3 replies to this topic

[IanC]

If you have an hour to kill. Damn they could drive car that didn't want to be driven. Hope you enjoy Yel. The Monaro could have been anything if Holden had went with Ford and matched HP with HP. The most spectacular car racing ever IMHO. https://youtu.be/nNXRnnEir_M

[RallyRed]

Good old footage.  Real series prod. type stuff.

With tail out driving like that, no wonder they had the big crowds.

[yel327]

It is cool racing. Those Fords are XW GT-HO as raced at Bathurst in 1969. The GT-HO Phase II wouldn't have yet qualified to race as production on those didn't start until March 1970, but those Series Production 351W were no slouch. They were a hand-built QC engine just like the PhaseII and PhaseIII. I have a road test here of a car prepped for Bathurst 1969 that never raced. It easily pulled low 14.4s quarters, 16.7s 0-100mph faster than any production Cleveland GT-HO and with a 3:1 rear axle to boot..

 

Moffat won the 1st and 3rd of the Tasman Touring Series all in in February 1970, Bond won the second.

 

The GTS350's were super competitive. After Bathurst 1969 Bond went on to win the Lakeside 1500 in November 1969 (a 60 lap sprint race) and then the Rothmans 12 hour in January 1970 at Surfers paradise.

 

The reason they stopped racing them was pure economics. They trialed a 370hp LT1 engine in one but GMH knew that production 300hp 350 engines and also the 350hp Corvette version, plus the 370hp LT1 would finish by the end of July 1970. After that the HQ engines as we know came into being. Ford knew they couldn't win with production engines, they had locally purpose built 351W and 351C engines for the GT-HO, but they had the benefit of a "win at all costs" budget. GMH weren't allowed to race, so they couldn't ask for special build non-production engines out of North America. Plus to go with these hypo engines would mean Muncies and 12-bolts, even more cost. So they made the decision to race the local Torana with local engines and driveline. Harry Firth wasn't happy - he never wanted the Torana with a 6cyl, he knew what Ford had as he actually designed their first GT-HO for them before being shown the door.

 

So yes they could have been faster, look at what Beechey managed with his HT. But it was never to be in Series Production.

[yel327]

One thing to expand upon what Ian said. People, especially Ford fans always say that Holden and/or Harry knew that the Monaros couldn't compete with the GT-HO's, which is an absolute load of BS. The facts are:

 

• The GTS350's beat Ford's GT-HO's in 1969.
• Ford fans blame the tyres. Yet conveniently forget that Bruce McPhee ran the same tyres as the Bond and West HT's, Michelin XAS, and officially finished second. And the 42D HDT car that finished 6th directly behind the works GT-HO's that finished 4th and 5th was running the same tyres as the works GT-HO's.
• The 1970 race was slower in overall time than 1969. 1970 was 6:33:47. 1969 was 6:32:25. This was despite the big crash at the start of 1969 with a number of slow laps in between. To balance this though one of the top 3 cars in 1969 actually did 131 laps so in the end both years would be damn near identical in overall race time.

 

So add another 12 months of GTS350 development along with the Harry factor and I wouldn't have been surprised at all if a GTS350 won again in 1970.