Van Gisbergen’s first of 80 Supercars Championship race victories came on New Zealand soil in 2011 at the short-lived Hamilton street circuit.
The win was achieved aboard the third FG model Falcon built by SBR, dubbed FG03, that van Gisbergen debuted partway through the 2009 season.
Victory in Hamilton in 2011 was followed up just three rounds later with another at Hidden Valley, after which SVG famously drifted a full victory lap back to the pits.
Van Gisbergen raced this same car through to the end of the 2012 season, meaning it was also part of his awkward ‘farewell’ from Supercars at that year’s Sydney 500.
By that point it had already been sold to current owner Terry Wyhoon, who took delivery of it from SBR at the Homebush circuit in the aftermath of the event.
“Shane had hit the medical car on Saturday and didn’t get off the line on Sunday,” Wyhoon recalled to Speedcafe.
“Ross Stone came over to me afterwards and said, ‘Terry, it even comes with a full tank of gas!’
“We took the bonnet off it that all the other drivers had signed, Ross sent me a new one to put on it and we were away.”
Wyhoon’s Image Racing subsequently campaigned the car in the lower tiers of Supercars racing, beginning with the Super2 Series.
A decision was made midway through last year to return it to its 2011 Hamilton colours, replicated with the help of ex-SBR and now Dick Johnson Racing signwriter Scott Ruddock.
The livery includes one-off signage worn at Hamilton in support of Christchurch following an earthquake that hit the city that year.
“Scott gave us the file. It’s not a copy of the file, it’s the file,” said Wyhoon of the livery.
“The rest of the car is as we purchased it. We never took an SP sticker off the inside of it.”
The car also underwent a mechanical refresh and was driven by Wyhoon at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival earlier this year.
It’s been listed in the ‘coming soon’ section of classifieds website My105, with full details of the auction to follow.
Interest in van Gisbergen’s cars is at an all-time high amid a burgeoning NASCAR career that included a stunning win on the Watkins Glen road course earlier this month.
Wyhoon raced NASCAR in Australia during the late 1990s and, with close connections in the US, has been enjoying SVG’s progress.
“He’s getting there,” he said of van Gisbergen’s tricky transition to the largely oval-based category. “He’s smart enough that he’ll work it out.”
Wyhoon also owns the final Project Blueprint-era SBR Falcon, which is back in its 2012 Tim Slade colours and is also set to be put up for sale.
Image Racing is not competing in the Super2 Series this year while Wyhoon mentors his son, Ryan, who is racing in the TGRA Scholarship Series.
One of Image Racing’s ZB Commodores, though, is being leased by Apogee Motorsport for the Darwin round and will be supported by Wyhoon at the event.
Watch van Gisbergen’s maiden Supercars race win at Hamilton in 2011 below
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