Saturday Sleuthing: Moffat's Ultimate GT-HO Falcon

Allan Moffat holds a special place in the history books of Australian motor racing with his four wins at Bathurst the banner head achievements.

But he also claimed four Australian Touring Car Championships, the first of which he claimed in 1973, the very first year of the Group C rules that would form such a popular era of the sport in this country.

Moffat's famous Coke TransAm Mustang won plenty of races in its time in the years prior, but it never delivered him a Championship whereas his Phase III GT-HO certainly did.

It's a special car too considering it not only won him his first ATCC crown, but it also missed a race that season after being stolen the night before a race.

Yes, that's right, stolen!But more of that later...

Moffat's 351-cubic inch V8-powered Falcon title winner actually started its racing life the previous year in 1972.

His 1971 Bathurst-winning car had been heavily damaged in a crash at Adelaide International Raceway after blowing a tyre and slamming the wall, so a test and development vehicle was repainted white to red and all the racing components transferred.

In Moffat's hands it was this car that he raced at Bathurst in 1972 but multiple pit time penalties, a spin, a blown tyre and brake problems put paid to his third win in a row and he finished ninth as a young Peter Brock claimed the victory.

Despite this disappointment it finished out the season in style in the endurance races that made up the Manufacturer's Championship and won the Surfers Paradise and Phillip Island races to round out the season.

The big Falcon was upgraded to the new Group C regulations for 1973 and adopted the number '9' made famous on the Coke Mustang he'd formerly driven.

The 1973 Australian Touring Car Championship turned into a private Moffat and Brock fight.

The Canadian-born Ford pilot won the first four rounds at Symmons Plains, Calder, Sandown and Wanneroo and Brock then took his breakthrough ATCC round win at Surfers Paradise.

But round six at Adelaide International Raceway saw perhaps the strangest circumstances surrounding a race in championship history when Moffat's Falcon, which had on pole position, went missing overnight!

Yep, that's right, the big beast was pinched!

Moffat awoke on Sunday June 10, 1973 to the news that his #9 Falcon had been stolen from Stillwell Ford, a local dealer where it had been based overnight.

Local police began to scour the surrounds of Adelaide and frantic moves were made to try and find a way to get Moffat onto the grid.

Race organisers went into a panic, even going so far as to delay the start of the 35-lapper to 2.55pm in a bid to allow as much time as possible for the stolen car to perhaps be recovered and the star driver to take up his place on pole.

But the car had not been found in the extra time, so Melbourne Falcon privateer Murray Carter offered up his car for Moffat to drive.

Even despite a sponsor clash (Moffat was backed by BP, Carter by Shell), Moffat accepted the offer and started at the rear of the 17-car field.

He'd eventually finish second to Brock, a lap behind the Holden Dealer Team XU-1 Torana after at one stage being black-flagged to the pits to repair a loose exhaust.

His actual race car was found abandoned in the Adelaide hills in the days after the race, bogged in a ditch with only minor damage and a spare carburetor that had been sitting on the rear seat missing.

But the culprit, later revealed to be a 22-year-old labourer, had left a note with the car that read along the lines of:

"My apologies to Allan. Sorry we inconvenienced you, but what a beaut car it was. I hope you go on to beat the Toranas, Allan. Sorry about the spare carby but we had to hock it for the fuel. What a thirsty beast it was. Signed, The Phantom Hunter."

No chance something like that would happen these days in the modern V8 Supercars Championship!

Moffat would win the next round at Oran Park in his reclaimed car (though only after across-the-line winner Brock was excluded for an oversized exhaust manifold) and then made his final appearance in it at Sydney's Warwick Farm.

Engine dramas meant he was an early retirement but he already had enough points after the Oran Park round to have claimed his first of an eventual four Australian Touring Car Championships.

That race also proved to be the last race at Warwick Farm before it closed down and the Moffat Falcon today - now part of the impressive Bowden Family collection on the Sunshine Coast - still carries the scrutineer sticker from that weekend on its windscreen.

Ford moved to the XA GT 'Hardtop' two-door for the 1973 touring car endurance races, so the GT-HO Phase III Falcon was pushed to one side and the manufacturer then pulled out of racing at the end of the season so Moffat was given his ATCC winner.

Moffat sold it some years later and it found itself back in Adelaide in the hands of a new owner (no thieves going for joy rides this time!) and then onto Sydney.

It was purchased by David Bowden 20 years ago this year, 1995, and was eventually given a ground-up restoration that was completed three years later.

Moffat stepped back into the car at Albert Park in 2000 at the Australian Grand Prix for a series of match races with Brock in a HDT Torana XU-1, bringing back to life memories of a period nearly three decades earlier.

It remains an important car in Australian touring car racing history and one that Ford fans should hold dear to their hearts for years to come.

Special thanks too to Australian Muscle Car Magazine for use of their fantastic studio shots of the 1973 Moffat Falcon in this story.

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