It’s not often there’s an 18-month delay between the launch and debut of a program, but this is what happened to Allan Moffat during 45-years ago.
Ford was out of touring cars completely by the introduction of the second generation Group C regulations in 1980 and if not for a couple of privateers, the new XD Falcon was going to be absent from the grid.
As for Ford’s previous hero, Allan Moffat, he had courted Japanese manufacturer Mazda for an attack on the Australian Touring Car Championship, but the problems was governing body CAMS and its refusal to homologate the RX-7.
The journey began in late-1979 when Mazda’s Australian distributors approached CAMS to allow peripheral porting to be applied to the racing rotary engines.
News of the RX-7 program came at an interesting time for the ATCC due to the change of regulations, growing discontent with coverage, low entries and controversy surrounding many potential entries headlined by the Mazda coupe.
The RX-7 did make the grid in Under 3.0-Litre form, but Moffat’s program was an all-out attack on the ATCC.
At the time, Holden, Ford and Chevrolet were represented in the outright battle, while BMW joined in 1981 ahead of the Mazda, which proved controversial in itself.
CAMS finally ratified the peripheral porting, but it was too late for Moffat to contest any rounds of the ATCC and the debut of the Peter Stuyvesant Mazda RX-7 was saved for Sandown.
The circuit situated within the metropolitan area of Melbourne was the domain of Peter Brock’s and continued to be in 1981 when he achieved his seventh win in a row.
Moffat made a subdued start with Mazda by finishing a promising sixth outright four-laps behind Brock.
After such a protracted battle to make the RX-7 eligible, Moffat was away and finished third at the Bathurst 1000 alongside sports car star Derek Bell.
Moffat and Mazda enjoyed a sustained partnership through the Group C era including victory in two Sandown 400s, plus a ATCC title in 1983.