The first Ford Mustang raced by the racing legend – one of the most iconic 1980s race cars – is up for sale ahead of starring at this weekend’s Canberra Festival of Speed.
A priceless V8-powered Ford Mustang raced by Bathurst winner and five-time Australian Touring Car Champion Dick Johnson is up for sale ahead of its appearance at this weekend’s Canberra Festival of Speed.
One of the most iconic Australia race cars of the era, the bright-green Ford Mustang was the first of only two raced by Johnson between late 1984 and 1987 after the most successful period of the Queenslander’s racing career.
The Greens-Tuf Mustang is one of several historic Dick Johnson Racing cars at this weekend’s event with restored versions of the team’s 1993 Ford Falcons also starring in Canberra.
Advertised on My105.com the legendary Mustang has no reserve with current owner Terry Lawlor not setting a price expectation.
“I’ve owned it twice now,” Lawlor told Drive. “I originally owned it five or six years ago and I sold it when I bought DJR6 – a Sierra … the reason I’m selling it this time is because I’ve bought DJR4 [Sierra] – I really enjoy the Sierras.
“All my other racers are Shelby Mustangs, so I was drawn to the Mustang side of it, and of course Dick Johnson.”
Johnson imported both Mustangs from Europe with legendary German racing outfit – and former Formula One team – Zakspeed, with the first car raced by Klaus Niedzwiedz before heading Down Under.
Zakspeed was the factory-backed Ford team in Europe and had developed the Mustang for new Group A rules.
This included a Holley carburettor-fed 5.0-litre V8 making around 400hp (298kW) with a five-speed Getrag manual gearbox and rear-wheel drive.
Despite minor power upgrades, the laconic Queenslander Johnson was at the wheel of the car at Bathurst when he famously joked on live television it was so slow it “couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”.
As well as not being fast – with only one race win between the two Mustangs across two seasons – the car was not super reliable, either.
“The Getrag [gearbox] was really designed for BMWs, so when you put 400hp-plus [298kW] through it, it’s not very reliable, and they also run a 7.5-inch Atlas diff [rear differential] – one of the Achilles’ heels of the car is the diff and gearbox,” Lawlor said.
The factory parts remain, as Lawlor has raced the Mustang in historic touring car racing, where rules mandate original-spec parts where possible.
“We weren’t allowed to change them; we applied to change them and got rejected so everything’s original as it ran in the day, which includes a steel intake manifold – that’s a further restriction on the car,” Lawlor said.
The Bathurst-winner switched from the Ford Falcon – which saw him win his first Bathurst 1000 in 1981 as well as the Australian Touring Car Championships – when the rules changed for the 1985 season.
The change from local ‘Group C’ to international ‘Group A’ regulations was designed to encourage more entries from around the world to race at Bathurst, while also enabling Australian teams to race overseas.
It required 500 road-going models to be sold and, with Ford having axed the V8 version of the Falcon in 1982, it did not have a V8-powered showroom model eligible to race.
While Holden developed the first ‘Group A’ Commodore, offering 500 road-going versions in 1985 through Peter Brock’s Holden Dealer Team Special Vehicles, Ford Australia did not work on a ‘Group A’ Falcon.
The Mustang was chosen instead as the Ford team’s Group A racer, despite the fact it was not part of the Australian showroom line-up, and the Mustang now up for sale – the first to arrive – landed in Australia in 1984.
Johnson drove the Mustang in practice at Bathurst 1984 – where it wore a white paint scheme and #71 instead of his customary #17 – as a test run for the next year, reverting back to his XE Falcon for the final ‘Group C’ Bathurst 1000.
In 1985, Johnson campaigned the Mustang in its now famous bright-green ‘Greens-Tuf’ livery in the Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC), the forerunner to today’s V8 Supercars Championship.
Johnson battled Jim Richards’ BMW 635 CSi, which won seven races, forcing him to make do with second in the championship in the Mustang ahead of third-placed Peter Brock in his VK Holden Commodore.
At Bathurst 1985, the car became the team’s spare but was taken out on track for practice and qualifying sessions, setting the eighth-fastest time.
It didn’t start the race, though, with Johnson and co-driver Larry Perkins switching to the sister Mustang in which they’d set the third-fastest time.
Regulations – since abolished – enabled drivers to be entered into more than one car, enabling Johnson and co-driver Larry Perkins more valuable track time.
The livery on the vehicle is now the 1985 Bathurst paint scheme, although it ran the number 18 in 1985 – with the car’s current number 17 used as the racing number allocated to Lawlor in historic racing.
The car remained the team’s spare for Bathurst 1986 but was raced in the Sandown 500 – where it wore the number 17 – with Johnson driving with Gregg Hansford.
In 1987, Johnson switched to the Group A Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500, the Mustang having been a stop-gap until the Sierra’s arrival.
The Mustang name did not return to the category until 2019 when the end of local manufacturing once again saw Ford searching for a replacement for the Falcon in V8 Supercars.
The new Sierra saw the #18 Greens-Tuf Mustang sold to racer Robbie Kerr in New Zealand, which he raced in the 1987 Wellington 500.
Kerr continued to race the car before it came back to Australia, where Ross Donnelly completed a full restoration before it was sold to the late Bill Pye, with Lawlor buying from Pye’s estate.
The Mustang will be at this weekend’s Canberra Festival of Speed, which takes place on Saturday and Sunday 25-26 January.
The post Dick Johnson’s first V8 Ford Mustang for sale appeared first on Drive.