Ford XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III 1973 ATCC Winner

The Ford Factory backed Moffat #9 XY Falcon Phase III GT-HO is a car that commands admiration and respect from Australian muscle car fans. That is quite an achievement, given that it was a ‘stop-gap’ car that was beyond its prime and competed in just 11 Championship races. However, each of these confrontations were fierce battles, fought at the highest level against arch rival GM-H and its formidable Holden Dealer Team.
11 races that resulted in Ford defeating Holden in both the 1972 Manufacturers Championship and the 1973 Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC). And delivering Allan Moffat his first ATCC crown, after many years of trying. The real life drama that surrounded Moffat’s challenge for the 1973 Australian Touring Car Championship was more bizarre than a TV thriller. There was political challenge, protests, prangs, appeals, disqualifications, allegations of illegality, tyre troubles, and on one occasion the GT-HO was even stolen.For three years Allan Moffat had worked for the title in his impressive
Trans-Am Mustang, but a change of rules for 1973 prevented the Mustang from competing in this class. The Falcon GT-HO was a ‘natural’. A Phase IV GT-HO had been planned and prototypes built, but public opinion and government intervention stamped ‘supercar’ on this vehicle, as well as cars planned by other manufacturers for production car racing. Therefore any ideas on racing a Phase IV had to be scrapped.
The #9 GT-HO started out as an Ultra White XY HO with Saddle (brown) interior, a test-and-develop vehicle from the Ford Motor Company's Research Centre. The car was painted Vermillion Fire and all the racing bits and pieces from the 71’ Bathurst Winning #65E XY, were swapped to the new HO, after a crash into a concrete wall in Adelaide had ruined the #65E. The GT-HO was upgraded to the new Group C specifications only weeks before the first heat of the ATCC at Symmons Plains, where Moffat won easily. Racing fans had expected the new rules to turn more in favor of the six-cylinder Holden Torana XU1s, but the Holdens were left well behind.
As the ATCC Series developed, the Toranas improved to a stage where they were as fast as the Ford Falcons. In the Adelaide round, the GT-HO was stolen by a joy-rider on the night before the race. Moffat was loaned another Falcon and finished second, to hold his points lead for the Championship. Then Peter Brock in his Holden Torana XU1 downed Moffat in the second last heat, at  Oran Park, in New South Wales, and the finish of the series was set for a thrilling climax. However the Holden Dealer Team’s smiles soon faded, when a random post-race stripdown by scrutineers revealed a technical infringement, with an illegally-sized inlet manifold, excluding Brock from the results.
Allan Moffat had won his first Australian Touring Car Championship title, with one heat left to run. Ironically, Moffat covered only three laps of the final race, at Warwick Farm, NSW, before a loose radiator hose forced him to pull out. The Classic Carlectables Ford XY Falcon #9 is modelled on the car that finished the Championship at Warwick Farm, even detailing the scrutineering sticker on the passenger side of the front windscreen.

Item includes certificate with individual production number.