FALCON FURY
THE PHASE FOUR WAS KILLED OFF BY POLITICS BUT IT LIVES ON IN THE RPO83 GT SEDANS AND COUPES
The year of 1972 was fateful for a number of reasons. It marked the accession of EG (Gough) Whitlam to the highest elected office in the land and official sanction of on-screen voyeurism when skin-fest Number 96 made its television debut.
It was also the year our car makers would discover that governments really did decide what kinds of cars Australians were allowed to buy.
Following a front-page exposé of the Big Three manufacturers’ competition programs, complete with 160mph Cars Soon as its headline,
“THE STATEMENT CONFIRMED ‘ VARIANCES’ TO THE SPECIFICATION OF SOME GT FALCONS”
those programs were abandoned in the face of fears that companies which pressed ahead would be banned from tendering for government vehicle orders.
Had Ford, Holden and Chr ysler a ll stood up to the bully ing from of f icia ldom and risked de-listing, we wonder would police rea lly have been driv ing Mini Mokes and the Prime Minister cruising around in an AMI-assembled Rambler. But it never went t hat far.
A principa l player in the drama was Ford’s GT-HO Phase 4. Consigned to histor y after just four cars were completed, Ford still had enough parts sitting on shelves to build at least 250 more and no market. Unless of course it created one on t he sly.
The RPO (Regular Production Option) 83 was announced v ia a downbeat memo to dealers, issued in October 1973. There was no launch function or even a media announcement and no of f icia l press-test car, a lt hough tests were conducted using privately-owned examples.
The statement conf irmed ‘variances’ to t he specif ication of some GT Falcons produced during preceding weeks. These changes included a Holley 780cfm four-barrel carburettor wit h manual choke, extractor-t y pe ex haust manifolds (as had been fitted to the superseded GTHO Phase 3) and shields to def lect ex haust heat away from the clutch slave cylinder’s hydraulic pipe.
No mention in the memo though of rear-wheel disc bra kes, t he ‘baf f led’ Phase 4 sump or specia l radiator, heav y-dut y drive-shafts and ot her goodies t hat found t heir way seemingly at random onto a few RPO83 GTs and other 351-engined Fords.
The bulletin included a list of cars built to t he amended specif ication. This contradicts some opinions t hat
“IF FORD AUSTRALIA OR RECOGNISED GT AUTHORITIES CAN’T CONFIRM A CAR’S AUTHENTICITY, IT’S VERY LIKELY A FAKE”
‘nobody k nows which cars were actua lly RPOs’. If Ford Austra lia or recognised GT aut horities can’t conf irm a car’s aut henticit y, it ver y li kely is a fa ke.
The issue t hat arises most often isn’t whether a car was built to RPO specif ications but whether it has remained in t hat form. Engine swaps, colour changes, even complete re-shells are entirely possible, occurring because for many years these cars weren’t seen as any t hing particula rly signif icant.
Had t he Phase 4 not been stif led at birt h, t his most successf ul of Ford’s loca l competition cars might never have ex isted. In t heir original form, Phase 4s were destined to use four-door bodies, wit h no plan for a competition-spec hardtop even when they did make a belated appearance.
By 1973 and under Improved Production reg ulations, Ford abandoned t he idea of competition four-doors and ensured that its runners, be t hey factor y-backed drivers or privateers, were in t he aerody namically superior t wo-door cars.
Bathurst 1000 racer and 1974/85 race winner John Goss scored one car to race and another RPO83 hardtop as his ‘company car’ from sponsor McLeod Ford.
Wheels magazine wrangled a brief test of the Lime Gla ze Goss car and while Ford denied that any changes had been made to t he Cleveland 351’s interna ls, Wheels felt that it “ran more crisply” and performance was superior to a stock X A GT once the
tacho wound past 3500rpm.
Judged against purely logica l criteria, an X A is t he best Falcon GT to own and an RPO83 is the best X A. The X Y with its evocative ‘sha ker’ air-inta ke is t he more recognisable car but an older design and today more expensive than an X A. The preceding GTs aren’t as fast or well balanced as the X A and have no show of accommodating the massive wheel/ t y re packages t hat easily f it beneath t he hardtop’s bloated wheel-arches.
The X A sat on a wider track than the X Y but used the same 2819mm wheelbase. The sedan was marginally lower than an X Y but when the X A hardtop arrived it shaved a lmost 60mm off the height of a four-door. Weight was similar wit hout any discernible ef fect on body rigidit y. In fact the X A hardtop was said to be the quieter car due to improved rear body rigidit y and additiona l sound deadening.
Top speed from a basic X A GT sedan was 203km/h, with 210k m/h available from t he more aero-effective hardtop. That was predicted to increase by 15k m/h for the RPO83 t wo-door, wit h race-k itted versions able to top 270k m/h. There, f inally, was your ‘160mph super car’.
The steering wit hout assistance required ef fort at lower speeds and only 39 of the RPO83-equipped GTs had power steering as an option. Once on the move though the thrott le could be ef fectively used to help steer t he car. Disc bra kes that found their way under the rear end of an odd few RPOs were never homologated for use in the X A however.
GT Falcon researcher Mark Barraclough who has ex haustively documented the X A GT and its RPO83 option pack conf irms that there were indeed 250 cars built and not t he 259 prev iously believed to have ex isted. All of t hem lef t Ford’s production line during August 1973 and most would have reached dealers and possibly have been delivered to owners well before the RPO83 Memorandum (dated 2 October) was even sent.
“Most had sat on t he line for si x weeks during a strike but by August cars were being completed and sent on their way,” Mark conf irmed. “Not a ll GTs built during August 1973 will have RPO equipment and not a ll cars that came with non-standard parts were RPOs, some were not even GTs.
“Because components fitted to RPO83 cars were being homologated for racing the build numbers had to be recorded and t hat is t he best way to aut henticate one of t hese cars.”
Mark confirmed that Yellow Glow and Polar White were among the most common RPO83 colours, with black one of t he rarest and t hese are t he colours carried by our t wo and four-door examples of the RPO83.
Owner of both these magnificent and signif icant Fords is Perr y Bitsa k is, whose Muscle Car Warehouse business is located in the southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah. Perr y since the age of 18 has owned performance models and our
“ALL OF THEM LEFT FORD’S PRODUCTION LINE DURING AUGUST 1973”
“IT WAS SUPPOSED TO COMPETE AT BATHURST BUT NEVER DID”
featured RPOs rank high on his list of ver y specia l cars.
“Like severa l of t he early-build RPOs, the yellow hardtop was supplied to a prominent racing driver. It was supposed to compete at Bathurst but never did,” Perr y said.
Later in life it would be owned by drag-racing identit y Des Leonard but still wasn’t used as a competition car. In fact, so much store was placed in keeping t he car aut hentic (apart from an externa l respray some years ago) t hat when Unique Cars f irst saw it in 2012 when photographing a USA vs Austra lia muscle-car feature, t he coloured bands identif y ing a competition-spec driveshaft were still v isible. So were production-line markings on t he dif ferentia l.
Perr y Bitsa k is’ a ll-black sedan is ack nowledged by RPO authorities as the only one ever produced. It is made more sig nif ica nt (if t hat’s possible) by a black v inyl roof and white interior. Yet t his tr uly unique vehicle came ver y close to being lost prior to Bitsa k is’ involvement.
“It was delivered by Anderson Ford in Western Austra lia and obv iously to a specia l order,” Perr y explained. “It over t he years found its way to t he nort hern regions of Western Austra lia where it was repainted and f inally parked in ver y neglected condition by the owner who had it prior to me.”
The car had been sold to that owner many years earlier for a reported $ 9000
“PERRY BITSAKIS’ ONYX BLACK SEDAN IS ACKNOWLEDGED BY RPO AUTHORITES AS THE ONLY ONE EVER PRODUCED”
and increasingly generous of fers hadn’t conv inced him to sell. By t he time Perr y Bitsa k is became aware of t he car’s plight it was suf fering signif ica nt ly from r ust. However t he interna l shell and rear quarters were still sound and he was conf ident t he car could be saved.
“Once I heard about the car and verif ied t hat it was indeed t he only a ll-black RPO sedan I blew the owner out of the water with an offer that I was conf ident would be accepted.”
As a passionate GT ent husiast, Perr y k new that this ver y specia l sedan must be returned to showroom condition and sent it to Dean Hampton at RPO (Restoring People’s Obsessions) for a rotisserie rebuild that would take almost three years to complete. The work involved an obviously large financial commitment however Perry believes that these cars haven’ t as yet come close to reaching their full potential.
“They were built in smaller numbers than GT-HO Phase 3s and the prices for what they are just haven’ t kept pace ,” Perry commented. “You look at Phase 4s and people say they could be worth up to $3 million but we know what RPOs have sold for and it’s a lot less than that for a car that’ s not all that different .”