Saturday Sleuthing: Triple Eight's Thai Falcodore!

This week on Saturday Sleuthing we put a very interesting car under the microscope and, while it was built by Triple Eight Race Engineering and has had some very famous drivers, it actually has no V8 Supercar race history!

Our V8 Sleuth received an email recently from John Newman asking about a car he had spotted on the web racing in Thailand, of all places.

“In Thailand there is a guy who runs a VE Commodore in the Thailand Super Series Racing,” writes John. 

“His name is Craig Corliss and the team is Kiwi Racing. The car is painted in the old Vodafone colours and the info he gave was that it came from Australia and was a previous V8 Supercar.

“The first race of this year was in Malaysia, the second race at the Bira Circuit near Pattaya and the third race will be on Dec 14-15 at Bangsaen, Chonburi. I hope you have success tracking this car down.” 

Well John, indeed we do as we had a firm grasp on the history and location of this car from its time in Australia and since it has been sold.

The car you’re talking about is actually Triple Eight’s old Vodafone ride car and it has a very interesting story behind it.

Construction of the car (chassis 888A-022 for the really sleuthy sleuths out there!) began in 2009 as an FG Falcon V8 Supercar chassis and it was tabbed for use by Team IntaRacing, though this Queensland-based team collapsed partway through the season.

Triple Eight then announced plans in July 2009 that they would be building an FG Falcon ride car, purpose-built to be used exclusively as a passenger ride vehicle – and that car was this car.

As the year progressed, it was announced the team would swap to racing Holden Commodores in 2010, so this car then became a Commodore-panelled machine, though with a Falcon chassis underneath – very much a hybrid ‘Falcodore’ indeed!

The car broke cover for the first time at Queensland Raceway on December 17, 2009 proclaimed to be the ‘first Commodore built by Triple Eight’, which technically was kind of true …

To keep the 2010 TeamVodafone livery a secret, the car had white flash stickers covering up the design and signage before it began its ride cars duties the next season.

In 2010 it would hit headlines all over the world, featuring in a major driver swap during Australian Grand Prix week at Albert Park where F1 World Champion Jenson Button slipped behind the wheel as Jamie Whincup steered a 2008-spec McLaren-Mercedes F1 machine.

The car was also used at the Albert Park event in the Ultimate Speed Comparison with endurance driver Steve Owen driving.

The Albert Park driver swap stunt of 2010 was impressive, but Vodafone blew it away in 2011 when they took the ride car to Bathurst as part of another swap – this time Button drove the V8 around the famous Mount Panorama while Craig Lowndes was given the wheel of the McLaren-Mercedes.

“I didn’t expect so much grip,” said Button of driving the V8.

“I haven’t hammered a car over kerbs like that for 12 years so it was a new experience for me and something I’ve missed. I was holding on right all the way. It takes everything out of you. It was the experience I’ve wanted to have for many years and I’ve finally done it.”

Endurance driver Andrew Thompson took the wheel of the Ultimate Speed Comparison at the Grand Prix while Filipino driver Enzo Pastor became the first driver from his country to drive a V8 when he tested the car at Queensland Raceway in September that year. 

The car again acted as a ride car in 2012 with team Dunlop Series driver Scott Pye at the helm for the Ultimate Speed Comparison at Albert Park, while it also became the first V8 to lap the fully extended Sydney Motorsport Park circuit during a wet ride day in July 2012.

With the imminent arrival of a new model VF Commodore under the Car of the Future rules platform for 2013, Triple Eight advertised the car for sale midway through last season and sold it (via the V8 Sleuth’s site no less!) at the start of this season.

New owner Craig Corliss is a Kiwi that has previously raced an ex-Brad Jones Racing Falcon AU and he took the car back to his native New Zealand.

Eagle-eyed V8 Supercar viewers will have seen the car in the background of a Channel 7 hosting segment on its coverage of the Pukekohe V8 Supercar event this year, where the car was racing in the GTR NZ category – essentially an ‘anything goes’ series in New Zealand. 

It then was sent to Thailand to race in the Thailand Super Car Championship in which it has been competing against some other ex-V8 Supercar machines among a range of other cars.

It was advertised for sale a few months ago with the instruction that the car would be available for a buyer as of December this year from Thailand – so if you’re a Triple Eight fan with a keen eye on history it might be one worth saving the pennies up for!

So there you go John, that’s the story behind the Triple Eight V8 in Thailand!

Have a car you’d like to know more about? Know where one is?

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