2020 50c 1984 Ford XE Falcon Greens-Tuf – 60 Years of Supercars Coloured Coin in Card

Australia enjoys an enduring love affair with Supercars racing and this year celebrates 60 years of the Australian Touring Car Championship. The first Australian Touring Car Championship was held in 1960 at Gnoo Blas, NSW where the single-race title was won by David McKay driving a Jaguar.

An Australian-made car first won the ATCC in 1970 – the second year of the title being decided over a series of races – when a Holden Monaro GTS 350 ended a decade of dominance by British and American cars.

Jaguars dominated the early years, but the V8 power took over in 1965 when Norm Beechey won at Sandown in the first Ford Mustang brought to Australia. V8-engined cars have subsequently accounted for all but 10 titles. Since the arrival of the Mustang in 1965, Australians have had a passion for V8 engines that remains the foundation of the sport. This fascination of V8s reached its zenith in the Supercars era from the 1990s to now, a Holden-versus-Ford era that has the Red Lion ahead with 15 Supercars titles to the Blue Oval’s 12. However, over the total 60 years of the ATCC Ford leads with 26 titles to Holden’s 21. In the hundreds of races since its humble beginnings in 1960, the ATCC has created champions and legends through classic races and rivalries.

XE Falcon

The last ATCC for the so-called ‘Big Bangers’ – the cars built to Australia’s unique Group C rules in the 1970s and early 1980s – proved it’s not really that hard being green.

Armed with his muscular self-built 5.7-litre ‘Greens-Tuf’ Ford Falcon XE for 1984, laconic Queensland folk hero Dick Johnson took out his third ATCC title in four years, narrowly beating arch-rival Peter Brock in a Commodore.

The big green XE Falcon benefitted from a raft of new technical freedoms that saw it line up on massive 19-inch diameter rear wheels with 14-inch wide tyres – which helped put all its 335kW of power and 675Nm of torque to the ground but placed enormous strain on the rudimentary production-based body, suspension and drivetrain.

Coin Set Features

• Uncirculated coloured coin in presentation card featuring information on the 1984 Ford XE Falcon Greens-Tuf driven by Dick Johnson
• Obverse features the effigy of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II sculpted by Jody Clark
• Australian legal tender

Technical Specifications

ABOUT THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN MINT

The Royal Australian Mint is the sole producer of all Australia’s circulating coins. Opened in 1965 and situated in the Australian federal capital city of Canberra, in the suburb of Deakin, the Mint is also a very popular tourist destination for visitors and locals alike. Swan Bullion Company is proud to be an authorised distributor for The Royal Australian Mint’s bullion and numismatic products.

* Coin is not to scale in image 1 *