primotipo…

Sun-Herald cartoonist Mark Knight captured it rather nicely I thought?

Canadian-born Australian touring car racer – one of our legends – Allan George Moffat died last week after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for the last few years. November 10, 1939-November 22, 2025. Rest In Peace.

Moffat and Peter Brock after winning the January 1986 Wellington 500 in a 5-litre Holden Commodore VK.

I’ve written about the parts of Allan’s long career – 1962 to 1990 – that interest me here: https://primotipo.com/2024/09/30/allan-moffat-random/ here: https://primotipo.com/2015/04/09/australias-cologne-capris/ here: https://primotipo.com/2023/01/13/cologne-capris-take-3/ here:https://primotipo.com/2020/04/14/allan-moffat-single-seater-racer/ not to forget this one:https://primotipo.com/2020/03/06/moffats-shelby-brabham-elfin-and-trans-am/

With so many photographs popping up in the media since his death, it seemed a good idea to filch a few and add some more as a tribute to a man who provided so much fizz and sparkle to our scene on every level for so long. Google away for the statistical stuff.

On the grass at Sandown after one of his many wins at his home track, in the 1970 Sandown 250 Manufacturers Championship round, works XW Ford Falcon GTHO Phase 2

His family settled in Melbourne from Canada – his Dad was a Massey Ferguson exec – and I guess the Melbourne die was cast when he arrived back permanently with the Kar-Kraft Mustang Trans-Am in 1969. Ford Australia have always been Melbourne-based based and he needed to be close to the action, so Melbourne it was, Toorak specifically.

Booting his XY GTHO Phase 3 out of Dandy Road at Sandown in the Sandown 250 the following year, DNF after only three laps, gotta be a qualifying flyer, AM wouldn’t have fried his Goodyears like this in an endurance race.

Barry Nelson and AGM with the ex-Clark Lotus Cortina at Hume Weir during the Boxing Day 1965 meeting

Nelson, ‘There was only one pre-airflow ex-Jim Clark Cortina in Australia, the later car was built in the Toorak workshop by me and Peter Thorn. The tow car is my FJ Holden panel van with hot Grey motor.’

Steve Elliott has captured the pensive, focused AGM of renown before a race – gotta be his ‘75 NZ Tour? – at Bay Park, New Zealand, aboard the fabulous Trans-Am, one of the most celebrated of all Australian Touring Car combos. I love this shot.

Here with the injected 351 borrowed from his Super Falcon at Calder’s Tin Shed corner? And below the distinctive Ford F150 rig that towed the car coast to coast, at Oran Park.

The planets were never aligned for Moff and the Boss 302 to take out the Australian Touring Car Championship they deserved, but karma caught up when he and the works-Phase 3 HO won his first of four ATCCs in 1973.

The shot above looks like the November 1972 Surfers 300 Manchamp round with FoMoCo Team Manager Howard Marsden doing his thing from the pit counter at the end of the Series Production Era, they won it. The one below is the Group C HO at Oran Park in June 1973, the happy ATCC year; they won that race too.

The Falcon GT351 Hardtops were tougher going without direct factory support, golden ATCC 1977 year duly noted: the ATCC, Bathurst 1000 and Manufacturers Championship was pretty good going by Moff, Colin Bond and colleagues!

Surfers Paradise 300 in 1978 above, XC Cobra 351, and some of the key men in that period below: Peter Molloy, AGM and Mick Webb, missing from the shot (1978?), is Carroll Smith, who team managed the brilliant 1977 effort and was back Stateside by then.

Moffat and Jim McKeown at it again, this time a decade later in a pair of sports sedans at Hume Weir in June 1975: the fabulous howling ex-works Ford Capri RS3100 Cosworth 3.4 V6 and the Alan Hamilton/Porsche Cars Australia mid-engined Porsche 911 Turbo that CAMS shortly thereafter legislated out of existence.

The Mighty Dekon built Chev Monza 350 at Bay Park, New Zealand, on its way to Australia in late 1975, and below all close up and friendly at Torana Corner, Sandown in 1979.

BMW claim their 1975 Sebring 12-Hour win – Hans Stuck, Brian Redman, Sam Posey, Allan Moffat – with a 3.5-litre 3.0 CSL ‘launched’ the marque into the public’s consciousness in the United States.

It was Moff’s biggest international win too. Over the years he contested many international enduros including Le Mans on several occasions.

The shot below shows him at the wheel of the Dick Barbour Racing Porsche 935 K3 he stared with Bob Garretson and Bobby Rahal at Le Mans in 1980; DNF piston in the 11th hour.

Moffat aboard the Andy Rouse-built, leased Ford Sierra RS500, at Bathurst in 1987, the car retired on lap 31 before AGM had a steer. His co-drivers were Rouse and Thierry Tassin.

Allan’s last serious race was the 1989 Fuji 500, in which he raced his Eggenberger-built RS500 to victory together with Klaus Niedzwiedz. Moffat entered the car #39, his birth year, won the race, then quietly retired from driving. Macau GP Mazda MX5 hit and giggle support race duly noted…

Credits…

Barry Nelson, Russell Hobman, Steve Elliott, autopics, Rob Jones, Glenis Lindley, Peter Smeets, Ian Smith, Ross Cammick, Russell Martin, Allan Moffat Archive, BMW, LAT, Getty, speedcafe.com

Tailpiece…

In the very best of company at Indy during the Month of May in 1965 with Colin Chapman, Jim Clark, the rest of the boys and the victorious Lotus 38 Ford Indy 4.2 V8.

Finito…