MEL NICHOLS looks back , in pleasure , on a lost weekend in a Phase Three HO.
Painfully, heartbreakingly, as ideals give way to reality, young
journalists learn that certain stories are too hot for publication.
Some can never be told; others only years after the event took place.
This is one of those stories.
It began in the car park of the Ford Motor Company's head office at
Broadmeadows, near Melbourne, one afternoon in the middle of 1971. A
car was waiting there for me in the feeble wintry sun. A mustard
Falcon.
One of the first GTHO Phase Threes to come off the production lines; so
new, its existence was still a secret to all but a handful of people
outside Ford. And of those people, here was I about to be handed the
keys to the
fastest, most awesome super car Australia had ever produced ….or would ever do again.
Good organization or coincidence - I forget which - had it that at
precisely the same time as the HO was ready I was in possession of one
of the first five-litre (302 CID) V8 Bolwell Nagaris. Indeed, it was
the car that had rushed me from Sydney to my assignation with the Falcon, putting the
570 km of the NSW section of the Hume Highway behind me in the morning,
and accounting for Victoria's 310 km in the afternoon.
Even so, we'd been running late, desperately worried that we wouldn't
make it to Broadmeadows before the Ford people went home, taking the
keys of the HO with them. But it was okay because the mechanics were
still working on the car even as I telephoned, breathless, from
Wangaratta to beg them to wait for me.
And then I was there, pulling in alongside the thing, unwinding myself
from the Bolwell and climbing, gingerly, expectantly, dubiously, half
afraid into the Ford. I can recall not one word the PR man was saying
through the open window as the key slid into the ignition. I can remember only the
tension, trying to stop my leg shaking and the racing of my brain. And
then the trembling of the car and the flick of the Shaker air filter in
the bonnet as the 5.8-litre (351 CID) V8 churned to the starter and
shook in its mounts. It fired, and filled the car park with a
thunderclap of exhaust as intimidating as the snorting of a charging
rhinoceros. Then came the popping and sizzling and gulping as the
throttle was prodded and the 780 cfm four-barrel Holley dumped too much
fuel into the unready cylinders. Give it a little while; I used the
time to adjust the mirrors, fine-tune the seating positions, fidgeted
in the bucket and tugged the belt a snitch tighter until it nailed me
to the squab.
And then I dared to move the car away, feeling a little tremble in the
left leg as it fought against that big bastard of a clutch for the
first time.
The steering seemed light, lighter than the normal GT, and it made the
job of swinging out of the car park easy, in the wake of the gently
burbling Bolwell, and into the peak hour Broadmeadows traffic. My
photographer friend, Uwe Kuessner, in the Bolwell, trod on it and the
fibreglass car became a yellow streak, charging past the tamer traffic
on the wide highway. Blast him, had he forgotten I was meant to be
following him?
So I, too, trod down hard on the throttle pedal. And braced myself.
Without yet completing my arc out through the median strip into the
traffic. The car hiccuped ... shuddered. Then - bloody hell! - it
exploded into action. The front hurled itself forward and upwards like
a charging tiger. The back tyres wailed and the tail snapped 'way out.
I speared sideways through the last of the gap in the central
reservation. The opposite lock was on, intuitively - no time to think
about niceties like steering feel now' It flicked straight again as it
lined up in the outside lane of the road towards Melbourne. The
engine's snarling had reached fever pitch. I grabbed second just as the
V8 hit its electric rev-cutout. It died momentarily, then picked up
again and simply pelted me forward once more. The senses raced, trying
to adjust to the speed. Maximum revs again. But so soon! Third, and I
charged forward once more. And then it was hard on the brakes, getting
a slight twitch because I was up to 145 km/h ( 90 mph ) in those scant
few seconds and about to run right over the top of the Bolwell. We both
slowed right down, both aware of just how much performance we had on
hand, and how cautious we needed to be. Not because all that go is hard
to control. Not at all. But you are so much faster than everyone else
you're out of place in the traffic unless you conform.
Playing At Boy Racers
The HO had the ability to spin the wheels in first, second or third
gears on a dry surface and yet it could be driven quietly and smoothly
without the driver being aware of its incredible potential.
So we tip-toed into Melbourne. That early, blood-stirring blast
probably did me a great deal of good. It showed me that the Phase Three
was an eminently easy car to drive, so much more so than either of its
two predecessors, and especially when one considers just how much power
lay
just a throttle push away. It was so smooth low down, so docile for a
thumping great V8 with an 11-to-one compression ratio. It was happy
enough to trundle down to 1500 rpm - 55 km/h ( 35 mph )- in top gear,
to idle steadily at 1000 rpm compared with something approaching 2000
rpm in the Phase Two. I found I was easing up to 2000 rpm, changing up
into the next gear and finally dropping into top at around 55 km/h. And
so I came, very quickly, to feel quite at ease in the HO. Ready to
drive it ...
Uwe and I picked up two models early the next morning - a Saturday -
and headed west to take pictures. I lounged in the warmth of the Falcon
while he got on with his work , and I remember how glad I felt that I
wasn’t a model , for they were turning blue out there in the Melbourne
winter……. And then it was time to start work with the HO. The only open
bend we could find was not all that tight. I did one run and found that
even 145 km/h (90 mph) was too slow to make the car move. It just sat
there, hugging the road. Doing nothing. Again: This time flat in third
at 170 km/h. ( 105 mph ) Again no understeer, no oversteer; just a
little body roll and the nose lifting jauntily I went to 180 km/h ( 110
mph ) in fourth on the next run and it was still just as uneventful,
but I daren't go faster because I wasn't yet entirely sure where the
limits lay, even though I was getting a pretty good idea. And should I
lose it of upwards of one-one-oh - well………
So I ran performance figures instead, ticking off the gear maximums at
the 6150 rpm redline at 79 km/h, (49 mph) ,117 km/h (73 mph) and 167
km/h (104 mph) with top's maximum unreachable in the space. Then there
was the acceleration: Experimentation showed that the clutch had to
come out at 2700 rpm - nothing more and nothing less. If I dropped it
at 2500 rpm the engine died a little against the grip of the wheels. If
I popped it at 3000 rpm there was wheelspin for around 200 metres,
again wasting time. So 2700 rpm it was. And 0-160 km/h ( 0 - 100 mph )
in 15.2 seconds came up on the watches. But so effortlessly ,and I
filed away some more information about the HO;
noted some more points that took me closer to it, and prepared me for
what was still to come.
It began to rain, and we took the girls back to their flat and crossed
Melbourne to Dandenong to return the Bolwell. In the week I’d had
the sports car I’d learned to respect it and enjoy it very much, and it
was a sad parting.
But what the hell, we still had the HO, didn't we?
Indeed yes, and unbeknown to us at that moment, we were soon to subject
it to one of the most exhilarating tests it would ever undergo on the
road; to use it for what I suspect is one of the most remarkable
journeys ever run in Australia. To thunder it flat for miles and miles
in a drive etched for ever on the memories of the two of us who did it. But for the moment we found ourselves tooling
quietly through the cold Melbourne drizzle. Saturday night. No plans.
No enthusiasm. Then something - I don't know what made one of us
suggest going to Albury, 320 km ( 200 miles ) away on the Victoria-NSW border.
We’d both worked there at different times , for the local newspaper.
Both of us liked the place and both of us still had friends there.
So we gunned the HO around, hit Elizabeth Street and headed north into the night. It was 7.30 p.m.
The rain grew heavier and the night nastier. There wasn't much traffic,
and what there was, was going the other way. I don't recall much until
we were past the little Hume Highway town of Seymour, but I expect we'd
been alone with our thoughts and the murmur of the radio, soloist to
the steady background swish of the wipers, the hissing of the tyres and
the downbeat throb of the V8. I only remember the ease of driving the
car; how much at home I now felt in it, with a real idea of its
capabilities now forming clearly in my mind. How comfortably it carried
us, its lights hacking through the night. And then came the long, fast
bends you strike after Seymour. Open bends. And I can remember the way
the car just seemed to think itself through them, undeterred by the
rain and traveling at ever-increasing speeds and showing me how
strongly it could grip and how finely it was balanced.
And the next thing I can recall and oh, how startlingly clearly I can
see it in my mind's eye four years later - is one particular bend on
that deserted, sodden road. A bend that's just a simple kink at 110
km/h or even 125 km/h, but a curve requiring careful choice of line and
steering and power usage at much more. Especially in the wet.
I flicked a glance at the speedo as we came into it now in the HO. I
barely believed it - 200 km/h. But there we were, rock-steady, the car
just slicing on through, set up by the merest throttle lift then kept
on line with gentle pressure on the pedal once more, and the tiniest
smidgen of steerage on the big wheel. Everything about it was so clean,
so beautifully and clinically balanced, like walking on a razor's edge
and feeling the elation of not slipping off. And that moment remains as
one of my high points in years of road testing. It was so perfect - so
perfect it was almost nothing.
We continued on holding 200 km/h for what seemed like dozens of miles,
and the only reason we didn't go faster was that at precisely 202 km/h
the windscreen wipers began to lift off.
Then we were in Albury, purring gently through the glistening streets
after a run that contained nary a sideways twitch, never a sliver of
understeer, not one zizz of wheelspin. It was exactly 10 p.m. We had
covered the distance faster than either of us would have imagined
possible even in ideal conditions, let alone amid the elements'
atrocities of that night. Yet it was also the tamest, most uneventful
trip either of us had had from Melbourne to the border. We were into
the inner sanctum of the GTHO's world.
And there was even more to come the next day. Our arrangement with Ford
was to hand the Phase Three back at nine o'clock on the Sunday morning
and then get a lift back to Sydney with a Ford employee who happened to be driving from city to city that day.
But we slept late, and at 6.30 am we were 320 km away from our
rendezvous! The beast fired up easily, shattering the chilly silence of
the town and we found a garage and stood back while almost a full 164
litres (36 gallons) sloshed into the huge tank. While the attendant counted
the money I worked out our consumption. It had been precisely 2.8 km/1
(8mpg).
We checked the tyre pressures, polished the windows clean, and at two minutes past seven we left for Melbourne.
The morning was as perfect as the night before it had been foul. We
went full out through the gears as we cleared the last speed limit of
the border town complex with the HO now warm and ready, thundering past
a couple of cars and a semi. The car's nose was thrusting forward and
upwards with the power once more, we were again enjoying the feeling of
being pressed back into our seats as the thing was given its head. At
last it was free of any and all restrictions. There was only open road
ahead.
Again we chewed up the kilometres and spat them out. In remarkably
short time we were striking the long straights of the Hume about 225 km
(140 miles) north of Melbourne, and with the speedo steady on 200 km/h
I squeezed down still farther on the accelerator as the ribbon of road
speared straight ahead far as the eye could see.
The shaker heaved in the bonnet, the car sort of shrugged and the nose
rose up even further from the road. It might have been a tiger kicked
awake; the noise alone said that. The speedo needle went determinedly
around the dial, and soon it was showing 233 km/h (145 mph). A true 227
km/h. (141 mph).
But whoa! The engine started missing; fluffing and farting. For God's
sake - the rev-limiter! We'd run right up to it. In top gear. A full
6150 rpm (the tachometer actually said 6700rpm; it was a little
optimistic).
Proof - if any was needed, of the Phase Three's top speed.
The tacho
reads 6700 rpm (it was optimistic) and the speedo around 144 mph.
The version of the above picture that
appeared in the Wheels Road Test with caption:
"The Phase Three almost flat out in third"
Note the same tacho reading and scenery but the
speed reduced to just over 100 mph.
And if I kept my foot hard down that hoary great V8 just kept thumping
away against the cutout, straining for even more. So once Uwe had shot
some pictures over my shoulder, to prove it really was happening, I
lifted off a fraction to back it off from the limiter at a neat 225
km/h (140 mph).
For minutes, for mile after mile, we stayed like that. The car was like
a locomotive on rails, never deviating an inch from its path. The
messages from its rock-steadiness came back through the wheel and the
seats as unmistakably as pinpricks.
I remember how I felt. Relaxed, but razor-sharp, peering ahead a
kilometre and more; my eyes, my brain, my nervous system forcibly
lifted to a new height to deal with the speed. You feel so competent
... so potent. Your mind seems to magnify everything, to pick up an
extraordinary amount of information and to digest it amazingly quickly.
It's called concentration, and it's delicious.
A car appeared up ahead. Well over a kilometre back from him I edged
out to the centre line, indicator winking and lights full on. Hands a
little tighter on the wheel, foot ready to dive for the brake. Just as
we closed on him I lifted off a little and lost 16 kph (10 mph) . I
flattened the big bastard again when we were right along side to blast
clear. I reckon he was doing about 80 kph (50 mph), a farmer and
family on their way to church more than likely.
A few miles later there was another car. A red Falcon. He was going a
little faster, but we still passed him as though he were standing
still, and I wondered how it looked and sounded and felt for him , to
have nothing in his mirror and then suddenly a mustard streak bellowing
savagely past to leave him twitching in its wake.
Road conditions and traffic allowed us to keep the HO close to its
maximum speed for many more kilometres. But nearing Melbourne we came
back closer to 160 km/h ( 100 mph ) most of the time, using the
tremendous top end acceleration to maintain a fantastically high average and to
overtake in a quick rush of power and safety, since our exposure time
was so brief and our controllability so vast. We toyed briefly with the
stopwatches again, finding out to our amazement that 160 km/h (100 mph)
to 193 km/h (120 mph) took a paltry 6.8 seconds and 193 km/h (120 mph)
to 225
km/h (140 mph)just 8.9 seconds. And that is top-end
performance, with all the excitement and advantages it entails, and
simply unavailable in anything else this side of a Miura or Daytona or
BB or Countach unless you can somehow lay your hands on one of the
wilder , tall geared US supercars of old.
Stunned by the car, amazed yet again at such an extraordinarily rapid
but effortless trip, we pulled at last into Ford's offices at
Broadmeadows,
back to where it had all began a day and a half before. It was one
minute to nine. Neither of us spoke. We just shared the silence of the
moment, feeling a special sort of elation. Then we lifted our gear from
the HO and locked it up and left. The Falcon GT taking us back up the
road we had just devoured
felt like a Volkswagen; all I could do was to flop back in the seat and
think about what we had just achieved - almost 320 km (200 miles) on
Australia’s busiest road in a little under two hours - and the car that
had done it.
I began to think how I'd write the story, not yet realising that there
was no way I could tell it all. I began to dream of another story. A
race, full out, no holds barred across the Hay Plain in NSW. Between
Australia's finest GT and the Lamborghini Espada, Italy's finest
four-seater. It almost happened too, but with the Phase Four HO and not
the Phase Three. We had it all planned, but then the politicians,
remembering the hysterics of the Sunday newspapers when they had
finally gotten wind of the Phase Three HO's pace through the figures
listed with my abridged story in WHEELS, killed off the Phase Four
before we could stage it. I only wonder now if those same politicians
and newspaper beat-up merchants ever really knew what the old Phase
Three HO's capabilities really were.
Now, at last , the story has been told.
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