During the Australian Rally Championship’s four-wheel-drive era of domination featuring Subaru, Mitsubishi and Toyota, there was an entertaining driver-car combination within the class battle.
Steve Winwood upheld the Aussie honour in the rear-wheel-drive class by spectacularly steering a Ford Falcon XR through the forests across the country.
Earning the title ‘Mr Sideways’ thanks to giving a motoring journalist a spectacular passenger ride, Winwood built seven Falcon rally cars in both XR6 and XR8 configuration.
As the four-wheel-drive Japanese makes dominated the outright battle in the same models battling it out for the World Rally Championship title, Winwood’s production specification XR Falcons added a distinct local flavour, so much so an Aussie Class was introduced by the end of the 1990s.
Using much of the same internals as the road-going version, the obvious changes to Winwood’s version was the addition of rallying essentials such as a roll cage, navigation equipment and the like.
Ford continued to support Winwood for a decade as the Falcon moved from EB to AU before ending in the early 2000s. Winwood was very successful in his Falcons and moved into an outright Group N Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI in the mid-2000s.
His association with Ford led to circuit racing events and an unlikely link up with 300-game VFL/AFL player and Channel 9 personality John ‘Sam’ Newman.
A brief return to rallying this time in outright competition through first a Group N(P) Ford Focus and an Ford Fiesta S2000 began in 2005.