THE National Automobile Museum of Tasmania is paying homage to an Australian legend with GT: The Falcon Legend.
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Until March 30, the museum's feature floor will be packed out with a spectacular array of Falcon GTs from the golden age of the Australian muscle car.
In May 1967, Ford Australia launched the vehicle that started it all, the XR GT.
Visually, there was little to distinguish it from the standard Falcon. The performance levels, however, achieved by coupling the 289 Mustang V8 engine to a four-speed manual transmission left little doubt that the XR GT was something special.
In October 1967, the reason for its creation became clear when it took the "King of the Mountain" title at Bathurst, a sign of things to come that would establish a new breed of Australian performance car.
The XT GT came in 1968 and the 302 cubic inch V8 became standard while automatic transmission was also offered.
In 1969, the XW was introduced and in pursuit of Bathurst glory the HO variant developed, initially with the Windsor 351V8 and later with the Cleveland V8 in Phase II.
Australia's most famous muscle car followed with the XY model and in particular the HO, commonly referred to as Phase III.
The 1971 XY GTHO featured in the display has covered just 29,000 original miles (46,000 kilometres) from new, and is considered to be one of the finest Phase III Falcons in existence.
With the unveiling of the 1972 XA GT the GTHO version was killed off after the "Supercar scare".
The Falcon GT was, for the first time, available as a two-door Hardtop or four-door.
As the years passed, the Falcon GT became further removed from the standard car on which it was based, and the styling became noticeably more aggressive.
The XB GT became the most commercially successful variation with 2899 examples sold. Emissions regulations, however, had taken the edge of it as a true performance car.
In 1992, Ford re-introduced the all-new GT, which would pave the way for the highly successful modern Ford Performance Vehicles range.
The display features the last of the GT Falcon line, the 2014 Ford Falcon GTF.