Owned by collector Anthony Poloni, the car has recently been returned to its Bathurst glory by Super2 Series squad and renowned restoration house Eggleston Motorsport.
The Wayne Gardner Racing VR was built by the team in 1995 from a chassis supplied by Dencar and debuted with Crompton at the wheel midway through that year’s ATCC.
Its last race with WGR came in 1998, after which is was sold through various hands before ending up with Poloni.
“It was a complete car, but it was in a bit of a rundown state,” said Ben Eggleston.
“The car was fully stripped down and blasted before being fully fabricated back to its original configuration in regard to the bar work and pedal box by George Smith of Dencar.
“We then painted it and reassembled it with a correct engine installed that was built by Neil Burns, who was the engine builder back in the day. It is period correct as of 1995 Bathurst.”
Eggleston has a vast collection of classic V8 machinery and is passionate about the early days of the five-litre era.
“The 1990s to the early 2000s were my favourite era. It was what I grew up watching and how I got interested in it,” he said.
“This car in particular is very cool with the Coca-Cola livery in addition to Wayne Gardner and Neil Crompton sharing it is awesome.
“With the restoration now complete, it is one of the best VR/VS examples in the country by far.
“I can’t wait to see when Neil views it and I think Wayne will be pretty proud of it too seeing as he owned the team at the time.”
The Coke Commodore is one of 19 cars entered in the Touring Car Legends category for this weekend’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival.
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