1968 Hardie-Ferodo 500

Everyone held their collective breath for the 1968 Bathurst event; there was not only a new major sponsor for the race, but new cars from Ford and the General - everything pointed to an exciting event. Holden's entrant was the new Monaro two-door coupe in GTS 327 form. The Fords were down on cubic capacity (302ci versus 327ci); horsepower (250bhp versus 275bhp) and, additionally, weighed exactly the same as the Monaro’s. Despite this, seven Falcons contested the race in Class D ($3001 to $4300), including a single XR GT and an XT GT automatic. Of the remainder, three cars were works-entered, these being driven by the Geoghegan brothers, Fred Gibson and Barry Seton, and Jim McKeown and Spencer Martin.

After only 35 minutes of racing the M.Sayva/R.Wilkinson Falcon showed signs of overheating, which did not auger well for the others. In fact, things went very badly for the Ford's, with brake, tyre and overheating troubles. Despite all this, the Gibson/Seton Falcon was in the lead with only 15 laps to go. But overheating struck this car as well, and finally the car blew a piston and the Monaro of Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland swept to victory.

The first Falcon home was, ironically, the 1967 XR GT of Stacey and McIntyre, which came in seventh, one place in front of the Brauer/Harrod XT GT. The first works car was that of the Geoghegan brothers, who finished 12th. With a fastest lap of 2 min. 58 sec., the winning Monaro was five seconds per lap quicker than the Falcons were in 1967, and three seconds faster than the Gibson/Seton car in 1968. Also, the Monaro’s were achieving 125-128 mph on Conrod Straight, whereas the Falcons could only manage around 121 mph, 4 mph slower than 1967!