JOHNSON'S TURBO VISION

It's a reasonably well-circulated theory that the mighty XE Falcon Grand Prix Turbo was a fairly desperate attempt to give Ford a chance at fielding a car in Australian touring car racing, moving forward from the axing of the Falcon V8 with the end of the XE model.

- WORDS DAVE MORLEY * PHOTOS COVENTRY STUDIOS

But scratch a bit deeper, and it all gets muddier. As in, it never really happened that way. So why not?

For a start, Dick Johnson wound up racing a Mustang five-litre in what became Group A racing in Oz in 1985 and 1986. The reasons for that are probably to do with the knowledge base for that engine. The vast experience with the old pushrod V8 almost certainly made it easier to brew up something reliable that would produce the numbers required (although the Mustang won just the one race - the AGP support race in 1985) rather than try to refine and make durable an untried quantity in the six-cylinder turbo.

So scratch the Grand Prix Turbo as a homologation car. So why did it happen at all? Probably because a bloke the name of James Faneco who ran a Melbourne-based operation called Country Dealer Team (ringing a bell?) figured Ford customers would still want a beefy, muscular sedan even after Ford Oz dumped the V8 option. Not to mention that back in the early '80s, the word 'Turbo' was about as exotic and high-tech as a car could be. Yep, even one with pushrods and a single carburettor. Stay with me.

So why is it badged as a Dick Johnson Falcon? Probably because CDT (or perhaps Ford itself) paid Dick a royalty to use his name on the car and give it some street cred. There's a story that Dick himself had considered building a turbocharged, road-going Falcon to sell, but in the end it was CDT that actually came up with the specification and took the risk to actually build it. Fact is, Dick's input probably amounted to agreeing to have his name on the thing and then cashing the royalty cheques.