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Following a refreshing summer break, the red lights went out on Heritage Touring Cars’ 2026 season at the Phillip Island Penrite 100 Classic over March 14 and 15. We brought two strong grids out for the weekend, unleashing more than 40 historic Australian touring cars on the iconic seaside circuit.
This time, let’s take a closer look at our newly incorporated HTC super sprint, which featured 15 genuine Supercars that reignited old rivalries and put on a great show over the weekend.
Up and coming V8 Supercars pilot Kai Allen spent the weekend piloting a car that would have been on TV screens when he was a kid. He confidently pedalled the ex-Erebus Motorsport Mercedes-Benz AMG E63 at the front of the field all weekend, alongside Ben Eggleston in an ex-Red Bull VF Commodore.
Jacob Khouri, running double duty in the race grid as well, ran with them on Saturday in the Orrocon Falcon, David Murphy getting the ex-Tony Longhurst Falcon nicely hooked up and running well alongside Eggleston and Allen.
Chad Paris (FG – Khouri Family Collection) and HTC President Chris Stillwell arranged for two Dick Johnson Racing Cars, the Greens-Tuf FG and Xbox FGX, to run together in the first session on Sunday morning. Tickford Engineering has very recently completed full bare chassis restorations on these cars, and it was their first time on track together.
The Greens-Tuf car is actually Chas Mostert’s first race winning car in Supercars. Chas was contracted to Tickford having raced with them in Super2 and was loaned to DJR for his first drive in Supercars. Not only did Tickford provide a lot of the FG’s componentry, they also provided technical personnel and support to DJR.
The Xbox FGX car was sold into the DJR Team Penske business after running as a DJR FG for Tim Blachard in 2013 and Scott Pye in 2014. Updated from FG to FGX, it was the first Supercar driven by Marcus Ambrose after returning from an incredibly successful 9 years in Nascar, and also the very last car driven by him in Supercars competition.
Both the Greens-Tuf and Xbox cars were built by DJR in an era where they were the ones to source the chassis and engines. DJR then assembled the cars using an 888 pedal box and steering rack, and sourced the entire rest of the car including chassis rails, cross members, suspension, mechanical componentry, and electronics from Tickford (FPR). This underpins why Tickford was providing the technical support to DJR at the time, and why Tickford Engineering was chosen for their restoration.
Andrew Cavalli had another highlight out on track in the form of the ex-Murray Carter Sierra RS500. Andrew, who is Autosport based in Adelaide, along with some mates, bought the car at the end of its racing career. It then sat in a shed for 30 plus years until they were able to bring it out and begin progressively preparing it for racing in the HTC race grid. The car is yet to be finished and have its certificate of description issued, so they ran it in the HTC super sprint to get some experience.
We’re looking forward to seeing the Heritage Touring Cars supersprint field continue to grow and develop and bring more of these storied machines out to play.
