Allan Moffat
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Allan George Moffat OBE (born 10 November 1939 in
Saskatoon Saskatoon () is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as th ...
,
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...
, Canada) is a Canadian-Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the
Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy ...
, six wins in the
Sandown 500 The Sandown 500 (formally known as the Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The event's name, distance – and the category of cars co ...
and his four wins in the Bathurst 500/1000. Moffat was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 1999. Moffat and his long-time friend and rival (and later co-driver)
Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...
are the only drivers to have won The Great Race at Bathurst in both its 500-mile and 1000-kilometre formats. In October 2018, he was inducted into the
Sport Australia Hall of Fame The Sport Australia Hall of Fame was established on 10 December 1985 to recognise the achievements of Australian sportsmen and sportswomen. The inaugural induction included 120 members with Sir Don Bradman as the first inductee and Dawn Fraser th ...
.


Racing career

Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Moffat moved to Australia as a 17-year-old college student with his parents when his father, who worked for
Massey Ferguson Massey Ferguson Limited is an American agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company was established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of the United Kingdom. It was based in ...
, was transferred to
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
for work and in the early 1960s embarked on his record-setting motor racing career. He started his racing career at the wheel of a
Triumph TR3 The Triumph TR3 is a British sports car produced between 1955 and 1962 by the Standard-Triumph Motor Company of Coventry, England. A traditional roadster, the TR3 is an evolution of the company's earlier TR2 model, with greater power and im ...
.


1964 to 1971

Allan Moffat and Jon Leighton drove a
Ford Cortina Lotus Lotus Cortina is the commonly used term for the Ford Cortina Lotus, a high-performance sports saloon, which was produced in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1970 by Ford in collaboration with Lotus Cars. The original version, which was based on t ...
to fourth place in the
1964 Sandown 6 Hour International The 1964 Sandown 6 Hour International was an endurance race for saloon cars complying with FIA Group 1 regulations.Peter Bakalor, Alfa Triumphant, Modern Motor, February 1965, pages 34 to 37 & 96 to 97. Report includes a Results section listing the ...
at Melbourne's
Sandown Park Sandown Park is a horse racing course and leisure venue in Esher, Surrey, England, located in the outer suburbs of London. It hosts 5 Grade One National Hunt races and one Group 1 flat race, the Eclipse Stakes. It regularly has horse rac ...
. The race was the first of what would eventually become the
Sandown 500 The Sandown 500 (formally known as the Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The event's name, distance – and the category of cars co ...
. Moffat first entered the
Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy ...
(ATCC) in 1965, driving a Lotus Cortina. Following this Moffat spent time in the United States where he drove in the new
Trans-Am Series The Trans-Am Series is a sports car racing series held in North America. Founded in 1966, it is sanctioned by the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA). Primarily based in the United States, the series competes on a variety of track types includ ...
in 1966, showing his talent by winning the 3rd round of the series, the Bryar 250, at the Bryar Motorsports Park, outright in an Under 2L division
Lotus Cortina Lotus Cortina is the commonly used term for the Ford Cortina Lotus, a high-performance sports saloon, which was produced in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1970 by Ford in collaboration with Lotus Cars. The original version, which was based on ...
on 10 July 1966, leading home Bruce Jennings driving a Plymouth Barracuda by over a lap. Moffat returned to Australia but also spent more time in the US, continuing to drive the Cortina as well as Ford Mustangs for
Carroll Shelby Carroll Hall Shelby (January 11, 1923 – May 10, 2012) was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified dur ...
in Trans-Am with various Australian co-drivers including Trans-Am regular Horst Kwech and Ford Australia's, and future Holden rival,
Harry Firth Henry Leslie Firth (18 April 1918 – 27 April 2014) was an Australian racing driver and team manager. Firth was a leading race and rally driver during the 1950s and 1960s and continued as an influential team manager with first the Ford works ...
. Moffat's time in Trans-Am included competing with Kwech in the Trans-Am class at the
24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layo ...
and the 12 Hours of Sebring and driving four Trams-Am races in a
Mercury Cougar Mercury Cougar is a nameplate applied to a diverse series of automobiles sold by the Mercury division of Ford from 1967 to 1997 and from 1999 to 2002. While the nameplate is most commonly associated with two-door coupes, at various times durin ...
for
Bud Moore Engineering Bud Moore Engineering, later Fenley-Moore Racing, was a championship-winning NASCAR team. It was owned and operated by mechanic Bud Moore and ran out of Spartanburg, South Carolina. While the team was a dominant force in the 1960s and 1980s, the ...
. By 1969 Moffat had returned to live full-time in Australia and from
1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
he had become a regular ATCC competitor and his bright red
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlant ...
-sponsored Ford Boss 302 Mustang, which was supplied brand-new to Moffat from
Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...
's American 'in-house' race car fabrication and engineering facility "Kar Kraft" and finished off by Bud Moore Engineering, was unmistakable at circuits around Australia. With the help of Tom Hamilton and chief mechanic Lou Mallia, he would go on to win 101 championship and non-championship
touring car Touring car and tourer are both terms for open cars (i.e. cars without a fixed roof). "Touring car" is a style of open car built in the United States which seats four or more people. The style was popular from the early 1900s to the 1930s. Th ...
races from 151 starts in this car between 1969 and 1972, including the first-ever win by one of the seven factory Boss Mustangs built for racing in its debut at the Southern 60 at
Sandown Sandown is a seaside resort and civil parish on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom with the resort of Shanklin to the south and the settlement of Lake in between. Together with Shanklin, Sandown forms a built-up area of ...
in May 1969, yet his dream of winning the ATCC in the Mustang eluded him. He failed to place in the top 10 in 1969, finished 6th in
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
, 2nd in 1971 and 3rd in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
. Moffat and his Coke Mustang were involved in two of the most memorable ATCC races on record. In 1971 he went into the 7th and final round at Oran Park only 4 points behind three-time ATCC champion
Bob Jane Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a ...
in his 7.0 litre
Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 The sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro is an American pony car. Produced by automobile manufacturer Chevrolet, it was first introduced to the public on May 16, 2015. Sales started in 2015 for the 2016 model year. The Camaro now utilizes the GM Al ...
. Both started from the front row (Moffat on pole) and entered into an enticing duel. At mid-race, Moffat was forced to slow in order to free a jammed gearbox but battled back to only be six-tenths of a second behind Jane at the finish. Then in 1972, he was involved in a race-long dice with
Ian Geoghegan Ian "Pete" Geoghegan, (26 April 1939 – 15 November 2003) was an Australian race car driver, known for a quick wit and natural driving skills. Sometimes referred to as "Pete" Geoghegan, he was one of the iconic characters of the 1960s and 197 ...
at the Easter round of the series (Round 3) at the 6.172  km Mount Panorama Circuit at Bathurst. Up against Geoghegan's more powerful, 5.8L "Super Falcon", Moffat, while being left behind on the long Mountain and Conrod Straights, was able to keep with the Falcon using its superior handling and brakes and again only lost by less than a second. Moffat drove for over half the race with his safety belts undone so that he could put his head out of the driver's window in order to see where he was going, the Falcon having a small oil leak which saw some oil sprayed onto the Mustang's windscreen. By his own admission, Moffat did the wrong thing and turned his wipers on which only made the situation worse as it smeared the oil over the window, and with the race only being 13 laps long he was forced to carry on. Following the race, Moffat protested Geoghegan's Falcon but the protest was dismissed after Geoghegan's crew had time to wipe away the excess oil before the scrutineers could examine the car. Although Moffat and a number of other drivers raced Mustangs for ATCC competition - the five ATCC titles from 1965 to 1969 were won by
Norm Beechey Norm Beechey is a retired Australian race car driver, who was given the nickname ''"Stormin Norman"'' by his fans. To some, he was the closest thing Holden had to a star racing driver, before Peter Brock. Beechey competed in the Australian Tou ...
(1965) and Ian Geoghegan (1966–69) driving Mustangs - this car, modified to CAMS Improved Production Touring Car regulations was ineligible for the Bathurst 500 (later
Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most rece ...
), which was restricted to standard production cars prior to 1973. Moffat, therefore, made his debut in that race in
1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
in a Ford works team entered Ford Falcon XW GTHO. He and co-driver Alan Hamilton finished fourth. Due to the severe tyre problems suffered by the works GTHOs, Moffat was called into the pits early to change tyres. To the amazement of Ford team manager Al Turner, Moffat's tyres were not as near worn as those on the lead Geoghegan brothers or the
Gibson Gibson may refer to: People * Gibson (surname) Businesses * Gibson Brands, Inc., an American manufacturer of guitars, other musical instruments, and audio equipment * Gibson Technology, and English automotive and motorsport company based * Gi ...
/ Seton Falcons, showing that Moffat was a driver who could be kind to his car and still go fast. Moffat maintains the view that he never wanted to pit at the time and that had he been left "to his own devices", he and Alan Hamilton would have won 1969 500. Moffat had actually been near last on the first lap of the race after his Falcon became stuck in neutral as he was powering out of The Cutting. This turned out to be fortunate as it allowed him to avoid the Bill Brown rollover going over Skyline which blocked the track and took out approximately a quarter of the field who had no warning of the impending disaster. The following two years would see Moffat come into his own as one of Australia's most dominant race drivers, and the Falcon GTHO as an almost unbeatable car. For 1970,
Ford Australia Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited (known by its trading name Ford Australia) is the Australian subsidiary of United States-based automaker Ford Motor Company. It was founded in Geelong, Victoria, in 1925 as an outpost of Ford Motor Com ...
had made significant improvements to the Falcon XW GTHO Phase II over the previous year's model and Moffat, racing without a co-driver, took the car to two crushing victories in both the
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
and 1971 Bathurst races, and also the
1970 Rothmans 250 Production Classic The 1970 Rothmans 250 Production Classic was an endurance motor race for Series Production Touring Cars staged at the Surfers Paradise International Raceway in Queensland, Australia on 1 November 1970. Race distance was 125 laps of the 2 mile cir ...
endurance race. In 1971 he became the first driver to lead the Bathurst 500 from start to finish while driving the famed
Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III The Ford Motor Company Falcon XY GT is a sports sedan based on the Ford Falcon XY. Released in 1970 by Ford Australia, with the GTHO Phase III released in 1971. Some 1,557 units were produced from September 1970 to December 1971 with 300 GTHO ...
.


1972

Moffat looked headed for a historic third straight Bathurst victory in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...
when Ford unveiled plans for a "Phase IV" Falcon GTHO, even faster but more subtle than the Phase III which Moffat had taken to victory in 1971. Sydney-based motoring journalist Evan Green caught wind of these plans however and his article, with headlines across the country that screamed, "160mph Supercars on Our Roads!" created the Supercar scare. Facing pressure from the media and government not to produce this car, as entering it at Bathurst would also require at least 200 units to be sold at dealerships in Australia, Ford scrapped production of the Phase IV and forced Moffat and other Ford drivers to resort to year-old Phase III cars for Bathurst that year.
Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...
won the race that year for arch-rival manufacturer Holden after wet weather and brake dramas hobbled the Fords. This race would be seen as the start of the Moffat-Brock rivalry that would dominate Australian touring car racing in the years to come.


1973 to 1980

In 1973, both the ATCC and the Bathurst endurance race were open for the first time only to the newly introduced CAMS
Group C Touring Cars In relation to Australian motorsport, Group C refers to either of two sets of regulations devised by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) for use in Australian Touring Car Racing from 1965 to 1984. These are not to be confused with t ...
. These mildly modified cars replaced both the existing highly modified Group C Improved Production Touring Cars (which had contested the ATCC since 1965) and the virtually standard
Group E Series Production Touring Cars Group E Series Production Touring Cars was an Australian motor racing category for production based sedans competing with limited modifications. It was current from 1964 to 1972. Although production car racing in Australia had gained momentum with ...
(which had previously contested the Bathurst event). Ford, smarting from the Phase IV controversy the year before, withdrew their factory teams from the competition at the end of 1973. This left Moffat and other Ford drivers to form their own privateer teams, despite the Factory team and Moffat being victorious in both the 1973 ATCC - his first-ever - and the 1973 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 (with co-driver
Ian Geoghegan Ian "Pete" Geoghegan, (26 April 1939 – 15 November 2003) was an Australian race car driver, known for a quick wit and natural driving skills. Sometimes referred to as "Pete" Geoghegan, he was one of the iconic characters of the 1960s and 197 ...
). Moffat, Geoghegan, and Ford have the distinction of being the first winners of the Bathurst race following its conversion from a 500-mile event to 1000  km. The night before Round 6 of the ATCC at the
Adelaide International Raceway The Adelaide International Raceway (also known as Adelaide International or AIR) is a permanent circuit owned by Australian Motorsport Club Limited under the auspices of the Bob Jane Corporation. The circuit is located north of Adelaide in S ...
, Moffat's GTHO Falcon Phase III was stolen from Stillwell Ford in the northern Adelaide suburb of
Medindie Medindie (formerly also known as Medindee or Medindi) is an inner northern suburb of Adelaide the capital of South Australia. It is located adjacent to the Adelaide Park Lands, just north of North Adelaide, and is bounded by Robe Terrace to the ...
. Rather than see Moffat out of the race (he was the series points leader at the time),
Murray Carter Murray Carter (born 30 January 1931 in Melbourne) is an Australian racing driver. For many years a stalwart of the Australian Touring Car Championship Carter has had one of the longest racing careers of any driver in Australian history, contin ...
loaned Moffat his GTHO Falcon for the race.
Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...
won the race in his XU-1 Torana while Moffat kept his points lead by finishing second despite having to start at the rear of the grid. Moffat's stolen Falcon was later found abandoned in the Adelaide Hills, where the thieves who had taken it for a "joy ride" dumped it after running out of fuel. Following the change from Improved Production to
Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...
for the ATCC in 1973, Moffat's Boss 302 Mustang was no longer eligible for that series. Moffat ran the Mustang in
Sports Sedans A sports sedan (also known as sports saloon in British English) is a subjective term for a sedan car that is designed to have sporting performance or handling characteristics. History The term was originally introduced in the 1930s an ...
in 1973 and 1974, though he refused to follow the trend at the time of moving the engine back in the cabin, later stating in a 2004 interview he "was never going to contaminate such a jewel", though he did replace the bodywork with fiberglass to avoid damaging the cars sheet metal. Following 1974 Moffat sent the Mustang back to Bud Moore in America where it sat for sale until 1995 when it was purchased and restored by
Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...
based entrepreneur David Bowden (who other than himself and his sons has never let anyone other than Moffat drive the car, even turning down a request from the late Ian Geoghegan). The Mustang was voted the most popular 'Muscle Car' ever to race in Australia by readers of ''Australian Muscle Car'' magazine. With Ford Australia pulling out of motor racing after 1973, Moffat competed as a privateer through the 1974 and 1975 seasons. He was only moderately successful in the
Australian Touring Car Championship The Australian Touring Car Championship (ATCC) is a touring car racing award held in Australia since 1960. The series itself is no longer contested, but the title lives on, with the winner of the Repco Supercars Championship awarded the trophy ...
races, placing third in 1974 with two round wins and undertaking a limited campaign in
1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
. Other wins included the
1974 Sandown 250 The 1974 Sandown 250 was an endurance race for Group C Touring Cars. The event was held at the Sandown Park circuit in Victoria, Australia on 8 September 1974 over a race distance of 130 laps (251 miles, 404 km). The race, which was Round 2 of ...
and the
1975 Rothmans 300 The 1975 Australian Manufacturers' Championship was an Australian motor racing competition for Group C Touring Cars.Conditions for Australian Titles, CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, 1975, pages 84 to 89 It was sanctioned by the Confederation of Austral ...
. He failed to finish the
Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most rece ...
in those years. On 21 March 1975, he enhanced his reputation as an international class driver when he drove a BMW 3.0CSL with
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
's Hans-Joachim Stuck, British driver
Brian Redman Brian Herman Thomas Redman (born 9 March 1937 in Burnley, Lancashire and educated at Rossall School, Fleetwood, Lancashire), is a retired British racing driver. Racing for Carl Haas and Jim Hall's Chaparral Cars, Brian Redman won the 1974, '75 ...
and American
Sam Posey Sam Posey (born May 26, 1944)) is an American former racing driver and sports broadcast journalist. Early life and driving career Posey's father was killed in the Battle of Okinawa. Posey grew up on his grandfather's Connecticut estate near Lime ...
to win the 12 Hours of Sebring for the factory-backed BMW Motorsport with many considering this win to be the 3.0CSL's crowning achievement in racing. Moffat returned to drive his XB Falcon GT Hardtop full-time in the 1976 ATCC and won his second title. This occurred despite the setback of a transporter fire which destroyed his race car with several rounds left to run, forcing Moffat to borrow a car from rival John Goss for two rounds. Moffat also won the inaugural
Australian Sports Sedan Championship The National Series for Sports Sedans, formerly the Australian Sports Sedan Championship, is a CAMS sanctioned national motor racing title for drivers of cars complying with Australian Sports Sedan regulations. This class, essentially a silhou ...
that year, driving firstly a
Chevrolet Monza The Chevrolet Monza is a subcompact automobile produced by Chevrolet for the 1975 through 1980 model years. The Monza is based on the Chevrolet Vega, sharing its wheelbase, width, and standard inline-four engine. The car was designed to accommoda ...
and later a Ford Capri RS3100. He failed to finish Bathurst again in
1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 ...
despite taking pole and leading comfortably with co-driver
Vern Schuppan Vernon John Schuppan (born 19 March 1943) is a retired Australian motor racing driver. Schuppan drove in various categories, participating in Formula One, the Indianapolis 500 and most successfully in sports car racing. Although he consider ...
. Moffat re-established his dominance in 1977 with a two-car factory-supported team under the Moffat Ford Dealers Team banner. He won his second consecutive ATCC title in
1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...
, backed up brilliantly by new teammate
Colin Bond Colin John Bond (born 24 February 1942) is a retired Australian racing driver. Bond reached the highest levels in Australian motorsport in 1969 when he was recruited by Harry Firth to the newly formed Holden Dealer Team. He quickly found succ ...
who had switched to Ford after driving the previous eight years for the
Holden Dealer Team The Holden Dealer Team (HDT) was Holden's semi-official racing team from 1969 until 1986, primarily contesting Australian Touring Car events but also rallying, rallycross and Sports Sedan races during the 1970s. From 1980 the Holden Dealer T ...
. This was the third ATCC win of his career, but this performance was overshadowed by the victory for Moffat and his new co-driver,
Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
driver and then four times
24 Hours of Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...
winner
Jacky Ickx Jacques Bernard "Jacky" Ickx (; born 1 January 1945) is a Belgian former racing driver who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times (second-highest of all time) and achieved eight wins and 25 podium finishes in Formula One. He greatly contributed ...
in the 1977 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at Bathurst. By the midpoint of the race the Moffat/Ickx car and the Bond/
Alan Hamilton Allan Guy Hamilton (born August 20, 1946) is a Canadian former ice hockey defenceman, most notably with the Edmonton Oilers of the World Hockey Association. He also played in the National Hockey League for the Oilers, as well as the New York Rang ...
car led the field by over two laps. Late in the race Moffat's car encountered serious brake problems due to Ickx's hard driving of what was to him an unfamiliar car and had to slow, allowing Bond to catch up for the cars to complete the final two laps of the race side by side and cross the finish line in tandem with Bond allowing Moffat to stay barely in front for a crushing 1–2 victory for Ford. This moment is remembered as one of the most famous in Australian motor sport history and still regarded by many as Ford's finest hour. The following year Moffat received an
Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in 1978 for exceptional services to motor sport. Moffat was unable to repeat his 1977 successes over the following three years. Moffat and Bond split at the end of the 1978 season and Moffat continued racing in Falcons until the 1980 Bathurst race when he competed for the last time in a Ford Falcon with the XD model. In 1980 he competed in various cars and in various countries. He drove a
Porsche 934 The Porsche 934 was a racing version of the Porsche 911 Turbo, prepared to FIA Group 4 rules, similar to the Porsche 935 which was prepared to FIA Group 5 rules. History The Porsche 934 was introduced for the 1976 racing season. It was manufactur ...
turbo to win the
Australian Sports Car Championship The Australian Sports Car Championship was the national title for sports car racing drivers sanctioned by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport from 1969 to 1988. Each championship was contested over a series of races with the exception of ...
. He also drove at the
1980 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 48th Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 14 and 15 June 1980. It was the seventh round of both the World Championship for Makes and World Challenge for Endurance Drivers. With neither the Porsche nor ...
, sharing a Porsche 935 turbo with future Indycar legend
Bobby Rahal Robert Woodward Rahal (born January 10, 1953) is an American former auto racing driver and team owner. As a driver he won three championships and 24 races in the CART open-wheel series, including the 1986 Indianapolis 500. He also won the 2004 ...
, where they were forced to withdraw whilst in fourth place. He also did a guest drive for the Holden Dealer Team taking third place in the
1980 Hang Ten 400 The 1980 Hang Ten 400 was an endurance race for Group C Touring Cars. The event, which was Round 2 of the 1980 Australian Championship of Makes was staged on 14 September 1980 over 109 laps of the 3.1 km Sandown Park circuit in Victoria Victoria ...
at Sandown driving a Holden Commodore. The event was marked by the fact that it was only the second time Moffat had raced a Holden and the first time that he was driving in the same team as his archrival Peter Brock.


1981 and beyond

Allan Moffat also tested a Jaguar XJS at Bathurst in 1985.


Mazda

Much to the dismay of the Aussie Ford fans, Moffat left the "Blue Oval" brand in 1981 to drive a Peter Stuyvesant-sponsored
Mazda RX-7 The Mazda RX-7 is a front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, rotary engine-powered sports car that was manufactured and marketed by Mazda from 1978 until 2002 across three generations, all of which made use of a compact, lightweight Wankel rotary engine. ...
as both the ATCC and Bathurst began to exhibit a shift towards lighter touring cars with less raw power. Moffat drove the RX-7 to four consecutive top-six finishes at Bathurst between 1981 and 1984 including a second in
1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
and 3rd in
1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
while winning his fourth and final ATCC title in
1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
. During this time Moffat drove his RX-7 to victories in the 1982 and
1984 Australian Endurance Championship The 1984 Australian Endurance Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing competition open to Group C Touring Cars.Conditions for Australian Titles, 1984 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pages 88–93 The championship, which was the fourth Austr ...
s. Moffat also competed at the
24 Hours of Daytona The 24 Hours of Daytona, also known as the Rolex 24 At Daytona for sponsorship reasons, is a 24-hour sports car endurance race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is run on the Sports Car Course layo ...
in an RX-7, taking a class win in 1982 with co-drivers Lee Mulle and Kathy Rude. In 1982 he again competed at Le Mans in a factory RX-7-based sportscar, finishing sixth in class alongside Japanese co-drivers
Yojiro Terada is a Japanese racing driver from Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. He is known for holding the record for the most participations in the 24 Hours of Le Mans without an overall win, having run on 29 occasions (28 of which were consecutive) since . He is ...
and
Takashi Yorino Takashi Yorino (born 10 October 1950) is a Japanese former racing driver who placed 20th overall and won the GTP class in the 1990 24 Hours of Le Mans driving a Mazda 767 300px, Mazda 767B Central Circuit, Hyōgo Prefecture The Mazda 767/767B a ...
. In his bid to win the 1983 ATCC, Moffat had to turn down a factory drive for
Mazda , commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan. In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...
at the
1983 24 Hours of Le Mans The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
as the final round of the ATCC at Lakeside was held the same weekend as the French classic (the
Mazda 717C The Mazda 717C is a prototype racing car built for Mazdaspeed for the 24 Hours of Le Mans under the Group C Junior formula. It was the first racecar built by Mazda since the ending of their running in GT with the RX-7 in 1982. It used a 2-rot ...
he was to drive would win the races' Group C Junior class). Moffat went into the ATCC race in second place behind the Nissan of
George Fury George Fury (born 31 January 1945, in Hungary) is a retired Australian rally and racing car driver. For the majority of his career Fury was associated with Nissan, twice winning the Australian Rally Championship, and twice runner up in the Austr ...
, and with the Nissan team not attending the meeting Moffat needed to finish no lower than fifth to claim his fourth title. He eventually finished in an easy third place behind teammate
Gregg Hansford Gregory John "Gregg" Hansford (8 April 1952 – 5 March 1995) was an Australian professional motorcycle and touring car racer. He competed in the FIM Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championships from 1978 to 1981 and in Australian to ...
in the team's second RX-7, and race winner Peter Brock in his HDT Commodore SS to claim the ATCC by just six points. Brock lapped the field, the first time in ATCC history a driver had won a race by over a lap, while Moffat, who lead from pole (his 4th of the 8 round series) but gave best to the flying Brock on lap 2, simply drove for the points on a wet track which normally would normally have suited the RX-7 over the heavier Holden.
1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
would prove to be a frustrating year for Moffat. After finishing 3rd in the opening round of the ATCC at Sandown behind winner Brock and second-placed Dick Johnson (Johnson had taken Moffat's 1970s mantle of being the leading Ford driver in the country), he claimed pole in his RX-7 (fitted with the 13B rotary engine instead of the 12A of 1983) at Symmons Plains. However, due to the cold conditions the team put a cover over the front of the car to help warm up the engine. Unfortunately the fuse for the overheating warning light had blown and Moffat's race only lasted until the hairpin on lap one before his rotary engine expired, handing an easy win to Brock. He then won at
Wanneroo Wanneroo is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Wanneroo. Geography As it is on the Swan Coastal Plain, the Wanneroo wetlands stretch parallel to the coastline and to the north and south of the suburb. Education ...
in Perth, before crashing out of the championship at Surfers Paradise when his Mazda was hit while lapping the XD Falcon of Gary Willmington at high speed going under the
Dunlop Bridge The Dunlop Bridge is a landmark advertising footbridge. There are several of them, situated at a number of different motor racing circuits around the world. The oldest surviving example of this bridge is at the Circuit de la Sarthe, the home of ...
at the end of the main straight. Due to the wet conditions the Mazda slid off the road at high speed, took out an ABC television camera cable and slammed head on into a bush that was hiding a tree stump. In what was his biggest crash since rolling his XA Falcon at
Phillip Island Phillip Island ( Boonwurrung: ''Corriong'', ''Worne'' or ''Millowl'') is an Australian island about south-southeast of Melbourne, Victoria. The island is named after Governor Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, by explore ...
in 1973, Moffat suffered a fractured sternum and broken finger in the accident, while the RX-7 was a write-off. After his crash at Surfers, there was much speculation in the motor racing press that the 45-year-old was going to retire from full-time driving at the end of the year. Moffat refuted these claims and made his comeback in Round 2 of the
1984 Australian Endurance Championship The 1984 Australian Endurance Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing competition open to Group C Touring Cars.Conditions for Australian Titles, 1984 CAMS Manual of Motor Sport, pages 88–93 The championship, which was the fourth Austr ...
at Oran Park. Despite suffering from the flu, Moffat put the RX-7 on pole and he and Gregg Hansford went on to win the Valvoline 250 from the XE Falcon of ATCC winner Dick Johnson. Moffat and Hansford then finished second to Peter Brock and
Larry Perkins Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia. Biography Early years Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Eddi ...
in the Castrol 500 at Sandown, and claimed third at the James Hardie 1000 behind the two Holden Dealer Team Commodores, who staged a 1-2 finish trying to copy what Moffat and Bond had achieved in 1977, though unlike the Moffat Ford Dealers Falcons which were on the same lap, the Brock/Perkins car was 2 laps ahead of teammates
John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics * John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician * John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...
and David Parsons. Moffat's team entered two cars in the race, but only listed Moffat and Hansford as drivers, and had to fight with Bathurst race organisers the Australian Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) to be allowed to start both cars, as both drivers had qualified inside the top 10 (race regulations stated that the top 8 qualifiers were locked in to participate in the Hardies Heroes top 10 run-off, with Moffat 5th and Hansford 6th). Moffat won the fight with the ARDC and his decision to start both cars was vindicated when his own #43 RX-7 was involved in a car banging dual with the Falcon of Steve Masterson soon after the original start. After only 15 laps of the second start (the first was aborted after the John Goss
Jaguar XJS The Jaguar XJ-S (later called XJS) is a luxury grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British car manufacturer Jaguar Cars from 1975 to 1996, in coupé, fixed-profile and full convertible bodystyles. There were three distinct iterations, w ...
driven by European Touring Car Champion
Tom Walkinshaw Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw (14 August 1946 – 12 December 2010) was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of ...
had stalled and was hit from behind causing the pit straight to be blocked), Moffat was forced to retire his car with terminal engine problems after only 15 laps and move into Hansford's, which had been originally intended to run about 20 laps, but lasted 161 (with Moffat himself only driving the middle 'lunchtime' stint and Hansford driving the majority of the race). Moffat then went on to finish second behind Brock in the Surfers Paradise 300 to claim the final Australian Endurance Championship, and the final ever championship run under CAMS Group C rules. In 1985 he took his own RX-7 that he campaigned previously in Australia to Daytona for the 24 Hour race, sharing the car with Australian drivers
Gregg Hansford Gregory John "Gregg" Hansford (8 April 1952 – 5 March 1995) was an Australian professional motorcycle and touring car racer. He competed in the FIM Grand Prix motorcycle racing world championships from 1978 to 1981 and in Australian to ...
, Kevin Bartlett and
Peter McLeod Peter Gerard McLeod (born 6 May 1948 in Newcastle, New South Wales) is a retired Australian racing driver, best known as co-winner of the 1987 James Hardie 1000 at Bathurst, and for driving the distinctive yellow and black Slick 50 Mazda RX-7 ...
. The car differed from its Australian configuration, a new rear wing was run on the car and 20 kg of ballast was removed, bringing it down to its actual homologated weight of 930 kg, while the engine was the same 13B that had carried Moffat and Hansford to third place at Bathurst the previous year. Moffat qualified the car in 38th (12th in the GTO class) and eventually finished 24th and 7th in class, some 221 laps behind the race winners. Regular RX-7 drivers Moffat, Hansford and McLeod all expressed how much more effective the 13B motor was without the CAMS imposed extra 20 kg. While Moffat made the RX-7 a regular race winner on the shorter and generally flatter Australian tracks, he believes the extra weight in the car was what made it impossible to match the V8's at Bathurst With Mazda not interested in
Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles ...
racing (he tested a
Mazda 626 __NOTOC__ Year 626 ( DCXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 626 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar e ...
at Calder Park but it proved to be uncompetitive), Moffat was forced to sit out the 1985 Australian season. He joined the ABC television coverage of the
1985 Castrol 500 The 1985 Castrol 500 was an endurance race for "Group A" Touring Cars staged at the Sandown Raceway, Sandown International Motor Racing Circuit in Victoria (Australia), Victoria on 15 September 1985. Race distance was 129 laps of the 3.878 k ...
at Sandown, and was an expert commentator for Channel 7's coverage of the
1985 James Hardie 1000 The 1985 James Hardie 1000 was a motor race held on 6 October 1985 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, in New South Wales, Australia. It was the 26th running of the Bathurst 1000 and was the first held exclusively for cars co ...
, testing several cars for the coverage including a HDT VK Commodore, a BMW 635 CSi from
JPS Team BMW JPS Team BMW is a former Australian motor racing team that ran from 1981–1987. The team's main focus was touring car racing but also ran in sports sedans and GT cars as well. The team, under the management of former British Touring Car Cham ...
and also the turbocharged
Volvo 240T The Volvo 200 Series (or 240 and 260 Series) is a range of mid-size cars produced by Swedish company Volvo Cars from 1974 until 1993, with more than 2.8 million total units sold worldwide. Like the Volvo 140 Series (1966 to 1974), from which it ...
.


Holden

Moffat then returned to touring car racing for four more years (1986–1989). 1986 was notable in that Moffat had joined longtime rival and friend Peter Brock and the Holden Dealer Team (though he had previously driven for the team in the
1980 Hang Ten 400 The 1980 Hang Ten 400 was an endurance race for Group C Touring Cars. The event, which was Round 2 of the 1980 Australian Championship of Makes was staged on 14 September 1980 over 109 laps of the 3.1 km Sandown Park circuit in Victoria Victoria ...
at Sandown). The two most successful drivers in Australia were immediately successful, winning the 1986 Wellington 500 in New Zealand in the brand-new
Holden VK Commodore SS Group A The Holden Commodore (VK) is a mid-size car that was produced by Holden from 1984 to 1986. It was the fourth iteration of the first generation of the Holden Commodore and introduced the luxury variant, Holden Calais (VK) sedan. Overview The ...
. Moffat and Brock then went to Europe to race in the FIA Touring Car Championship (formerly the European Touring Car Championship) with two 5th placings at Donington and
Hockenheim Hockenheim () is a town in northwest Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about 20 km south of Mannheim and 10 km west of Walldorf. It is located in the Upper Rhine valley on the tourist theme routes "Baden Asparagus Route" () and Bertha Benz M ...
being their best on-track results. Despite not actually winning the race overall, the HDT's two-car attack on the 1986 Spa 24 Hours was considered to be a success because they won the prestigious "Kings Cup" teams prize along with
Allan Grice Allan Maxwell Grice (born 21 October 1942), known to motor-racing fans as "Gricey", is an Australian former racing driver and politician, most famous for twice winning the prestigious Bathurst 1000 (1986 and 1990), and as a privateer driver o ...
's Commodore (the Kings Cup is awarded to the "team" who has the highest overall placings for at least 3 of their cars at the end of the race). Moffat, Brock and
John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics * John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician * John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...
finished the race itself in 22nd place after suffering two head gasket failures. The lead car finished four places behind the team's second car, which finished in 18th spot. The HDT's 1986 European campaign was to be a precursor to an all-out attack on the
1987 World Touring Car Championship The 1987 World Touring Car Championship season was the inaugural World Touring Car Championship season. It commenced on 22 March 1987 and ended on 15 November after eleven races. The championship was open to Touring Cars complying with FIA Group A ...
. Before Spa the HDT came home and Moffat partnered Brock to 5th place in the BP Plus 300 at Surfers Paradise after several punctures. This was followed by the 1986 Castrol 500 at Sandown. Between them Moffat and Brock had won 14 of the previous 17 Sandown Enduro's. Brock qualified the car on pole but tyre problems in the race meant only a 4th-placed finish for the pair in their second-ever Australian race together. Despite this the HDT went to the 1986 James Hardie 1000 confident of victory and the Brock/Moffat partnership in car #05 were favoured to win with the pair having won 12 of the previous 16
Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most rece ...
's between them. Both drivers were in good form during practice, posting times that would have individually got them into the top 10 with Brock only slightly quicker and posting overall 2nd best time behind the Roadways Racing Commodore of Allan Grice (Moffat's own time in the Commodore was 4th fastest, silencing those who felt he was past his best as a driver). Then early in Friday's qualifying session Moffat, in what turned out to be his only serious crash at Bathurst, put the 05 Commodore into the wall at the top of the mountain. This unfortunately caused the car to miss the Hardies Heroes Top 10 run off the next day as the car could not be repaired in time, its place in the top 10 being taken by the Commodore of former motorcycle racer
Graeme Crosby Graeme Crosby (born 4 July 1955) is a former professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer from New Zealand. A versatile rider, Crosby was equally capable on either four stroke Superbike racers or two stroke Grand Prix racers. He is the only p ...
. This meant that the Brock/Moffat car would start 11th on the grid. According to the team the car was repaired 'better than new' and Brock recorded a 2:18.80 lap in Saturday afternoon's practice. The race though only gave the Brock/Moffat team 5th place after they lost some 7 minutes in the pits bypassing a leaking oil cooler. Moffat himself was hampered by an injured wrist sustained in Friday's crash. While not showing any discomfort on RaceCam, he was unable to push as hard as he would have liked although he lost no time to the leaders during his driving stints. Despite the loss of two and a half laps and with the engine close to overheating due to not running the oil cooler, Brock and Moffat ran hard and fast for the rest of the race and made up ground to be only 1 lap down on the winning Grice/
Graeme Bailey Graeme Alfred Bailey (born 11 July 1943 in Ourimbah, New South Wales), is an Australian retired racing driver, best known as co-winner of the 1986 Bathurst 1000. Career Group C Bailey's career emerged in the late 1970s, becoming a front runn ...
car at race end. The HDT's other car driven by John Harvey and Neal Lowe finished the race in 2nd place after a relatively trouble-free run. 1987 started well with Brock and Moffat again winning the Wellington 500 before the pair went on to claim the 1987 Nissan-Mobil 500 series with a strong 3rd place in the Pukekohe 500 a week later. Then the HDT as a factory team fell apart after Holden cut all official ties with Brock over his public launch of the VL Commodore based HDT Director. Moffat then quit the team and purchased the brand-new Holden VL Commodore SS Group A that Brock had intended to take to Europe to compete in the
World Touring Car Championship The FIA World Touring Car Championship was an international touring car championship promoted by Eurosport Events and sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). It has had several different incarnations, including a sin ...
. Although Moffat left the HDT still on good terms with Brock, he purchased the car through a middleman to avoid any friction with having his former employer knowing the true buyer. The car was then immediately shipped to
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
for preparation for the first round of the WTCC. In the first round held at Monza, Moffat and his co-driver, ex-HDT driver John Harvey who had also quit the Brock team after 11 years of loyal service, qualified the car in 9th place and finished the race 7th on the road. Hours after the race, the Rothmans sponsored Commodore was declared the winner after a protest by a private BMW entry from Hungary had seen the works BMW M3's (which had finished 1-6) disqualified for being underweight (as of 2016 neither Moffat, nor Harvey, have possession of the winner's trophy as they never received it). Despite being declared the outright winners of the race, they did not receive championship points as the team had not paid the
USD$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
60,000 championship entry fee imposed by series promoter Bernie Ecclestone (only cars whose teams had paid the fee were eligible for points, this saw some leading teams, notably
Tom Walkinshaw Thomas Dobbie Thomson Walkinshaw (14 August 1946 – 12 December 2010) was a British racing car driver from Scotland and the founder of the racing team Tom Walkinshaw Racing (TWR). He was also involved in professional rugby union, as owner of ...
's TWR who were also to race a Holden Commodore, pull out of the championship before it began). The car was then a DNF at the next two rounds at
Jarama Jarama () is a river in central Spain. It flows north to south, and passes east of Madrid where the El Atazar Dam is built on a tributary, the Lozoya River. It flows into the river Tagus in Aranjuez. The Manzanares is a tributary of the Jaram ...
and
Dijon Dijon (, , ) (dated) * it, Digione * la, Diviō or * lmo, Digion is the prefecture of the Côte-d'Or department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in northeastern France. the commune had a population of 156,920. The earlies ...
before Moffat and Harvey drove the Commodore to a sensational fourth place outright and a class win at the Spa 24-hour race. The pair were due to co-drive with Aussie privateer racer Tony Mulvihill at Spa, but unfortunately the Sydney driver failed to qualify. Qualifying at the famous circuit had been hit by the notorious Ardennes weather and while Mulvihill set a good enough time when the track was wet, he had not set a time on a dry track and towards the end of the final session the circuit dried and the
Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...
sponsored
Eggenberger Motorsport Eggenberger Motorsport was a Swiss motor racing team that competed in the European Touring Car Championship in the 1980s. History In 1982, Eggenberger Motorsport won the 1982 European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) with Umberto Grano and Helmu ...
Ford Sierra RS Cosworth The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...
's significantly improved their times which left only Moffat and Harvey to drive the Commodore. Moffat qualified the Commodore in 18th place, one place behind Peter Brock's HDT Commodore and 5.6 seconds slower than
Klaus Ludwig Klaus Karl Ludwig (born 5 October 1949) is a German racing driver. Biography He also known as ''König Ludwig'' ("King Ludwig") for his success in touring cars and in sports car racing. In the 1970s, Ludwig drove for Ford in the Deutsche ...
's pole time in his Eggenberger Sierra. Moffat and Harvey then drove a steady race (mostly in the rain) to finish 4th with 468 laps completed.


Return to Ford

This also proved to be the Commodore's final race as Moffat, realising that to be competitive at Bathurst he would need one of the new, powerful
Ford Sierra RS500 The Ford Sierra RS Cosworth is a high-performance version of the Ford Sierra that was built by Ford Europe from 1986 to 1992. It was the result of a Ford Motorsport project with the purpose of producing an outright winner for Group A racing in ...
's, completed a deal to lease the Andy Rouse run Sierra for the Australian rounds of the championship which was backed by new major sponsor ANZ Bank. This deal also left Harvey without a drive for the rest of the year as Rouse and his co-driver Thierry Tassin would share the driving with Moffat. The deal proved a disaster for Moffat as the car was retired at both the James Hardie 1000 and the Calder 500 before Moffat got his turn to race. In
1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...
, Moffat was keen to keep driving the Sierra which was the car to have at the time, but after the failures of the Rouse cars in 1987 had decided not to continue using the British driver/engineer's machinery. In a 2014 interview with ''Australian Muscle Car'' magazine, Moffat told that he was livid following the failure at Bathurst after finding that the Getrag gearbox that broke in the Sierra had been the same one Rouse had used at the Spa 24 Hours and had done some 36 hours of practice and racing, well past its rebuild point. Instead he managed to do something that very few had managed to do. He persuaded Swiss touring car tuning ace Ruedi Eggenberger to build him a customer Sierra RS500 that was identical to the works Fords that the Eggenberger team was using in the renamed ETCC. The deal was rumored to have cost Moffat around A$300,000. Moffat and former Mazda co-driver Gregg Hansford campaigned the car in the 1988 ATCC in a low-key run while his team after years of racing rotary Mazda's and V8 Commodores and Falcons, got to know the sophisticated turbocharged car. Moffat and Hansford went on to win the 1988 Enzed 500 at Sandown in what was Moffat's last ever win in Australia. They then almost pulled off an upset at the Tooheys 1000 at Bathurst where Eggenberger himself joined the team and along with his
Ford Europe Ford of Europe GmbH is a subsidiary company of Ford Motor Company founded in 1967 in Cork, Ireland, with headquarters in Cologne, Germany. History Ford of Europe was founded in 1967 by the merger of Ford of Britain, Ford Germany, and Irish Hen ...
driver,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
ace
Klaus Niedzwiedz Klaus Niedzwiedz (born February 24, 1951 in Dortmund, Germany) is a former professional race driver and motoring journalist. Driver His greatest success came in the 1980s as a driver for Ford. Niedzwiedz rose to prominence when driving a Ford C ...
. With Eggenberger waving his 'magic wand' over the Sierra, and Niedzwiedz leading the driving, the pair turned the car into one of the fastest on the track, qualifying 4th and winning the $40,000 "Tooheys Top Gun" run-off, which for the only time in its history wasn't for pole (Moffat's fastest time in practice was some six seconds slower than the German and eight seconds off the pole time set by Dick Johnson). The car ultimately was a DNF after head gasket failure on lap 129 of 161 with Hansford at the wheel. Niedzwiedz had taken the lead from the Sierra of
Tony Longhurst Anthony Lawrence Longhurst (born 1 October 1957 in Sydney) is an Australian racing driver and former Australian Champion water skier. He is most noted for his career in the Australian Touring Car Championship and V8 Supercar series. Longhurst is ...
on lap 29 when Longhurst lost a lap with a throttle problem, and the car remained in the lead for 100 laps before a vapor lock (caused by the car cooling down too much during a safety car period) led to the car's failure. Moffat later claimed that the 1988 Bathurst was the "one that got away", and with a one-lap lead with just 32 laps remaining and ace driver Niedzwiedz up against Longhurst's slower co-driver
Tomas Mezera Tomas Mezera (born 5 November 1958 in Czechoslovakia) is a naturalised Australian racing driver. Mezera won the 1988 Bathurst 1000, and for many years was a member of the Holden Racing Team as both a driver and team manager. Mezera's sporting ...
, not many people were disagreeing with him. In a pit interview moments after the car was officially retired, a glum but remarkably composed Moffat said that the engine of the Sierra basically had a "heart attack". The team would later find that it was a blown head gasket and a cracked block. This race was also significant in that it was the last time Moffat raced at Bathurst. He did enter and qualify for the
1989 Tooheys 1000 The 1989 Tooheys 1000 was the 30th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on 1 October 1989 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, Australia. The race was held for cars eligible under International Group A t ...
, but decided not to actually race as the lead team car driven by Niedzwiedz and fellow German
Frank Biela Frank Stanley Biela (born 2 August 1964 in Neuss) is a German auto racing driver, mainly competing in touring cars and sportscar racing. He has raced exclusively in cars manufactured by the Audi marque since 1990. Career Biela started his care ...
had a chance at victory, and since they were much faster than he was in the car (approximately 6–8 seconds per lap in qualifying) he felt it best to leave them to it. Ultimately the Moffat lead Sierra would finish second behind the Sierra of Dick Johnson and John Bowe. Other than his four wins at Bathurst, Moffat also won the Sandown Endurance race six times, being the only driver to win it under three different national regulations, these being
Series Production Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and batch ...
(
1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...
,
1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...
),
Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...
( 1974, 1982,
1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...
) and
Group A Group A is a set of motorsport regulations administered by the FIA covering production derived vehicles intended for competition, usually in touring car racing and rallying. In contrast to the short-lived Group B and Group C, Group A vehicles ...
(
1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...
). Moffat's last race, and indeed last race win, was in 1989 driving with Niedzwiedz. The pair drive Moffat's Sierra (with Ruedi Eggenberger again on hand to engineer the car) in the InterTEC 500 km race at the Fuji Speedway in Japan. Allan Moffat quietly retired from competitive race driving after the Fuji win, keeping a promise he had made to himself and his wife Pauline that he wouldn't race beyond his 50th birthday (the Fuji 500 was run 2 days after Moffat's 50th). He has since worked as a TV commentator for Channel 7 and a spokesman for BMW. He also appears at various Ford club events across Australia, promotes his longtime backer GT Radial Tyres, and more recently (2009-) has been seen in television adverts in Australia promoting
Ford Performance Vehicles Ford Performance Vehicles was the Melbourne-based, premium performance arm of automobile manufacturer Ford Australia. The company produced a range of Ford-based models from 2002 to 2014 under the FPV marque name. History The roots of FPV can be ...
GT Falcons.


Post-driving career

Moffat continued as the team owner and manager of Allan Moffat Enterprises, which ran the RS500 Sierra's until the demise of Group A at the end of 1992. In a significant partnership, car builder Eggenberger and ace driver Niedzwiedz joined Moffat at Bathurst every year from 1988 to 1992 excluding the
1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...
race when they were not available due to other commitments. The best result for the team during this period was Niedzwiedz's second place with
Frank Biela Frank Stanley Biela (born 2 August 1964 in Neuss) is a German auto racing driver, mainly competing in touring cars and sportscar racing. He has raced exclusively in cars manufactured by the Audi marque since 1990. Career Biela started his care ...
at the 1989 race. Niedzwiedz gave the Moffat-ANZ team pole position at the
1990 Tooheys 1000 The 1990 Tooheys 1000 was a motor race held on 30 September 1990 at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. The event was open to cars eligible under CAMS Group 3A regulations, commonly known as Group A ...
while he had also won the Top 10 run-off in 1988 when race regulations meant that the run-off did not count for grid positions. Eggenberger and Niedzwiedz also managed to join Moffat for other Australian races, with Ruedi joining the team for the
Phillip Island Phillip Island ( Boonwurrung: ''Corriong'', ''Worne'' or ''Millowl'') is an Australian island about south-southeast of Melbourne, Victoria. The island is named after Governor Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales, by explore ...
round of the 1990 ATCC which saw Hansford finish 5th, and also the 1990 Sandown 500 where Niedzwiedz qualified 5th in his first look at the Sandown circuit, though he and Hansford would fail to finish the race. At the end of
1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...
, the team suffered a blow when it lost its major sponsor ANZ. The bank had been recording end of financial year losses and had decided that it would not be right to continue sponsoring the team after it was forced to lay off some 3,000 employees. This significantly cut into the team's finances and plans to run the car in the
1991 Australian Touring Car Championship The 1991 Australian Touring Car Championship was a CAMS sanctioned motor racing title open to Group 3A Touring Cars. The title, which was the 32nd Australian Touring Car Championship, was contested over a nine-round series which began on 24 Fe ...
were shelved. However, with new sponsorship from Cenovis Vitamins, the team was able to carry on running the Sierra's (which by this stage were only seen at Sandown and Bathurst) until they and other turbo cars (such as the 4WD
Nissan GT-R The Nissan GT-R (Japanese: 日産・GT-R, ''Nissan GT-R''), is a high-performance sports car and grand tourer produced by Nissan, unveiled in 2007. It is the successor to the Skyline GT-R, a high performance variant of the Nissan Skyline. Alt ...
) were banned by CAMS at the end of 1992. After the Sierra's were banned in their RS500 form at the end of 1992, Moffat decided to continue his long association with Ford and built an eye-catching Ford EB Falcon painted black and yellow in the colours of team sponsor Cenovis for the 1993 Tooheys 1000. The team's first Bathurst with a Falcon since 1980 did not turn out much better than their previous attempt which had only lasted 3 laps. The car's
V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...
was built by another longtime Moffat associate, Kar Kraft, in the United States (who had supplied Moffat with his Boss Mustang back in 1969) and was built with a Carburetor instead of the fuel injection of the leading cars. Driven by Charlie O'Brien and
Andrew Miedecke Miedecke Motorsport is an Australian motor racing team that is competing in Australian GT. It has previously competed in touring car racing between 1987 and 1989, and an earlier form of the team also competed in open wheel racing between 1981 a ...
, the car qualified 18th but retired with gearbox failure after completing just 41 of the race's 161 laps. For the 1994 Tooheys 1000, Moffat had his race engines supplied by
Dick Johnson Racing Dick Johnson Racing (formerly DJR Team Penske), is Australia's oldest motor racing team competing in the Supercars Championship. The team currently fields the #11 and #17 Ford Mustang (sixth generation), Ford Mustang GTs for Anton de Pasqu ...
and the team, with drivers Miedecke and
Englishman The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...
Jeff Allam Jeffrey Frank Allam (born 19 December 1954 in Epsom, England), is a former British racing driver who made his name in Saloon Car racing. He now works as Head of Business for Allam Motor Services in Epsom which are a Skoda sales and service and V ...
were more competitive, qualifying 16th and finished a well-deserved 8th, only four laps behind the winning Falcon of Dick Johnson and John Bowe. The
1995 Tooheys 1000 The 1995 Tooheys 1000 was the 36th running of the Bathurst 1000 touring car race. It was held on 1 October 1995, at the Mount Panorama Circuit just outside Bathurst. The race was held for cars eligible under CAMS Group 3A 5.0 Litre Touring C ...
saw the team struggle once more. Andrew Miedecke was again lead driver and qualified the aging EB Falcon in 16th place but co-driver
Mark Noske Mark Noske (born 25 July 1975) is a former Australian racing car driver. He has scored round wins in various Australian championships including the Australian Drivers' Championship, the Australian Formula Ford Championship and the Australian N ...
never got a drive with the car retiring on lap 16 with engine trouble. The
1996 AMP Bathurst 1000 The 1996 AMP Bathurst 1000 was an endurance race for Group 3A 5.0 Litre Touring Cars held on 6 October 1996 at the Mount Panorama Circuit near Bathurst in New South Wales, Australia. The race, which was the 37th running of the Bathurst 100 ...
was the last time that an Allan Moffat-built or driven (in this case just built) car raced at Bathurst. In what was also his last Bathurst race, Klaus Niedzwiedz returned to the team, where he joined
production car Production vehicles or production cars are mass-produced identical models, offered for sale to the public, and able to be legally driven on public roads ( street legal). Legislation and other rules further define the production vehicle within part ...
expert
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in a strong run to finish 10th after Niedzwiedz qualified the older model (EB compared to the EF) and underpowered Falcon in 25th place. During the period from 1991 until 1996, Moffat's cars only ever raced at the
Sandown 500 The Sandown 500 (formally known as the Penrite Oil Sandown 500) is an annual endurance motor race which is staged at the Sandown Raceway, near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia from 1964. The event's name, distance – and the category of cars co ...
or Bathurst 1000 races as the team's finances and resources were not enough to allow them to race in rounds of the Touring car Championship. Moffat himself also doubled as an expert commentator for Channel 7 during its motor sport telecasts during this time, including at Bathurst, where he had the dual role of commentator and race team manager. Moffat also joined
Murray Walker Graeme Murray Walker (10 October 1923 – 13 March 2021) was an English motorsport commentator and journalist. He provided television commentary of live Formula One coverage for the BBC between 1976 and 1996, and for ITV between 1997 and 20 ...
and later
Darrell Eastlake Darrell Eastlake (11 July 1942 – 19 April 2018) was an Australian radio and television presenter, commentator and sports journalist, best known for his long association with the Nine Network. Prior to his media career, Eastlake worked as a Qan ...
in the Channel 9 commentary box during the touring car support races at the Australian Grand Prix meetings in
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
from 1985 to 1995.


Beyond motor racing

On 2 February 2004, he received Australian citizenship in a ceremony at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation offices in
Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
. He had been eligible for citizenship since the early 1970s but, in his own words, "one way or another I never followed it through." The citation itself was given by his old friend and sparring partner, Peter Brock. Although Moffat has lived permanently in Australia for over 50 years, his broad Canadian accent has remained intact and continues to be his trademark. Moffat is a Director of the Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety (AIMSS). Moffat's two sons Andrew Moffat and James Moffat have followed their father into motor racing. James Moffat finished second driving for
Nissan Motorsport , abbreviated as Nismo, is a division of Nissan Motorsports & Customizing focused in motorsport and performance-oriented car models for Nissan. Nismo was initially a company, , formed in 1984 as a result of a merger of two motorsport departme ...
in the 2014 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. It was the first time the Moffat name had been on the Bathurst 1000 podium since Allan finished third in 1984. In 2019, it was reported that Moffat was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and had been moved to a specialist health care facility, with his friends and Bathurst legends Fred Gibson and
Larry Perkins Larry Clifton Perkins (born 18 March 1950) is a former racing driver and V8 Supercar team owner from Australia. Biography Early years Growing up on a farm in Cowangie in the Mallee region of Victoria, Larry, the son of racing driver Eddi ...
ensuring his will instructions to be carried out. Since late 2022 a campaign is being run to have Mountain Straight at Mount Panorama renamed to Moffat Mountain Straight or Moffat Straight, (details on Facebook) honouring him and his fierce competition with Holden's
Peter Brock Peter Geoffrey Brock (26 February 1945 – 8 September 2006), known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, a ...
, which personified the uniquely Australian Ford vs Holden rivalry. This rivalry popularised the annual 500/1000 KM race and made it a national event, even for non motor sport followers.Campaign for Moffat Mountain Straight.
Australian Auto Action Magazine 15 November 2022.


Career results


SCCA National Championship Runoffs


Complete World Sportscar Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)


Complete Australian Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) * Drove
Murray Carter Murray Carter (born 30 January 1931 in Melbourne) is an Australian racing driver. For many years a stalwart of the Australian Touring Car Championship Carter has had one of the longest racing careers of any driver in Australian history, contin ...
's Phase III Falcon at
Adelaide International Raceway The Adelaide International Raceway (also known as Adelaide International or AIR) is a permanent circuit owned by Australian Motorsport Club Limited under the auspices of the Bob Jane Corporation. The circuit is located north of Adelaide in S ...
in 1973 due to his own Falcon being stolen the night before the race. The race was still entered as driving for the Ford Works Team.


Complete FIA European Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)


Complete World Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap) † Not registered for series & points


Complete Bathurst 500/1000 results


Complete Sandown Endurance results


Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results


Complete 24 Hours of Daytona results


Complete Spa 24 Hours results


Complete 12 Hours of Sebring results


References


Notes


Bibliography

*


External links


Official Allan Moffat WebsiteAllan Moffat image
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moffat, Allan Australian racing drivers Canadian racing drivers Racing drivers from Saskatchewan Canadian emigrants to Australia Bathurst 1000 winners Australian Touring Car Championship drivers Naturalised citizens of Australia Sportspeople from Saskatoon 1939 births Living people 24 Hours of Le Mans drivers Motorsport announcers World Touring Car Championship drivers World Sportscar Championship drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers 12 Hours of Sebring drivers Sport Australia Hall of Fame inductees Australian Endurance Championship drivers