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HomeNewsClassic CarsCHAMPION SUPRA SPORTS SEDAN TO BE RESTORED

CHAMPION SUPRA SPORTS SEDAN TO BE RESTORED

THE thumping Toyota Supra that Tasmanian Kerry Baily took to three National Sports Sedan Championship victories is set to make a comeback to the track.

The iconic Sports Sedan has been purchased by Tassie racer Ben Creed with a plan to return the car to not only on-track running, but actual competition duties as well.

Built in 1987, the Supra was taken to the Australian title by Baily in 1992, 1993 and 1997 and also finished runner-up in 1996 and third in 1993 and 1998.

It was later pensioned off and parts stripped for Baily’s subsequent Sports Sedan, a Nissan 300ZX.

Baily, who has inspected the car in recent weeks since its purchase by its new owner, eventually became a six-time Sports Sedan national champion given he later won the 2000 and 2003 crowns in the Nissan and won again in 2012 in an Aston Martin.

Creed has been running a Mazda RX-7 in Improved Production competition in Tasmania and later a Nissan R32 and then an FG Falcon run in Sports GT.

“Sports Sedans have always been a big class in Tassie and it sort of fizzled out a bit but there’s a big local resurgence at the moment,” Brett ‘Bert’ Pitfield, who works with Creed, told v8sleuth.com.au.

“Ben tracked the old Baily Supra down in New South Wales, put an offer in and away we have gone!

“Kerry pulled a huge amount of parts from it for the 300ZX and the last run it had was with Scott Calvert down here in Tassie in 2007 with a 350 in it using a Muncie gearbox and an independent nine-inch in the back of it.

“Kerry came over a couple of weeks ago to have a look. The car originally had a Lola rear end with a Hewland gearbox. It would be nice to find that sitting in a shed, but I don’t think that’s going to happen!

“We’ll put it back to a six-litre Chev and probably run an Albins transaxle to keep the configuration true to the car, without paying huge money for a Lola rear end, if we could even find one!

“We’re going to race it for sure. Being an ’87-built car it missed Group U Historic by a small margin, but we’d like to come to a national Sports Sedan round on the mainland.

The Supra’s new owner intends on returning it to its original livery used by Baily that featured yellow and white stripes (as per the Lakeside photo included here in the story), reminiscent of the Bob Jane-owned, Peter Brock-driven Chevrolet Monza of the early 1980s.

Our AN1 Images photo archive has a huge amount of Sports Sedan photography, check it out here.

If there’s a car not on the website you’d like to purchase photos of, email us here to let us know!

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