Last week, Repco The Garage recalled Holden Racing Team engineer Wally Storey’s tale of the introduction of Group 3A back in 1992, so here is the Ford side.
Ford’s two supported teams Dick Johnson Racing and Glenn Seton Racing built Falcons for the new formula, however as stated by Storey DJR’s was a wild incarnation of the ruleset.
Named EB1, the Falcon was never destined to race as it didn’t fit the production-based regulations set out by CAMS at the time. In fact, EB1 was a feature of the Australian Touring Car Championship circus as a show car before being sold off by the team.
Ace Kiwi engineer Neal Lowe led the project, which made two public appearances at Oran Park and the Bathurst Media Day, although it had been confirmed illegal at its first sighting due to tubbed wheel wells among other things.
In the middle of a long standing partnership with Johnson and his team, John Bowe remembers the time well.
“The Ford Motorsport man at the time was Peter Gillitzer, who was a great bloke, an engineer and a pretty clever guy,” explained Bowe.
“He encouraged Dick, (Team Manager) Neal Lowe and everyone at DJR to build this quite outrageous car.
“It had wheel tubs plus various other bits and pieces that weren’t accepted at the time as normal for a touring car, and he then encouraged the other Ford supported driver at the time, Glenn Seton, to build a more Group A style car.
“And of course, that was back in the CAMS days when it was making the rules, so when CAMS had a look at Dick’s car they said, ‘You can’t run that’, so he’d built this car at Ford’s behest and now couldn’t run it.
“It cost a fortune, I felt so sorry for him. It was a beaut car too.”
However, DJR now headed by Ross Stone built two Falcons up to the new regulations for Johnson and Bowe, with immediate success at Amaroo Park following.
The return to Ford versus Holden V8 warfare was an exciting change for Australian motorsport Bowe said, especially on the Blue Oval side due to its inconsistency of support.
“It was huge,” Bowe enthused.
“Ford had been asleep for a while.
“It had killed off the V8 engine earlier and were just starting to get back into it again. The guys that were in charge of Ford at the time, Jac Nasser was the man that bought back the V8 and Geoff Polites really got into it, and made a lot of difference.”
