating the effort in 1981.

Changes to rules in the sports car GT championship in 1982 handicapped Tony’s Alpha by increasing its weight and decreasing its tyre size, making the car uncompetitive.

In 1983 Don Elliott bought Elfin Cars Australia following the death of founder Garrie Cooper, installing Tony Edmondson and John Porter as joint managers.

Under the leadership of Tony and John, the company built all types of sports cars, racing cars, and sports sedans and was the major Australian importer of sports cars until 1993, when it was acquired by Murray Richards

Tony designed the Elfin Crusader Formula Vee car in 1987, with several still racing at the time of induction.

He also built the Elfin 892 F2 car in which fellow Tasmanian Mark McLaughlin was Australian Formula 2 Championship runner-up in 1986 and 1987.

Tony also built the Elfin Formula Brabham in which Mark won the first ever Formula Holden race at Mallala (SA) in 1989 and he also jointly built a Honda-Chevrolet sports sedan, in which Greg Crick won the 1991 Australian sports sedan championship

Written by Martin Agatyn