There has been some mention of ‘special’ Ford Falcons before, but on this page we will mention some other rather interesting or unusual Fords that were sold by Ford, or modified, and sold by ‘tuners’.

The three best known ‘specials’ have been mentioned here. They are the XA based Superbird, the XB based John Goss Special and the XC based Cobra.

There are websites that cater for these three models.

XA Superbird

XB John Goss Special

XC Cobra

What may be of some interest was that there was also an ...

Allan Moffat Special

There is some ‘history’ as to why the XB John Goss Special and was not an Allan Moffat Special, but it would appear that, for whatever reason, Allan Moffat was not available to promote the limited edition XB when Ford needed him to be and John Goss was.

Here is some information, supplied by Ford Australia, about the AMS.

The "Allan Moffat Special" Falcon 500 sedan was released in 1977 and was available in a limited run of 500 vehicles only.

The appearance of the "Allan Moffat Special" included a distinctive hood, bodyside and rocker panel black out exterior paint treatment similar to that of the XB GT.

Standard specifications of the vehicle were:

*Falcon 500 sedan
*4.9 litre V8 engine
*4 speed manual or T-bar automatic trans
*4 wheel disc brakes
*Limited slip differential
*Sports handling suspension
*Dual exhaust
*Driving lights
*Styled steel road wheels
*FR70 steel belted radial tyres
*Comprehensive instrumentation
*Padded steering wheel
*Left hand side mirror

Exterior colours were restricted to Red, Pine 'N Lime and White all with black accent paint.

Retail prices for the "Alan Moffat Special" was $7450 for manual and $7689 for automatic vehicles. This pricing saw a saving of over $400 off the normal recommended retail prices of the time.

The marketing company responsible for promoting the "Allan Moffat Special", R.J. Reynolds ran a competition around the vehicle offering one of the vehicles as the prize.
 

Here are some pictures of a surviving Allan Moffat Special XC Falcon.

This car was sold originally in NSW in September, 1977.

In addition to the cowl mounted compliance plates, many XC Falcons had an extra tag added to the front of the radiator support. This tag most usually showed options fitted to the car. However, the options were of a larger or more ‘serious’ nature, for example, sports handling suspension, rather than, say, sunroof.

The tag was located on the passenger side of the support and is seen here between the radiator cap and the rubber bonnet bumper.

The tag contained stampings for the paint code, the last five digits of the VIN, and the options.

In this instance we can see code ‘9’ for Snow White paint and ‘R/Pack’ is for the sports handling suspension.

However, the ‘G.T.’ stamp is interesting. As we know, Ford never produced an GT model in the XC range, but they did offer the buyer the option of speccing up their car to the equivalent of an old style GT, or purchasing the GXL, which was the ‘sport/luxury’ model in the XC range.

The ‘G.T.’ on the tag for the AMS refers to the XB GT style black paintouts on the bonnet and on the lower sills and wheel wells.

Without the ‘G.T.’ the tag was quite simple.

And on the Cobra ?

Here is an old family photo of a Pine’n’Lime AMS formerly owned by a contributor to the FordForums message board.

Interesting cars.

We were contacted by Dave, who had seen the information above, and who has owned an Allan Moffat Special for the past 24 years as a family car.

Dave also provided some more information about the cars, some of which applies in contradiction to the white car above. The AMS cars were all VIN’d as August, 1977 build, which means the VIN has the letters ‘TG’ in it. As such the cars were pre ‘Mk II’ version of the XC model, and should not have the Ford oval on the grille, but instead the individual F.O.R.D. letters across the front of the bonnet. AMS cars also originally had the GS style petrol cap as seen on Dave’s car above.

Dave’s car does have the extra options tag.

It does show a marked similarity to the white car’s tag, being an earlier car whose VIN ends in ‘521’ in comparison with the white car’s VIN ending in ‘826’. The code ‘P’ shows for Pine’n’Lime paint.

The other interesting information supplied by Dave was that when first purchased his car had a decal just below the wing mirrors on either side of a small Australian flag with Allan Moffat’s signature underneath. This is the same as was used on Moffat’s car during the famous 1977 Bathurst race. Unfortunately, the decals became somewhat tatty over the years and were painted over when the car was repainted.

However, here is a photo of the two XC Falcons crossing the finish line at Bathurst in 1977.

You can see the small flags on both cars with Allan Moffat’s signature on both.

What is mildly interesting is that during the 1977 season when Allan Moffat and Colin Bond raced their cars as XB’s there was the block lettering ‘Australia’ under the flag. When the race cars changed to XC’s, the ‘Australia’ was replaced with Allan Moffat’s signature.

Thanks once more to the Falcon GT club’s historian, we now have some more information regarding the Allan Moffat Specials. Here is a breakdown of what they offered:

Serial Prefix JG23TG (TC ?) August 1977

Serial number 48xxx (49 ?)

SIDO Number 524 followed by 001-500 (seems to denote AMS number)

Model Code 18633 - XC Falcon 500 4 door sedan

Engine Code

P - 4.9 litre 4V 8 cylinder

Transmission Code

 L - 4 speed floor manual or B - 3 speed floor auto

Paint

P - Pine 'n' Lime
9 - Snow White
H - Red Flame

Trim

Z - Saddle
G - Ginger
B - Black
D - Doeskin
U - Dusk

C - Chamois

Options

 03 - Seat belts (mandatory)
45 - Limited slip differential
48 - GS Rally pack (incl bonnet, wheel, driv lights, instruments, clock, LH Mirror, Overriders, 12 slots)
53 - 4 wheel power disc brakes
67 - Dual exhaust system
68 - Sports handling suspension

Tyre Code 92 - FR70 H14 Black sidewall radials
OSOS Off Standard Options - Black G.T. Striping (denoted by G.T. on radiator support plate)

Thanks also to Mark we have the Ford dealer bulletin for the cars.

Having shown photos of AMS cars in Snow White and Pine’N’Lime above, for balance here are a couple of photos of a Red Flame car that is currently for sale in Australia, one of which shows the Allan Moffat decal in is unrestored and faded form.

Dave, who owns the Pine’n’Lime car above, has managed find a set of the Allan Moffat Special decals, and has installed them on his car. Here they are:

XD John Goss Special

Also of some interest is that there were XD John Goss Specials. These were not factory cars but dealer specials, offered by a Sydney firm, Trad Trim and Sunroofs. They featured revised suspension, and fibreglass wheel arch extensions, bonnet bulge and rear wing, plus JGS striping and badging. For anyone interested in these cars there is a letter about them in Issue Five of AMC magazine, including a photograph and a reproduction of the advert.

An XD JGS recently came up for sale in Australia. Here are some photos. It is nice to see it still used Aunger wheels.

XD Phase5 Falcon

The XD Phase5 was developed by a company called Phase Autos in Melbourne, and featured extended wheel arches, deep front spoiler, boot and roof spoilers, and a bonnet bulge. Phase Autos also offered a package of engine modifications, and the upgrading of the interior with Recaro seats and Momo steering wheel. Centreline wheels were also offered. It is not known how many were actually sold, but the figure five has been mentioned. While, with figures like this, no-one could consider the Phase5 a success, they sold many of the fibreglass components in kit form, and the wheel arch extensions in particular were used by most Ford teams for their XD and XE models competing in the Australian Touring Car races.

Dick Johnson XE Grand Prix turbo Falcon

With the demise of the Ford V8 as fitted to Falcons, it appears that Dick Johnson took the trouble to investigate turbocharging the six cylinder engine to make up for the loss in performance. The actual production of these cars is somewhat clouded in obscurity, but some of the information that has emerged is that there may have been 36 produced, of which all but six were blue, the other being red. Some may not have been turbocharged. While Dick had input, the initial batch of cars were built by CDT Performance Vehicles. Some years later, after the XE had left production, another company refurbished XE Falcons and sold them as turbocharged cars. It would appear that these cars built by MVT used twin Strombergs and had interiors trimmed similar to ESP’s.

Here are some photos of what we believe to be an MVT produced car.

One of the variables between the CDT and MVT built cars appears to be the position of the bonnet vent. Compare the vent on this car

with the vent - or lack of - in this 1991 advert from Unique Cars magazine ?

Note also that this car appears to lack the large ‘Dick Johnson’ and ‘Grand Prix’ graphics on the front wing, and seems to have something much smaller. Both cars have squared off wheel arches though.

Brock EA Falcon

Peter Brock modifying Falcons ? Well, yes, he did. When HSV took over from HDT and Peter Brock was no longer able to build his Brock Commodores, along with some other ex-employees he formed a company called Austech Automotive Developments and he approached Ford about modifying and selling the EA Brock Falcon. The relationship lasted less than a year and ended when Ford took on Tickford as their performance supplier. Fewer than 200 Brock Fords were built, the most reliable figures being 126 Falcons and Fairmonts, 18 Fairlanes, 11 Mavericks and 5 top of the range SE’s.

There is a website for the Brock Fords and they show seven SE’s models found, and yet this advert appeared in the March, 1991 Unique Cars magazine showing the two of the eight SE’s for sale.

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