Saturday Sleuthing: A Johnson Falcon Rides On
AFTER bringing you the story on a Holden last week, it’s only fair that this week on Saturday Sleuthing we bring you the story of a V8 Supercar Ford – and an ex-Dick Johnson car no less.
Originally built as an EF Falcon in 1996, this car has recently been put back into its 1997 Primus 1000 Classic Bathurst livery by new owner Troy Stapleton.
It was on display a fortnight ago at the Phillip Island Historics as part of a display by the newly formed Australian Five-Litre Touring Car Association, of which our V8 Sleuth will bring you further details in the weeks to come.
But Stapleton’s Falcon – DJR EF7 – remains one with plenty of history and it’s an ideal car to put under the microscope today on Saturday Sleuthing.
Originally built in 1996 and debuted at that year’s Sandown 500 by Johnson and Bowe, it was dubbed the ‘Mega-Car’ by Auto Action magazine in response to the ‘Supercar’ Commodore built earlier in the year by the Holden Racing Team.
The car finished second at Bathurst to Craig Lowndes and Greg Murphy and then went to New Zealand at the end of the season for the pair of events at Pukekohe and Wellington with Johnson driving it as #17.
It was updated to EL specification for 1997 and became John Bowe’s #18 Shell Helix car for the early part of the season at Albert Park and Calder before involvement in an inter-team collision on the Gold Coast with teammate Johnson.
It was repaired and returned to complete the Gold Coast weekend, but needed some proper repairs. Bowe drove it one more time at Phillip Island’s second round of the Shell Australian Touring Car Championship before it was pulled from racing duties, repaired and given a major overhaul.
A complete re-engineering project then unfolded under the direction of Kiwi Murray Bunn (well known for his work with Jim Richards on the famous Sidchrome Mustang in the 70s), which included modifying the driving position and suspension among a range of other changes.
It re-appeared in the wet Sandown 500 that year and again was the #17 Johnson/Bowe car for Bathurst, though it was retired after suspension failure pitched Bowe into the wall at McPhillamy Park in the first stint.
Bowe retained the car for 1998 and drove it for the entire season, including a round victory at Winton that would remain the last of his V8 Supercar career.
After finishing fifth in the ATCC, Bowe teamed with Cameron McConville for the enduros – the first time he’d not driven with Johnson in the enduros since joining DJR 10 years prior.
The Bowe/McConville combination finished third at Sandown before Bowe crashed the car in qualifying for the non-championship Gold Coast Indy event that preceded Bathurst.
It was repaired in time for the Mount Panorama classic, though engine dramas took them out of the race after 80 laps.
With the introduction of the AU Falcon for 1999, the EL model was pushed into the corner at DJR. However, this car was called back into duty for the ’99 Gold Coast Indy support races given teams were not willing to risk their current model cars so close to Bathurst.
It may have been the older model car, but it didn’t stop Paul Radisich from using the DJR EF7 chassis (updated to EL7 given its model update in 1998) to dominate and win the non-championship event.
From there this car has led a long and busy life. It was sold to Rod Salmon for the 2000 Konica V8 Lites Series before he sold it to Ross Halliday and he and Adam Wallis shared it later that year in the Queensland 500 and Bathurst 1000.
Halliday drove it in the 2001 Konica Series and it was in this period that a very young Jamie Whincup tested it at Mallala as well – this being his first-ever test in a V8 Supercar.
As history shows, Whincup would go on to have a pretty decent V8 Supercar career that continues to unfold!
Halliday sold the car back to Salmon, who drove it in the non-championship Konica race at Bathurst at the end of the 2001 season.
It found another home in 2002 with Terry Wyhoon purchasing it to run in that year’s Konica Series and he retained it for the following season, running it on a lease basis for former Thunderdome racer Graham Crawford in three rounds and at Bathurst by former Porsche racer Ray Ayton.
That was the end of the car’s history in racing in V8 Supercar competition, but it found a place to race in the Touring Car Challenge in 2004, a series run featuring Group A, V8 and Super Touring cars.
Gulf Western Oils’ Peter Vicary bought the car and it ran in the Touring Car Challenge between 2005 and 2007, before it again found a new owner in Leigh Moran come 2008.
Former car owner Terry Wyhoon prepared the car for Moran, who ran it in the-then new V8 Touring Car Series for ex-V8 Supercars between 2008 and 2010, when he had a major accident in it at Winton that necessitated some repair work.
It was re-painted into base Shell Helix colours and returned to the track in 2012 with Moran running it in Sports Sedans at the Bathurst 12 Hour as well as at Phillip Island before returning to the Victorian venue later in the year to compete in the Kumho V8 Touring Car Series round.
The car found a new owner in Troy Stapleton in December last year and the Victorian has put the car back into its 1997 Bathurst livery. He’s keen to get the car back on the track for a run soon – and so are we!
“I plan to race the car in a variety of events once I get used to running it,” Stapleton told the V8 Sleuth this week.
“DJR were great and gave me plenty of help with supplying a lot of the original signage from Bathurst 1997. The only ones I need to get done now are the red V8 Supercars sticker and the Ten and FOX Sports stickers.”
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