ONE of the Ford Performance Racing Falcons that carried Allan Moffat’s 1977 Bathurst 1000-winning colours is making a return to Mount Panorama for this year’s Repco Bathurst 1000.
The car, driven to pole position for the 2012 race in the hands of Will Davison in a Moffat Ford Dealer 1977 retro livery, will form part of the display in Harris Park outside the Pit Straight marking the 45th anniversary of the first Bathurst Shootout in 1978.
Owned by long-time Dunlop Series team owner and former driver Matthew White, the car has recently been returned to its 2012 retro livery that it carried in the ’50 year’ celebration race in the hands of Davison and Kiwi John McIntyre.
That year’s race saw a range of teams, including FPR, change the liveries of its cars to celebrate famous cars, drives and teams from the history of the ‘Great Race’.
Davison claimed pole in the Saturday Shootout for that year’s race, though the Sunday went downhill and the #6 Falcon eventually was classified 24th after various dramas, including a wild ride off the road at the Chase when an anti-roll bar cut the car’s brakes!
The car – chassis FPR 1010 – is featured in-depth in V8 Sleuth’s upcoming 400-page hardcover collectors book documenting the history of every Falcon and Mustang Supercar produced by FPR, now known as Tickford Racing.
It’s available to pre-order here now from the V8 Sleuth Superstore and will be available in time for Christmas this year.
The very same FPR 1010 Falcon had started on the front row for the 2011 Bathurst 1000, though its chance for victory went out the window when co-driver Luke Youlden ran off the road into the sand at Murrays Corner on a lap 43 restart.
It later spent time in the Dunlop Series and ran at Bathurst in the hands of Dale Wood (2013), Andre Heimgartner and Steve Owen (2014), Chris Pither (2015) and Shae Davies (2016)
The other car that ran in Moffat Ford Dealers 1977 retro colours at Bathurst in 2012 – FPR 1111 driven by Mark Winterbottom and Steve Richards – has also been returned to its retro colours and is regularly raced by Tasmanian Ray Hislop in the Kumho V8 Touring Car Series.
