Brut33

I have a Wheels December 75 magazine discussing the 75 Bathurst. It keeps refering to the XB coupes as Superbirds. Was there an XB Superbird, I thought only XA's came out with a Superbird? Saying that Murray Carter's 75 XB Sandown car has Superbird written on its bonnet. The Wheels magazine reckons the John Goss Specials were originally built for Allan Moffat but he was out of the country when the advert needed to be made and gave the gig to JG. Subsequently, (Wheels write) Ford were to make a further batch of special coupes for AM. I don't know of this happening other than the special Thorn Red cars released for Moffat's 75 Bathurst attack. Anyone know anything further on these subjects?

JG33PY

the AM special was an xc sedan (not coupe) based on a falcon 500 with gs pack. do a search in here because there is a couple of photos of it. the JGS was released as such because ford would have got more advertising milage with gossy winning bathurst. i'm with you on the superbird i always thought it was an xa thing. the thorn red cars were a special done by a dealer at the time (not sure who) there is a fella in here that owns one.
interesting thread, be good to hear some other views.

Yellow Fire

Sounds like a great article. Any chance you could scan it? :)

I had heard that the 75 "Special" was originally designed for Moffat, but I thought it was that Ford were determined to release a car & decided that Goss's Bathurst win was the better marketing tool for the car.

Moffat did get an XC "Special" named after him (302 sedan with XB GT style paint) but I'm not positive of the release date.

edit: what nak302 said :)

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outback_ute

Maybe what they were referring to as an XB Superbird ended up coming out as the JGS.

Brut33

I will scan the article and post it tommorrow (just need to work out how). The JGS had been released by this article.

CoupeCruiser09

Spot on......the Thorn Red Cars were specially ordered by City Ford/Moffat Racing and walked down the factory line simultaneously - somewhere between 7 and 10 of them (mixed reports), all hardtops, including 2 GTs. The 2 GTs were just that...GTs, while the remaining were all believed to be GS optioned Falcon 500 302Cs in manuals and autos with 6 inch gold 12-slotters (3 known to be still in existance).

I think Superbird possibly just became a popular term of endearment for the racing coupes.

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On the plains of hesitation bleached the bones of countless millions.......

JG33PY

i just tried a search in here for that xc AM special and all i get is google. what happened to the thread search? or am i behind the times again?

outback_ute

I think you need to be a donating member to use the advanced search now.

4Vman

Superbird coupes were 302 powered falcon 500 coupes that were similar to a GS or JGS but had the enourmous bird sticker on the side, they had nothing to do technically with the racecars or GT's.
Ive seen GT's with the superbird sticker on them though, these would have been fitted by the dealer to meet customer requirements but these cars weren't "Superbirds"...

Brut33

4Vman, those Superbird 302 Falcon 500's were they XA's or are you suggesting XB as well? Photos of Murray Carter's White/Yellow/red XB from 1975 show "Superbird" on the bonnet. I can understand it as a term of endearment but why would you put it on the bonnet of your car unless for marketing purposes? Is Murray still alive today? I have tried to search him on the net without success.