Retro Rides Presents Ford Falcon: The GT Hardtop's Aussie Motorsport Prominence

The Falcon GT Hardtop arrived on Aussie racetracks in 1973, winning the Great Race on its first attempt and stamping its prominence on Aussie motorsport history with two more Bathurst victories throughout the second half of the 1970s.  

The fresh new XA Falcon family cars arrived in March 1972. But despite Ford Australia’s desire for the Hardtop to be ‘a better car to go racing’, the first XA Falcon racers made track-ready that year were four-door sedans, with the two-door launched six months later.

Those XA sedans, also known as the Ford XA Falcon GTHO Phase IV, have since gained near mythical status with Australian enthusiasts and collectors, thanks to events in June 1972, now known as the ‘Supercar Scare’.

The media-led and politically motivated backlash to what were described in headlines of the day as ‘Bullets on Wheels’ and ‘160mph Super Cars’ shocked Ford, Holden and Chrysler into ending development of the high-performance showroom-spec models that were to be the basis for their next-generation racers.

In Ford’s case, that meant the cessation of its preparation of the Phase IV sedans for its ’72 Bathurst assault, leaving the race team with no choice but to run the old-shape XY Falcon GTHO Phase III sedans, which were at least race-proven.

The XA Falcon launched in 1972 as a four-door sedan, although political and media-led backlash led to Ford continuing to run the old-shape XY sedan at that year's Bathurst

Factory-backed racer Allan Moffat put his Phase III on pole but – like plenty of others – failed to manage the worst wet conditions yet seen at Bathurst.

Moffat’s struggles opened the door for the charismatic Peter Brock to claim his first victory in a Holden LJ Torana GTR XU-1, with the Bryan Byrt Ford-supported XY Falcon GTHO Phase III of John French finishing  second.

The new XA GT Falcon Hardtop – the car Ford Australia insiders had pushed past production politics and the car they had really wanted for the ’72 Great Race – finally arrived on track in 1973.

By the time Bathurst rolled around that year – with the event now renamed the Hardie-Ferodo 1000 – in deference to Australia’s move to the metric system – privateer John Goss and co-driver Kevin Bartlett had developed their Hardtop to the point where it was quick enough to secure pole position.

Unfortunately, after building a strong early lead, the big coupe tangled with a Torana, suffering front-end damage that eventually forced its retirement.

While John Goss and Kevin Bartlett claimed pole position ahead of the first Bathurst race measured using metric, Allan Moffat ended up claiming his third win

Goss and Bartlett’s demise opened the door for Allan Moffat to claim his third Bathurst win, along with co-driver Ian Geoghegan, giving Ford’s new Aussie coupe its first victory at the Mountain and vindicating the Blue Oval execs who’d rolled the dice (and fudged the figures) on the Hardtop’s development.

Fast-forward 12-months and Moffat, now with German co-driver Dieter Glemser by his side, was the Falcon Hardtop favourite for Bathurst ’74, along with the Goss/Bartlett pairing in their McLeod Ford/2UW-sponsored car.

After his brilliant 1973 pole, Goss had to settle for a second-row start behind Peter Brock and Colin Bond, both driving new Holden LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34 V8s.

Despite significant testing and development – including famously in the USA – the Allan Moffat Racing Hardtop suffered engine and gearbox issues during qualifying, starting outside the top 10 and eventually retiring early.

To his enormous credit, the blue-blooded Canadian-Australian was seen barracking for and even assisting the Goss team in the rain-affected closing stages of the race, which culminated in Kevin Bartlett bringing home the XB GT Hardtop first, ahead of a hard-chasing pack of L34 Toranas.

Although Goss started the 1974 race behind Peter Brock and Colin Bond in brand-new LH Toranas, he and co-driver Bartlett managed to thunder home first in their XB GT Hardtop

Three years later, in 1997, a Falcon Hardtop would again take the chequered flag at Bathurst in what remains one of the most memorable Ford victories ever. Once again it was the Canadian-born Ford stalwart at the centre of the action, this time with his two-car Moffat Ford Dealers team running the new-look XC Falcon coupes.

Bond and Moffat started the race from second and third respectively, behind perennial Ford tormentor Peter Brock driving a Holden LX Torana SS A9X Hatchback.

After 163 laps, during which Moffat shared steering duties in Car 1 with co-driver Jacky Ickx, and Bond did likewise in Car 2 with Alan Hamilton, Moffat and Bond found the flag side-by-side for a perfectly staged 1-2 finish, making this Ford Falcon Hardtop victory one of the most iconic Australian race victories ever.

In the next instalment: How Ford created the John Goss Special to help boost slow sales of its Falcon Hardtop V8.