BIG CHANGES were made for the 1977 season as Allan Moffat Racing became a two driver affair for the first time since the Cortina days back in America.
Moffat shocked the racing world by signing on Colin Bond, who had been a Holden Dealer Team driver since 1969.
To accommodate Bond on the team, a second Moffat Ford Dealer Team Falcon was built up in the team's Malvern workshops, virtually identical to the Project Phoenix car and painted in the same white with red and blue side stripes.
This was to be another do-or-die effort for Moffat as he went about re-establishing himself at the top of the Australian motor racing tree. He was also keen to assure his team of a future when the time comes for Allan himself to quit driving on a regular basis, but to continue managing a top line team.
With such a huge operation to control, Moffat brought in from America the Team Management expertise of Carrol Smith, the legendary engineer who led the Shelby team in America and who was highly involved in Ford's successful take-over of the Le Mans 24 Hour Race with that company's GT40s.
First outing for the two car team was at Sandown in February 1977.
For Colin Bond it was a dream debut.
Just as Moffat had done with the Mustang eight years earlier, Bond went out and won both his races with the older of the Falcons, and against top class opposition at that.
Moffat ran the new car and finished a little further behind, sorting it out as he went and more than happy to let his new team-mate gather all the attention.
That was to be one of the few times that season that the two Falcons would not come home in formation at the head of the field. The first of many 1-2 results came at Symmons Plains in Tasmania, the first round of the Australian Touring Car Championship, a title which Moffat was trying to win for the third time.
That race in Tasmania crushed the opposition and the next round at Calder helped drive home the point that the Falcons were top dogs of 1977 as they raced to another 1-2 win.
At Oran Park Bond blew a tyre on the first lap and had to fight back to eighth place but Moffat was right on top once again to score his third victory on the trot.
The status quo was restored a couple of weeks later at Sydney's Amaroo Park when the "Dynamic Duo", as they were dubbed by this stage, did their formation flying trick yet again.
