Vale: Robbie Francevic

Robbie Francevic was almost 45 years old when he made his Australian Touring Car Championship debut at Sandown in February, 1985. He was actually semi-retired from racing at the time; he was really only there to help out an old mate, Mark Petch, with his new Group A Volvo racer.

Many racegoers at Sandown that day probably wouldn’t have even heard of the New Zealander in the ungainly Volvo (a car Dick Johnson disparagingly dubbed the ‘Swedish Valiant’). However, that would change at the next round, at Symmons Plains – where Francevic and the Volvo won.

The very next year he was Australian Touring Car Champion.

Francevic was some kind of phenomenon on the local scene in those early years of Group A. With his trademark brashness, the outspoken, opiniated Kiwi could talk the talk – but more importantly he could also walk the walk.

He was completely undaunted by the high reputations of our local star drivers, and withstood everything the likes of Dick Johnson and Peter Brock were able to throw at him. But one thing Francevic never lacked was self-belief: frankly, he expected to be mixing it up at the front with the top Australians – and he was.

It’s true that in 1985-'86 the Volvo was the most powerful car out there, but it was also far from the best handler, and it was hamstrung by unsuitable tyres.

What in 1985 had been a low-key, almost speculative assault on the ATCC from across the ditch morphed into an Australian-based works-backed Volvo team for 1986.

But Francevic was only a part of it for barely enough time to bag the ATCC before his exit from the Volvo team, amid a falling out with team manager John Sheppard.

He appeared sporadically here in later years in Sierras and BMWs, though he never matching the heights he’d achieved in 1985-'86. Sixth at Bathurst in 1987 in a BMW M3 was the highlight on his post Volvo years – and also his best result in the Great Race.

But his spell racing in Australia was but a small chapter in the Robbie Francevic story. It’s little wonder he feared no one when he arrived in Australia: by 1985 he’d been racing for more than 20 years with plenty of success – and in all manner of machines, from Formula 5000 to all sorts of sedans, including the famous ‘Custaxie’ and 7.0-litre Fairlane he raced in the NZ Saloon Car Championship in the late 1960s. 

The local Aussie aces might have been taken by surprise when he fronted here in 1985, but fellow New Zealander Jim Richards knew exactly what to expect from the forthright Francevic – they’d been frequent sparring partners in New Zealand touring car racing – and rallying – right through the 1970s.