Spoilers and aerofoils

You may remember this picture from a previous Details page of a John Goss Special.

That is a pretty wild looking wing on the car. It was not factory fitted, but it could be fitted by a dealer.

Typically, most people opted for something a little more restrained and the spoiler offered as an option on the XA and XB was a version of that first seen on the XY GTHO.

Front spoilers were also offered, first as factory fit on the XW HOs.

And XYs.

And on XAs. The factory XA rear spoiler was now alloy, and the dealer fitted one was aluminium from Motorcraft. The front factory spoiler was plastic, and broke very easily, hence there aren’t many genuine front spoilers around.

And XBs

Spoiler bits

This is the factory rear spoiler as fitted to an XA GT RPO.

Notice that the spoilers sit on the bootlid on shaped aluminium spacers. The uprights for XA and XB’s are different from that of XY’s in that the boot lid is at more of a slope on the later cars, and far flatter on the earlier body shape Falcon as seen here.

This is a genuine Ford spoiler spacer.

With the Ford part number.

And the underside of the spoiler leg itself, showing the part number.

Note that the spoiler has a U.S. 1971 part number, whereas the spacer has an Australian 1972 part number.

And what did the spacers mount on to ?

This is the factory mounting bracket, under the boot lid for a spoiler of an XA hardtop.

And here is its relationship to the underside of the boot.

Here are some more photos of the genuine Ford spoiler spacers.

And the factory bracket, as fitted to an XA four door.

By way of comparison, here is a genuine Phase3 fitted with the factory spoiler. Note that the feet are different, and the means of adjusting the angle of the spoiler.

Note that when the spoiler was used on Phase3 race cars at Bathurst, and also on later XB hardtops at Bathurst, the wing was cranked over to almost turn from being an aerofoil parallel to the ground to a genuine spoiler as we would think of one these days. It is worth noting that in the U.S. 1970 TransAm racing series, the Boss302 Mustangs used the same aerofoil cranked over to replicate a spoiler.

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Horn Cars

McLeod Ford of Rockdale, NSW was one of the most successful Ford dealers in Australia, and he supported John Goss in his racing endeavours. But he also sold to the public dealer modified Falcons and called the package, the Horn car.

Here is the aftermarket spoiler sold by McLeod.

Quite unusual.

The XB GT was also available as a ‘Horn’ package.

These two cars, below, also have ‘Horn’ stripes on them, but take a different form.

The interesting thing about these stripes is that the cars have protection strips fitted along the full length of the car, precluding the stripe dropping down at the front wheel arch and may be the reason for the difference in pattern..

Here is an XA GT with the Horn stripe.

Stripe close-up.

Here is an XB GT with another, slightly different form of a ‘Horn’ stripe.

There were also Horn bonnet stripes for the XA.

As seen on this car, and the XA’s in the Horn adverts above, but also seen in this cover shot from ‘Wheels’ magazine.

They provide an interesting variation from the blacked out GT bonnet.

Late XB Horn cars also came with stripes on the bonnet. This is a 1976 car.

Here is another wild XB Horn car.

In many ways this an intriguing car, and some detail is worth attention.

The ‘Horn’ and ‘351’ decals.

The ‘Superbird’ decals on stripes and rear quarters.

Note the single exhaust and XA tail lights.

The bonnet stripes and pinstriping along the front of the bonnet and wings.

Thanks to Jason for supplying the pictures of the Wild Violet XA GT above from his website and to FordForums for the bonnet shots.

Not only does this XB hardtop have a Horn stripe, it has the small Superbird decal on the rear wing too.

Or you could go way over the top, and combine the stripes, with the wild wing, spoiler and slats. It still makes for a pretty impressive package.

And it was not only hardtops that could have the ‘aftermarket’ Horn stripe.

Note that in the later Horn cars - as is just visible in the Horn advert photos above - the stripe turned downwards at the front of the car and joined the top of the front wheelarch. The ‘aftermarket’ stripes carried the stripe further forward before turning down, broadly similar to the XB GS style stripe.

But let’s not forget that other dealers took an active interest in selling performance Fords as this intriguing advert for Holmesford in South Yarra proves.

No date on the advert, but it must have been XB current, and the models are all 1974 or 1975. Even more interesting is that one of the 1975 is advertised in kilometres,while all the rest are in miles.

And a subsequent article about the Phase 5 advertised above.

This is an XA GT Horn car. Note the very ‘Stasky and Hutch’ style stripes, but, it should be noted, some years before the U.S. tv series came out. I wonder where they got their idea ? Also note the classic 70s Aunger 5 slot mag wheels on this car, and on many of the cars in the McLeod adverts. John Goss used Aungers on his hardtop race cars, and advertised them too.

And here is the man himself, advertising Aunger wheels.

Remember, it was the seventies.

Here is another XA GT with Aunger wheels.

And an XB GT with Aungers. This car has had these wheels fitted since 1976.

Some more period Aunger adverts.

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