A lightly raced V8 Supercar with notable history has emerged for sale in low key fashion.
Ford Falcon BF Chassis WPS 018, the only car to have been built up in-house by WPS Racing, has recently surfaced in New Zealand on Facebook Marketplace.
Currently priced for sale at NZD$100,000 (AUD$83,673 at time of writing), the car’s Marketplace listing reveals little background beyond the fact it is ‘ex-Max Wilson… from 2007.’
V8 Sleuth can confirm this car is indeed the chassis predominantly driven by Wilson, the Brazilian former Champ Car racer and Formula 1 test driver, as the #8 WOW Sight & Sound car in the latter part of the 2007 V8 Supercars Championship.
Max Wilson and Jason Bargwanna brought the WOW Sight & Sound Falcon home seventh at Bathurst, 2007. Images: AN1 Images/Juris Puisens
Originally owned by 00 Motorsport, it was an unbuilt chassis purchased by WPS Racing following the closure of the Bob Forbes-owned team in 2003.
It took more than four years for this chassis to be built into a complete car, before it was finally debuted in the 2007 Sandown 500 by Wilson and Michael Caruso.
A unique design feature of this chassis was its inward positioning of the driver’s seat, which also allowed the in-car rollbar adjusters to be placed between the driver’s seat and door rather than the customary position to the left of the driver.
WPS 018 competed in only six race meetings at championship level – all in 2007 – with the highlight being a seventh-place finish in that year’s Bathurst 1000 for Wilson and Jason Bargwanna.
The unique driver’s seat positioning of WPS 018 is visible in this shot at Sandown in 2007. Image: AN1 Images/Justin Deeley
WPS Racing shut its doors on the eve of the 2008 V8 Supercars Championship which saw this car, along with WPS’ two other 00 Motorsport-built BA/BF Falcons, transferred to Racer Industries in a shutdown sale.
This chassis was run by Craig Baird in the Queensland Raceway round of the 2008 Fujitsu Series to prove its potential to possible buyers.
It never raced again in V8 Supercar competition and was eventually sold to New Zealand where it was used as a ride car in the early 2010s.
In that time, WPS 018 was driven by then-V8 Supercar endurance driver John McIntyre, while Mark Winterbottom was also engaged to cross the Tasman and deliver passenger rides in this car.
The Facebook Marketplace listing of WPS 018 can be found here.
