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The following is a letter written by Cyril
in a moment of indignant righteousness, reproduced in the interests
of public debate. It was published in The
Age, Thursday 25 November, 1999, 'Drive', 'Drive Mailbox':
I feel compelled to reply to "Musclecar Guru" James Killingsworth (Mailbox 11/11). It appears he obviously knows little about the Phase IV Falcon GTHO. I can't recall any 5.7 litre V8 Falcon that came equipped with four-wheel drums, let alone the Phase IV. This car was also specified with a "Detroit Locker" LSD, radial tyres on 15x7 globe alloys and was considered to be a great handing device by the day's standards. It was built (only one production Phase IV was assembled) to win Bathurst and the rules stipulated that the car ran in basically production specs. Do you think Ford expected to win races with a 350-plus hp car that had no brakes and murdered its tyres? I think not. It was not banned for being dangerous; it was axed because of bad publicity about 170mph (270kmh) supercars being available to the public. It's a different story when we look at the supercars of today, with all their high-tech gizmos, making them very safe indeed. These mentioned features (ABS, traction control etc) are available in most new cars. But, hey, you don't need 300kW to kill yourself; how many incompetent HRT wannabes continue to wrap themselves around the scenery in clapped-out Geminis? Maybe when we ban low-performance drivers instead of high performance cars will all this fuss about 300kW supercars come to an end. My only wish is that Ford would come up with something that could hold a candle to the new HSV GTS and the future Monaro in order to restore some pride and street cred back to the blue oval. 
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