Allan Moffat won the 1976 Australian Touring Car Championship, but it was against all odds.
Following two years of absence, Ford re-entered the touring car arena by providing backdoor financial and technical support to Moffat’s team.
Driving the now elderly XB GT of which few featured in the field other than privateer Murray Carter, Moffat took it up to Colin Bond and the Holden Dealer Team driving the LH Torana SL/R 5000 L34.
After free-agent John Harvey won the opening round in a Tasmanian-based Torana, Moffat took victory in the next two events at Calder Park and Oran Park.
Second at Amaroo Park to young rookie Charlie O’Brien gave Moffat the championship lead by one-point from Bond heading to Adelaide.
But disaster struck for Moffat on route to the round.
Moffat’s International transporter containing his XB Falcon GT, spares and tools caught on fire in the Adelaide Hills leaving few items salvageable due to its intensity.
Fast thinking was required and arrangements were made for Moffat to borrow the XB GT of John Goss to ensure his title hopes remained intact.
Moffat took the win at Adelaide International Raceway and a second at Lakeside in Gossy’s Falcon to build the advantage heading to the endurance events.
Once Lakeside was complete, there was a healthy gap between June and September’s Hang Ten 400 at Sandown, with Moffat’s squad undertaking Project Phoenix.
The definition of the phoenix is ‘a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle’, which the new XB GT was to be.
Debuting what was to be a familiar red, white and blue scheme of Moffat Ford Dealers at the Hang Ten 400 where second was the result to Peter Brock.
After comfortably leading at Bathurst, a salvaged fanbelt pulley from the Adelaide fire snapped and led to the engine overheating.
However, Moffat scored enough points to win his second title despite not entering the final round at Phillip Island. This was due to a big crash he had there in 1973.
Project Phoenix provided the groundwork for the Moffat Ford Dealer’s domination of the 1977 season scooping an Australian Touring Car Championship 1-2 and the Bathurst 1000 after poaching Colin Bond away from rivals Holden.