"Piece of art " was an insult. It's an engineering masterpiece.

Only 3 of the 4 Phase 4's were red. They were being prepped for racing. The fourth one was green with a cream interior & aircon. (may also have been auto with a sunroof, can't remember) It went down the line like any other production car. A lot of the excess phase 4 parts left over after the RPO 83's were built, found their way into Fairlanes.

The best Australian sports car of the time. Had a GT Special years ago, didn't know what I had. Oh well... Such is life.

This car must be worth more than 1 mil if a p3 is worth 1 mil. The XA Falcon is the best looking falcon ever and 351 is such a gorgeous sound.

Very nice. I like the xc cobra that was behind it on the track too. Ford Power

This car wood be the ultimate car for any ford fan! if not any car fan!

My brother had a GT-XA in the 80s. Hilarious thing to drive around Sydney. Heavy steering, very heavy clutch, tiny gear shift. Glorious sound. Played around with the idea of rebuilding it to some monster specs, but didn't. Wish we'd kept it.

Sort of agree but the problem was more in the Rules for Series Production. The 1st car I ever drove was the Monaro GTS. there were about 14 built of this model which used the 307 Chev engine Muncie close ratio gearbox. Cross ply tyres remember with the red lines. Solid Disc brakes. It was a beast and it was under braked. Stopping it in a hurry was an adventure, people who drove the car all said the same thing. It is a shame that these cars never hit the roads but I know who and why the decision was made to stop the XU-2. It made sense even to me a real motor racing fan at the time. They do acknowledge that too many people were being involved in car accidents. The best result would have been to build the basic HO and XU-1 for the road and allow them to fit wider wheels, better brakes, engine mods etc for the track, similar to the rules around today except those cars now bear no resemblance to road cars.

As with all GT's @ least from XY on. They incorporated a restrictor plate (I believe it was similar to a decomp plate) that sat with head gasket to reduce comp ratio. The ratio was 12:1, once removed! I know this as when I owned my 71' R/T E38 trackpack Charger back in 86'. My best mate worked as a TA mechanic for a guy who had owned a British racing green XY GT. He would regularly race a Ducati up to 140mph where they'd peter out. This was a street GT, not HO! He told my mate the story concerning the car.

I hear ya buddy...the xa is a beautiful motor car..especially in PHASE 4 format...awesome...

I have a very early 302 cleveland engine and when it was rebuilt i noticed the block had been relieved for the bigger 4v valves from the factory,possibly the same blocks used in 2 bolt phase 4,s

I still like the Charger more , great times in Australia.

freakin awesome! that is all.

This is the most awesome car EVER!!!

Very nice

High compression Cleveland's there's no beating them with the right accessories I'm ford thrust n thru American muscle cars 63 onwards

@Harakudoshi904 The "phase 1' or "Windsor HO" & the Phase II were both XW's. Phase III was XY.

Paul C, a champion bloke.

Best car ever imagine if it went to full production The falcons would prolly look like ferraries nowadays

@davembanks - Mate, back in those days we pressed all our body panels from locally produced steel. And we designed the XA Falcon here, unlike all the Falcons that went before.

" ian luff kid in a candy store !" Laugh 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 😂 😃 😀 😄

i worked on one of those cars while doing my apprenticeship.

Most of the extracors from product engineering were cut and buried at Corio tip ,and a very large box of engine components went the same way

it was stated capable of 170mph in race trim according to Marsden back in the road car 160mph..that's nuts!

Blood Great Year 1972...Com'on Now!

@2009bfs yeah there was 1 3 issue article about it in the Street Fords mag.

one of the most gratest cars of the world

An insight to where motor racing was heading. The closest thing to these would of been the Police pursuit cars made for chase power. Even the old Mustang would of strangled to pace these, even Moffat switched to the GTHO, so as for it being a four door who cares. If you love the sound of V8's these are up there!!

Lets get this right. The phase 4 was a 4 bolt bottom end. Nothing like phase 3 in the block other 4inch bore

This the one that just sold for 2M.

Some one in South Africa bought a shed, and I think it was at the back of a Pub. It was filled with 38 GT's and 6 Monaro's I haven't been able to find out where in South Africa the Photos were taken.

i remember reading a few years ago, that there was the 4 Phase IV's but also a Phase IV and 1/2 Hardtop, that was being built for a Sydney Ford dealer at the time, as prototype for the '73 season, while the sedans was for the '72 season. The Hardtop that Alan Moffit won Bathurst in in '73 was a IV in every respect bar name(RPO83), same with the XA Hardtop the John Goss won with the following year.

Motor racing in Australia at the time was based on production models. The car you raced had to have had at least 500 sold openly to the public to qualify it as a "production" model

i've met Bruce Hodgson who was the only person to race one ford australia gave it to him and rallyed it in the southern cross rallys

They made four of them.

So what happened to the XD's or XE they were turbocharged only a few of them built?

Funny thing about goverments here in the state we have nascar and they killed our version of the super v8's along with our gov,Insurence company's. It seems to me that to many People are telling everyone what they should do, what a shame good looking car keep your auto history alive

I am a novice, but when I was young in the '60's and '70's, Bathurst was a race for production cars ie more than 500 had to be built and sold to the public, with the same specs as the race car. What has happened to that ideal? Considering what powerful cars kid's can drive around in today (they have the rights and responsibilities to do that), I reckon a production car race (stock standard), would be winner.

The late Greg Hansford had one of these.It was Kawasaki green and was modded for him. I was a friend of Gregs and remember him thrashing it over Settlement rd at the Gap in Brisbane.Before that he had a Gold Phase 3 which he sold to the late Rodney Murdoch who put it into a dentist's surgery opposite the Newmarket Hotel in the wet....very expensive. Don't know what happened to the Phase 4.

where they all sedans or was there a coupe version. i want some gtho parts for my xb

Yeh Yeh what a weapon.What were they thinking baning the phase 4 falcon

Oran Park, now covered with houses...

nice...

you don't have to like fords to appreciate this car. I love my holdens, but this is an awesome car

COOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Luffy should do more TV. The guy know's his stuff.

There are some real goose's out there people! For those of you knocking these Fantastic Cars you should pull your heads out of your arse's. These's Cars are a piece of Australian & World History. They Deserve Respect! If you don't like them then keep it to your self. No one wants to hear your Dribble.

Only 4 GTHO Phase 4's were ever built. With a couple of XY GTHO Phase 3's recently selling for over half a million dollars, it makes you wonder what one of these legendary Phase 4 cars is worth.

@davembanks xa falcon was the first all australian falcon body everything before that were built from american designs.

Where are the others?

What they do not tell you is that the car had an engineering mistake built in. In order to better understand the MISTAKE one needs to look at the Phase Three Falcon which had been set up via Head Mod Engineering in Doncaster. The man responsible was John Bennett who established a proper tune spec for that car via proper installation engineering of the Cleveland engine into a Falcon. That engine dictated that there be a specific design of radiator, being the top bottom tank radiator. The package worked. In the XA model Ford chose to eliminate the top bottom tank radiator in favor of a crossflow radiator which was against the instructions from the US mother company. The crossflow radiator does not have the expansion room built in to cater for the clevelands thermostat design and unique coolant passage design. As such the XA, XB, XC, XD and XE falcons fitted with that engine suffered head gasket problems. The problem can be rectified but the current mind set in the industry needs to accept that there ego needs to be pacified.

Ron Rodson had one he rallied

@gpartrt Chrysler Corporation in the US had been working since 1966 on an inline 6-cylinder engine, called the D-engine, to replace the Slant 6 (G-engine) in Dodge trucks, but abandoned the effort. Chrysler Australia wanted a new six-cylinder engine for use in the Australian Chrysler Valiant, and so Chrysler USA sent engineers to work with Chrysler Australia's engineers to continue developing the D-engine. Do some reasearch clown

Wasn't the homologation number 250 for Series Production and Group C? Group A needed 5000 of a particular car and engine, then 500 "sporting evolution" examples to homologate all the go-faster bits and body kit. Great to see one of these running, though.

Most the phase4 motor stuff ended up in F100,s so it turns out as heavy duty truck engines

If i won 1st division on Powerball, i'd probably try to buy 1 of these, or Bill Bourke's old XW-GT. The 1 with the factory fitted 428 Cobra Jet engine. I wonder which 1 would more expensive?

Square #1 is a good place to start. As I said, the race was for production cars. I can by buy one, my niece can buy one. If you had the insurance, you could've driven from Melbourne, in your race car, and then raced. Did you need insurance about the ** then?

@eddie100 Back in the 70s all they did was release the likes of the GTHO. and GTS350. Make the race car and then sell enough of them to the public to get the car in the series. The HO and GTS options even included road legal race tyres. So all you would do is force it back to the old days where they produce race cars for the public and then enter them in the race and end up back at square 1 pretty quick.

fuckin' awesome! that is all.

Wasn't Mad Max's car a modified xc cobra?It's got the right look...

I think journalist Evan Green was the culprit behind it's demise

The heads found their way into the Last Of The V8's.

right bank blows smoke but that could be because the left turn? maybe??

i know were 1 of the the 3 black 427 factory coups is hiding . with rear wiper .

so he drove it and now owns it, lol:)

i'll never buy the herald again.

plenty of RPO's around that are almost full spec minus the factory race fitouts (ie: rollcage etc) and plus the options like air con etc... they sell for a good 70k+ now but 3 years ago you could still pick up a loaded one for 20k!.... fckn bs car prices.

@natroy2245 The green HO still exists it was owned by a collector in Sydney.I worked at a place that used to tune that car for its previous owner in Qld.

the mustang BOSS 429, needs to be the shelby Cobra jet, not your standard Mustang as well, and in fact if any of the hertz rental GT350's from the 1960's are around they are worth 3 times what the australian car is worth and Bill Bourke XW Boss Cobra jet would be worth just as much as the hertz rental cobra jets now, its the most expensive australian built XW GT HO full stop? It was in the unique cars book for sale back in 1988 and the phase 4 and also the Race XA gt 65E no i think and also the last XE ESP 4.9lt that left the ford factory as the last V8 produced in australia, cost for the silver XE was 50K, the RED XA 65E race car was 120K and bill bourke Black XW GT was 80K back in 1988, now any of these cars are worth more than winning the lotto ?7

Actually three were built and one was crushed. There is this one and the other two are in secret storage. It would not be hard to build a replica/re-creation/tribute car and maybe run it at Muscle Car Masters. All the bits are available from various suppliers. You just need an XA shell and go from there. Pop a Ford Motorsport 351 or a Nascar Ford 358 in it.

Keen Interest Without Intelligence

can they be stroked to 7.0? ive herd of a XW Gt ONLY 2-3 made. that was a 7.0 some big name guy had one. 4got his name

haha, caught out there!

yeah i reckon i have an xa sedan that im gonna do up as a gt in calypso green. some yanks import the XY GT's.

i doubt the owner of the phase 4 is selling it dude......

The cylpso green one was never raced or crashed, it was the only one to have gt-ho on the compliance plate The first owner was a gentleman form Bowral NSW who drove it to Sydney and back daily, this fellow had the car repainted in zircon green as he didnt like the factory colour , The current owner is a dentist from Sydney and has had the car fully restored

Well bowmanation , take your video camera and post up a clip as a reply to this video - just don't disclose the guys details or location.

@davembanks Already got it!! see below in brackets where i said i bet the left and right one you will reply and you did and i will go double or nothing!!

That car sold for $2 million in 2018.

3 to 1 diff they had a top speed of 170mph.

@likemenooneis thats ok it gives me an excuse to go for a cruise

Well I guess if your average M5, RS6, E55, R8 and XR falcon owners are all Grandparents, where do I sign for Grandchildren?

@davembanks Just for you one more time bro, like the whole time i have been trying to explain something to you and you do not understand, over and out means just that but you come back asking a question if i am giving up, over and out again for you (but i bet my right and left one you will reply)

@davembanks - Ford started local design of the Falcon from the XA model in 1972, retaining only the floorpan from the previous American-designed package. Okay, Project Blackwood resorted to Euro-sourced panels, but EA26 was completely local. Holden borrowed styling cues for its cars for years, until the VB Commodore. Valiants were all-Australian (except the basest origins of its engine) since the VH in '71. To my knowledge, the only "local" Kiwi car was a licence-built Sigma.

@Gavin84w 3 over and outs so far

@davembanks Double or nothing and i got ya, game over pal but i know your type, your one of these types who just has to have the last comment, you just can,t resist. Oh and you might want to read a couple of your last comments and spell check them as you may have the same trouble i did putting a couple of words together, but hey your the genius around here, over and out bro.

Not sure id be driving a rare car on 40year old tyres, tyre have a fixed life even if theyre not driven on. Theres no way that car would stop from 160mph on 1972 brakes.

Need to get it on a dyno, so we can see the difference if any, lol :) Think about it, what FORD said ie: around 280Kw for the thase 3, now phase 4 XA gt ho, would be around the 300+ kw at the engine, not the rear wheels, till they do that, its just a old car, no matter what history it has, ford or holden ?

@rock2fackie 351 equates to 5.7 litre not 7.0

@davembanks Yor replies are getting shorter so it is encouraging to understand that by that you may, just may be understanding what i am saying, frankly i don,t give a rats about the topic i just hate seeing BS put on things like forums etc and if i chosse to reply to a comment topic related or not it will be with valid information as to why and just to humour you the only good thing in that phase 4 would be the 9 inch and toploader.

that sucks i thought it was gonna be an xy when i read the name

@Gavin84w You will never be cleaver enouh to play mind games that get the sought after result

Mobile Art. Brute Force devices for sure . Armstrong Steering . Need more POWER Brakes . Handled like a Boat compared to what's now . First thing a Driver needed was Stainless Steel Bowling Ball testicles .

@davembanks I know the post is about the phake 4 but i will repeat again for the dummy my reply was at atlast 17,s comment (who in your world took it "off topic") by commenting that a 350 chev would blow up if revved to 6000RPM.How you get me comparing the so called legendary phase 4 to a drag racing engine builder out of what i posted in reply to a 350 Chev blowing up i am at a total loss to understand your thinking, take a breath, read it and understand it.

" rare as hens teeth !" " the dentist still has the phase 4 !" Laugh 😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣

i think i just creamed in me pants

@davembanks come on mate, the ford territory is aussie designed and built. aussie six.............i can't speak for the red arrmy but ford aussie make there own motors and cars, have done for the last 60 yrs..( our v8 are imported, but they are pulled down and re tooled............

To fast aye...ha ha.....nice.

holden did build a straight 6 for the lj torana that flogged the xy

There is only ONE Phase 4 and it is Green. These red cars are XA GT's that had Race car parts fitted. They were delivered as XA GT's from the factory. They don't say GTHO on the spec plate. Thats like saying every XA GT Racecar is a Phase 4..