THE first Castrol Ford Falcon V8 touring car that Bathurst 1000 winner Tony Longhurst’s team built and raced has a new owner.
Falcon collector and racer David Murphy has been unveiled as the new owner of the EF model Falcon that Longhurst raced during the 1995 Australian touring car season.
“I tried to buy this car 6 yrs ago and wasn’t successful but today was the day,” Murphy posted this week on social media.
“The Falcon is straight off to Eggleston Motorsport to put it back together, give it a tidy up and get it ready to race by the last quarter of this year.”
The car – chassis LR 0195 – was the first Falcon built by Longhurst’s then-newly established team in early 1995 after he had split from the BMW team of which he had been co-owner with Frank Gardner and Terry Morris.
Built at the time in a space of reportedly 12 weeks, the Castrol Ford made its race debut in the opening round of the 1995 Australian Touring Car Championship at Sandown.
That round of the championship is included on ‘The Best of 1995’ DVD from the Seven Sport Magic Moments of Motorsport Series, available here in the V8 Sleuth Superstore.
Longhurst shared it that year with fellow Queenslander Wayne Park in the Sandown and Bathurst endurance races.
Longhurst Racing prepared and ran the car again in 1996 for privateer Steve Ellery before it spent time with the Colourscan privateer V8 Supercar team driven by Danny Osborne.
Ellery spoke about this period of his career in a recent episode of the V8 Sleuth Podcast, available here on the V8 Sleuth website.
Its last period V8 Supercar race was the 1999 FAI 1000 at Bathurst, where it ran with OzEmail Internet backing driven by Mark Williams and Scott Fleming.
