Ford XW Falcon: GT-HOs, Super Roos and Super Falcons!

The XW GT-HO’s finest achievement in motor sport was its resounding victory in the 1970 Hardie-Ferodo 500 at Bathurst – the race it was designed and built to win. Allan Moffat and Bruce McPhee finished first and second in their works-prepared Phase 2 'Super Roos'.

The XW was the first Falcon to be equipped with the iconic 351cid (5.8 litre) V8 and also provided the starting point for what is widely regarded as the greatest Aussie muscle car of all time – the immortal GT-HO.

Launched in August 1969, the GT-HO was available as a premium performance option on the new XW Falcon GT and was clearly designed with one job in mind - to win the 1969 Bathurst 500. However, due to a combination of factors which colluded against it on race day, the first GT-HO didn’t succeed.

It was a humiliating loss which only served to strengthen Ford’s resolve to finish what it started, which of course it did in 1970 with the more powerful Phase 2 version and again in 1971 with the XY-based Phase 3. Those two emphatic back-to-back Bathurst wins ensured the mighty GT-HO its legendary muscle car status.

After nailing pole position, works driver Pete Geoghegan led a thundering pack of Phase 1 GT-HOs into Hell Corner at the start of the 1969 Hardie-Ferodo 500. The new ‘HO was faster than Holden’s HT Monaro GTS 350 rival, but failed to capitalise on its speed advantage in the race.

XW Falcon GT Lays The Foundations

After Ford’s 302cid (5.0 litre) XT Falcon GT had been outgunned by Holden’s new HK Monaro GTS 327 at Bathurst in 1968, Ford Australia boss Bill Bourke was determined that Ford would never again be outgunned by a Holden at Bathurst. 

In December 1968, another American Ford employee by the name of Al Turner started work at Ford Australia after being hand-picked for his new role by then Ford US boss Semon ‘Bunkie’ Knudsen.

He wanted Ford Australia to back a serious motor sport program under Ford’s global ‘Total Performance’ strategy to boost the brand’s image and capture the hearts and minds of the early baby boomer generation; a burgeoning and potentially huge car buying demographic which by then was into its early 20s and ripe to become Ford buyers for life.

The XW GT/GT-HO Super Roo decal really captured the cheeky, confident mood at Ford Australia as it embraced high performance in the late 1960s. These decals were located within the 'hockey stick' side stripes at the front of the cars and there was a different one for each side so that the Super Roo (and her joey) were always speeding forwards. We bet no overseas tourist has seen a kangaroo with mag wheels, side pipes and an air filter on its back!

Turner had a strong background in competition and high performance road car design, with innate hot-rodding skills which made him ideal for such a mission. His role under Bourke’s management would play out on two levels.

The first was to ensure that the next model of the Falcon GT, the XW series due for release in July 1969, would arrive with a hell of a bang by harnessing all the excitement of new high performance Fords with competition breeding being released in the US at the same time. The stunning Boss 302 Trans-Am Mustang was a prime example of this inspiration.

Turner duly delivered as the new XW GT was a stunning visual departure from Ford’s comparatively tame XR and XT GTs. It was built around a catchy ‘Super Roo’ performance theme (see above) using body decals which were a uniquely Australian interpretation of the US ‘Super Bee’ cartoon motif, which first appeared on Dodge’s 1968 B-body muscle car of the same name. 

After winning the 1968 Bathurst 500 in an HK Monaro GTS 327, wily privateer Bruce McPhee was snubbed by Holden in seeking factory support for the 1969 race. So he switched camps and drove this GT-HO Phase 1 to a fighting second place - beaten only by an HDT Monaro.

There was also a truly sumptuous interior, thick side stripes, wild colour choices and paint black-outs, bonnet pins, driver’s racing mirror, huge race-style fuel filler cap, twin exhaust system and 12-slot wheels with stainless steel centre caps and trim rings wrapped in baggy new generation 70 Series Dunlop Aquajet radials.

The new XW GT also featured a more powerful, longer stroke 351ci (5.8 litre) version of the 289cid and 302cid ‘Windsor’ small block V8s that had powered its predecessors. It was the biggest capacity engine ever installed in a local Falcon and packed some serious punch, with 290bhp at 4800rpm and 385ft/lbs at 3200rpm reaching the rear wheels through a rugged Ford top loader four-speed gearbox and nine-inch limited slip diff.

It also had a huge 36-gallon (164-litre) fuel tank as standard equipment. This would not only ensure a great cruising range on long interstate trips, but (surprise, surprise) also give Australia’s fastest Falcon the necessary mileage needed to complete 500 miles at Bathurst with the minimum number of fuel stops.

Which brings us to Turner’s second task which was to produce a premium performance version of the XW GT, with the primary aim of winning the all-important Bathurst 500. To achieve this, Turner was given the go-ahead by Bourke to establish a ‘special vehicles’ operation just down the road from Ford’s head office at Broadmeadows in Melbourne.

This inconspicuous factory, located in an industrial estate at Lot 6, Mahoney’s Road, is where Turner and his hand-picked team of mechanics, engineers and fabricators would design, build, develop and race-prepare the Falcon GT-HOs that would conquer Mount Panorama in the years to come.

NSW-based Ford works driver Fred Gibson, who ran a high performance tuning business in Sydney called Road & Track, made regular appearances at local circuits to keep the Ford flag flying north of the Victorian border. Here he’s at Oran Park in 1970 driving his R&T-prepared Phase 1. Gibson says this was always his favourite GT-HO model to race because of the greater smoothness and flexibility of the 351cid 'Windsor' engine compared to the 'Cleveland' which replaced it.

The Original GT-HO

When Turner chose to define his race-focused XW GT variant with the letters ‘HO’ they originally stood for ‘High Output’ as evidenced by the numerous engine changes designed to produce more power than a standard GT. However the meaning of HO was changed to ‘Handling Option’ before the car’s release to calm a nervous insurance industry.

The original XW GT-HO (now commonly referred to as the Phase 1) was released for sale in mid-August 1969 to allow a minimum of 200 units to be sold and registered in time to be eligible for the Sandown Three-Hour race in September and Bathurst 500 in October. With a retail price of $4495 the GT-HO was $245 dearer than the base Falcon GT, but given all the hype there were surprisingly few differences between the XW GT and its GT-HO option.

Most of the changes were focused on the engine with a larger 600cfm Holley four-barrel carburettor, Ford ‘Buddy Bar’ aluminium inlet manifold, high performance camshaft, tougher valve-train hardware and larger alternator resulting in 300bhp/225kW at 5400rpm and 380 ft/lbs/513Nm at 3400rpm. In other words, 10 extra horses at higher rpm, with a slight drop in torque.

Other additions were a stronger tail-shaft, lower diff ratio, rear anti-sway bar and extra bracing on the front anti-sway bar mounts, a plastic front chin spoiler to improve high speed aerodynamics and a ‘GT-HO’ decal on the glove-box lid. Magazine road tests at the time claimed a scintillating top speed of 130mph (208km/h), 0-60mph (100km/h) in 6.7 secs and a standing quarter of 14.4 secs.

The new GT-HO opened its competition account in the best way possible with a win for Allan Moffat and John French in a works-entered Phase 1 at the 1969 Datsun Three Hour race at Sandown Park on September 14. In fact, GT-HOs finished 1-2-3. Given the severe brake problems suffered by the lone HT Monaro GTS 350, entered by the newly established Holden Dealer Team under ex-Ford man Harry Firth, Ford was a short-odds favourite to do the same at Bathurst three weeks later.

What a magnificent sight as a pack of new GT-HO Phase 2s lead the rolling start for the 1970 Sandown Three Hour race. From pole position, Ford works driver Allan Moffat demolished his competition which included Holden’s new Torana XU-1 and Chrysler’s Hemi Pacer.

The new GT-HO set the track alight in qualifying with works driver Pete Geoghegan nailing down pole position with a time that was almost eight seconds faster than the previous year’s top spot. With three works-backed entries for Pete/Leo Geoghegan, Fred Gibson/Barry Seton and Allan Moffat/Alan Hamilton leading a 14-car GT-HO onslaught, it looked a runaway Ford win was there for the taking. 

But Bathurst can be a cruel place, as Turner and his new factory race team discovered. A special batch of Goodyear ‘Blue Streak’ racing tyres, which had been air-lifted directly from the company’s US factory in Ohio, started to suffer some worrying high-speed blow-outs of the right rears, first on the Geoghegan car then the Gibson/Seton entry which crashed and rolled on top of the Mountain. Although the tyre wear on Moffat’s car was fine due to his uncanny throttle control, Turner had no choice but to bring him in for a precautionary tyre change which cost any chance of victory. 

After the race the problem was traced to early failure of the clutch-type limited slip diffs, which allowed the unweighted inside rear tyres to break loose and spin furiously under power on the steep off-camber right-hand climb through Griffin’s Bend at the end of Mountain Straight.

The final humiliation for Ford execs was Holden’s first and third placings with its new HT GTS 530 Monaro, under the supervision of Harry Firth who ironically had been replaced by Turner at Ford earlier that year! 

To save face and the Falcon’s hard-fought reputation, Ford ran full-page newspaper ads after the race blaming its poor selection of tyres, but behind closed doors it was already working on a faster and tougher GT-HO to extract its revenge on the Mountain.

Bruce McPhee was rewarded with a Ford works drive in 1970 following his outstanding Bathurst performance in a privately-entered GT-HO the previous year. Here McPhee powers through Murray’s Corner in his works Phase 2 during the 1970 Hardie-Ferodo 500, where he finished second to team-mate Allan Moffat.

GT-HO Phase 2

Released in August 1970, the tougher and faster GT-HO Phase 2 gave Ford the Bathurst success it patiently waited a year for, with a crushing 1-2 result in the 1970 Hardie-Ferodo 500 for works drivers Allan Moffat and Bruce McPhee.

Externally the new GT-HO was hard to pick from the Phase 1, but there were big changes under the skin aimed at not only achieving higher top speeds at Bathurst but also toughening up the whole drivetrain and suspension package.

The greatest change was replacement of the 351cid ‘Windsor’ V8 with Ford’s new bigger breathing ‘Cleveland’ version in 4V High Output specification. Imported from the US as a complete ‘crate’ motor specifically for Phase 2 duties, it was armed with a bigger 780cm four-barrel Holley carburettor, 11:1 compression, mechanical lifters and dual-point dizzy.

The Clevo’s big-valve heads and generous port sizes had power to burn, particularly at the upper end of the rev range on the long straights at Bathurst where the big Holley and heads could really flow. Ford experts claim this engine was good for more than 340bhp at 5400rpm with top speeds of 140mph-plus (225km/h).

Despite the Cleveland’s increased performance over the Windsor, some reliability issues soon surfaced which threatened to also bring the 1970 Bathurst attack undone. The problems were largely being caused by the marginal quality of local pump fuel combined with the engine’s high compression ratio, causing detonation. However, Ford engineers quickly addressed these issues resulting in improved durability margins in competition use.

Most of the GT-HOs entered at Bathurst were private entries backed by Ford dealers, like this Phase 2 driven in 1970 by Tony Roberts who co-drove the winning HDT Monaro with Colin Bond the year before. Roberts’ massive late-race crash at Skyline in this fateful Ford - and its multiple rolls down the side of the Mountain - have been immortalised on DVD and Youtube.

There was also a revised clutch pack and an uprated top loader gearbox featuring a stronger output shaft, longer rear extension housing and a new close-ratio gear set tailor-made for Bathurst. There was also a shorter and stronger tail-shaft assembly, tougher diff centre and axle shafts, a choice of final drive ratios and the option of a ‘Detroit Locker’ mechanical lock diff centre, specifically to replace the standard clutch-type LSDs which had caused the crippling tyre wear problems at Bathurst the previous year.

The suspension also received some refinements with stiffer anti-sway bar and spring rates and the rear brakes were also revised to improve cooling and stopping power. The Phase 2’s most noticeable visual change was replacement of the Phase 1’s 12-slot wheels with stronger five-slot versions.

The Phase 2 followed in the tyre tracks of the Phase 1 at the 1970 Sandown Three-Hour race. 1969 co-winner Allan Moffat (now driving solo) dominated practice and led the race from start to finish. In a faultless display he lapped the entire field, which included new six cylinder rivals in the form of Holden’s cheeky LC Torana GTR XU-1 and Chrysler’s new VG Valiant ‘Hemi’ Pacer.

Moffat maintained the momentum at the Mountain three weeks later, claiming his first Bathurst 500 victory ahead of works team-mate Bruce McPhee in another Phase 2. Although the new Torana XU-1s were rated a genuine outright threat to the Fords thanks to their superior fuel, tyre and brake wear, the HDT works cars were hobbled by valve-train problems and the Pacers were not fast enough to mount a serious challenge.

It was indeed a glorious win for Ford and Allan Moffat, with the mighty Phase 2 GT-HO not only extracting sweet revenge on Mount Panorama but also providing much of the basis for its XY-based Phase 3 successor which would sweep all before it at Bathurst the following year.

How tough is that! Ford’s ultra-expensive and ultra-troublesome XW GT-HO Super Falcons may have caused plenty of heartache for Allan Moffat and Pete Geoghegan on the track, but on looks alone they were runaway winners. This is Moffat’s car in its early guise.

The XW ‘Super Falcons’

The Australian Touring Car Championship was established in 1960 and for most of that decade the nation’s most prestigious tin-top title was decided by a single race each year. The early ATCC battles were dominated by imported Jaguar sedans before V8 Ford Mustangs became the weapon of choice, delivering four consecutive titles thanks to Norm Beechey and Pete Geoghegan.

When the ATCC moved to a multi-round format in 1969, Ford’s performance image got another boost with Geoghegan and his mighty Mustang winning again. The ATCC’s Mustang ranks were also being boosted by factory race cars built for the US Trans-Am series, including Bob Jane’s 1968 Shelby coupe and Allan Moffat’s 1969 Boss 302 fastback.

However, the problem for Ford Australia was that it sold Falcons, not Mustangs, so the image rub-off on the local product was limited. And given that Norm Beechey had blooded Holden’s new HK Monaro GTS 327 that year, the race was on between Holden and Ford to be the first Australian car manufacturer to win the ATCC which ran to ‘Improved Production’ rules.

As Beechey set to work on his new HT Monaro GTS 350 for 1970, Ford Australia commissioned Al Turner and his Ford Special Vehicles division to build two very special XW Falcon GT-HOs for Allan Moffat and Pete Geoghegan to drive instead of their Mustangs. And hopefully humiliate Beechey and Holden in the process.

Geoghegan’s XW Super Falcon (now updated with XY panels) finally proved what it was truly capable of when it defeated Moffat’s Boss 302 Trans-Am Mustang at the Easter round of the 1972 ATCC held at Mount Panorama. This historic clash is still widely regarded as the greatest Aussie touring car race. Image: primotipo.com

The theory was that these ‘Super Falcons’ would be built along similar lines to their Trans-Am Mustang cousins, based on engineering blueprints from Ford’s Kar-Kraft special vehicles division in the US. 

To minimise weight the body-shells were acid-dipped until the sheet-metal was paper-thin, new bumpers were stamped from thin steel sheet and exotic lightweight materials including magnesium and titanium were used in construction.

The 351cid Cleveland engines were also brimming with exotic hardware including four-bolt mains, dry-sump lubrication, steel billet cranks, Falconer & Dunn hi-flow cylinder heads and bespoke mechanical fuel injection. The target was a staggering 550-600bhp, to be fed through special top loader gearboxes, fully floating nine-inch rear axle assemblies with Watts linkages, fully adjustable suspensions, big brakes and super lightweight magnesium Minilite wheels.

Unfortunately all the greatest ideas and intentions in the world don’t always deliver the desired result, even for the Ford Motor Company. Although the two Super Falcons were supposed to be ready in time for the start of the 1970 ATCC, there were numerous delays. 

Moffat’s Super Falcon was also updated with XY panels for the 1971 season but the hand-built factory racer proved so troublesome that Moffat walked away from the project. This is how the car looked at the Surfers Paradise round of the 1971 ATCC, when Ford factory driver John French guest-drove it to a hard-fought fourth place.

The concept of adapting Trans-Am Mustang chassis and suspension to local Falcon architecture was great in theory but flawed in practice. And the exotic fuel-injected V8s, although producing huge numbers on the dyno, were terribly fragile resulting in numerous expensive blow-ups as engineers chased elusive reliability. The program was soon way behind schedule and over budget.

Neither car was seen in the 1970 ATCC until the final round at Symmons Plains in Tasmania, when Beechey had already wrapped up the title and given Holden the honour of being the first Australian-made car to do so. Moffat only completed four laps in practice with smoke pouring from his engine before it blew itself to bits. His fastest time was good enough for pole position, but engine damage ensured he was a non-starter in Sunday’s race.

The Super Falcon program continued into 1971 with the cars now updated to the latest XY bodywork. Although Moffat and Geoghegan were encouraged by Ford to run both their Falcons and Mustangs in practice sessions at each round, the ill-handling and fragile Falcons were always outclassed. By the end of the 1971 championship Moffat had given up on his Falcon in disgust, leaving Geoghegan to go it alone.

For the 1972 season, the last year that the ATCC would be run to Improved Production rules, Geoghegan spent up big in trying to finally tap the Super Falcon’s potential. Respected open-wheeler race car constructor John Joyce and fabricator John Barnes greatly improved the car’s woeful chassis stiffness with a complex roll cage structure and reworked the suspension geometry to match.

Geoghegan’s last ATCC race in the Super Falcon was the final round of the 1972 series at Sydney’s Oran Park. With more than 600bhp on tap from the fuel-injected 351 V8, Geoghegan was holding a commanding lead for most of the race until an engine miss in the final laps forced him to concede to Moffat’s Mustang. The big fella really deserved to win that one!

The handling improvements were dramatic, even though the car continued to be haunted by engine failures. However, on the rare occasions when everything clicked, Geoghegan and his Super Falcon were a formidable combination, as proven by his legendary victory over Moffat’s Tran-Am Mustang at the Easter 1972 ATCC round at Mount Panorama. Geoghegan said that race was the greatest drive of his career.

On reflection, Pete’s unwavering belief in the potential of the Aussie-built supercar and his huge personal investment in it showed what it was truly capable of and finally delivered on what Al Turner originally planned it to do – beat a genuine Trans-Am Mustang fair and square!