Bob Jane

Bob Jane grew up in Brunswick, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne. His passion for racing began in the early 1950s as a champion bicycle rider, holding many state records before turning to four wheels. In the later 1950s, he started Bob Jane Autoland, a company that distributed parts for Jaguar and Alfa Romeo. Through this venture, a love of cars and motor sport blossomed and he first entered competitive racing in Australia in 1956; by 1960, he was racing with some of Australia's top sedan drivers.

Racing career

In 1961, Jane and co-driver Harry Firth won the Armstrong 500 at Phillip Island, Victoria, driving a Mercedes-Benz 220SE. Jane and Firth, driving a Ford Falcon XL, won the race again the following year, the last before the event moved to Mount Panorama at Bathurst, New South Wales, retaining the Armstrong 500 name. Jane, driving for the Ford works team, won a further two Armstrong 500s at the new venue, the first with Firth in 1963 and the second in 1964 with George Reynolds as co-driver. Despite the change of venue, Jane is officially credited with winning Australia's most famous endurance race four times in a row, something no other driver, not even nine-time race winner Peter Brock, has ever done.

Jane won the Australian Touring Car Championship (now known as the V8 Supercars Championship) in 1962, 1963, 1971 and 1972. His 1971 ATCC win was in a Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 with a 427 cubic inch engine. Jane was forced by a rule change to replace the 427 engine with a 350 cubic inch engine for the 1972 championship but the Camaro still managed to beat the opposition, which included Allan Moffat's Ford Boss 302 Mustang, Ian Geoghegan's Ford XY Falcon GTHO Phase III, and Norm Beechey's Holden HT Monaro GTS350. Of the 38 races he started in the ATCC, he finished on the podium 21 times.

Jane also won the 1963 Australian GT Championship at the wheel of a Jaguar E-type, and the Marlboro Sports Sedan Series, in both 1974 and 1975, at his own Calder Park Raceway driving a Holden Monaro GTS 350 (at times he also drove his Repco V8 powered Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1 which was mostly driven by John Harvey).

Jane retired from competitive motor racing at the end of 1981 due to sciatica. At the time of his retirement, he had been driving a 6.0 litre Chevrolet Monza in the Australian Sports Sedan Championship. After giving up driving, Jane asked touring car star Peter Brock to drive the Monza in the re-formed Australian GT Championship. Brock raced the car in 1982 and 1983 before Jane sold the car in early 1984 to Re-Car owner Allan Browne.

On 23 February 2007, Jane was granted a 12-month intervention order against his estranged wife, Laree Jane (born 1967). At the time, she was 39 years old and they had been married for 20 years. He accused her of threatening to shoot him and threatening him with a kitchen knife. In a Victorian County Court, on 22 January 2009, a jury found Laree Jane not guilty of five charges, including assault, related to the domestic dispute.

Jane met Laree when he performed Grand Marshal duties for the 1986 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst.

Jane declared bankruptcy on 8 July 2016.

On 28 September 2018, Jane died from prostate cancer, 21 years after his diagnosis. He was 88.