XYGTHO at Bathurst

[ItalCarGuy]

This has 'some' alfa content. Mainly seen in the first minute of manic overtaking... But damn the XY GTHO is a beast. scary watch the small gaps he uses.

[Fast Eddie]

you can just imagine him wanting to flash the lights, hit the horn and flip the ... for the first 2 laps.

[Barry Edmunds]

Damn they were an awesome car at Bathurst (and most other places too). World's fastest 4-door production car and the muscle car tag came partly because of they way they muscled their way past the opposition. Be nice to sit and watch this footage in company with one of the GTHO pilots of the day and listen to them talk their way around the circuit. Nostalgia seem to make them faster.
I'm old enough to have been to the mountain back when they were king and battling with the Toranas, while their brakes held up. I still believe that (and the previous Mustang versus Monaro/Camaro years) were the very best era of touring car racing in Australia. Today's 'touring' cars are a poor substitute by comparison and as boring as dog droppings to watch as they run processional races like parade laps.

[colcol]

And as they say, racing improves the breed, when they broke things, they had to homoligate stronger parts, and build say 500 production versions, nowdays they are so bulletproof, [apart from the transaxles], that unless they crash them, they will finish, they were so standard, that when Fred Gibson finished racing one of his Falcons, he sold it to his mother in law!.
They used to drive the cars to the circuit and race them and if they survived, they would drive them back to the dealers, one particular car that won the Armstrong 500 was driven back to Melbourne and was on the dealers lot on Monday, and if something broke, they would check the carpark for similar models to pull bits off.
One of the Geoghan boys received sponsorship from a suit maker and drove in a suit for the Bathurst race, no fireproofs in those days, in the early days at Phillip Island, the cars had to be repaired with the tool kit provided wity the car.....so cars got better equiped tool sets with the car.
On one occasion at Phillip Island, the lap scorer noticed that there was one too many cars on the track, and on checking, found someone had stuck some numbers on their car, and just drove on to the track and after a while, signalled for the car to pull over and he just drove off the track and went home, Colin.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

World's fastest 4-door production car

I was always under the impression that the Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 had a higher top-speed, and accelerated more quickly.

[Brad M]

I was always under the impression that the Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 had a higher top-speed, and accelerated more quickly.

Nice one Sheldon, the resale value on the falcon is going to drop like a rock. 

[Davidm1600]

But it is true  and that is the thing.  Great driving though.

That the GTHO was supposedly the world's fastest 4 door tin can is a myth and was something perpetuated by local journos, given its success on the race track. Sure it was fast, real fast. Unfortunately for the Merc it was little raced, unlike the GTHO, oh and it cost a hell of lot more in its day to buy.   Let the values fall, they are so over-hyped anyway. 

[colcol]

I have heard that there is a bit of dodgy stuff going on to keep the price so high, like HO collectors selling cars back and forth to each other and the car is only valuable in Australia, it is not heard of overseas, so it won't be sold to overseas collectors for the inflated prices they currently go for. The 'Supercar' era come to an end when Ford were going to release a phase 4 GTHO, based on the newly released XA Falcon, there was a story in the Sunday papers on a '160 miles per hour' Supercar, i heard that the Federal Minister at the time was worried about it falling into the wrong hands and having a massive accident, reportedly told Ford, release that car and we won't have any Falcons on the Federal Goverment fleets.
After that they were allowed to make 'X' amount with a special 'hot up' Homoligation kits, but it was a great era for motor racing, Colin.

[Barry Edmunds]

You can thank the late and not lamented Evan Green for the demise of the Super Cars, GTHO Phase 4 Falcon and XU-2 Torana and you can thank Allan Moffatt for bringing Evan Green's TV commentary career to an end too.
Ford's racing division created a Phase IX Falcon GT that developed 528 HP, sadly they could not get the motor to live long enough for it to be competitive; either that or finding some super wide tyres that would cope with the horsepower. With the blessing of GMH, Harry Firth built up two XU-1 Toranas with 308 cu in motors in readiness for the on-track battles with Ford. The headlines in the daily newspapers which screamed Super Car in very large print put an end to the battle between GMH and Ford and their respective super cars never saw the light of day. Ford's MD of the day drove, as his company car, a GTHO Phase 3 Falcon fitted with a 429 cu in motor. Went like a blur in a straight line but handling and braking not quite so impressive. It was rumoured at the time that during a 'test' run one week day, on a long straight stretch of highway not far from the racing division, 160 + mph was seen on the speedo. Having seen the car on the road and witnessed its acceleration I have little reason to doubt the veracity of the rumour.

[John A Pucak]

Nice to see Mr Yager Performance give C.W.B. ( the Captain) a wave. I guess Mr Yager  Performance would rather be driving an Alfa Romeo.

Hollywood

[colcol]

And when Harry 'The Fox' Firth was developing the 308 XU1, they didn't go to normal racetracks to develop it, just a burst up the road in Malvern and at Victorian Hillclimbs, just to go under the radar, driven by one Peter Brock, some young bloke showing some potential.
I beleive or it might be another urban myth, that the Ford Australia Racing Team, with Alan Moffat were out near Broadmeadows, at some secret address develping the phase 4 XA Falcon, and would take for a burst along Mahoneys Road in Thomastown and they had 'super' police cars they used to tune up there, could all be B.S., Colin.

[Barry Edmunds]

Another urban myth to add to the list. One of the two major teams back then had a computer program of Mt Panorama which was used to test components before the race.

Urban myth or fact. I wouldn't be sure which it is but one year during practice Allan Moffat used the escape road at the end of Conrod and got a flying start to his next lap which got him pole position for race day. It apparently took a while before the opposition teams figured out what he had been up to when he used the escape road. Many assumed that he had run out of brakes in the GTHO.

That XU-1 with the 308 motor was a hell of a car. Fun to drive though.

[GTV-074]

Sure was an interesting time in Aussie Tin Top racing. I guess once the 'supercar' scare came & went it was all put back on CAMS and the lobbying from the major players as to what they should be allowed to homologate. A lot of it was 'smoke & mirrors' and rat cunning (sorry Fox!) and skulduggery.
For example Ford got away with running rear discs on the XA as they claimed that as they were fitted as 'standard' on the Landau coupe and that was a 'derivative' of the GT coupe! Many more examples by both parties!
I mean once the Phase 4 was killed off, Ford needed to run the aging Phase 3 again in the ATCC races in the first part of the year, so they had to contact current owners and get the Phase 3's fitted with the 15x7 Globe Bathurst wheels so they could satisfy CAMS!
Ford finally got their Phase 4 (by another name) on the track and got the bits they wanted 'homologated' via the "RPO83" program and went on and won Bathurst in 73-74. GMH got their V8 Torana down the track too (see L34). With the high gearing Howard Marsden claimed the Phase 4 would have hit 160mph down conrod.
As far as the 'fasted 4 door sedan' goes, as always depeneds what publication / site you read and what gearing the test car had at the time. Let just say they were both quick.
The Ford MD's (Bill Bourke) car was a standard XW GT sent to Ford in the US for a 'make over'. Came back as 428 CJ XW GT with a number of other mods to support that engine / power.

Cheers,

Paul.