The 1992 race was held under International Group A touring car regulations, with an additional class for cars eligible under the new CAMS Group 3A rules that would govern Australian touring car racing from 1993. This made the event a transitional showcase: the established turbocharged machinery — Ford Sierras and Nissan Skyline GT-Rs — competed alongside the new-generation V8 touring cars that would soon replace them. The inclusion of three Holden VP Commodores and a Ford EB Falcon running to the emerging V8 Supercars formula gave spectators a glimpse of Australian touring car racing's future.
The 47-car field also featured a rich variety of international machinery and talent. Former Grand Prix world champions Denny Hulme and Johnny Cecotto were entered, and German DTM driver Manuel Reuter — winner of the 1989 24 Hours of Le Mans — co-drove with nine-time Bathurst winner Peter Brock in a Mobil 1 VP Commodore.
Dick Johnson set pole position for the second time in his career with a lap of 2:12.898 in his Ford Sierra RS500, while Mark Skaife qualified the Gibson Motorsport Nissan Skyline GT-R on provisional pole. The early and mid stages of the race were dominated by the expected Group A machinery.
Peter Brock endured a nightmare beginning when the tailshaft of his new VP Commodore broke on the starting line. After repairs in the pits, he rejoined last on lap 15, only to later suffer a second tailshaft failure and be pushed into a spin by a rival. He and Reuter eventually finished 27th.
The race was irreversibly altered on lap 33 when Denny Hulme, 56 years old and New Zealand's only Formula One World Champion, suffered a heart attack at the wheel. His yellow BMW M3, which he was sharing with young driver Paul Morris, went off the track on Conrod Straight and came to rest against the outside wall. Hulme was removed from the car and taken by ambulance to Bathurst Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead from heart failure.
In the closing stages, a violent rainstorm swept across the circuit. With numerous accidents occurring in conditions deemed dangerous by officials, the race was red-flagged during what would have been the leaders' 144th lap. Results were declared as at the completion of lap 143 — 18 laps short of the scheduled distance. It was only the second time in the event's history that the race had been stopped short and results declared without the full distance being run (the previous occasion was 1981).
Jim Richards and Mark Skaife were declared the winners for the second consecutive year, again in the Gibson Motorsport Nissan Skyline GT-R. The pair became the first back-to-back Bathurst winners since Brock and Perkins in 1983 and 1984. The winning car had struck the wall during the rain chaos and was barely drivable, having come to rest several hundred metres past Forrest's Elbow before the stoppage.
Dick Johnson and John Bowe (Dick Johnson Racing Ford Sierra) were classified second, with the second Nissan of Anders Olofsson and Neil Crompton in third. Tony Longhurst and motorcycle World Champion Johnny Cecotto finished fourth in a BMW M3 Evolution.
Richards received a hostile reception on the podium from sections of the crowd upset that a crashed Nissan had won over the locally beloved Fords and Holdens. Still reeling from news of Hulme's death, which had been broken to him moments before he took the podium, Richards addressed the crowd with a brief and blunt rebuke that became one of the most notorious moments in Australian motorsport history. He later publicly apologised for his words. Crompton expressed similar frustration at the crowd's behaviour.
The 1992 race was also the final Bathurst event in which turbo-powered Group A machinery was permitted to compete. From 1 January 1993, turbocharged cars were banned, and the V8 touring car formula that would evolve into V8 Supercars took over as the class structure for Australia's Great Race. The 1992 Bathurst 1000 therefore marked the end of an era — the last race of the Group A touring car epoch that had defined the event through the latter half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
The 1992 Tooheys 1000 is remembered for several overlapping narratives: the death of a Formula One world champion at the wheel; the first repeat winners in nearly a decade; the controversial early stoppage; and Richards's infamous victory speech. It also marked the transition point from the turbo Group A era to the V8 Supercars formula that would define the Bathurst 1000 for decades to come. The race remains one of the most discussed and emotionally charged editions in the history of Mount Panorama.