The 1990 Bathurst car has long been the missing piece of the Australian GT-R collection, having been destroyed in a crash at the Grand Prix in Adelaide that year.

A project led by Gibson Motorsport team manager Alan Heaphy to build a tribute car using a replacement shell and various original parts was completed ahead of the Adelaide event.

Well, almost completed. Unlike the 1991 and ’92 Great Race winners, the 1990 machine was on static display only.

“The only stumbling block we had was the electrical,” Heaphy told Speedcafe in the feature video at the top of this story.

“It’s quite complex and we just were not able to have that complete in time to have a fully functional, running car. But the car is complete.”

Asked of plans for the car from here, Heaphy said: “The first priority is to get it functional, so it operates, then we’ll track test it and make sure it goes.

“I’d love to just put it in the lounge room and leave it, that’s what I’d really like to do, but we’ll figure it out and see where it goes, what historic events it might be run in.

“At this stage our priority is to get it functional. Everything that leaves the workshop is race ready, so we’ll give it a test and then say right, where’s it going to go, what’s the next event?”

It’s currently unclear whether the car will be able to compete as an historic, given it uses a replacement chassis.

The ‘reborn’ machine belongs to Tony Alford, who also owns the two Bathurst winners.

Only five GT-Rs raced in period. The other 1992 Winfield machine resides in the Lindsay Fox Collection, while the Bob Forbes GIO car was sold by Alford to an investment fund last year.

Heaphy admits it’s regrettable that the original 1990 chassis was crushed, but says it was the result of import regulations at the time.

“It was repairable. The back window didn’t get broken, even,” he said.

“All the damage was front pillars, the front radiator support and that sort of thing. It didn’t look bad once you got all the bad bits off it.

“But there were some political reasons at the time with manufacturers and cars and import regulations and things like that which stipulated that the car had to be crushed.

“You’ve got to think of the mentality of the race team too, they just move on. There’s no mucking around, it’s ‘get rid of that, we’ll start with this again’ type of thing.

“It’s unfortunate that it had to be done but it was done, and we just had to find a proper chassis that did the job, which we did.”