2011 Open Day tour with Bruce Hodgson
29 February 2012
It was a very special day for the hundred odd fans who made the pilgrimage to our Buderim ?Open Day? in Feb 2012. The event being a special celebration as it has been 40 years since the 1972 Bathurst specials ?Super Car Scare?, which killed off the mighty GTHO Phase IV project, but not before those 4 famous cars all went out the back door of Ford.
David Bowden acquired his Phase IV racer from first owner Keith Goodall in Townsville late 1973, which gave him a passion and appreciation for factory built race cars, and the Phase IV become the first in of our now much bigger car collection of Australian racing machinery.
HO, HO, HO..Chris into the talk on the Phase 1, with two more to go.
The tours run for a few hours, as we go through each and every car in the collection, over the different levels of the Bowden?s Own HQ ?Mother Shed?. For the first time people were to see the recently redone Tru Blu 1981 Bathurst livery, as well as pay homage to the Bathurst winning Brock A9X?s and VL as the day was Peter?s Birthday, very moving stuff.
Being the birthday of PB, we had his old soldiers together for the day.
Bruce drives our old Phase IV for the first time.
Into the Mother Shed, a few photo's were taken!
After a big Aussie BBQ lunch was the special part where we had the legend Bruce Hodgson make an entry driving our old Phase IV. Bruce was Ford Australia?s man in rallying and was given his Phase IV in 1973 to race in the Australian Rally Championship. He gave a great 30 minute talk about the association he had with Ford, racing the Phase IV with many funny stories of the different things that happened whilst owning the car. It all culminated in the early eighties when the car was finally killed at an intersection in Goondiwindi Qld when a Holden Commodore towing a caravan ran into her. A very sad end to a significant old racing machine. Bruce was the only man to have ever raced the Phase IV and gave a great run down on how it performed on the dirt tracks around Australia, as well as the modifications he needed to make for a type of competition it was not built for!
Bruce David and Dan have a yarn on Phase IV's.
Australian rally legend Bruce Hodgson, our guest for the day.
As always we ended with a step up in the pace as Tru Blu, the GT40, Moffstang and finally Beechey Monaro were all brought to life. Brilliant stuff to share with such a great bunch of enthusiasts, and give them a taste of what this coming Sound Tour will be like in April!
GT40 firing to life, a crowd favourite and the only place to hear one in Australia!
Thanks to our team who helped prepare the shed, John, John, Pete, Pete and Pete as well as our big fan of Dick and the odd man out, Darren.
Also thanks to Mel W. for the images she took on the day, which you can see here on our Facebook page.
Love your car,
Dan Bowden