#32 was the John French/Warwick Brown car from Bathurst 1978 IIRC, and I cannot recall if it ran that number there. Originally the Jim Richards/Melfords XB GT, Bryan Byrt had leased it in 1977, and Johnson whacked it on pole at Lakeside. Byrt bought it, and painted the two cars up as "reverse Cobras"... quite ironic, as Bryan Byrt had been the man to pitch the "Moffat Ford Dealers" idea to his fellow dealers, and contributed heavily to that cause, in addition to the shedload he spent on his own team.
Craig Harris is the son of John, dealer principal at Bryan Byrt Ford - the man who took over upon Bryan's death from cancer in 1978. Craig made his Bathurst debut in 1984 IIRC, as co-driver to Alf Grant in was had been Dick's two-time ATCC-winning, and Bathurst winning XD, they ran home in the top ten from memory.
Dick Johnson (in 1984) remembered John Harris as being less-than-enthused at the amount his boss spent out of the dealership coffers on racing (Byrt was a firm and fervent believer in "win on Sunday, sell on Monday"), and ran the Byrt XC in 1979, more out of respect for Bryan than any other reason. Harris would not commit to a programme into 1980, and held a fire sale prior to Lakeside 1980: not all that much was sold apparently. Our hero fronted John at the Lakeside ATCC meet, and a deal was struck for DJ to obtain an XD, refurb the old XC racer for Byrt's used car lot... and the rest is history.
DJ also recalled that the racing bug bit John Harris hard, as evidenced by his stellar collection of racing Fords, and their support of Alf Grant throughout the last days of Group C.
Andrew Harris is a former paratrooper, TV personality (he took over a car show that Peter Janson presented briefly - may have been for Ch.9, given the sponsorship of his XE at Bathurst in 1983), and later quite the entrepeneur, launching a bid to topple CAMS's stranglehold on touring cars (a good 12-odd years before the advent of TEGA & AVESCO, so one might argue his case as a visionary), 1983 Bathurst Rookie of the Year. He sustained severe burns in a helicopter crash in the late 80's/early 90's, and reappeared as part of John Trimble/Trimbole's Daily Planet squad in the 90's, fully recovered and a grateful testament to Australia's burns treatment facilities.
