54 Facts About Allan Moffat

Allan Moffat started his racing career at the wheel of a Triumph TR3.

Allan Moffat first entered the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1965, driving a Lotus Cortina.

Allan Moffat returned to Australia but spent more time in the US, continuing to drive the Cortina as well as Ford Mustangs for Carroll Shelby in Trans-Am with various Australian co-drivers including Trans-Am regular Horst Kwech and Ford Australia's, and future Holden rival, Harry Firth.

Allan Moffat failed to place in the top 10 in 1969, finished 6th in 1970,2nd in 1971 and 3rd in 1972.

At mid-race, Allan Moffat was forced to slow in order to free a jammed gearbox but battled back to only be six-tenths of a second behind Jane at the finish.

Up against Geoghegan's more powerful, 5.8L "Super Falcon", Allan Moffat, while being left behind on the long Mountain and Conrod Straights, was able to keep with the Falcon using its superior handling and brakes and again only lost by less than a second.

Allan Moffat drove for over half the race with his safety belts undone so that he could put his head out of the driver's window in order to see where he was going, the Falcon having a small oil leak which saw some oil sprayed onto the Mustang's windscreen.

Allan Moffat, therefore, made his debut in that race in 1969 in a Ford works team entered Ford Falcon XW GTHO.

Allan Moffat maintains the view that he never wanted to pit at the time and that had he been left "to his own devices", he and Alan Hamilton would have won 1969 500.

Allan Moffat had actually been near last on the first lap of the race after his Falcon became stuck in neutral as he was powering out of The Cutting.

For 1970, Ford Australia had made significant improvements to the Falcon XW GTHO Phase II over the previous year's model and Allan Moffat, racing without a co-driver, took the car to two crushing victories in both the 1970 and 1971 Bathurst races, and the 1970 Rothmans 250 Production Classic endurance race.

Allan Moffat looked headed for a historic third straight Bathurst victory in 1972 when Ford unveiled plans for a "Phase IV" Falcon GTHO, even faster but more subtle than the Phase III which Allan Moffat had taken to victory in 1971.

Peter Brock won the race in his XU-1 Torana while Allan Moffat kept his points lead by finishing second despite having to start at the rear of the grid.

Allan Moffat's stolen Falcon was later found abandoned in the Adelaide Hills, where the thieves who had taken it for a "joy ride" dumped it after running out of fuel.

Allan Moffat ran the Mustang in Sports Sedans in 1973 and 1974, though he refused to follow the trend at the time of moving the engine back in the cabin, later stating in a 2004 interview he "was never going to contaminate such a jewel", though he did replace the bodywork with fibreglass to avoid damaging the cars sheet metal.

Allan Moffat was only moderately successful in the Australian Touring Car Championship races, placing third in 1974 with two round wins and undertaking a limited campaign in 1975.

Allan Moffat failed to finish the Bathurst 1000 in those years.

Allan Moffat returned to drive his XB Falcon GT Hardtop full-time in the 1976 ATCC and won his second title.

Allan Moffat won the inaugural Australian Sports Sedan Championship that year, driving firstly a Chevrolet Monza and later a Ford Capri RS3100.

Allan Moffat failed to finish Bathurst again in 1976 despite taking pole and leading comfortably with co-driver Vern Schuppan.

Allan Moffat re-established his dominance in 1977 with a two-car factory-supported team under the Allan Moffat Ford Dealers Team banner.

Allan Moffat won his second consecutive ATCC title in 1977, backed up brilliantly by new teammate Colin Bond who had switched to Ford after driving the previous eight years for the Holden Dealer Team.

Allan Moffat was unable to repeat his 1977 successes over the following three years.

Allan Moffat drove a Porsche 934 turbo to win the Australian Sports Car Championship.

Allan Moffat drove at the 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans, sharing a Porsche 935 turbo with future Indycar legend Bobby Rahal, where they were forced to withdraw whilst in fourth place.

Allan Moffat did a guest drive for the Holden Dealer Team taking third place in the 1980 Hang Ten 400 at Sandown driving a Holden Commodore.

The event was marked by the fact that it was only the second time Allan Moffat had raced a Holden and the first time that he was driving in the same team as his archrival Peter Brock.

Allan Moffat tested a Jaguar XJS at Bathurst in 1985.

Much to the dismay of the Aussie Ford fans, Allan Moffat left the "Blue Oval" brand in 1981 to drive a Peter Stuyvesant-sponsored Mazda RX-7 as both the ATCC and Bathurst began to exhibit a shift towards lighter touring cars with less raw power.

Allan Moffat drove the RX-7 to four consecutive top-six finishes at Bathurst between 1981 and 1984 including a second in 1983 and 3rd in 1984 while winning his fourth and final ATCC title in 1983.

Allan Moffat competed at the 24 Hours of Daytona in an RX-7, taking a class win in 1982 with co-drivers Lee Mulle and Kathy Rude.

Allan Moffat went into the ATCC race in second place behind the Nissan Bluebird of George Fury, and with the Nissan team not attending the meeting Allan Moffat needed to finish no lower than fifth to claim his fourth title.

Allan Moffat eventually finished in an easy third place behind teammate Gregg Hansford in the team's second RX-7, and race winner Peter Brock in his HDT Commodore SS to claim the ATCC by just six points.

Allan Moffat then won at Wanneroo in Perth, before crashing out of the championship at Surfers Paradise when his Mazda was hit while lapping the XD Falcon of Gary Willmington at high speed going under the Dunlop Bridge at the end of the main straight.

In what was his biggest crash since rolling his XA Falcon at Phillip Island in 1973, Allan Moffat suffered a fractured sternum and broken finger in the accident, while the RX-7 was a write-off.

Allan Moffat refuted these claims and made his comeback in Round 2 of the 1984 Australian Endurance Championship at Oran Park.

Allan Moffat's team entered two cars in the race, but only listed Allan Moffat and Hansford as drivers, and had to fight with Bathurst race organisers the Australian Racing Drivers Club to be allowed to start both cars, as both drivers had qualified inside the top 10.

Allan Moffat then went on to finish second behind Brock in the Surfers Paradise 300 to claim the final Australian Endurance Championship, and the final ever championship run under CAMS Group C rules.

Allan Moffat joined the ABC television coverage of the 1985 Castrol 500 at Sandown, and was an expert commentator for Channel 7's coverage of the 1985 James Hardie 1000, testing several cars for the coverage including a HDT VK Commodore, a BMW 635 CSi from JPS Team BMW and the turbocharged Volvo 240T.

Allan Moffat then returned to touring car racing for four more years.

Allan Moffat himself was hampered by an injured wrist sustained in Friday's crash.

Allan Moffat then quit the team and purchased the brand-new Holden VL Commodore SS Group A that Brock had intended to take to Europe to compete in the World Touring Car Championship.

Allan Moffat persuaded Swiss touring car tuning ace Ruedi Eggenberger to build him a customer Sierra RS500 that was identical to the works Fords that the Eggenberger team was using in the renamed ETCC.

Allan Moffat later claimed that the 1988 Bathurst was the "one that got away", and with a one-lap lead with just 32 laps remaining and ace driver Niedzwiedz up against Longhurst's slower co-driver Tomas Mezera, not many people were disagreeing with him.

Allan Moffat did enter and qualify for the 1989 Tooheys 1000, but decided not to actually race as the lead team car driven by Niedzwiedz and fellow German Frank Biela had a chance at victory, and since they were much faster than he was in the car he felt it best to leave them to it.

Allan Moffat quietly retired from competitive race driving after the Fuji win, keeping a promise he had made to himself and his wife Pauline that he wouldn't race beyond his 50th birthday.

Allan Moffat has since worked as a TV commentator for Channel 7 and a spokesman for BMW.

Allan Moffat appears at various Ford club events across Australia, promotes his longtime backer GT Radial Tyres, and more recently has been seen in television adverts in Australia promoting FPV GTs.

The 1996 AMP Bathurst 1000 was the last time that an Allan Moffat-built or driven car raced at Bathurst.

Allan Moffat himself doubled as an expert commentator for Channel 7 during its motorsport telecasts during this time, including at Bathurst, where he had the dual role of commentator and race team manager.

Allan Moffat joined Murray Walker and later Darrell Eastlake in the Channel 9 commentary box during the touring car support races at the Australian Grand Prix meetings in Adelaide from 1985 to 1995.

Allan Moffat is a Director of the Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety.

James Allan Moffat finished second driving for Nissan Motorsport in the 2014 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.

In 2019, it was reported that Allan Moffat was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and had been moved to a specialist healthcare facility, with his friends and Bathurst legends Fred Gibson and Larry Perkins ensuring his will instructions to be carried out.