Dick Johnson Racing has elected to sell the Ford Falcon FG that took James Courtney to the 2010 V8 Supercars Championship title.
The car, dubbed chassis 888A-018 by its builder Triple Eight, is the last previous-generation V8 Supercars chassis left in the DJR fold.
Dick Johnson, who was famously forced to sell his collection of legendary race cars six years ago in order to keep DJR afloat, says that moving the Courtney chassis on was inevitable following its restoration.
888A-018 was raced by Courtney throughout the 2009 and 2010 seasons before being taken over by the team’s new-for-2011 recruit James Moffat, who eventually stepped out of its partway through 2012.
“As much as we’d love to retain each and every car that we’ve raced, the simple fact is that we can’t and no team is in a position to do so,” said Johnson, who has engaged commentator and historian Aaron Noonan to sell the car via his V8 Sleuth website.
“It has fantastic history and was part of what I reckon was one of the most gripping championship finales we’ve ever seen in this country.
“The drama that surrounded that last event in Sydney was the sort of stuff you couldn’t even script.
“We’d like to find the car a new home. It will always retain a special place within the walls of DJR for its achievements and the work put into it by everyone in our workshop.”
Erebus Motorsport (formerly Stone Brothers Racing), Nissan Motorsport (formerly Kelly Racing) and Tekno Autosports have already sold their entire fleets of previous-generation cars following the move to the Car of the Future regulations this season.
Brad Jones Racing, Walkinshaw Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport retain the greatest stocks of the old vehicles at three each.
BJR will campaign all three of its cars at the next round of the Dunlop Series at Winton, while the eldest of the GRM chassis has not been raced in several years having been converted into a ride car.
Triple Eight, Tony D’Alberto Racing and Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport each have their one remaining pre-COTF chassis active in the Dunlop Series, where they are raced by Casey Stoner, Nick McBride and Paul Morris respectively.
Ford Performance Racing also has one 2012-specification chassis left in its keeping, with the car believed to have been used in the recent filming of the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality television program at Calder Park.
The 2003/04 Marcos Ambrose and 2005 Russell Ingall Fords are the most recent V8 Supercars Championship winners to have been retained by their owners, Stone Brothers Racing, since taking the title.
The 2001/02 Mark Skaife and 2011/12 Jamie Whincup Holdens are currently owned by the drivers that took them to victory, while others were snapped up by collectors or have been retained by Dunlop Series outfits.
Speedcafe.com expects that the Courtney DJR chassis will fetch in the vicinity of $300,000.
