Car research, it can be a great joy, and it can also inflict great mental agony on those willing to dive into history to know things and you should check back here every now and then to see how things play out.

Provenance is important when you have or want to have a car, you want to know what the car was, who owned it and who drove it, some people may have an historical car and have absolutely no idea about it.

Owners of cars in the present day may want to know the past so they can recreate the livery of the past look of the car.

Some car history is easy-peasy for owners, their car would come with the logbook to say where it has been.

For those who haven’t had that luxury as things do get lost over time, there are plenty of things you have to take into account when somebody down the chain cannot remember where they got the car from.

Memories of events are mostly 23 to 37 years old, so they may not be totally accurate, multiple accounts and written and/or photographic proof from the time period is your best bet to get the information you need.

Some people owned multiple cars, John Faulkner had a couple, Eddie Abelnica had three of John’s cars, Walter Giles had several cars, George Elliot had his cars and NASTRAK, Brad Jones had four including George the two-seater, Ian Thomas had a stack including once trying to sell four Luminas at once, Bruce Peacock had a couple of Thunderbirds and a Taurus for Neville Lance, Charlie O’Brien had two Thunderbirds plus other cars and John Maultsaid had ex-Dick Johnson Thunderbirds via Bruce Partington just to name a few with multiples.

Marshall Brewer had a stack of cars for Fastrack too just to make things interesting.

So, what could be identified as your car could really be the sister car or really be sister car number three.

As regular readers know, we’ve been trying to solve the mystery of the #3 Lumina, the car with Oldsmobile and Pontiac bits and below is the repeatedly stated ownership line.

Elliot → Jones → Jane → Czerny → Baker → Skeggs → White

The big problem with trying to figure out where this former ride car came from is that people who may know are not contactable or those who have been contacted don’t know.

From the paint layers left on the car, we know there’s more history to it, pink paint indicates the possibility that it was a Walter Giles car of some description but there is a strong argument for Ron Goodman being an owner/lease holder as he had a pink car a similar shade to Walter’s in 1992 and he drove an Oldsmobile and he gave a car back to George Elliot.

Interesting to note that the nose and the front guards of the car does not have any traces of pink compared to the rest of the car.

Did Walter Giles ever buy or lease an Oldsmobile off George Elliot or did Walter ever sell a car to George Elliot? That is a question we haven’t yet been able to find a conclusive answer to, we know Walter got his Buick off NASTRAK, but no Oldsmobile is known.

The Ron Goodman angle has been difficult as we’ve heard it was the car burnt at the Thunderdome, but we know that the car was rebuilt and raced for a bit longer plus it is said that Nick Girdlestone’s chassis was used for the 05 Commodore while the 05 Oldsmobile was a George Elliot car.

Using a car brought from NASTRAK or get one leased for a race or two while awaiting repairs or a new car is not unprecedented, Adam Pay’s car came from NASTRAK and George Elliot used an ex-NASTRAK car at least twice including once in a Pontiac on the Gold Coast.

Now back to the #3, the complexion of the potential ownership/leasing structure changes as there are now two new routes of possibility.

Elliot → Giles -> Elliot → Jones → Jane → Czerny → Baker → Skeggs → White

Elliot → Goodman -> Elliot → Jones → Jane → Czerny → Baker → Skeggs → White

Of course, George Elliot had to get the car from somebody, but we don’t know who so at the moment it the following is really

? → Elliot →? → Elliot → Jones → Jane → Czerny → Baker → Skeggs → White.

It would be pretty wild if both Walter and Ron used the car for some purpose.

Elliot → Giles → Goodman → Elliot → Jones → Jane → Czerny → Baker → Skeggs → White

A complication arose on February 19, 2025, when George Elliot said he never owned the #3 Lumina, this throws a spanner into the works and then he said he wasn’t sure.

If George/NASTRAK didn’t own the car then who did? Walter Giles? Mark Harrison and Wayne Giles said no, memories can fade and be altered with time leaving us with more questions than answers, one could be right, one could be wrong or both can be right.

If only Motorsport News was published from 1988 and not 1993, we would hardly have a mystery on our hands just lots and lots of reading to do instead.

Another case is the #1 VT Commodore, for years it was said that one of the two VT Commodores has an ex-Dick Midgely Lumina chassis, but this is not the case.

So, which car has the ex-Jim Richards chassis? The above car does, and this ID came from the Brewer family.

Motorsport News writers in race reports had a habit of mentioning where a car had come from for example Mark Harrison’s debut race was in a car that MN reported as being Walter Giles original chassis.

It was hoped that Brad Jones, the then AUSCAR champion buying a ride car would be big enough news in 1992 or 1993 as speculation on his future would have increased as his AUSCAR awards cabinet got bigger, unfortunately such news has eluded us.

Sometimes car research the hard way (doing some reading) is easy, take the above for example, an article in Motorsport News mentioned Marshall Brewer buying a Lumina off Ian Thomas and shortly afterwards the above happened, perfection as they had shown the new car.

What’s more is that very car is the one that Dick Trickle drove as an Oldsmobile in 1990, obviously changed into a Chevrolet Lumina and we believe that car was the #8 black and orange Lumina doing laps of the Thunderdome for Fastrack into the 2000’s.

Eddie Ivermee’s research into the chassis that he had purchased was made easier by the unique way it had been made, a photo taken at the right spot in the 1990’s allowed an easy match up and it was revealed to be Trevor Oliver’s Pontiac Aero chassis.

Eddie then brought an Oldsmobile; its history was clouded until a closer look at the dash upon delivery revealed that ‘Melbourne’s Cheapest Cars’ was still visible, and this confirmed the car to be Eddie Abelnica’s and working backwards from there it was confirmed it belonged to John Faulkner.

The car came to John Faulkner from Ian Thomas, but the mystery is where did Ian Thomas get it from.

After being led in a couple of directions, a clue was spotted in a photograph showing that the Faulkner car had ‘Intrepid’ on the dash, this suggests that the car is an ex-Morgan-McClure Oldsmobile but if Denzil Mead had one and Ian Thomas kept ‘Destiny’ and turned it into a Lumina then there are a couple of possibilities.

The first is that Motorsport News is mistaken, and Denzil Mead did not get a Morgan-McClure Oldsmobile, the other possibility is that it is correct, and Ian Thomas had at least three Morgan-McClure cars in his stable of cars.

The #9 VT Commodore that Scott Pierce owns is said to be the rebodied ex-Paul Stocker Oldsmobile, is it the one in the ‘Best Back’ article?

When the #41 Ford Thunderbird was sold to Mick Heppleston, it had (still does) a ‘Charlie’ sticker on the dash, this was done by the late Gene Cook in honour of the previous owner of the car, Charlie O’Brien so that added an extra layer of authenticity.

Zac O’Hara has an ex-Ian Thomas’ Lumina, its history was easy to find as its Aroneck Racing plate was still on the dash (Thank you Ian Thomas and his crew for not removing it) and once we knew the team we found the former team manager who confirmed the details, Doug Taylor worked on the car in the USA.

But wait, there’s more, we have a complication, Aroneck Racing raced Oldsmobile, so if the #2 Lumina was originally an Olds, that’s car #5 in the battle to figure out Eddie’s car.

Zac’s #27 Monte Carlo is simple enough; it was the #5 Oldsmobile then the #5 Monte Carlo and then it was the #27 and then Rusty French got it, and it became the #2 Monte Carlo and now Zac’s got it, easy-peasy and Motorsport News did cover the work done on the #5 and then the #27 quite extensively.

Laurence Mckinnon’s Ford Thunderbird can be tracked accurately by any fan as Motorsport News covered the story from John Nissen bringing the car to Australia for Morgan Shepherd to drive to Terry Wyhoon purchasing the car a few years later off John Nissen to Terry testing the car and racing it to Terry attempting to sell the car.

While there are some frustrating chases happening, there have been many good ones and there’s a slate of them to come in the future.

If you feel like buying copies of Motorsport News to read all the events of Australian NASCAR from 1993 to 2002, go to V8 Sleuth on Issuu and start from Issue 1, you will need to buy over 190 issues ($3.50 apiece) plus you may take a gamble that there is Stock Car news past Albert Park in 2000 and between V8 Stock Car rounds.

What you’ll find will be interesting and it may even make you ask questions that you’ll want the answers to, just be aware of the potential frustrations.