THE 2019 Bathurst 1000-winning car is well on its way to being fully rebuilt ahead of being shipped overseas to its new home.
Scott McLaughlin and Alexandre Premat piloted Ford Mustang chassis DJRTP06 to victory, ending a 25-year drought for Dick Johnson Racing – then DJR Team Penske – in the Mount Panorama enduro.
The chassis had been brand new at the start of the 2019 season, its Bathurst triumph one of 18 race victories amid 15 pole positions that underpinned McLaughlin’s second Supercars Championship title.
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However, this car didn’t get to receive the crown with its Kiwi pilot.
Damage done by McLaughlin’s crash during qualifying at the subsequent Gold Coast 600 saw the car written off by the team, with a replacement chassis used to seal the 2019 title.
The car’s significance meant that, while it would never race again, it was destined to be repaired to concourse condition with DJR chairman and CEO Ryan Story confirming it will soon join the fleet of cars in Team Penske’s museum in the United States.
“That car was repaired by Paul Ceprnich and his team at PACE Innovations, it’s arrived back at the workshop now and is being assembled in earnest,” DJR boss Ryan Story told supercars.com.
“At some point in the future that will take pride of place at Penske’s motorsport museum in Arizona.”
While the panels damaged in the Gold Coast shunt were auctioned off for charity, they were not the same ones that had been on the car when it took the chequered flag at Bathurst.
Those panels were taken off the car immediately after the race and preserved in the knowledge that the chassis would eventually become a museum piece.
DJRTP06 will become the third Bathurst-winning car from the past decade to depart Australian shores, following the cars that won the 2011 and 2013 editions of the race.
