Cover story: Moffat’s Mazda era

Allan Moffat was Ford’s racing hero. But all that changed in the early 1980s. Having been abandoned by Ford, he abandoned them. Worse than that, he sided with Japanese carmaker Mazda to race an RX7. AMC unravels a remarkable story of a turbulent time.

For more than a decade, Allan Moffat was Ford’s racing hero, but all that changed in the early 1980s. Having been abandoned by Ford, he abandoned them, handing the Blue Oval mantle to Dick Johnson. Worse than that, he sided with Japanese carmaker Mazda to race an RX7. David Hassall unravels a remarkable story.

Allan Moffat and controversy were always familiar bedfellows. But the Mazda RX7 ramped it up to another level, con rming Moffat as Australia’s ultimate motor racing anti-hero in the early 1980s. Not since his meteoric arrival with the Trans-Am Mustang in 1969 had the expatriate Canadian worn the metaphorical black hat so comfortably from the moment he declared his intention to race the Japanese sports, er, touring car.

There followed two years of off-track battles with the ruling body, then three more years of political manoeuvring, interspersed with race wins, black ags, exclusions and annual disappointments at Bathurst. All the while, the Peter Stuyvesant cars were constantly cloaked in secrecy, which made them the subject of suspicion by rivals, who fought him in the corridors of power as much as on the race track.

That suspicion was seemingly well placed, too, according to some of the people involved. Winning political battles at governing body CAMS was never enough to make the lightweight rotary-powered ‘riceburners’ Bathurst winners, requiring a fair amount of engineering innovation and rule-bending trickery – and ultimately even that wasn’t enough to overcome good old-fashioned V8 grunt.

Moffat and Mazda eventually won a batch of national touring car and endurance championships that were a tribute to their commitment and doggedness in the face of enormous opposition, but ultimately failed to succeed where they most wanted – at Mount Panorama. That was a bitter pill to swallow, but Bathurst was simply a mountain too high to climb.

There was a determination by Holden, the Bathurst organisers and perhaps even CAMS itself to ensure that The Great Race remained a bastion of Aussie muscle, which they achieved for another decade. Moffat may have succeeded in nally getting peripheral port induction approved, then a bigger 13B engine and even fuel injection, but at the same time the Holdens and Fords were granted freedoms of their own that maintained the status quo. Mazda – as well as fellow newcomers Nissan and BMW – were allowed to be competitive for the lesser races, but Bathurst seemingly remained off-limits. A lapped second was the best placing the RX7 managed.

In the end, the giant-killing RX7 almost killed Moffat himself, both metaphorically and physically. A huge accident at Surfers Paradise in 1984 left the four-time touring car champion battered and bruised in every sense. And then it was all over. CAMS adopted international Group A for 1985, Mazda and Peter Stuyvesant walked away from racing, and Allan Moffat was once again (at least until old rival Peter Brock came knocking) an unemployed racing driver.