Book review: 1970 Ford Falcon XW GTHO Phase 1½ and Phase II Register
Preceding the Phase III GTHO were XW models of equal importance on Ford Australia’s path to ‘Total Performance’The Ford Falcon GTHO was a car built to win races, not to be memorialised and commemorated in perpetuity, so the people developing and building these cars were more absorbed with top-notch race engineering than record-keeping.
Half a century ago, there were no hard-drives or web servers to store information, and some of the information pertaining to the Falcon GTHO was thought to have been lost for all time.
Which makes the latest achievement of official GTHO historian Ross Vasse and his team that much more remarkable, scouring every known reliable source for information about Australia’s best known touring car from the 1960s and 70s.
Not content with publishing an excellent tell-all story of the Phase III XY GTHO, Vasse has now turned his sights to the XW-based Phase II and Phase 1½ GTHO Falcons from a year earlier, in 1970. Each car gets a book to itself, covering the history in such great detail.
‘The 1970 Ford Falcon XW GTHO Phase II register’ opens with a preface from Pauline Moffat, a sort of mini biography from those heady years in the late 1960s and 70s.
Pauline damns the GTHO with faint praise, comparing it and the Falcon ‘Supercar’ unfavourably with her former husband’s Trans-Am Mustang, which was very hard to beat around the track at the time.
And she concludes with the observation that the GTHO was a victim of its own success, which presumably refers to the supercar scare that ended the Phase IV XA GTHO model before its time.
Pauline’s former husband, Alan Moffat, gets to write the foreword. Like Pauline, he praises the Mustang that has been his favourite race car of all time, but also acknowledges the Falcon’s place in history, applauding each new ‘phase’ of GTHO for propelling him to faster qualifying times around Bathurst.
In the introduction to the book, the author reveals a little of his personal history, including his ownership of “a few Phase IIs”. His obsession with the GTHO Falcon and his undeniable interest in history – allied with his narrative skill makes him the ideal person to publish works like these.
Easy-reading format
Both books – Phase II and Phase 1½ – follow a familiar format, the same general look and feel as the GTHO Phase III register. Chapter one (‘By the Numbers’) is very analytical and covers options, allocation of cars to the different Ford dealers around the country and even each dealer’s street address!
This is where you’ll find out how to identify an authentic Phase II or Phase 1½, what they’ve been worth over the decades, and more importantly to enthusiasts perhaps, where the cars finished at Bathurst in 1970.
Chapter two (‘The fastest four-door production sedan in the world’), is an in-depth history of the GTHO, including concepts and prototypes.
Even for those who claim to know a lot about the Falcon GTHO, this section contains plenty of interesting nuggets, such as the proposal by Al Turner to build a GTHO-spec Maverick coupe to compete with Holden’s Monaro on Aussie racetracks.
As further evidence of Ford Australia’s determination to win on the racetrack, this chapter also covers plans to bring out a big-block Falcon with a 428ci (7.0-litre) V8.
Although Chapter Two covers a fair amount of common ground with the same chapter in the Phase III Register, there’s also a lot of material that is new and unique to the Phase II book. That includes road tests of the Phase II and a complete timeline for the 1970 Hardie-Ferodo Bathurst 500.
Chapters three through eight provide a detailed run-down on every unit of the 287 Phase II cars built, each chapter covering a month of production between May and October.
Every car is listed with its respective build number, options fitted ex-factory and the selling dealer. At intervals throughout these chapters there are ‘sidebar’ articles of general interest.
Chapter nine is composed of case histories from individual owners of Phase II GTHO Falcons, and the final chapter is a gallery of pictures submitted by owners.
Phase I with a Cleveland
The 1970 Ford Falcon XW GTHO Phase 1½ Register emulates the style and layout of the other two books, but with a preface from Aaron Lofts and a foreword by Fred Gibson. Gibson needs no introduction, but Lofts is a valuer and auctioneer for Grays, and also works as the deputy editor at Survivor Car Australia.
Ford’s competition guru Al Turner, who died as recently as late 2021, is the subject of Chapter Three in this book, and the explanation for the need to build Phase 1½ is covered in Chapter Four. Chapters Five and Six feature every vehicle built between March and April of 1970, in full detail.
Interspersing a few personal stories from owners with competition success stories, dealer histories and a look at the Cleveland V8, Chapter Seven precedes the Phase 1½ picture gallery of images submitted by owners.
Like its Phase III counterpart, the 1970 Ford Falcon XW GTHO Phase II Register and the Phase 1½ companion volume that was released at the same time, are fabulous books. There’s something of interest for every motor enthusiast, even one who isn’t a Falcon GTHO aficionado.
Unfortunately, both these books and the XY Phase III Register are sold out. If you’re really keen, heartless speculators will sell you the Black Edition Phase III books on eBay for prices that will have both your bank manager and your accountant writing up your commitment papers.
In that respect, the books are a little like the cars themselves then…
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