TWO new cars, including a Supercars championship-winning Ford, have arrived at the National Motor Racing Museum (NMRM).
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The vehicles have arrived just a few weeks out from the Bathurst 500 at Mount Panorama, which will be the season opener event for the 2021 Supercars Championship.
Fans of the sport will likely be very excited to see one of the new additions, the Ford FG Falcon driven by current Supercars driver James Courtney when he won the 2010 championship.
The car placed fifth in the Bathurst 1000 that year.
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NMRM manager Brad Owen said the car has joined the Dick Johnson exhibition and is expected to be at the museum for the next six months.
"It's owned by Charlie Schwerkolt, who is now the team principal at Team 18, but at the time he was the co-owner of Dick Johnson Racing," he said.
"This was sort of the high point of his time at Dick Johnson Racing, so he has bought the car back and restored it back to the way it was when it won the championship."
As a Ford supporter, mayor Bobby Bourke is pleased to see the Courtney car out on the museum floor.
Museum visitation has been on the rise in recent months and he expects this car will help to draw in even more patrons.
"More around the time the races are on. This James Courtney one has a lot of history to it," Cr Bourke said.
The other new car at the museum is a Porsche 911 RSR, driven by Wayne Park.
"It started life as a road car and was converted to race in the 1980s. In 1994 it won the first Australian Porsche Cup Series, so that turned into Carrera Cup," Mr Owen said.
"It's kind of got an interesting history, it is something different. The car continued to race in the 90s and into the 2000s and has been used for some historic stuff."
Mr Owen is pleased to have some new cars with such different histories to offer museum visitors.
"We always enjoy bringing something new into the display to give people a reason to come," he said.
"The Dick Johnson exhibition has been running since September and we had one of the cars in that first run leave, so [the FG Falcon] brings an extra car into that exhibition and shows a different part of the history of Dick Johnson Racing.
"The Porsche, it attracts a different audience. You might not be a Supercars fan, you might not be a Holden or Ford person, but this is another kind of race car you might have an interest in."
