8/5/2023 0 Comments 65 ford falcon![]() ![]() the 4 in 1 hill and started the downhill approach to the esses a foot or so off line, then you ended up 20 ft or so offline at the bottom amid low shrubs and immovable objects called boulders.Nevertheless, they still had to point the cars every foot of the way for instance, if one came over the top of New drivers going out for the first time came back in assorted stages of twitching, but after spending time learning it found that one could save half a second here and there by thinking ahead. The 2.25 mile circuit is dreadfully difficult, mainly because it was built to incorporate high vertical and side loadings on wheels and suspensions. Then both Ford and Dunlop grossly underestimated the tyre wear factor for the new SP41, the Ford mechanics initially had too few tools, the tyres were originally fitted without tubes, spectator control was non-existent, and there were not enough crash and fire units around the circuit.īut despite this, and despite the average being lowered in the first few days to ease the rate of tyre wear, the cars came through - with enormous prestige. One driver had never raced before, let alone held a CAMS licence, and there were some strange faces in the cars that the old motor sport hands could not recognise. ![]() The selection of drivers was very much on the old buddy system, and did not represent the best available in the country, oil company jealousies notwithstanding. The bid, as the "Financial Review" commented acidly, succeeded in spite of the organisation, not because of it. The cars had more endurance than the drivers extra pilots were hauled unsuspecting from their warm beds at midnight to be rocketed out to the bleak and chill proving ground in the You Yangs to sit over a fire and wonder how they had come to be there, anyway. But the equivalent of 140 Armstrong 500s, or nearly four times around the world, or 60 return trips from Melbourne to Sydney later, they had to eat their words. The industry and motor sport authorities saw Ford's announced intention as a little amusing, particularly its intention of averaging 72 mph on a circuit which makes Lakeside look like a roller skating rink. This one simply could not be swept under a rug. Poorly organised and managed as it was the endurance run came to mean a lot more than normal "record bids" simply because the company stood up beforehand and announced its intention of doing it. It may be too soon in history to judge the effect of this considerable feat, but it is plain that it had the effect of making just about everybody in the country conscious of Falcons, if only for nine days. Falcon’s mighty marathonįirst published in the July 1965 issue of Wheels magazine, Australia's best car mag since 1953.įORD took a giant step forward in its Australian future when five battered and travel-stained Falcons smashed through a banner at 1.42 am on a rocky Victorian hillside after covering 70,000 miles in nine days. In which the equivalent of 140 Armstrong 500s goes a very long way to demonstrating that there's a Falcon in Ford's future. ![]()
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