16/08/2026
HISTORY ON TRIAL
For more than three decades, renowned Ford historian Ross Vasse has approached the history of Ford’s legendary Lot 6 ‘works’ race cars less like a motoring writer and more like a forensic investigator.
No stone has been left unturned.
Never before seen factory archives, production records, registration files, C.A.M.S documentation, race programmes, long-forgotten photographs, correspondence and surviving paperwork have been painstakingly gathered and cross-examined, while former drivers, mechanics, Ford executives, dealers, owners and eyewitnesses have been tracked down and interviewed — their recollections tested against the documentary and photographic evidence.
Chassis numbers have been followed across decades, number plates traced, build dates reconstructed and even the smallest physical details hidden within surviving cars examined for clues.
Like the investigation of a decades old cold case, seemingly insignificant fragments of evidence have been pieced together until identities could be established, timelines reconstructed and long held beliefs challenged. What emerged was a trail filled with missing cars, switched identities, conflicting accounts, forgotten documents and revelations hiding in plain sight.
Vasse’s investigation does not simply retell the accepted history; it puts that history on trial, separating what has been repeated for generations from what the evidence can actually prove.
The result is perhaps the most exhaustive investigation ever undertaken into this remarkable chapter of Australian motor racing history, uncovering a story considerably more complicated — and far more fascinating — than anyone imagined.
