1985 Australian Touring Car Racing - Discussion & Results

[Holden308]

I seem to recall in an AMC article that Garry Willmington said that before the 1985 James Hardie, he tried to buy a set of the Denloc Dunlops from TWR to run on his Jaguar at Bathurst (TWR was the official Dunlop racing distributor in the UK at the time), but Tom refused to sell him any.

Not really sure why he wouldn't sell him any. Its not like the #12 XJS was ever going to be a threat to Tom's cars. Even if the TWR Jags were legal, they still would have been light years ahead of Willmington and Janson in outright speed.

IIRC, the Jag was the fastest car in a straight line during the ATCC round at Adelaide in 1985. The long AIR straight allowed Willmington to open the V12 up a bit. He also had the Jag up fairly high on the grid at the GP support race that year in Adelaide where he was again the fastest on the long straight. If only he had a decent budget to develop the car, it might have given the local 635's, Volvo's, Commodore's and Mustangs a fright, at least in 1985.