Moffstang at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix

11 April 2011 

Being a F1 fan, you will always find me at the Melbourne GP, which is by far the biggest international racing event on our nations calendar, so when we received an invite from the organisers to run the Moffat Mustang as a special demonstration we were pretty stoked. Even better was when Moffat accepted the invite to drive the car as well, something quite difficult to organise with his time at a premium now he is the FPV ambassador, constantly travelling all over Australia showing his support for the great new range of FPV GT and GS Falcons.

   

The man and his machine, not to mention the only person ever allowed to sit here!

The Moffstang arrived in Melbourne (Our families name for the Mustang) on the Thursday and Moffat came to the tent for a fitting to the car. Both myself and Chris have had slight issues with the seating in the car, it?s really low like an open wheeler and you either need really long legs and arms with the seat set back a notch, or shorter appendages with your seating a little bit too close for our true driving comfort. We had thought about changing it slightly to suit us better till this moment, Moffat hopped into her and of course it fitted him perfectly!  With the importance we see in keeping the cars true to how they raced, with each of their drivers. The way Moffat fitted in her has ended all talk of ever changing the seating position!

Moffat doing an initial check of his Stang to ensure he is happy with driving her at speed.

 

Peter totally mesmorised by Moffats pedal lesson, "when I touch this pedal here, it makes this glorious sound."

 

Moffat and his Mustang are ready for their run.

It was a real honour giving the Moffstang and her pilot the track time each day, well deserved I would say. After the first drive Allan came back in with some concerns, our mechanics would then make the changes for the car before the next run.  So by the main run on Sunday it was as good as we could get it for him. It?s such a rare thing to have Moffat ever in the car and it stirs a lot of emotion for us, to see him pilot her around once again. By Sunday he was not playing about either, showing all those he still has the gift even some 20 years after he officially retired from racing. Hearing the boss 302 roar gear change by gear change as it did the run around the Albert Park circuit was pretty cool, by far one of the best sounding cars to ever grace a track here in Australia.

 

Did I mention she sounds good?

Our tent?s location in the GP grounds was quite good, with a crowd always at the front to see the car and even hear about our new car care products. With a few more stores in Melbourne supporting us, it is a good feeling to be able to tell them they can now get it locally.  Moffat was in our tent more often than not, happily signing autographs and talking about his time racing the Fords and the Mustang over the years.

 

  

Great at any angle.

 

A quick clean with Bowden's Own before she hits the track. The cleanest Mustang in Oz thanks to Pete!

 

 The final wrap up from the event was that Moffat is happy with ?his? car and I dare say a little bit content with us being the current custodians for her, knowing we do cherish it as much as he did and still does to this day. It is always a difficult thing when you have perhaps the single most significant race car in our nation?s history in your possession, I just hope future generations see what we currently do as the right and responsible thing with her and the rest in the fleet.

 

Finally,  a big thank you to Kingo, Phil Grant and Peter Lyall (Whom Moffat jokingly refers to as the human we inherited when buying the car from him.) for their help over the weekend, you made our trip a lot less hassle free, thank you guys!   

 

  

Kingo and Pete tuning the webers before the crowds.

Check out a heap more images from this weekend on our Facebook page by clicking here.
Love your car,

Dan Bowden

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