THE ex-Dick Johnson Ford Falcon V8 famously crashed in the 1993 Bathurst 1000 is making a return to one of the tracks it raced on in its period competition career.
Owner David Murphy will step behind the wheel of the #17 Shell Falcon EB at this March’s Penrite 100 Classic, the VHRR-run Historic event at Phillip Island on March 13-15.
The car will run as part of the Five-Litre V8 SuperSprint category, where a range of ex-V8 Supercars and cars from the prior five-litre 1990s era turn laps at speed, though not in racing competition.
The famous yellow Ford is the same chassis – DJR EB3 – that Johnson drove in the 1993 Australian touring car season, the first run to the modern, winged, five-litre V8 regulations.
In fact, it won the first V8 ATCC race run to the new rules at Amaroo Park, when Johnson won the heat race for the outright cars.
The car raced at Phillip Island just once – in 1993 – when Johnson won the Dash for Cash and claimed pole position for Race 1, but he couldn’t stop Glenn Seton from winning both races and ‘DJ’ was forced to settle for third and fourth in the two races.
MORE HISTORY: Read about this EB3 chassis in our Falcon Chronicles book here.
Johnson and John Bowe drove the car in that year’s Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst, only for Johnson to be taken out of the race in a spectacular accident at the top of the Mountain after being collected by Commodore privateer Bill O’Brien.
The chassis never raced again in period and was repaired by panel beating students from the Campbelltown TAFE in Western Sydney as part of their course. The car was rebuilt as a replica of the 1994 Bathurst-winning Falcon that was written off in an accident with John Bowe at the wheel at Phillip Island in 1996.
The Falcon was on display in the Repco Trackside Store at the 2025 Repco Bathurst 1000. Photo: an1images.com / Aaron Noonan.
Murphy’s Falcon has since been returned to its 1993 Johnson #17 specification and livery and is being prepared by Eggleston Motorsport to run at Phillip Island in March.
Having spent the last few years in the livery it ran in the 1993 ATCC, the car is being returned to its 1993 Bathurst livery; that particularly livery featured different signage and a different design to the ATCC version.
A sister chassis – EB2 – was John Bowe’s #18 Falcon in the 1993 season and has also been restored in recent years to its ATCC livery from that year.
There’s been a little confusion from fans in recent times as it is currently on display at the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst with #17 on its doors, however that particular car only raced as car #17 in two different liveries to how it currently is displayed; in 1992, the first year of the five-litre V8 cars, and also at the 1993 Sandown 500.