(first posted 1/15/2012) Our prolific and eagle-eyed New Zealand-based Cohort Contributor Bryce has posted this sighting of a rather rare and legendary machine indeed, the 1971 Falcon 351 GT, Ford of Australia’s echo to US muscle cars. Given that all of 1776 (1557 Phase 1; 300 GTHO) of these cars were ever made it’s probably better to compare it to the legendary (and rare) Boss 429 Mustang. In the US, such rare muscle cars have all-too often been cloned; could this one have been? (Update: Yes!)
As is all-too obvious, the Ozzie Falcons from 1966-1971 (XR, XT, XW, XY) were heavily based on the US gen2 Falcon, which arrived in 1966. That coincided exactly with the beginning of the golden muscle car era, but since the Aussie Falcon did not come in a two door version, the four door became the basis of the go-fast attentions.
The XR and XT GT’s came with small-block 289 and 302 V8s, but the racing homologation-special GT-HO XW stepped up to an available Windsor 351, soon replaced by the more potent Cleveland 351, rated at 300 (gross) hp.
That brings us to the ultimate Falcon GT of this generation, the XY. The “shaker” hood scoop was exported, along with a Phase III tune for the 351 that generated some 350-390 hp. The Phase III Falcons were the fastest four door sedans down under (at 141 mph), and among the fastest sedans in the world at the time. Bryce added the note that this particular one’s engine has been increased to 393 cubic inches.
NICE… I do like mucle sedans and wagons better than the coupes. I guess cause I like something a little different.
Love Aussie Fords!! Thanks for posting this up!
Great find Bryce, good to know you always have your camera on hand!
Wish I did, its amazing what I see without it
I’m trying to imagine what my 1961 Falcon Fordor would be like with a 351 and a crazy paint job.
P.S.: Don’t worry, I’m keeping it stock!
Great to see this. I’ve always loved Falcons, my first car was a ’68 powered by the wheezy little 170 cid I6. One day if I can ever afford a good ‘un, I’ll build myself something like this…
Thanx Paul good writeup your knowledge is astounding as at any car show the gems are in the parking lot this was outside Southwards museum I met the owner while we were both admiring old Citroens. That is an original Vermillion fire XY GT they are getting rare now and valueable there are multitudes of replicas and telling them from real is an art the value of a reah HO is such people keep the body tags in safes in banks. The only part that isnt reproduced for these is the one everyone removed and threw out, The rev limiter. As fast as these were a 6cylinder E49 Hemi Valiant could out run one to 100mph awesome cars from a great era.
Thanks for the extra info, I would have guessed it was a replica based on the non-standard wheels & exhaust outlets, it seems there aren’t many real ones these days that have not been taken back to factory specs.
Vermillion Fire is the best colour I think, for US readers it is a bright red tending towards orange, very similar to the earlier Brambles Red that was also used as the factory race team colour. 300 out of the 1800-odd were GT-HO’s, as that was the homologation requirement for the Bathurst 500 mile race. Allan Moffat won in 1971, driving the whole 6 hour race solo, with 5 GT-HO’s in the top 6.
It is not only for this dominant result that the Phase III is on such a pedestal, eg Moffat’s practice lap was 10sec faster than the pretty similar Phase II the year before, but in 1972 there was the “Supercar Scare” about the next models – the Phase IV GT-HO would be able to do 160mph – and the homologation requirements and thus ‘specials’ were dropped. It was roughly 25 years before there would be as fast a car as the Phase III built in Australia.
I have some great memories of a trip I did with my father to Adelaide back in 2000 in an XW GT (Vermillion Fire colour), with the 3.25 diff it was sitting on 3000 at 60-ish mph when we got stuck behind a truck on a 2-lane road – by the time we got to the front of the truck we were doing 90mph, by which time the roar from the exhaust was more like what you hear from speed boats. That was an amazing aspect in itself, the same car at 60mph was very quiet.
I recall reading somewhere there are more GTs >HOs registered than Ford built.
Actually carjam.co.nz gives this as a 71 Falcon 500 but it gives the chassis and engine numbers so if you know the correct prefixes you can confirm its reality Im only going off what the owner told me I too saw a few non stock items but better wheels wider tyres are a good choice for twisty NZ roads the originals didnt corner that well Allan Moffat was a genius Ive driven a 250 cube 6 XY around the Bathurst circuit and that was wheelspinning and sliding with no power at low speeds compared to his rate of travel.
My only exposure to these cars has been through the Mad Max movies. I would tell the owner to add a supercharger with a magnetic clutch, but I’m sure he knows that. I do like this one, it looks like someone grafted a Mustang front end onto a Torino:
Thats a XB models 2 later than the XY. Genuine GTs and moreso GTHOs are very valueable now so mostly the ordinary models get modified these days. A genuine GTHO sold for 750,000 dollars recently because it was original.
Should be noted that was pre-GFC, things have settled down a bit since then but good cars still bring good money
Looks like a ’69 Dart from the rear.
aha, I was thinking it looked kinda Moparish but couldn’t place my finger on exactly what.
Apart from a change in tail light style & front fascia this is the mid-69 XW facelift from the 2nd gen Falcons. They also had a new dashboard.
Chrysler sold a version of the Dart hardtop out here as a version of the Valiant, so a rare case of the hardtop being longer than the sedan on which it was ‘based’!
This is the what if car from the recentCC story
I used to see a nearly identical Aussie orange Falcon at Fabulous Fords at Knotts Berry Farm every April. It’s a big Ford 1 day show with 2000 cars.
What a beauty
Oooo, gorgeous – and great pics as always Bryce!
As per the carjam website, the chassis number of the photographed car is “JG23LPxxxxxC”, which decodes as follows:
J=Country of production=Australia
G=Assembly plant=Broadmeadows assembled
23=Model type=Falcon 500 sedan (genuine GT sedans are 33, GT coupes are 66)
L=Year=1971
P=Month=December.
xxxxx=5-digit unique vehicle serial number (the number is given on carjam, but thought I’d keep it off here)
C=don’t know – maybe someone else has an idea?
The car has a matching engine number (says carjam, but who knows now), but carjam doesn’t record full ID plate data, which would be needed to determine which engine it came out of the factory with.
So sadly, being a JG23 and not a JG33, means it’s a replica or cloned as y’all call it, but it’s a darn good one. Lots of GT clones have the shaker, spoilers and badges/stripes, but the GT bonnet pins, grille and mirrors of this one show that someone went the extra mile to make it convincing. Very, very nice!
And you know what, I’d rather have a replica every day – the real ones are such a crazy price you’d be terrified to actually drive them, whereas a nicely built replica could be used regularly.
There’s a genuine 1971 XY GTHO Falcon currently on trademe for the eye-watering price of NZ$495K!! If you haven’t fainted at that, here’s a screenshot:
All V8s were OX assy but I dont know the numbers good one Scott even replicas are good now you can buy everything except a rev limiter as repro now and most of the originals had the shit thrashed out of them on tracks NZ has the distiction of being the place Allan Moffat got beaten by a Valiant in his HO. a rare feat then.
I wish now Id checked the instrument panel it could have been a GS I once got offered a XY panel van at a wreckers yard $600 without th instrument cluster it had the 140mph speedo worth more than the rest of the car shoulda bought it it was a GS with bonnet pins shaker 351 manual big rubber all the good gear but thrashed and rough it woulda been cop bait.
Where did you get the 1757 number ? My Ford Falcon GT and GTHO Book says there were 1857 built (300 of which were the higher performance GTHO model). I actually thought there would be a alot more than 1557 GT’s, but I just guess that is because these days, most of the surviving XY Falcon sedans that weren’t GT’s or GTHO’s have been turned in replicas of them 🙂
I mangled those numbers, and I’ve updated them. Thanks.
Must’ve required a lot of power to get to 141mph, given that awfully blunt front end. Must’ve had the aerodynamics of a barn door.
That was on the 6150rpm limiter – a reflection of how rev-happy a 4V Cleveland engine is. Without the rev limiter in place they ran up to 154mph or so at Bathurst in 71; Conrod Straight is quite steeply downhill, but only a mile long with 90 left at the bottom. The actual power ratings of the GT-HO’s have never been disclosed but the figures Paul quotes above are about right, as there were actually 2 different camshafts used as well as a $250 ‘Quality Control’ option which basically meant you got a blueprinted motor – one for the buyer intending to race the car.
The original Wheels road test was to have featured a shot of the 140mph speedo ‘off the clock’, and they did sit on that speed for a good while on the then 2-lane highway. They ended up retouching the photo to show 100mph, which was the top end of 3rd gear (tacho was at 6000rpm), to avoid controversy. In the article however, they mentioned timing the acceleration from 120mph to 140mph in 8.9 sec.
Wow, amazing revs for a small block traditional V8. Stratospheric compared to similar US engine!
That Cleveland 351 is a US engine. In a very advanced state of tune, of course.
The rev limiter was to stop people from blowing engines at 7000+rpm which is what they would pull unrestricted.
I’ve uploaded a shot of another Vermillion Fire XY GT to the Cohort flickr page, it shows the standard 5-slot wheels & caps.
Re Richarbl’s comment below – there are people who can identify what month a particular body shell was produced, let alone whether it is a genuine GT, due to all the little nuances of the production changes.
The 351C must’ve been really popular Down Unda, for Ford Oz started building them locally, esp. after Dearborn stopped production. These were used in later Panteras.
An armed guard might be needed around that thief magnet!
A neat but little known way to check the authenticity of a XW XY GT/GTHO is to pop your head under the LH rear of the car in question and have a look at how the LH tailpipe bracket is mounted to the chassis rail.
If it welded there is a good chance that the car is a replica/clone/re shell.
Original cars that came from the factory with K or T code 351 had the bracket bolted to the chassis rail for the LH tailpipe. The trick was the captive nut which was fusion welded to the inside of the chassis rail and then the boot/trunk floor was welded on top making it almost impossible to replicate successfully.
Of course most people don’t know or care and weld the bracket on making for an easy detect.
Thats a cool trick ,Thanx Ive no problem with replicas but I have noticed a lack of knowledge concerning original equipment on Aussie cars here especially in the Holden owners club the Fords suffer from the same problem in that all the information comes from Aussie and New Zealand cars are very different in original equipment.
Thanks for posting these pictures up Bryce. Yes this car is a beauty and it sounds nice. Best thing about it is owning it. Wheels and new tyres will be on the agenda but that’s only after these ones are finished. Really pleased with the purchase of this and it is a decision not regretted. My children love it just as much as me.
Great find Bryce,it looks like a bigger angrier Mk2 Cortina on steroids!
As much as I hate sedans, I kinda like this. But I also liked the 4 door MFP Interceptors from the first Mad Max. Something about them just looks right, 4 doors or not.
Slight tangent: Mad Max Fury Road is sheer mindless brilliance! Its everything a Mad Max movie should be, and unlike Thunder Dome, you can identify the cobbled up cars. My personal favorites were the ’41 Dodge monster truck, and the Aussie Charger on a tank chassis.
I’ll always remember the day I was walking to high school in the rain, and some idiot in one of these overcooked it going around a bend, and spent the next hundred yards correcting and overcorrecting to try and get the tail back into line.
Here’s an XW GT (previous model) owned by a friend, making a rare appearance at a local car show.
Never been a fan, over rated back in the day,and overpriced today. And at the Bathurst 500 in 1972, bested by a 3.3 litre 6 cylinder.
In a much smaller, lighter car.
Ford tried to race the phase 3 with a thicker rear sway bar which improved the handling HDT had a phase 3 GTHO they hammered around Lang Lang to see what it would do and knew that without the un homologated rear bar the handling was poor and the practice times posted couldnt be achieved, they protested the thicker sway bars were removed and the Torana took the win despite a much slower top speed, racing is about getting around the corners fastest, not the Falcons fort’e
As much as I love the Australian Fords the XW and XYs had a bit too much of an Eastern Bloc look to them, The XR and XT prececessors(which are essentially the same aesthetically as the US counterparts) and the following XA and XBs were much preferable to me.
Having said that there’s not a car with a factory shaker scoop that I would turn down.
I used to own a 76 LTD with the 4V 351 Cleveland in it. Still miss that car, had a very broughamy red velour interior as well as the grunty V8
Sweet looking Falcon. I’ve always liked Australian Ford cars. If only our American cars were built like the Australian built cars.
Australian cars and American cars have always seemed to have a Bizarro World or parallel universe relationship.
Really? How so?