A mechanical restoration of the car has recently taken place ahead of a scheduled appearance in the Heritage Touring Car class at the Winton Festival of Speed on August 1-3.
It’ll bring back to life one of the most famous stories in the history of the Great Race and a key part of the Johnson legend.
Johnson suffered an enormous accident during the ‘Hardie’s Heroes’ Top 10 Shootout on the Saturday morning of the event, destroying his original Greens’-Tuf Falcon.
Without a car less than 24 hours from the start of the nation’s biggest race, a tri-party deal was struck by sponsor Ross Palmer to get Johnson on the grid.
It involved the loan of a Falcon from privateer racer Andrew Harris and the purchase of another car, Barry Lawrence’s Commodore, for Harris to race instead.
Johnson and co-driver Kevin Bartlett sampled the borrowed Falcon in Saturday afternoon practice before the team undertook an overnight rebuild.
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The job, which included transferring the engine and gearbox from the wrecked car, was finished just in time for the race, with its paint still wet while sitting on the grid.
Sadly there was no fairytale end to the legendary story, with the car beset by electrical trouble that resulted in two seized gearboxes and retirement just 61 laps into the 161-lap race.
Johnson had also bemoaned the car’s handling in the early stages, quipping on the TV broadcast; “It’s such a dog I think we should’ve tied it to a fence”.
The car was subsequently sold to another privateer, Paul Jones, who contested a handful of events in it during 1984 – including an endurance race at Amaroo Park with Glenn Seton as co-driver.
It was parked when the Group C era ended at the conclusion of that year and onsold twice before being purchased by current owner Leo Khouri in 2005.
His son Jacob Khouri is due to take the wheel for the Winton historic event, before which the car will undergo a shakedown at Sydney Motorsport Park.
The restoration work has been undertaken by noted car collector and restorer Chad Parish and his team based in Sydney.
“The owner of the car bought it when his son was just 13 years old,” Parish told Speedcafe.
“It’s been sitting in the Bathurst museum and they’d been talking about wanting to drive it.
“We borrowed it from there and I said, ‘right, if you want to race it, I’ll just do it and do it right’.
“We rebuilt the engine, the gearbox, the clutch, the brakes, the fuel system, the steering box, it’s been a full-on job.
“We’ve just done the COD (Certificate of Description) with Motorsport Australia, so it’s good to go.”
The car had originally been built by George Shepheard for Alan Jones in 1982 amid plans for the F1 world champ to form a two-car team with Bob Morris.
It failed to start that year’s Great Race due to a heavy crash for Morris’ co-driver John Fitzpatrick in Saturday practice before being rebuilt and sold to Harris.
Shepheard was working for the Johnson team when the overnight Bathurst rebuild occurred in 1983 and features in the TV clip below.
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