Robert James Frančević, (born on 18 September 1941 in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand) is a retired racing driver who featured prominently in New Zealand and Australia during the 1970s and 1980s. His biggest wins were the inaugural

Wellington 500 The Wellington 500 was a street race for touring cars which took place at Wellington City in Wellington, New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s. The 1987 event was a round of the 1987 World Touring Car Championship. The final running of the race w ...

street race in

Wellington, New Zealand Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by metr ...

in 1985 driving a

Volvo 240T The Volvo 200 Series (or 240 and 260 Series) is a range of mid-size cars produced by Swedish company Volvo Cars from 1974 until 1993, with more than 2.8 million total units sold worldwide. Like the Volvo 140 Series (1966 to 1974), from which it ...

, and the

1986 Australian Touring Car Championship The 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship was the 27th running of the Australian Touring Car Championship. It began on 2 March 1986 at Amaroo Park and ended on 13 July at Oran Park Raceway after ten rounds. This was the second ATCC to be run ...

, also in a 240T. Francevic's win in the 1986 ATCC was the first and only ATCC win by a non-Australian resident.

Career

Robbie Francevic started his motor racing career in 1966 when he and his team designed and built the "Colour Me Gone" Custaxie in which he won twenty races and the 1967 New Zealand Saloon Car Championship. During the 1970s Francevic was also a regular competitor in

Formula 5000 Formula 5000 (or F5000) was an open wheel, single seater auto-racing formula that ran in different series in various regions around the world from 1968 to 1982. It was originally intended as a low-cost series aimed at open-wheel racing cars tha ...

racing, racing in the

Tasman Series The Tasman Series (formally the Tasman Championship for Drivers)Tasman Championship for Drivers, CAMS Manual of Motor Sport with National Competition Rules 1974, pages 80 to 83 was a motor racing competition held annually from 1964 to 1975 ove ...

as well as the

Rothmans International Series The Rothmans International Series was an Australian motor racing series which was staged annually from 1976 to 1979. Initially open to Australian Formula 1 cars (commonly referred to as Formula 5000s), for the final year it was for ‘’Austral ...

. Robbie Francevic was the winner of the 1983 Benson & Hedges touring car series in NZ. Following the 1985

, Francevic, while still living in Auckland, contested the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship driving the Volvo 240T for owner and friend Mark Petch. Despite the speed he had shown in the NZ series, and that the Volvo's were winning races in the

European Touring Car Championship The European Touring Car Championship was an international touring car racing series organised by the FIA. It had two incarnations, the first one between 1963 and 1988, and the second between 2000 and 2004. In 2005 it was superseded by the World T ...

, Francevic shocked the established stars

Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, al ...

, Dick Johnson and Jim Richards by winning the third round of the ATCC at

Symmons Plains Symmons Plains Raceway is a motor racing circuit in Australia, located about south of Launceston, Tasmania. Since the closure of the Longford circuit in the 1960s it has been Tasmania's premier motor racing facility. The circuit is one of th ...

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

before going on to dominate the final round at Oran Park in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Other than Richards, Francevic was the only multiple race winner in the championship (Richards won 7, Francevic 2 and Brock one). Following the ATCC, and on Francevic's suggestion, Mark Petch recruited

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast A ...

and

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

Australian Drivers' Champion John Bowe to partner Francevic in the 1985 Castrol 500 at

Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parishes in England, civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom with the resort of Shanklin to the south and the settlement of Lake, Isle of Wight, Lake in between. Together ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. After a strong showing, the car finished its race with Bowe at the wheel at the entrance to the pits with a seized diff (the car was pushed into pitlane with a

jack Jack may refer to: Places * Jack, Alabama, US, an unincorporated community * Jack, Missouri, US, an unincorporated community * Jack County, Texas, a county in Texas, USA People and fictional characters * Jack (given name), a male given name, ...

holding the rear tyres off the ground). In 1986 Francevic became the first New Zealand resident to win the ATCC, becoming the second New Zealander (after Jim Richards in 1985) to win the series, and recording the only series win to date for

Volvo The Volvo Group ( sv, Volvokoncernen; legally Aktiebolaget Volvo, shortened to AB Volvo, stylized as VOLVO) is a Swedish multinational manufacturing corporation headquartered in Gothenburg. While its core activity is the production, distributio ...

. Francevic won the first two races of the season at

Amaroo Park Amaroo Park Raceway was a motor racing circuit located in Annangrove, New South Wales, in the present-day north-western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Opened in 1967, the road circuit served as a venue for a variety of competitions including t ...

and Symmons Plains, finished second at Sandown to the

Nissan Skyline The is a brand of automobile originally produced by the Prince Motor Company starting in 1957, and then by Nissan after the two companies merged in 1967. After the merger, the Skyline and its larger counterpart, the Nissan Gloria, were sold in ...

George Fury George Fury (born 31 January 1945, in Hungary) is a retired Australian rally and racing car driver. For the majority of his career Fury was associated with Nissan, twice winning the Australian Rally Championship, and twice runner up in the Aust ...

, and won again at

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

after runaway leader

blew the

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

in his

Holden Commodore The Holden Commodore is a full-size car that was sold by Holden from 1978 to 2020. It was manufactured from 1978 to 2017 in Australia and from 1979 to 1990 in New Zealand, with production of the locally manufactured versions in Australia endin ...

late in the race. This would prove to be his last win for the series and coincided with new team management, former

Holden Dealer Team The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was Holden's semi-official racing team from 1969 until 1986, primarily contesting Australian Touring Car events but also rallying, rallycross and Sports Sedan races during the 1970s. From 1980 the Holden Dealer ...

boss from the late 1970s John Shepherd was put in charge of the team following the sale of the team by

Mark Petch Motorsport Mark Petch Motorsport was a motor racing team that competed in Australian and New Zealand motorsport. History Mark Petch Motorsport was formed in 1985 by former New Zealand National Championship winner Mark Petch who by 1985 had become a wealth ...

to Volvo Australia to form the

Volvo Dealer Team The Volvo Dealer Team was an Australian motor racing team that competed in Australian touring car racing in 1986 winning the Australian Touring Car Championship. The team was managed by John Sheppard and had its base at the Calder Park Racewa ...

. The Volvo was overtaken in speed by the Nissan turbo's and despite a newly built 240T appearing mid-season, Francevic was often slower than Bowe in qualifying but still scored enough points to win the championship from Fury by just five points. Following the ATCC, Francevic wasn't happy with Shepherd's management of the team, nor was Shepherd happy with Francevic. Robbie was happy to have won the championship, but wanted to win from the front and driving for points like he was forced to over the latter part of the championship didn't suit his flamboyant, hard charging style. Tensions between Francevic and Shepherd came to a head at the 1986 Sandown 500. With the Volvo he was to drive with fellow Kiwi

Graham McRae Graham McRae (5 March 1940 – 4 August 2021) was a racing driver from New Zealand. He achieved considerable success in Formula 5000 racing, winning the Tasman Series each year from 1971 to 1973, and also the 1972 L&M Continental 5000 Champio ...

not having run in practice or qualifying due to the late build time, Francevic refused to race the car believing it (and the team's second car which was in the same situation) would not be competitive. While the John Bowe /

Alfredo Costanzo Alfredo Costanzo (born 3 January 1943, in Calabria, Italy) is a retired Italian born Australian racing driver. From 1980 to 1983 Costanzo won four Australian Drivers' Championships in a row, equalling the record set by Bib Stillwell from 1962 t ...

Volvo failed to finish, its fastest race lap was identical to the winning Nissan Skyline of George Fury and

Glenn Seton Glenn Seton (born 5 May 1965) is an Australian racing driver. He won the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1993 and 1997 while driving for his own team. Although he never won the Bathurst 1000 like his father Barry did in 1965, Glenn star ...

. Following his refusal to drive the car and his comments to the assembled media about the situation on the morning of the race, Francevic was fired from the Volvo Dealer Team on 15 September 1986, the day after the Sandown 500.

Bathurst 1000

At the 1985 Bathurst 1000, Francevic teamed with John Bowe in the Volvo and qualified fifth, his attempt at pole position in the Hardies Heroes top 10 run-off was thwarted by a flat tyre on his second run while trying to improve on his first run. With a very quick car and a strong diver pairing (Bowe, who like Francevic was on his first visit to

Mount Panorama Mount Panorama Circuit is a motor racing track located in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on Mount Panorama (Wahluu) and is best known as the home of the Bathurst 1000 motor race held each October, and the Bathurst 12 Hour ...

, was matching the Kiwi's times and it was only a late charge on qualifying tyres that saw Francevic post the quicker time), the pair considered one of the pre-race favourites along with the

Tom Walkinshaw Racing Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR) was a motor racing team and engineering firm founded in 1976, in Kidlington, near Oxford, England, by touring car racer Tom Walkinshaw. The company initially handled privateer work before entering works touring car r ...

Jaguar XJS The Jaguar XJ-S (later called XJS) is a luxury grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British car manufacturer Jaguar Cars from 1975 to 1996, in coupé, fixed-profile and full convertible bodystyles. There were three distinct iterations, w ...

', as it was thought the turbocharged Volvo was the only car capable of matching the speed of the

V12 V12 or V-12 may refer to: Aircraft * Mil V-12, a Soviet heavy lift helicopter * Pilatus OV-12, a planned American military utility aircraft * Rockwell XFV-12, an American experimental aircraft project * Škoda-Kauba V12, a Czechoslovak experim ...

powered

Jaguars The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the thi ...

. After a strong early showing in the race in which Francevic had held second for some time behind early leader

Tom Walkinshaw Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw (14 August 1946 – 12 December 2010) was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of ...

, a failed alternator diode put them many laps down. The car finally retired on lap 122 when it ran out of fuel on the run up Mountain Straight. After winning the 1986 ATCC and his much publicised falling out with the Volvo Dealer Team, Francevic drove

Andy Rouse Andrew Rouse (born 2 December 1947) is a British racing driver, most notably in the British Saloon Car Championship. He won the BSCC in 1975, 1983, 1984 and 1985. Andy Rouse is one of the most successful drivers ever to appear in the BSCC. His ...

's former

British Touring Car Championship The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is a touring car racing series held each year in the United Kingdom, currently organised and administered by TOCA TOCA, formally trading as BARC (TOCA) Ltd, is an organiser of motorsport events in ...

(BTCC) winning Ford Sierra XR4Ti for former Volvo team owner Mark Petch to little success in the

1986 Bathurst 1000 The 1986 James Hardie 1000 was an endurance motor race held on 5 October 1986 at the Mount Panorama Circuit, just outside Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The race, which was the 27th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race, was ...

with fellow Kiwi Leo Leonard, the car suffering terminal electrical problems on lap 26. Rather boldly, Francevic publicly predicted the turbo Ford would take pole position for the race, but the Kiwi pairing could only manage 21st on the grid with a time of 2:23.05 after a troubled practice and qualifying trying to get the car to run properly (despite the car being almost trouble free in pre-race testing). The time was 5.89 seconds behind the pole winning time set by Gary Scott's Nissan Skyline, and was 6.89 seconds slower than the Commodore of

Allan Grice Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver of ...

who set provisional pole time in qualifying. Francevic made his bold claim after the speed that the 2.3 litre turbocharged Sierras had shown in the FIA Touring Car Championship in Europe raced by

Eggenberger Motorsport Eggenberger Motorsport was a Swiss motor racing team that competed in the European Touring Car Championship in the 1980s. History In 1982, Eggenberger Motorsport won the 1982 European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) with Umberto Grano and Helmut ...

, and by the fact that Rouse had used the car to win the 1985 BTCC. After sitting out most of 1987 without a drive, Francevic was drafted by Frank Gardner to co-drive the second of the

JPS Team BMW JPS Team BMW is a former Australian motor racing team that ran from 1981–1987. The team's main focus was touring car racing but also ran in sports sedans and GT cars as well. The team, under the management of former British Touring Car Cham ...

's M3s at the

Sandown 500 The Sandown 500 (formally known as the Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The event's name, distance – and the category of cars comp ...

and

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most recen ...

, which (Bathurst) for 1987 had become a round of the

World Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sin ...

. Driving with the team's engine builder come driver Ludwig Finaur, Francevic finished fifth at Sandown before going on to his best ever Bathurst finish with sixth outright and second in class. During the race rain storms that hit late at Bathurst, Francevic, unable to see through a fogged up windscreen, accidentally ran over a pit lane marshal when coming into the pits, thankfully without any injury reported. The marshal wrote an official complaint to the race stewards over the incident, but due to the circumstances no action was taken. For

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

, Francevic and long time backer Mark Petch secured a

Ford Sierra RS500 The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...

from

Walter Wolf Racing Walter Wolf Racing was a Formula One constructor active from 1977 to 1979, which won the first race the team entered. It was owned and run by Canadian Walter Wolf. The team was based in Reading, UK but raced with the Canadian licence. Histo ...

in West Germany to run in the 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship, but only started one race (Round 3 at Winton) and was excluded before practice of Round 5 in

due to illegal build components on the Sierra and the championship run was abandoned in the effort to get the car right (Wolf racing had built the Sierra to

(ETCC) standards which allegedly included a more liberal interpretation of the

Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles w ...

rules than the

Confederation of Australian Motor Sport Motorsport Australia, formerly the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), is the nationally recognised governing and sanctioning body for four-wheeled motorsport in Australia. It is affiliated with the Federation Internationale de l'Au ...

(CAMS) allowed in Australia). At the time Francevic claimed that CAMS were trying to drum him out of the championship and that his sponsorship deals were only valid if he raced. As a result of not racing, the team lost its major sponsor and another needed to be found. The team then fronted with a new Sierra, and a new major sponsor in New Zealand confectionery company

Whittaker's J.H. Whittaker & Sons, Ltd (Whittaker's) is a confectionery manufacturer specialising in palm oil-free chocolate and based in Porirua, New Zealand. Whittaker's is the largest chocolate brand in New Zealand. Approximately 30% of their productio ...

was found in time for the

1988 Bathurst 1000 The 1988 Tooheys 1000 was a 1000 km endurance motor race for Group A Touring Cars.Armin Hahne Armin Hahne (born September 10, 1955 in Moers, West Germany) is a German racing driver, best known for his exploits in touring car racing. The highpoint of his career was winning both the 1982 and 1983 Spa 24 Hours driving BMW's. Another highli ...

. Two engine failures in practice saw them only qualify 14th while overheating finished their race on lap 103 after running strongly in the top 3 for over 70 laps. After a couple of shake down runs in the Sierra during the 1989 ATCC, Francevic then teamed with 1985 ETCC champion

Gianfranco Brancatelli Gianfranco Brancatelli (born 18 January 1950 in Turin, Piedmont) is a former racing driver from Italy. Career His racing career began in 1973, in the Formula Abarth series. In 1975, he advanced to Italian Formula 3 racing. Brancatelli entered 3 ...

in the Petch owned Sierra in the 1989 Bathurst 1000. The car was qualified 15th, but Francevic didn't get a drive after the right front wheel fell off the car under Brancatelli on lap 14 when going across the top of the Mountain. Having to drive the car back to the pits for over half a lap resulted in too much damage being done to the car's axle and front suspension. His last start at Mount Panorama was in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

with fellow Kiwi racer

Andrew Bagnall Andrew Bagnall is a Auto racing, motor racing driving, driver born in Wellington, New Zealand on 14 February 1947. Career Bagnall raced in the Australian Touring Car Championship in the late 1980s, in the New Zealand Touring Car Championship i ...

in Bagnall's Sierra RS500. Bagnall qualified the car 17th and the pair drove well all day to finish seventh outright in a race in which many of the more fancied big budget teams failed to finish or ran into problems which put them well out of contention.

Accolades

Robbie Francevic was an inaugural member of the ''MotorSport New Zealand Wall of Fame'' in 1994.

Career results

Complete Australian Touring Car Championship results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete World Touring Car Championship results

(

) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) † Not eligible for series points

Complete Bathurst 1000 results

External links

New Zealand Wall of Fame
{{DEFAULTSORT:Francevic, Robbie Australian Touring Car Championship drivers Living people New Zealand people of Croatian descent New Zealand racing drivers Tasman Series drivers Sportspeople from Auckland 1941 births Australian Endurance Championship drivers