The Bathurst 1000 is universally recognised as the pinnacle of Supercars, but try telling that to Nick Percat.

The 34-year-old's second place finish in the first race of the Adelaide 500 will be remembered by Percat's family forever.

In Holden's farewell from Supercars, Percat made it a Walkinshaw Andretti United one-two as teammate Chaz Mostert claimed a thrilling win in a chaotic race on Saturday.

The parochial South Australian was devastated when the Adelaide 500 was scrapped in 2020, adding to the blow of Holden being retired in the same year.

But the famous Adelaide event has been revived after a change in state governments.

Percat's father Marc, grandfather Italo and great grandfather Paolo were all employees at Holden's former South Australian plant in Elizabeth.

The Commodore driver described Saturday's race as more enjoyable than when he won Bathurst in 2011 as a co-driver with Garth Tander.

"That's the coolest thing I've ever been involved in," he said.

"For me watching this race as a young kid and being a tragic HRT (Holden) fan, those last four, five laps, I was like 'this is actually unbelievable, I've watched this as a fan climbing a tree to see these moments as a kid'.

"Pretty surreal moment, amazing story for our team.

"Hopefully now my grandad actually gets starstruck for me because he met Chaz the other day and he fully got starstruck.

"The way we ended up on the podium here with what it means to the team and my family, this is better than the Bathurst win for personal reasons.

"It's a pretty big deal what's just happened."

Adding to the emotion for Percat was having endured a difficult year on-track after crossing from Brad Jones Racing in the off-season.

It was Percat's first podium since Sydney in October 2021 but he now hopes he can carry the momentum from Adelaide into next season when the Gen3 cars are launched.