It's not unusual for families to have hand-me-down cars but as expected from Canberra's best known rally family, the shared car is a long way from your standard Toyota Corolla.
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Now the all-wheel drive Corolla hatchback in which Neal Bates won his final national rally title way back in 2008 and has covered thousands of hard rally kilometres since then in the hands of both his talented sons, is being dusted off and handed on to a fourth driver.
This time around the driver is the quick and trusted Ben Barker, an earthmoving contractor from the NSW South Coast who could hardly believe his luck when four-time champion Neal Bates asked him to join the Canberra team for the upcoming world rally championship event in Coffs Harbour next weekend.
"Neal and I have known each other for a long time and right out of the blue, he just asked me what I was doing that [Rally Australia] weekend," Barker said.
"I feel quite honoured he asked me so I guess he doesn't hold it against me that I beat him at [the NSW state round in] Bega back in June!"
The Bates family Corolla, which already has Barker's name on its window ready for Coffs Harbour, was built at the Hume workshop to suit international Super 2000 regulations of 12 years ago.
Unlike the latest, hugely sophisticated Toyota Yaris AP4 rally cars of today, it doesn't have a turbocharger to boost the engine output. Instead, it's a normally aspirated 2-litre car with all-wheel drive.
Both Neal's sons, Harry, 24, and Lewis, 22, have pounded and thrashed the old Corolla on gravel rounds all around the country during their motorsport "apprenticeships", but it doesn't appear any the worst for the distance covered.
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"And I'm the only one who has crashed it," Harry, Australia's newest national rally champion, admitted.
Suffice to say, it was a very big crash. Harry Bates speared into some large pine trees at the South Australian round in September 2016, leaving the road at 160km/h in top gear and peeling off the entire front side of the Corolla. The sudden impact with the trees was measured at 15G.
"It was a fast left hand bend that I thought I could take flat out. Well, I did take it flat out but the car didn't come out the other side," Harry Bates said.
But in a testament to how strong the little car is, the team took it on a tilt-tray back to the service park, worked feverishly until 3am to repair it, then Harry Bates climbed back in to finish in third place in the next day's competition.
For the biggest event on Australia's rally calendar in Coffs Harbour, the old car's role will be a modest one: to ensure Toyota collects enough points to win the 2019 manufacturers' trophy.
Although Harry Bates, in a turbocharged Yaris, can't be beaten for the 2019 driver's title after winning every championship round this year, his brother Lewis is locked in a tie for second place with Subaru factory driver Molly Taylor, with only the Coffs Harbour round remaining.
So Barker's role in the third car is that of providing title-winning "insurance" for Toyota.
Neal Bates insists that no driving orders have been issued except "I've asked Ben [Barker] not to take risks where he doesn't need to, like over jumps where you don't make up any time but you can damage the car".
"But on the fast, open stuff I've told him to just go for it and have fun."
