AMC BEST LETTER

Hair model’s recollections

Ihave a pic for you that I have been trying to nd for about six years now and my dad nally found it for me! This is me circa 1990 or ’91 when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I was at Portland, Victoria for a TAFE skills expo/ competition as a hair model! As you can see I had a head of black hair to give Elvis a run for his money and if memory serves me correctly the young lady cutting my hair won a gold medal that day. These days I sport a shaved head but fortunately, ahem, still have the good looks.

Around this time I was regularly keeping track of Wheels magazine and the upcoming Aussie hot wheels on their way. One that really piqued my interest was the red EA Falcon that had the

351 Windsor shoe-horned in as a test mule for an upcoming rumoured GT Falcon (later to be the EB GT). It was in a few magazine tests, and then had a hasty respray to the hero Cobalt blue later to adorn the EB GT. I had no idea this car was going to be there this day as I was just there to do the hair thing and my now late Mum had the camera for the pics of my ‘do.’ Needless to say when I spotted the car I was in lust and talked the ear off the local Ford dealer rep that was there with the car. He must have picked up on my utter enthusiasm as he said that if I came back the next day he would take me for a ride in it back to the shop. I asked, and asked, and asked my mum if this could happen, but alas the next day was Monday and a school day and the answer was a ‘no.’

But my mum was awesome; she worked as a secretary back in the day at Fisher Ford in Nhill (Victoria) as a receptionist and would tell me about all the GT Falcons that rolled out the door to cashed up farmers and their sons. At the time the would-be GT still had red in the engine bay and door jambs as it had received a doors-shut spray, ready for the show circuit. On a later visit I took to the Discovery Centre in Geelong, it had received the full spray.

Where is the car now? What is the story of its conception and build?

I only really looked at the back of the picture today, to notice that my Mum had the foresight of a car journalist, or perhaps she really knew Ford muscle cars better than I, as she had already tagged it as “The latest GT”.

The Torana pic is my Dad in the late 70s on the night he won the Borderline Speedway modi ed sedan (next level up from the street stocks category) title. The car is a 1970 LC GTR that was upgraded to LJ spec. It was rst built by a local speedway identity, Martin Broome, and was believed to be one of the rst GTRs in South Australia to see speedway duties as it hit the track early ‘70s. Dad sold the car in the early ‘80s as son number two was on the way and the sport was starting to get dearer, with heavier safety regulations coming into play.

So between Mum and Dad, my obsession with cars was bound to happen, though Dad still gets a bit cranky at my car dreams, even after he bought a Cyan Blue August ’73 build LJ GTR 10 years ago, that is awaiting restoration!

Shaun Dunford

Mt Gambier, SA ED: Great story, Shaun.To answer your question, we ran a small feature on this prototype as recently as issue #99.The car is retained by Ford Australia and is in storage.