Winterbottom’s championship-winning Falcon makes racetrack return

Following a 12-month restoration and subsequent sale, the Ford FG X Falcon Supercar in which Mark Winterbottom won the 2015 Supercars Championship for Tickford Racing has made its return to a racetrack.

Chassis #FPR1217 was originally built by Tickford Racing in 2012 and made its track debut in 2014 as an FG Falcon before being updated with FG X spec panels for the 2015 season. After four race wins in 2014, Winterbottom drove the car to another nine victories in 2015 on his way to the championship – Tickford’s first and, so far, only Supercars title.

The car remained in use by Tickford Racing for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 Supercars seasons, where it was driven by Cam Waters, Richie Stanaway and Jason Bright, as well as Winterbottom. In 2019, it was relegated to Super2 Series duty, where the likes of Broc Feeney, Thomas Randle and Zak Best raced it.  

At the conclusion of the 2021 Super2 season, Tickford Racing retired chassis #FPR1217 and put it to auction, but it was passed in. That led the team to undertake a full restoration of the car to concours spec that took most of last year and included a refurbished engine, rebuilt transmission and recreation of the Pepsi Max livery from the 2015 season.

Freshly restored, the car was once again put on the market by Tickford Racing late last year, with an asking price of $800,000 that included spare wheels, a wheel gun, air jack spike and other parts, plus a racing suit worn by Winterbottom that season.

Whether chassis #FPR1217 actually sold for the $800K requested is unknown, but the car did sell and part of the handover process for the new owner included a shakedown by Tickford Racing’s Cam Waters (who briefly raced the car in 2016) at Winton Motor Raceway in late May.