Four times winner of the Mount Panorama Bathurst race, Allan Moffat, found himself without a competitive drive for the 1980 Hardie-Ferodo 1000km as the race was known that year. He had planned on driving a Mazda RX7, but the governing authorities deemed certain modifications to the Mazda's rotary engine needed to make it competitive with the Holden Commodore (the dominant car in 1980) illegal. Hence a last minute deal with Ford resulted in a hastily prepared XD Falcon being made available for Moffat and his co-driver John Fitzpatrick to drive. All four of Moffat's Bathurst wins up to 1980 (1970, '71, '73 and '77) were in Ford Falcons, but unfortunately 1980 was not to see a fifth win in this yellow XD Falcon. After only 3 laps (out of 163) the car retired with piston ring failure.
This model of the 4 door Ford Falcon XD is Biante's very own mold (as opposed to other Biante releases in 1:18th which have been made by AUTOart, UT, Minichamps and Kyosho). Overall it is a great model with impressive tampo printing for the sponsorship logos and the race numbers, good yellow paint (albeit a small area of yellow overspray on the left side of the front spoiler) nice wheels and brake detail, and a super looking V8 engine. No real areas of weakness, although it would have been nice to see the seatbelts made in fabric as opposed to the rubber strips used.
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