Farewelled Bathurst hardtops
When it comes to Bathurst 1000 success, no model can top the XA Falcon’s win-rate of two Great Race victories in the model’s only two appearances. Sadly, neither of the two winning chassis have survived the ravages of time.
Ford fans have fantastic memories of the various Falcons that flew their blue flag high at Mount Panorama across the amazing decade that was the 1970s. Honours were even between the blue oval mob and ‘The General’ with five wins apiece at Bathurst across the period.
On the Ford side, it was Allan Moffat who did the majority of the winning, claiming all four of his Bathurst crowns in this fondly remembered decade. But it’s also a decade that has some holes in its history.
The very nature of life is that heroes of the day grow old, get ill and depart or unexpectedly pass away with Ian Geoghegan (1973) and Peter Brock (1972, 1975, 1978, 1979) winners from the decade no longer with us.
Gone too are some of the cars, no longer here in the metal for Australian Muscle Car magazine fans to enjoy.
As much as a well-built and meticulously detailed replica can be, it’s not quite the same sort of thing.
Of the three Ford Falcon hardtops that claimed the ultimate success at the Mountain in the 1970s, only one – the 1977 Allan Moffat/ Jacky Ickx XC – exists today. But that’s a story for next edition.
The 1973 Moffat/Geoghegan XA GT and the similar car of John Goss and Kevin Bartlett that won the 1974 race are sadly both long gone. The two cars fell victim to, respectively, an accident and the ravages of time.
Here we continue our ‘Cars That Won Bathurst’ series, focussing on this pair of historically significant cars. Against
the wishes of the factory Ford setup, John Goss was the first out of the blocks with a new XA GT Falcon in 1973 in the South Pacific Touring Car Championship that supported the Tasman Series over summer.
After racing it in various Australian Touring Car Championship races that year, he then ran at Sandown and took pole at Bathurst with Kevin Bartlett aboard the yellow Ford backed by Sydney dealer Max McLeod.