Bathurst 1000
At the 1985 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, Francevic teamed with John Bowe in the Volvo and qualified the car an excellent 5th, his attempt at pole position in the Hardies Heroes top 10 run-off was thwarted by a flat tyre on his second run while trying to improve on his first run. With a very quick car and a strong diver pairing (Bowe was the twice and reigning Australian Drivers' Champion and was matching Francevic's times) the pair considered one of the pre-race favourites along with the TWR Jaguars, on paper it was thought the turbocharged Volvo was the only car capable of matching the speed of the V12 powered Jags. After a strong early showing in the race in which Francevic had held 2nd for some time behind early leader Tom Walkinshaw, a failed alternator diode put them many laps down. The car finally retired on lap 122 when it ran out of fuel on the run up Mountain Straight.
After winning the 1986 ATCC and his much publicised falling out with the Volvo Dealer Team, Francevic drove a Ford Sierra XR4Ti for long time friend and former Volvo team owner Mark Petch to little success in the 1986 James Hardie 1000 with fellow Kiwi Leo Leonard, the car suffering terminal electrical problems on lap 26. Francevic publicly predicted the Ford would take pole position for the race but the Kiwi pairing could only manage 21st on the grid with a time of 2:23.05 after a troubled practice and qualifying trying to get the car to run properly. The time was 5.89 seconds pole winning time set by Gary Scott in the Nissan Skyline, and was 6.89 seconds slower than Allan Grice's provisional pole time in qualifying. Francevic made his bold claim after the speed that the 2.3 litre turbocharged Sierra's had shown in the FIA Touring Car Championship in Europe under the guidance of Swiss tuning ace Reudi Eggenberger.
After sitting out most of 1987 Francevic was drafted by Frank Gardner to co-drive the second of the JPS Team BMW's M3's at the 1987 Castrol 500 at Sandown and the James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, which for 1987 had become a round of the inaugural World Touring Car Championship. Driving with the teams engine builder come driver Ludwig Finaur, Francevic finished 5th at Sandown before going on to his best ever Bathurst finish with 6th outright and 2nd in class at Bathurst. During the race rain storms that hit late in the race, Francevic, unable to see through a fogged up windscreen, accidentally ran over a marshall when coming into the pits, thankfully without any injury reported.
For 1988 Francevic and long time backer Mark Petch secured a Ford Sierra RS500 from Walter Wolf Racing in Germany to run in the ATCC but only started one race (Round 3 at Winton) and was excluded before practice of Round 5 in Adelaide due to illegal build components on the Sierra and the championship run was abandoned in the effort to get the car right (Wolf racing had built the Sierra to European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) standards which allegedly included a more liberal interpretation of the Group A rules than CAMS allowed in Australia). The problems were fixed in time for the Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst where he teamed with Wolf Racing's lead driver, and 1985 race winner, Armin Hahne. Overheating finished their race on lap 103 while running well in the top 5 for most of the race after qualifying 14th.
Robbie teamed with 1985 ETCC champion Gianfranco Brancatelli in the Petch owned Sierra in the 1989 Tooheys 1000. The car was qualified 15th but Francevic didn't get a drive after the right front wheel fell off the car on lap 14 when going across the top of the Mountain. Having to drive the car back to the pits for over half a lap resulted in too much damage being done to the car's axle and front suspension. His last start at Mount Panorama was in 1990 with fellow Kiwi racer Andrew Bagnall in Bagnall's Sierra RS500. Bagnall qualified the car 17th and the pair drove well all day to finish 7th outright in a race in which many of the big budget teams failed to finish.
Francevic was an inaugural member of the MotorSport New Zealand Wall of Fame in 1994.
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