IF you have ever wanted to climb behind the wheel or look under the bonnet of a 1970 XW GTHO Phase II, then tomorrow is probably as close as you’re going to get.However, if you don’t know what any of that means, then keep it to yourself because you will have your ears talked off your head if you roll up to Pacific Ford’s GT Day on Sugar Road.
The show will feature up to 80 Ford muscle cars, spanning the car maker’s more than 40 years from the 1967 XR GT Falcon which is said to have started the endless rivalry between Ford and Holden.But it could be Ford racing messiah Allan Moffat who will be the biggest drawcard, standing alongside his 1970 Bathurst-winning XW GTHO Phase II.
He was the blue oval’s equivalent of driving king Peter Brock and they battled on the Bathurst mountain in some of the most powerful Australian cars ever built.
The rarest muscle car ever built in Australia, the 1972 XA Falcon Phase IV, is only one of three-and-a-half ever built and it will be on display at the GT show as well.
Show organiser and Pacific Ford salesman Bruce Simpson said Holden responded to the release of Ford’s first muscle-car with their HK Monaro.
“And it’s evolved into this super car battle – it was the first Australian muscle car and the GTHOs followed,” Mr Simpson said.
Deigned as Australian icons from the moment they rolled off the assembly line, they ensnared a generation of wheel-nuts.
“When I was a kid, they were just brutal cars.
“They had a four-door sedan body and this hulking big engine.
“As kids, they’d say, ‘Wow! Someone has a GT in the street’.
“It was uniquely Aussie.”
Mr Simpson said the latest Ford GTs would one day become iconic cars in their own right as the classic and powerful muscle car fell out of fashion.
“I think the current crop of GTs will be as collectible (as the classic GTs) in 20 to 30 years,” he said.
“We’re in the sunset of the golden age of performance.”
The GT Car Show will run from 10am to 3pm at Pacific Ford’s Sugar Road showroom, with Allan Moffat signing autographs from 1pm.
