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.
(R Hobman)
Moffat and Peter Brock after winning the January 1986 Wellington 500 in a 5-litre Holden Commodore VK.
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.
(autopics.com)
On the grass at Sandown after one of his many wins at his home track, in the 1970 Sandown 250 enduro – the traditional Bathurst curtain-raiser – 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.
(B Nelson)
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.’
Scrapping with Jim McKeown’s Lotus Cortina for the South Australian Touring Car Championship win in 1966. Clem Smith’s Valiant won the bubbles (P Smeets)(S Elliott)
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.
(autopics.com)
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.
Oran Park, August 9, 1971 (R Jones)New Zealand circa-1972, circuit folks?
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.
(insidesport.com.au)
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.
(G Lindley)1977 Bathurst 1000 one-two weekend: Moffat/Ickx and Colin Bond/Alan Hamilton. Ford XC Falcon GS500 Hardtop 351. Carroll Smith with his back to us (speedcafe.com)(I Smith)
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.
(R Cammick)
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.
(R Martin)(BMW)
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.
(BMW)
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…
(Moffat Archive)
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.
Spitfire, Alan Hamilton and a Bentley not long after Hamiltons Rolls Royce was created to take on the Rolls and Bentley franchises, ‘Laverton, Victoria on December 20, 1988’ Tony Johns advises.
Alan Douglas McKinnon Hamilton, a wonderful man, Australian Porsche importer, racer, entrepreneur and entrant died on March 3, 2025 in Melbourne. He was born on July 29, 1942.
What follows is a photograph based tribute. I was lucky enough to meet with and speak to Alan in the last five years about various articles, and sometimes just racing shite more generally…a Prince of a Bloke.
(R Rundle)
Early days aboard a 356 Coupe at Calder circa-1962
This tribute is a pot-pourri of the cars he raced but is far from all of them. It excludes machines he entered for others…of which they are a lot.
(R Hossack)
It could be Europe but its outer Melbourne. Hamilton’s 2-litre six powered 904-8 Bergspyder #007 at Templestowe Hillclimb during 1966.
‘Alan Hamilton leaving The Hole with the Porsche engine making its very distinctive and glorious bellowing sound. It always scared me a bit watching Alan because he was so quick out of The Hole that when he arrived at Barons, a sharp U-turn with trees on the outside, he was going so fast that if anything went wrong…I hated to think. But always fantastic to watch and hear.’
(B Jackson)
In the paddock at Surfers Paradise during the 1966 12-Hour meeting. Alan was sharing the car with Brique Reed.
And below during the March ‘66 Longford Tasman meeting while contesting the Australian Tourist Trophy. Hammo is turning into The Viaduct in front of Lionel Ayers’s MRC/Lotus 23B Ford and Spencer Martin aboard the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM.
Frank Matich won in his new Elfin 400 Traco-Oldsmobile from Hamilton and Martin.
(S Fryer)(R Rundle)
Hamilton rounds up the John Kiran/Colin Bond/Max Winkless Volvo P1800 during the 1967 Surfers Paradise 12 Hour. Alan and Glyn Scott were third behind the Scuderia Veloce Ferrari 250LM raced by Bill Brown and Greg Cusack, and the Paul Hawkins/Jackie Epstein Lola T70 Mk3 Chev.
This 906 is his first – chassis#007 – had its lid lopped off locally to accommodate Alan’s considerable length. His second 906 was tagged 007 too… That’s it below at Warwick Farm during the RAC Trophy meeting in May 1971.
(L Hemer)Longford, March 1967 aboard the first 906Peters Corner Sandown in 1967 with Neil Allen’s ex-Matich Elfin 400 Olds behind (unattributed)(oldracephotos.com/King)
Hamilton having a drive of a front-engined car for a change. The MW Motors Alfa Romeo GTA at Longford in 1968, Murray Wright was the Melbourne Alfa Romeo dealer.
(MotorSport)
Hammo taking some air during the 1968 Nurburgring 1000km. He was 28th, sharing the Porsche 911S 2-litre with Hans Dieter-Blatzheim on May 19.
Up at the front was a pair of Porsces: Jo Siffert and Vic Elford won in a 908 with local-lads Hans Herrmann and Rolf Stommelen second in a 907.
(Porsche)
Alan at Station Pier for the handover of a of carton of beer or three to the Waterside Workers Federation dogs to avoid his new Porsche 911 T/R being accidentally damaged on the downward drop onto said Pier…
MG corner at Phillip Island? (A Scott)Warwick Farm with the car dancing on its tippy-toes, lots of shots of this car are in this pose (Porsche)
Hammo in his maiden single-seater drive in his new McLaren M10B Chev at Lakeside over the June 6 weekend in 1971. Third behind Kevin Bartlett and Max Stewart.
Chassis #400-19 was Niel Allen’s spare tub which was built up into a complete car when Allen retired from racing after the end of the 1971 Tasman Cup.
(B Jackson)
Hamilton inserts himself into the McLaren’s cockpit in the Warwick Farm pits and is shown below in the very best of company dicing with John Surtees, Surtees TS8 Chev during the ‘71 AGP.
That’s Colin Bond in Frank Matich’s McLarens M10C Repco-Holden and the Graeme Lawrence’s Brabham Ford FVC. A deflating tyre cruelled Surtees chances, Frank Matich won the race from with Hamilton third and Lawrence fourth, Bondy lost Phil-pressure and retired.
Max Stewart’s fast and reliable Mildren Waggott TC-4V won the Gold Star that year with the two ex-Allen M10Bs driven by Bartlett and Hamilton in equal second-place.
(L Hemer)(J Lemm)
Hamilton at Collingrove on the way to a 33 seconds-dead run at Easter, taking FTD in the Australian Hillclimb Championship (AHC) in April 1971.
Alan had won here before, taking the 1966 title in the 904 Bergspyder. He returned to hillclimbing after losing his General Competition Licence as a result becoming an insulin dependent diabetic as a consequence of his 1978 massive Sandown accident. He won the 1981 AHC in a Porsche Special, then took it one final time at Gippsland Park, Morwell in a Lola T87/50 Buick, a device which started life as a Formula 3000 car.
(unattributed)
Hammo leading Allan Moffat and Bryan Thomson during the 1972 Sandown Tasman meeting.
The 911S 2.4-litre, ex-Brian Foley/Jim Palmer, Mustang Boss 302 and Holden Torana Chev glimpse in a mixed Improved Tourer and Sports Sedan race. Neil Stratton wrote that this was palmers first race in the car and that Moffat retired the Mustang after losing its brakes over Lukey – the rise at the top of the back straight – and hitting the Armco protecting the Marshalls.
The same pair at Calder later in the year below.
(P Husband)
On the hop at Oran Park in a 3-litre Carrera RSR in 1976. Famously the 1975 Paris Show 911 Turbo/930 prototype, long since left our shores and lives in Europe.
(Auto Action)
Allan Moffat created a crushing touring car team in 1977 by recruiting American engineer-team manager Carrroll Smith, engine builder Peter Molloy and Colin Bond.
After winning the ATCC Moffat recruited Jacky Ickx and Hamilton for the Enduros. Moffat’s 1-2 form finish has had taxi fans foaming at the mouth for decades with colulda-woulda-shouldas but The Boss prevailed, as he should have: Moffat/Ickx first, Bond/Hamilton second.
(B Atkin)
A very poignant photograph of Hammo in the Sandown pitlane during the 1978 Australian Grand Prix weekend; The Fangio Meeting at which the great JMF demonstrated a Mercedes Benz W196 Grand Prix car with much brio.
The utter excitement of the sight and sound of that legendary car-driver combination was to a large extent ruined by the accidents that befell Garrie Cooper and Alan Hamilton, and to a lesser extent Vern Schuppan, in the Grand Prix. Racing Car News summarised it thus:
Hamilton turns in to Dandenong Road not long before the crash. If the Lola T430 Chev looks a little odd, it’s because Porsche Cars Australia modified the car by removing the sportscar-type-front and replaced it with a T332 type wing which provided more bite…and looked better.
Alan lost control of the twitchy, unforgiving Lola on the fast left-hander off The Causeway then went backwards into the Dunlop Bridge breaking the car into two and breaking a leg, his pelvis and sustaining serious head injuries. While there that day I was nowhere near the accident which is in a no-spectators area on the inside of the track. The vibe of the place that day with three big-hits, and limited information flow to we punters, is something I still remember.
(B Polain)
Hammo competing in the Seaforth Tourist Trophy in 1983. Not a lot of safety for cars doing 180mph…
This 917/30 #004 was Mark Donohue’s unraced spare in 1973. Alan always had a snoop around the Zuffenhausen ‘shops on his trips to Deutschland and spotted this little baby on one of those trips. Long-since left our shores.
Hammo’s 908 Coupe following the 917/30. The 908 was, ahem, road-registered for a while in Victoria (unattributed)(unattributed)A cursory glance at the 917/30 spaceframe chassis and its driver-forward driving position shows the importance of not having a frontal impact at anything more than 30mph…(unattributed)(unattributed)
The Seaforth Racing Car parade was a fantastic event put together by Bruce Polain and a bunch of his mates at the Historic Racing Car Club of Australia in Sydney.
The street circuit was about 2.5km around the heights of Seaforth, descending to Spit Bridge with views of the inner-harbour, then winding up through the gears to the top of Spit Hill to Sydney Road, then left into the Seaforth shopping centre. Twice. Two runs during the day.
December 10, 1983 with Bob Jane’s Chev Monza and Bruce Polain’s Wylie Javelin heading out of town towards Seaforth. Any tourist who has taken a dip at Manly will have made this trip…unless you went the fun way by ferry! Shot taken from the Ethel Street overpass (unattributed)(unattributed)(T Johns)
Tony Johns, ‘Alan Hamilton driving the Porsche Factory Museum 1962 Type 804 F1 racing car.’
‘Sandown Tribute to Champions meeting February 14, 1982. A real gentleman to have worked for at Porsche all those years ago.’
‘Another photo from the same morning. The 804 and 718 RSK ex-USA and the ex-factory 908 Coupe were part of Alan’s collection. Rob Walker, Stirling Moss’ long-time patron is seated in the Spyder and Moss is chatting with Norman Hamilton (jacket and cap), the founder of Porsche in Australia.’
(D Pearce)
Alan Hamilton, Porsche 911SC during the 1987 Sea Lake Mallee Rally, perhaps with Jim Hardman alongside.
It’s not just any SC either! This car is ‘C20’ the prototype of what ultimately became the 911-964 four-wheel-drive, and along the way the competition 953 Paris-Dakar rallycars. The 3.2-litre car started life as Helmuth Bott’s brown-SC company car before morphing into a double-front wishbone machine with front and rear diffs. When it was pensioned off guess who spotted it on one of his trips to Germany in 1986?…
Hamilton on the hop at Gippsland Park Morwell on October 15, 1989 aboard his Lola T87/50 Buick 4.9 V6, another AHC victory, not the last for this chassis either.
This machine, T87/50 HU12 Cosworth V8 3-litre, was Michel Ferte’s 1987 Euro F3000 Championship car. It and another T87/50 – acquired by Bob Minogue for Formula Holden use – were purchased by Hamilton.
Paul Newby’s research (written on The Nostalgia Forum) says that the car was at one time fitted with a Ford DFL-035 3.3-litre ex-Spice Engineering Racing acquired at the 1988 Sandown WEC race attended by Hamilton, wearing his PCA hat.
(D Hardman)
Hamilton and friends – Jim Hardman constructor of the three F2/FPac cars of the same name and Porsche Cars Australia Chief Engineer/Mechanic during the Costanzo glory years is behind him – with a Cosworth V8 powered hillclimb special at Morwell, date unknown but circa 1981-82.
Spaceframe chassis with the DFV/DFL used as a stressed member, as it was intended. Nick Bennett observed that ‘I believe Alan only dove it once and scared the shit out of himself.’ Two meetings only perhaps folks: Morwell and Collingrove? More information on this car welcome.
(D Hardman)
Credits…
Ian Smith, Ron Rundle, Stephen Fryer, Bob Atkinson, Lynton Hemer, Australian Autosportsman, Alexis Scott, Lynton Hemer, Brian Jackson, Racing Car News, Brian Stratton, Auto Action, Daryl Pearce, Peter Husband, Jarrod Bryant, David Hardman, John Lemm
Tailpiece…
(I Smith)
Ian Smith was a long time friend of Alan, I love this portrait which was taken circa-1978.
Afterthought…
1985 AGP Historic Demo Adelaide (J Lemm)
The final words go to Rob Newman.
‘Years ago, when John Walker was driving the 934 Martin Sampson had purchased from Alan Hamilton I had the privilege of preparing the car for each race in Alan’s workshop out by Sandown, so I spent some time there.’
‘Late one day Alan gave John and I a personal tour of the complex and his toys, one of which was his 917. The car was on stands without bodywork, the chassis with engine, suspension and various bits fitted including the fibreglass seat. But what caught my eye was the size of the hole in the seat where the crutch belts were fed through, it was massive, a large square cut out in the seat. I must have made comment because I clearly remember Alan, pipe in hand and with a straight face replied “That’s how big your balls need to be to drive this thing.”
primotipo... 