Allan
Moffat's
1971
XY GTHO

General Data

As the premier racing circuits around the country reverberated to the roar of the 450 BHP V8, incident piled on incident.

There was political challenge, protests and prangs, appeals, disqualifications, allegations of illegality, tyre troubles, and on one occasion the GTHO was even stolen! For three years Moffat had worked for the title in his impressive Trans-Am Mustang, but a change of rules for 1973 prevented the Mustang from competing in this class. The Falcon GTHO was a 'natural'.

For Moffat and the Ford Special Vehicles (Competition Department) team, the Touring Car Championship was the highlight of nearly four years of work with a car that should have been outdated on the race track.

A Phase IV GTHO Falcon had been planned and prototypes built, but public opinion and government intervention stamped 'supercar' on this vehicle, as well as cars planned by other manufacturers for production car racing. Therefore any ideas on racing a Phase IV had to be scrapped.

This particular car was dragged from a test-and-develop program at the Research Centre of the Ford Motor Company of Australia at Geelong. 65E (Moffat's '71 Bathurst winner) had crashed at the Adelaide International Raceway after a tyre blowout and a replacement GTHO for the number 1 works driver was needed. (The other two works cars were unobtainable with John French's car being given to Norm Beechy to race and Fred Gibsons unavailable.) The test-and-develop vehicle was one of a few Phase III GTHO Falcons still in Fords possession.

The speedometer with 14,000 miles showing was ignored as a round-the-clock rebuild at Ford Special Vehicles went into operation. The Ultra White HO with Saddle (brown) interior was hastily painted Vermillion Fire (not Brambles Red like the other work cars) and all the racing bits and pieces were swapped from 65E to the new HO. The hood-liner (which was tan in colour) was sprayed over in black.

Bathurst '72 was not to be Moffat's year, after a spin at Reid Park it all went backwards from there. He had two 1 minute time penalties, a blown tyre and huge brake problems (not what you need in a Phase III) meant an uncharacteristic 9th placing.

The car was upgraded to the new Group 'C' specifications only weeks before the first heat of the ATCC at Symmons Plains, but the frantic preparation was contrasted by smooth operation on race day and Moffat won easily.

Racing fans had expected the new rules to turn more in the favor of the six-cylinder Torana XU1s. But the Holdens were left well behind in that first heat.

As the series developed, the Toranas improved to a stage where they were as fast as the Falcon. In the fourth round at Wanneroo, Western Australia, Moffat's Falcon and the Holden Dealer Team Torana, driven by Peter Brock, were side by side at the end of the race.

In another heat, in Adelaide, the Falcon was stolen by a joy-rider on the night before the race. Moffat was loaned another racing Falcon for the race and finished second to hold his points lead for the championship.

Then Peter Brock in his Holden XU1 Torana downed Moffat in the second last heat, at Oran Park, in NSW, and the finish of the series was set for a thrilling climax. However, the Holden Dealer Team car was excluded from results because of an oversized measurement in the exhaust system.

Ironically, Moffat covered only three laps of the final race, at Warwick Farm, NSW, before a loose radiator hose forced him to pull out.

Moffat was given the car by Ford and he kept it until selling it in '78 to some businessmen in Adelaide who then sold it onto a Sydney man from whom David Bowden purchased it in 1995. The car was still in original condition but with many of the original '73 race parts missing. (No doubt fitted to the XB hardtops raced in the '74 season.)

In 1997 after much deliberation the car was given a new paint job. The original paint was literally falling off (remember the Vermillion Fire painted straight on top of the white) and there were many more marks on it than when it finished racing in '73. All the missing race parts were found and put back into the car and the engine was rebuilt to Group C specifications The restoration was completed on the 11th of March 2000, when Allan Moffat drove the car to victory in a grudge match against Peter Brock in his original Holden XU1 Torana at the Australian Grand Prix.

The car now resides in good company with Allan Moffat's Phase I, II & IV. All four cars are presented on a poster to commemorate those fantastic years of the GTHO Falcons.