Fred Gibson (racing driver)

In just his second Bathurst start he claimed second place in the 1966 Gallaher 500.

It was won by the BMC entered example of Finnish rally star Rauno Aaltonen and experienced Australian Mini racer Bob Holden a lap ahead of Fred Gibson and Bill Stanley, leading home a flotilla of Cooper Ss that filled the first nine outright race positions.

Gibson became a mainstay with the Ford Works Team for the next six years, taking much success at Sydney's Oran Park and Amaroo Park in particular.

Drivers for the works team included Allan Moffat, Fred Gibson, Harry Firth, Bob Jane, Barry Seton, Bruce McPhee, John French, Ian Geoghegan and his brother Leo.

Gibson first met Firth on the Thursday before the Gallaher 500 and later set the second fastest qualifying time behind their Sydney based teammates Ian and Leo Geoghegan, 1967 was the first year at Bathurst that grid positions were determined by qualifying times and not by class.

The race was then awarded to Firth and his co-driver Fred Gibson.

Gibson became the team's regular number two driver alongside George Fury driving the Group C Nissan Bluebird Turbo, pioneering turbo charged touring cars in Australia.

Fury joined former Ford works driver (under Marsden) Fred Gibson as drivers and proved instantly competitive despite running in the mid-car class, though he was still seen more as a rally driver and less as a circuit racer.

Gibson's win in the AMSCAR round was his first major touring car win since he drove the Ford team's new XA Falcon Hardtop to win the Chesterfield 250 at the Adelaide International Raceway in 1973, giving him the distinction of being the first winner in both the Falcon Hardtop and the turbocharged Bluebird.

In 1967, Frank Matich, who was to co-drive one of the new Ford XR Falcon GTs at Bathurst with Harry Firth, had to pull out due to other commitments, and recommended Gibson as his replacement.

1967 saw Firth notch up his last victory as a driver in the annual 500 mile race at Bathurst, winning the 1967 Gallaher 500 with a young Fred Gibson in a Ford XR Falcon GT, the first Australian made Ford Falcon to use a V8 engine.

With Nissan being forced out by the new for 1993 V8 formula, Gibson Motorsport switched to Holden Commodores with Skaife winning the 1994 series.

The name of the team was also the name of Fred Gibson's automotive business in Sydney.

Gibson retired from driving after 1983 and replaced Marsden as Nissan team boss at the end of 1984, overseeing the introduction of the turbocharged Nissan Skyline DR30 in 1986.

Most spectacularly was the return of Nissan Motorsport Australia (now under the leadership of former Bathurst winner Fred Gibson) with the newly homologated Nissan Skyline DR30 RS turbo.

Highlights included winning the Australia Touring Car Championship in 1990 and 1991 with Jim Richards and 1992 series with Mark Skaife.

Nissan team boss Fred Gibson refuted these claims at the time but years later admitted that Skaife had indeed qualified the car as Jarret.

Highlights included winning the Australia Touring Car Championship in 1990 and 1991 with Jim Richards and 1992 series with Mark Skaife.

Team boss Fred Gibson later admitted that his team had actually fooled CAMS into believing the cars had lost some 190 bhp by setting the rig used to test the engine power to show exactly what CAMS wanted to see.

Gibson became a mainstay with the Ford Works Team for the next six years, taking much success at Sydney's Oran Park and Amaroo Park in particular.

In Group C, the factory backed Nissan team also contested the series with Sydney-based team driver Fred Gibson (the Bathurst 500 winner in 1967 with Harry Firth in a Ford XR Falcon GT) and his wife Christine (regarded as the "fastest female in Australia") driving the team's second Bluebird turbo and its powerful, but evil handling, front-wheel drive Nissan Pulsar EXA respectively.

The Ford XD Falcon built by Gibson and raced by Moore at the 1981 James Hardie 1000 was co-driven by Fred Gibson's wife Christine.

Highlights included winning the Australia Touring Car Championship in 1990 and 1991 with Jim Richards and 1992 series with Mark Skaife.

At the end of the year, Brock's team decided to race Sierras in 1989 while Richards was snapped up by Fred Gibson to race for his factory-backed Nissan team.

Gibson's win in the AMSCAR round was his first major touring car win since he drove the Ford team's new XA Falcon Hardtop to win the Chesterfield 250 at the Adelaide International Raceway in 1973, giving him the distinction of being the first winner in both the Falcon Hardtop and the turbocharged Bluebird.

Additionally, three regular production Falcon GT sedans - especially painted in Brambles Red - had been in the process of being developed for racing to GT-HO specification by Ford Special Vehicles Division and were to be raced at Bathurst in 1972 by factory drivers Allan Moffat and Fred Gibson.

Gibson's win in the AMSCAR round was his first major touring car win since he drove the Ford team's new XA Falcon Hardtop to win the Chesterfield 250 at the Adelaide International Raceway in 1973, giving him the distinction of being the first winner in both the Falcon Hardtop and the turbocharged Bluebird.

Richards and Skaife won the 1991 and 1992 Bathurst 1000s.

Over 15 years later, team boss Fred Gibson admitted the GT-R's were actually running close to 600 bhp.

Gibson became the team's regular number two driver alongside George Fury driving the Group C Nissan Bluebird Turbo, pioneering turbo charged touring cars in Australia.

Earlier in 1983, Fury's Nissan Australia team mate Fred Gibson had driven the Bluebird to its first race victory anywhere in the world when he won two heats and Round 3 of the 1983 Better Brakes AMSCAR Series at Sydney's Amaroo Park circuit.

He won the competitive Oran Park production sedan series, the Toby Lee Series, in 1970 and 1971 driving his Falcon GTHO supported by his Sydney speedshop, Road & Track.

The series featured a number of leading Sydney-based drivers, such as Holden Dealer Team driver Colin Bond, emerging Ford privateer John Goss, Ford stalwart Fred Gibson and Chrysler drivers Leo Geoghegan and Doug Chivas.

In 2013, Gibson reformed Gibson Motorsport with Alan Heaphy as a race car preparer for cars participating in the Heritage Touring Cars series.

Upon its closure at the end of 1997, he returned to Gibson Motorsport in 1998 managing the team until Fred Gibson sold it at the end of 1999.

In a race long duel against three Alfa Romeo 1600 GTVs, two entered by Alec Mildren Racing and one by M.W. Motors, the Ford Motor Company-entered Falcon GTs achieved a one-two finish with Harry Firth and Fred Gibson acknowledged as race winners after confusion over lap-scoring briefly left uncertainty over the results.

In 2004 Gibson was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame.