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McLeod Ford Horn Cars. Anyone who’s into Fords and has reached a certain age will know what that means. Back in the ‘70s McLeod Ford in Rockdale in Sydney’s south was a powerhouse Ford dealer, with a successful Falcon racing effort spearheaded by one of the best and most popular drivers in the country in John Goss, and an exciting and innovative marketing programme for the dealership that was decades ahead of its time. With his McLeod Ford Horn Cars (complete with the personal endorsement of Goss himself), dealer principal Max McLeod created his own in-house 1970s equivalent of a Tickford or FPV. So successful was the concept that McLeod was able to sign up Ford dealers in every other state on the mainland to act as agents for ‘Horn Cars.’ The McLeod Ford Horn Cars were promoted in a series of colourful and inventive print ads, which saw the cars depicted in a variety of situations: on the track accompanied by the agship McLeod Ford Horn Car (John Goss’ race Hardtop), in amongst a lion’s den (though clearly not Rory the Lion…) at the African Lion’s Safari in western Sydney – they even went to the trouble of creating a 1920s Great Gatsby-style theatrical scene in which a McLeod Ford Horn Car was stuck on the railway tracks and in peril from an approaching train. There was also a Christmas ad in the December 1974 issue of Modern Motor, wishing Horn Car drivers a merry Christmas. No doubt Max McLeod would have been very much in the festive mood at the back end of 1974, just a month or so after that fairytale Bathurst win for Goss and Kevin Bartlett in their McLeod Ford Falcon XA GT ‘Horn Car.’