EREBUS Motorsport will next season become the latest team to sport the iconic colours of Coca-Cola in the Supercars Championship.
Coke’s history in Australian touring car racing stretches back to Allan Moffat’s iconic 1969 Ford Mustang, pre-dating more modern connections with Wayne Gardner and Chris Pither.
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V8 Sleuth takes a look back at each of the Coca-Cola cars courtesy of the AN1 Images Archive.
Coca-Cola’s grand entry to the V8 scene in 1994 came with the new Wayne Gardner Racing, which fielded Commodores for ex-World Motorcycle Champion Gardner and Neil Crompton.
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There was also a Diet Coke Commodore on the grid in 1994, run by LoGaMo Racing for a young Paul Morris, who also campaigned these colours on BMWs from 1993-97.
RESTO: The Dude’s Diet Coke Commodore resurrected
Bathurst provided both the lowlight and highlight of WGR’s 1995; a tangle between the teammates at the ATCC sprint round was followed by a third place in the Great Race.
COLA CARNAGE! When Gardner and Crompton collided
WGR’s Coca-Cola Racing remained a two-car team at the start of 1996 before budget constraints meant it trimmed back to a single entry for Gardner.
HISTORY: What happened to the WGR Coke Commodores?
Gardner started 1997 with a bang by winning the opening round under lights at Calder Park, but ended up missing three ATCC rounds due to a lack of funds.
AUDIO: Wayne Gardner on the V8 Sleuth Podcast
Although WGR was shut down at the end of 1997, Gardner retained one car and returned for selected events the following year, including the Bathurst 1000.
SHOP: 1998 FAI 1000 Classic now on DVD!
Gardner struck a deal with Perkins Engineering to field a Coke-backed entry at Albert Park, Adelaide and Bathurst in 1999. This marked the end of the line for WG and Coke.
LIMITED STOCK! Perkins Engineering: The Cars book
The next full Coke-sponsored entry to appear in Supercars did not come until 2020, when Kiwi Chris Pither inked a deal with Team Sydney (rebranded from Tekno Autosports).
Pither brought the Coke colours to Brad Jones Racing for 2021, co-driving at Bathurst with the car’s primary pilot Macauley Jones.
This year Pither and Coke returned to the ex-Tekno team, now PremiAir Racing. Indigenous Round and retro-themed liveries added to the regular season look.
GALLERY: Every Supercars Indigenous Round livery
