MOTORSPORT: Tru-Blue Falcon born again

Dick Johnson is going Tru-Blu for the first time since the 1980s as he fires up a retro racer based on one of his classic Bathurst Falcons.

The Aussie touring car star once known as 'Tricky Dicky’ has been supervising the construction of a born-again XD Falcon that his son Steven will race in this year’s Touring Car Masters series.

Now, with it almost ready to go, he will pull out a driving suit and helmet to wind the clock back more than 35 years.

“This will be a buzz. I’m looking forward to driving an XD the way it could have been,” Johnson tells carsales.

“It’s the stuff we used to dream about. It will be a completely different kettle of fish.”

The car is a ground-up recreation of one of Johnson’s most iconic cars and the one that claimed his first Bathurst 1000 victory in 1981 after the famous ‘Rock’ incident at Mount Panorama that killed his original XD racer.

“This new car is a lot different. It’s got a lot of the latest Supercars safety stuff in it, a proper roll-cage, and it has around 300 horsepower more than the original,” Johnson says.

“It’s been designed properly, with everything on CAD, and the latest TCM rules are pretty liberal. It’s going to be fast.”

Steven is the defending and three-time TCM champion with a Ford Mustang and Dick is confident he will be the one to beat again in 2020.

“This new car is going to be hard to beat.”

Johnson last turned track laps when he drove a Supercars Mustang at last year’s Adelaide 500 meeting, in a three-car Mustang demonstration alongside Marcos Ambrose in a NASCAR and Scott McLaughlin in a road car.

But he says he is not making any special preparations for the XD time at Lakeside.

“I’m not that old that I can’t truck on regardless. You get hot and sweaty, but I’ve been through the age of hot flushes,” says the 74-year-old.

“I still get a buzz. Especially with these type of things. And it certainly brings back a lot of memories.”

Johnson says he’s certain of two things when it come to the Lakeside shakedown.

“Steve will be lucky to get into the car. I’m going first and I’ll keep going until I’ve had enough.

“I don’t think we’ll even bother timing Steve. We know who will be faster.”

Johnson is keen to see how things have improved since his original XD, while admitting that the $350,000 build cost for the 2020 model is a long way from the “$80-something thousand” he spent on the ’82 racer.

“Still, if you take inflation into account it’s probably not that much different.”

The most obvious visible difference with the new car is that it is missing the over-sized flared guards of the original, something that is now restricted by TCM rules.

“The back-end used to move around so much we needed those flares. It would have rubbed a hole in anything narrower.”

Once the XD is up and racing, Johnson will switch focus to a pair of Ford Sierra RS500s he is building through his Formula Johnson business. Like the Falcon, the idea is to update them with modern technology.

“I’m pretty excited about the Sierra. They are a pretty simple car, but with what we know it will be an awesome piece of kit.”

Before then, Johnson has a red circle around February 10 and also has a few vacant spots to sell for passenger rides in the Tru-Blu Falcon through the Authentic Collectibles website.