
In 2008, some 14 years before Supercars made indigenous liveries compulsory for the Hidden Valley round of the championship, the TeamVodafone Falcons of Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup's BF Falcons swapped their usual fluro red and silver for a special one-off livery, designed by Aboriginal artist Raymond Walters Japanangka. The livery was created to raise awareness for the Red Dust Role Models program, which continues to support the health and wellbeing of disadvantaged Indigenous youth in remote Australia.
In June 2016, Jamie's 'Red Dust' Falcon (18588) was released by Classic Carlectables with a few changes over the Lowndes release:
- Addition of a third roof-mounted aerial
- Wheel design was subtly changed
- Box artwork changed from a comgen of Lowndes' car to an action photo of Whincup's car
A production run of 1,200 units reflected a 20% decrease over the Lowndes car but a 20% increase over the scheduled production at the point of pre-orders (see poster below) which suggests it was a popular model upon release.
Despite Jamie's incredible success in the time between the release of the two models, it's fair to say that his popularity never matched his level of success. That's reflected in value of this model today which hovers around half that of the Lowndes car based on the Diecast Detective Price but significantly less than half when comparing peak values.
Given that indigenous liveries are now compulsory at the Darwin round, these model releases are now commonplace which will either mean that collectors will want a full set and go back to collect the Triple 8 cars driving up demand (and prices) or that the common nature of indigenous livery releases makes them less desirable in turn driving prices down.
The Diecast Detective Price for both models suggests a downward price trend continuing. Lowndes' popularity will ensure his model remains desirable and the model more likely to maintain or increase in value but for now it appears yet to find the bottom of the market.