Moffstang at the Longford Revival Festival
12 April 2011
Longford in Tasmania was once one the of the world?s fastest racetracks, with its long straights running around the town of Longford and surrounding fields. Those long straights were quite exciting, as you will hear from the wide eye tales of anyone who raced there back in the 1960?s. It was the host of many thrilling battles including the best of our nation?s touring cars, sports cars and even F1 when the Tasman series visited the apple isle. Now long closed, the organisers of the Targa Tasmania, Octagon, came up with another great event, the Longford Revival Festival which did a great job to relive a lot of what the racing was about back in this day, a brilliant grass roots motorsport event.
You can get this whole event DVD from our good mates at the Pitstop bookshop, well worth adding to the collection! Find a link to buy the DVD online at the end of this article.
Moffstang sans front spoiler to get a better top speed.
Tasmania is one of our favourite places to visit, mainly due to the high proportion of cars and racing enthusiasts plus the lovely cool, clean air it provides for any car run down there. Although it may have the reputation of bad weather, we had nothing but clear, cool days, absolutely perfect for motorsport! We brought across one of our more iconic cars, the Allan Moffat 1969 Trans Am Mustang (The Moffstang) to the event, although it never ran at Longford (Just missed out by one year with Longford closing in 1968), it does have some serious Tassie history, having raced there every year till it retired in 1974, even still keeping the lap record at Symmons Plains to this day.
Chris gives an impromptu demonstration of the Bowden's Own Body Detail, thanks to a local seagull, no respect!
The Moffstang was a great addition to the already stellar line-up of cars in the event, including a selection of 6 amazing cars from the Porsche Museum in Germany and another private collector based in Tasmania who brought along 4 high speed late model ?classics?, including the 24 hour Bathurst winning Brock 427 Monaro to really added some spice to the event. In our ?team?, we also had the Peter Brock Corvette and a Lamborghini Murcielago from the garage of our mate Joe in tow, so it made for quite a sight as we headed to the docks to board the Spirit of Tasmania.
Porsche know how to make an event, bringing from Germany the Carrera GT, Le Mans winning 956, Moby Dick 935 and Targa Florio winning 908 and RS-60, with a 356B GT thrown in there too...
Mmmm 908, with the 356 GT in the back ground.
Endurance racers abound in Tassie!! Sauber Merc hiding in the background.
Some of the crew from our Tassie meet and greet night.
On the first night of arriving in Tasmania, we organised a meet and greet dinner for all those who wished to attend at the Newstead hotel in Launceston. A good number of enthusiasts from a variety of different car clubs all turned up to hear what we are doing with the collection, the Big Pineapple and of course our car care range. The big statement being we needed their support to overtake the imports that flood our nation?s auto stores shelves. All the money from our car care stays in this country and then goes back into our true passion, which we were doing that weekend in Tassie, running and showcasing our nations motorsport history! Our young girl Casey arrived for the dinner, her first time outside of Qld, straight into a brisk 6 degree night... She acclimatised over the next four days, thanks to ample clothing! It was also great to have our mate Ron Thorp, from whom we now own his old race Shelby AC Cobra turn up to the night as well. A great night and our message seemed well received, time to change and support the local quality product made by our family!
Peter letting the locals know how good the Body Detail was, he should know he used 2 litres of it in his non stop cleaning of the Moffstang over the weekend!
Always something to think about everytime you hop in this seat, with what Moffat did with her.
The Revival Festival event itself was not run over the entire Longford track, but instead down its famous 'flying mile', now a public road that was closed off for the occasion. With the main staging and event area smartly right alongside the end of it, all the spectators get to see and hear each car pass them at full noise, just fantastic! All the cars take off from a standing start and roar down the straight, before passing through a speed trap giving the top speeds. The Moffstang is a circuit racer, with the tyres and brakes being a bit cold each run, so getting traction at the start and stopping at the end were a bit of an issue for us! The bit in-between was not however, with the Moffstang running beautifully at full speed all weekend, really this car just has the most glorious note both inside and outside, especially when passing people by at 7000rpm! Our gearing was not quite the best for a high speed run, so consistent speeds of 205km/h were the best we could do on the day, still quite quick for a 1969 era muscle car!
Turn up the volume for this video!
The Brockvette managed a top speed of 190 before a front shock absorber let go, ending it?s weekend, however the Lambo ran a nice 235km/h with Chris, before he did a final run with fianc� Caroline in tow, she obviously hit the handbrake as he could only manage a paltry 233km/h on that final run.
Caroline mentally preparing herself for the high speed run with Chris in the Lambo.
Dick, Dan, Dave and Cobra racer Ron Thorp at Longford. Peter in the background is a bit suspect of Dick close to "his" Moffstang.
For the final run Sunday, our good mate Dick Johnson turned up and some history was made. Dad offered Dick a drive of the Moffstang down the straight and Dick took him up on it. Belting it hard down the road for a first time run of 202km/h, little bit quicker than myself and Chris?s first runs of 185km/h! Dick was a little bit happy; I mean how could you not be with a car like that. It was a great way to end the weekend but it was far from the end of our trip as the next day we got to run a few laps with the Moffstang at its old battle grounds of Symmons Plain?s.? Which I shall write about in the very next blog article!
Dick was just a little bit happy to get a quick drive of the Moffstang.
Many thanks to Mark Perry and his team at Octagon, for the invite to attend the event. Plus thanks to our team of Kingo, Peter, Phil and Doug for all their help they gave with the preparing and helping out logistically with the cars. We will be eagerly looking forward to an invite to return next year, with some more cars from the collection.
Check out a whole heap more images from this event on our Facebook page by clicking here.
Get the DVD from Pitstop Bookshop by clicking here.
Love your car,
Dan Bowden
