Colin Bond - Bathurst 1977

[one five five]

Bond did the right thing. Followed his orders and endeared himself to Ford. Surely he knew any disobeying of orders would potentially hurt his running of the Escort rally team.

Was it Bonds promised Bathurst prizemoney (for first?) not being paid that caused the court action against Moffat in 1978?

Despite some memories, it wasn’t the rosy relationship between Moffat and Ford in 1977, perhaps that’s the reason for the measly “$1000” bonus he got from Ford after 1977?

Ford didn’t pull the pin on touring cars initially after the dreadful 1978 season for the Moffat Ford Dealers Team, but their 1979 plans didn’t include Moffat’s team running the cars.

The Ford plan was to run a works 2-car team of new XD Falcons for 1979, with Bond as lead driver and likely his team in Sydney prepping them (the other option was an in-house Ford team akin to Lot 6).

There was a chance Moffat would be offered a role as driver only, but the Malvern workshop wasn’t going to be involved.

Ford couldn’t work the XD into CAMS regs/CAMS wouldn’t work with Ford for 1979 though so Edsel Ford II pulled the pin completely….

Originally Posted by John Roberts

Hang on, up until this time Bond was a HOLDEN man through and through. Imagine how it would have looked if a former ATCC close-rival Holden driver won Bathurst in a Ford, just pipping his new boss.

I really admire Allan but as a serious Ford fan I have never forgiven him for what I consider to be a serious lapse in judgement in taking on Bond (where he risked Bond 'mishearing' his order) and see Bathurst '77 as a 1 for Moffat and nothing for Bond because he was a Holden man and should have been faithful to the brand (if he had left Holden and competed as a privateer I would have supported his win).

When Moffat teamed up with Brock in '86 (after all the REAL Bathursts were over anyway) he famously 'accidentally' crashed the 05 Mobil Commodore in practice. Heh, heh, heh.

Bond was every bit the Ford man by the end of 1977, running the works Escort rally team alongside his Moffat Dealer Team drives.

Moffat was every bit the professional team boss running the works ford team, he hired the best driver he could for the second seat.

Originally Posted by High_OCTANE_HSV

Gee that was a thread dredge and a half, almost 20 years.

The long loved relic of this forum, the “02 astc” thread will make a comeback next…..THAT covered some ground (and years)