Posted 18 January 2011 - 04:27
as a notalgic fan of Moffat's in my youth, GREAT THREAD!
The stories I'd heard with regard to the Geoghegan coupe/hardtop debate surrounding their 67 car, IIRC they had brought in two cars, on of each, with a view to campaigning the hardtop... but CAMS did tell them no, on the grounds that it "wouldn't be fair to Norm", but IIRC, Beechey was running the Nova at that stage, rather than his older Mustang. And so they built-up the coupe. Then the story went (and I think it was related by Mick Lambert and told in the Chevron publication covering the first 25 years of the ATCC or somesuch), that Moffat's car turned up, and the Geoghegan team sputtered "it's a hardtop" to be told "yes, isn't it great?" or similar....
It was also said that in his early racing days, one of his knockabout mates who helped with the tinkering on the TR3 was Tim Schenken...
And that the crankshaft pulley that failed at Bathurst 1976 had been removed from the charred hulk of the race car burnt out in Adelaide (which was originally the Gibson/Seton factory XAGT racer, rebuilt into the magnificent blue Brut 33 white elephant)...
...and in relation to the Improved Production GTHO's, apparently the acid-dipping went a bit too far, and they had the structural rigidity of their owners' manual. Moffat disliked the car and, compelled as he felt to keep the AMR fires burning with prizemoney, favoured the Mustang immeasurably. Apparently Al Turner once suggested to AM during testing at Calder (?), that Moffat may not have been giving the development of the GTHO his best efforts... and Moff, conned Turner into the passenger seat to discuss it... and subsequently set off on several white-knuckled laps with Turner a less-than-willing participant... and the topic was never discussed again.
I'm sure I'd heard that when the Geoghegans took over the development of the white car, it went to Bowin for John Joyce to assist with, and was re-shelled with something a little less-compromised as part of the work done.
TO hear Moffat tell of his acquisition of the Coca-Cola Mustang; he had approached his contacts in the States with the idea of getting hold of one of the '68 cars that may have been laying around, and sold off the Cortina to fund his airfare to the States. He had been working with contacts here in Australia to secure funding to obtain and run "something", and secured an audience with Jaque Passano at Ford. Upon presenting his business case, Passano took his contact details and said he'd be in touch within a few days... and rang an anxious Moffat, to tell him to get down to Bud Moore's in South Carolina and there was a car waiting for him...
The incomplete Trans-Am car was handed over in a bit of a flurry, with Moffat spending 10 days there assisting in its completion... the rush meant that it was initially fitted with one of the previous year's Tunnel Port V8's, and the interior trim (required under the Australian rules) was summarily flung into the car. Meanwhile Moffat's contacts had confirmed that the Victorican state Coca Cola bottlers had weighed in, and dragged a number of the other state bottlers in to sponsor the venture... and home flew Moffat with his brand new toy. There was no payment asked or given for the car, and rather than equate to payment for prior services rendered, AM seems to recall it as the greatest act of largesse to which he was ever a recipient, and subsequently has always cherished the car.
The Holman Moody stickers that folks recall from pics from the early late 90's /early 2000's were likely from its time there, when Moffat had shipped it Stateside for sale. It was fitted with Holley Dominators at that stage in an attempt to make it relevant to the potential US market (since the Trans-Am cars never ran the quad-IDA Weber setup Moffat used), but upon seeing the quality of the restoration that David Bowden had lavished on Geoghegan's GTHO in 1995, he brokered a deal to sell the car to Bowden, who cherishes the car above most in his collection to this day.
