THE latest steps in the restoration of the first Wayne Gardner Racing-built Coca-Cola Commodore have been taken with the familiar #4 Coke livery being returned to the car.
The chassis, WGR001, is owned by a pair of Victorian-based enthusiasts, who have opted to have its livery returned to how it appeared in the opening round of the 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship at Sandown.
Wayne Gardner drove it to second and third in the pair of races, the result good enough to give him third place on the podium behind round winner Larry Perkins and eventual champion John Bowe.
Design and signage expert Tim Pattinson has spent hours working on the elements required for the livery and has put together the video below to run fans through the process involved in returning the car to its familiar Coke colours and signage.
“I’ve been wanting to show fans of the sport a closer look behind the scenes at what I do day to day working on older cars such as WGR001 through to the latest Supercar liveries and signage,” says Pattinson.
“i’m a big fan of the history of our sport and I really enjoy doing these restorations and putting the cars back to the exact livery details that they ran.
“Finding the correct chassis info on V8 Sleuth and the photo libraries on an1images.com makes the job much easier.
The WGR001 chassis was debuted by Gardner at the start of 1994 and was initially a VP Commodore before it was updated to VR specification for the 1995 season and again raced by Gardner as the team’s #4 Coke Commodore.
It continued to serve the team into 1996 and was driven by Gardner during that year’s ATCC. He scored a race win at Mallala in this chassis before it was turned over to be raced by Lansvale privateers Steve Reed and Trevor Ashby in 1997.
Imagery of the Coke/WGR Commodores is included in V8 Sleuth’s new book, ‘Racing The Lion: An Illustrated History of Holden In Australian Motorsport – it’s available to order here now from the V8 Sleuth Online Bookshop, the perfect Christmas present for a Holden fan!
