Four-time Bathurst winner Allan Moffat has died aged 86
One of Australia’s greatest touring car drivers has passed away.
Allan Moffat, a four-time Australian Touring Car champion and four-time Bathurst 500/100 winner, passed away aged 86 in Melbourne on Saturday after a lengthy battle with dementia.
Moffat’s passing was confirmed by his family in a post on his Facebook page.
Moffat was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in Canada. When he was a teenager, his family moved to Melbourne, and in his early 20s, he started racing in a Triumph TR3. After a couple of notable results in a Lotus Cortina, and feeling the need for a wider motorsport experience, he moved to the US and spent time with Team Lotus, most notably as a ‘gofer’ for the Indianapolis 500-winning team behind Jim Clark’s 1965 victory.
He would later describe the experience of working with the likes of Colin Chapman and the Wood Brothers as “like going to motor racing university”.
By 1969 he had returned to Australia to join Ford’s production racing squad, where his mechanical empathy and eye for detailed preparation were to prove invaluable. Later that year he returned to the US and found his way into the office of Jacque Passino, who oversaw Ford’s motorsport program. Seven new Trans-Am racers were being built for the 1969 season. Moffat was hoping one of the older, superseded cars might be passed on to him for a good price.
Passino exceeded his expectations and gifted Moffat with one of the new Boss 302 Mustangs under construction at Bud Moore Racing in South Carolina. Moffat and his new weapon returned to Melbourne and, for the next five years, won 78 from 188 races – though ironically never an ATCC title.
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