Allan Moffat at the Pacific Ford GT show.

Once again the team at Pacific Ford came through and put on another great car event. The entire dealership was cleared of cars and replaced with some of the best Falcon GT's in Qld and NSW for this one off special day. GT Clubs and enthusiasts from the North, South and West all contributed, with the threat of some of the worst weather SE Qld has seen in a few years not holding them back. Of special note were the 18 members from the Sydney based GT Club Inc, who all drove up for the weekend. There were also people from WA, SA, Tasmania and even a couple from NZ there for the day.

 

 

The main draw was not only the GT’s. This day’s special guest was the man who helped make the GT Falcon the legend on the racetrack, Mr Allan Moffat. Moffat was the number one driver for Ford in those glory days, racing some of the toughest beasts that Ford Special Vehicles could put together for him. He had great success, with many Bathurst and Touring Car Championships, making him the deserved hero he is today.

 

We have a large number of Moffat’s cars in the collection and felt obliged to make a big contribution to this special event. The Pacific Ford FPV team have great enthusiasm for the GT's as well as understanding the heritage, which is really something to be applauded. With FPV now having Moffat as their new ambassador they made him available for the event. We offered four of Moffat’s most famous cars to show off on the dealership floor. The GTHO Phase 1,2,3 and 4.

Leading up to the event our mechanic's spent a day getting the cars ready for drive to the event. The Phase 1,2 & 4 are all series production cars, so could be driven to the dealership, while the Phase 3 is an outright racing machine and was taken down on Moffat’s old F350 race transporter, very appropriate. We had some lucky Facebook fans win rides down in the cars, with the Phase 2 and 4 handling the taxi duties quite well, apart from the uncomfortable access with back seat roll cage. I didn’t hear one word of complaint from anyone about that tho! One of the winners went on a cleaning spree on the HO’s interiors showing to all onlookers how well the Vinyl Care cleaner actually works! Always amazes me that even clean looking interiors still have quite a bit of dirt still there, thankfully it is all gone now, thanks so much for the work you put in Lyndal. ;)

 

The day itself was spectacular, rows and rows of GT’s, pretty much one of every model to leave the factory, it was a real buzz with the clubs and spectators hardly caring about the occasional rain shower. Some new concepts were also brought into the show, like starting all the GT’s at one time, (oooh yes the environmental council would be stoked on that one) and the charity auction of a Moffat signed XY GTHO, donated by our local model shop, Motor Mazing, good on ya guys. I am not sure of exact numbers who attended, but numbers of around 4 to 5 thousand would be about right. It was a huge success.

Throughout the day, I gave talks on the GTHO’s, bringing each of them to life, much to the delight of the excited fans. Each car is an incremental increase in the noise level they give out, so the Phase 4 certainly brought a few smiles to the faces of the fans, but I could tell by the looks on the unsuspecting faces in the crowd when Moffat GTHO Phase 3 was fired up, It was fear now in their eyes with her lovely brutal rumble! There is nothing sedate about that old girl, which is why I love it so much! 

 

Just after lunch the man himself arrived with head of FPV, Rod Barrett.  Together they gave a great talk on Moffat’s long and diverse career, his new role in FPV and some solid question and answer time as well. Barrett did his best to try and stop any thoughts of a new FPV GTHO, but the crowd would not believe him! From there Moffat spent the next few hours signing away for his fans, something you have to take your hat off to Moffat for, as I don’t think my hand would ever be capable of 15 minutes worth, let alone a few hours writing the same name over and over.

 

Moffat finally finished up for the day and slowly the rest of the GT’s did the same. By now these were quite heavy and consistent rain showers. I had the pleasure of driving the Phase 2 and  4 home in this, something I must say was quite nerve wrecking! But they all got home safe,  to get cleaned up and prepared for the following days big Open Day with Moffat as the special guest driver.(Read about it in the next blog)

 

 Channel 9's news story on the day.

 

  I lost count of the amount of people I spoke to about the car collection, our car care and the Open Day tours of the sheds, but it was pretty great to meet first hand so many hardcore enthusiasts. So thanks for coming along and saying hello. Overall it was a ripper event and we look forward to being a part of the next one at Pacific Ford.

 

Love your car,
Dan Bowden

More images of this day are hidden down below, in the secret rectangular boxes.. Just click on them and they will appear.

All images from ace photog Sean Craig; Check his site here

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