Following the 1985 Wellington 500, Francevic, while still living in Auckland, contested the 1985 Australian Touring Car Championship driving the Volvo 240T for owner and friend Mark Petch.
Despite the speed he had shown in the NZ series, and that the Volvo's were winning races in the European Touring Car Championship, Francevic shocked the established stars Peter Brock, Dick Johnson and Jim Richards by winning the third round of the ATCC at Symmons Plains in Tasmania before going on to dominate the final round at Oran Park in Sydney.
Francevic won the first two races of the season at Amaroo Park and Symmons Plains, finished second at Sandown to the Nissan Skyline of George Fury, and won again at Adelaide after runaway leader Peter Brock blew the engine in his Holden Commodore late in the race.
While the John Bowe / Alfredo Costanzo Volvo failed to finish, its fastest race lap was identical to the winning Nissan Skyline of George Fury and Glenn Seton.
Following his refusal to drive the car and his comments to the assembled media about the situation on the morning of the race, Francevic was fired from the Volvo Dealer Team on 15 September 1986, the day after the Sandown 500.
With a very quick car and a strong diver pairing (Bowe, who like Francevic was on his first visit to Mount Panorama, was matching the Kiwi's times and it was only a late charge on qualifying tyres that saw Francevic post the quicker time), the pair considered one of the pre-race favourites along with the Tom Walkinshaw Racing Jaguar XJS', as it was thought the turbocharged Volvo was the only car capable of matching the speed of the V12 powered Jaguars.
After winning the 1986 ATCC and his much publicised falling out with the Volvo Dealer Team, Francevic drove Andy Rouse's former British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) winning Ford Sierra XR4Ti for former Volvo team owner Mark Petch to little success in the 1986 Bathurst 1000 with fellow Kiwi Leo Leonard, the car suffering terminal electrical problems on lap 26.
Rather boldly, Francevic publicly predicted the turbo 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 (despite the car being almost trouble free in pre-race testing).
For 1988, Francevic and long time backer Mark Petch secured a Ford Sierra RS500 from Walter Wolf Racing in West Germany to run in the 1988 Australian Touring Car Championship, 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 the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) allowed in Australia).