KIWI stars Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin have five Supercars Championship crowns between them, but there’s plenty of other things from Supercars history that also bring them together.
One of them is a Stone Brothers Racing-built and run Ford Falcon V8 Supercar driven by each of them in their formative years with the team.
SBR BF5 was driven by van Gisbergen in his first full-time championship season in 2008 and was then used by McLaughlin in his first season in the development series (now Super2) in 2010.
The car resides in Christchurch, New Zealand these days and has been listed for sale this week in the V8 Sleuth Online Showroom here, where you can find further details on its sale price.
This particular car was the fifth BA/BF model Ford Falcon V8 Supercar built by Stone Brothers Racing, though the first built and debuted brand new as a BF model machine.
It had its first shakedown in the hands of James Courtney at Queensland Raceway in mid-August 2007 and made its racing debut in his hands at Oran Park soon after as the #4 JELD-WEN entry.
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Courtney made an inauspicious debut in the car at Oran Park before being joined by former SBR pilot David Besnard for the two endurance races at Sandown and Bathurst.
They finished 16th in the Melbourne enduro but came very, very close to winning on the Mountain, Courtney crossing the line second just behind the winning Vodafone car of Craig Lowndes to help complete a Ford sweep of the podium positions.
Courtney ran this chassis for the remainder of 2007 (including finishing runner-up in the Desert 400 round in Bahrain) and into the start of 2008, however, he had a major accident with Lowndes in Adelaide and this car was massively damaged.
Initially it was thought it was a throwaway, but the team went to work on it and repaired it, returning it to battle in time for the Queensland Raceway round in July ’08 as van Gisbergen’s SP Tools car.
The Kiwi ran it for the remainder of the championship, joined by Jonathon Webb for the endurance races.
BF05 became a spare car for SBR in 2009 and was not raced, though made a return to active competition in 2010 as the #93 Fujitsu Falcon of Scott McLaughlin in the Fujitsu Series. It was driven in the first round in Adelaide by John McIntyre before the teenager took over the rest of the season.
He retained this car in the 2011 series and scored his first podium at the opening round in Adelaide and won his first race at Queensland Raceway, eventually finishing fourth in the championship.
This chassis moved to Matt Stone Racing for 2012 and became Ash Walsh’s SimPRO Falcon in the development category. The Ipswich driver had his last start in the car at Bathurst before upgrading to an FG model for the final two rounds.
Terry Wyhoon’s Image Racing acquired the car for 2013 and it formed the basis of Wyhoon’s return to racing that season in the Kumho V8 Touring Car Series. His team retained this car in 2014 and 2015 with Michael Hector driving it in the latter of those seasons.
Wyhoon stepped back behind the wheel in early 2016 competing in Combined Sedans at the Bathurst 12 Hour against a range of other ex-V8 Supercars, while young gun Tyler Greenbury did a deal to drive it in some of that year’s Kumho Series rounds.
He stepped up into an FG Falcon for the Queensland Raceway event and this car was then sold to former speedway racer Jon McCorkindale in late July.
The Porsche GT3 Cup regular joined the Kumho Series later that season, making his debut in the last round at Sydney Motorsport Park’s Muscle Car Masters.
McCorkindale retained this car into the 2017 and then 2018 seasons before selling it off to Kiwi Garry Cliff before the end of the ’18 series.
The car has had a full chassis up body restoration by Richard Atkinson in New Zealand and comes ready to hit the track.
