Why Judith Neilson added a $1.15m 1971 Ford XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III to her private art collection

The latest addition to billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson’s private art collection is a pristine 1971 Ford XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III that cost her $1.15m at auction.

The Ford Falcon GT-HO Phase III at Slattery’s Auctions. Says Judith Neilson: ‘‘I’d wanted to collect a beautiful artwork that was Australian, very contemporary.’

Timeless contemporary design, an ambition to set a new standard among its peers, and a 351 cubic inch Cleveland V8 engine with a top speed of 252km/h.

The first two attributes would comfortably describe a large proportion of the collection of Judith Neilson. Australia’s pre-eminent custodian of Chinese and international art. The third even took her by surprise.

You get the sense that Neilson doesn’t often need a sense check on whether a piece of art is the real deal. But when she saw a pristine example of a 1971 Ford XY Falcon GT-HO Phase III come up on the nightly news – noteworthy due to predictions it would set a record for the sale price of an Australian-manufactured car – she was transfixed.

“I was watching TV, and I’d wanted to collect a beautiful artwork that was Australian, that was very contemporary,’’ Neilson says. “It came up, and I just looked at it and connected. My father had a business making car radiators. In very humble times he’d been a mechanic.

“Cars were simple and anybody could fix them and they lasted for years.

“And this just looked like everything that anybody could have possibly imagined.

“It looked so contemporary that had I walked through a gallery and seen it I wouldn’t have questioned it. It fitted in.’’

Neilson understands “contemporary” to be very much global, “sharing information to create something that is new, and really quite original but using everything that’s been done before to put it together’’.

“And although this was ’71, I thought it’s today, it’s contemporary, whatever time it came from. When I looked at it, I just thought ‘that’s so beautiful’,” she says. “They’d been going through the mundane news and what have you and then this beautiful thing just appeared.’’

But before deciding to act on her initial instinct that this was something special which needed to be preserved and treasured, Neilson, not being an automotive aficionado herself, thought she’d run the idea past someone who was in the know.

“I immediately got some help trying to find out whether I’d gone nuts or whether this was as beautiful … I could have though it was beautiful but I didn’t want to buy something which was silly.’’

Judith Neilson.

It turns out her instincts were spot on. Far from being “silly”, the GT-HO Phase III represents a pinnacle in Australian car manufacturing and an enduring symbol of the tribal duel played out between Ford and Holden on the racing circuits of Australia, most notably the fabled Bathurst track.

The Phase III, driven by legends such as Allan Moffat, was widely regarded as the world’s fastest four-door sedan in its day, and was built for “homologation” – the approval process by which vehicles destined for production racing are deemed “street legal”, and therefore able to take part. The Phase III, which retailed for $5250 if you were lucky enough to get your hands on one of the 300 or so available for sale, was brutally dominant on the track.

At the 1971 Bathurst 500 held at the Mount Panorama circuit, eight of the 10 – and the first seven – qualifiers were Phase IIIs.

Moffat won that year, with the first Holden – a Torana – fourth.

The next year the first four qualifiers were Phase IIIs, although Peter Brock managed to win that year in a Torana after starting from fifth position on the grid. And so the Phase III legend began. Its scarcity, superb design and sheer notoriety among motorsport fans made the car arguably the most collectable in Australian carmaking history.

And so when a pristine model came on the market in unusual circumstances earlier this year, speculation immediately began that a new Australian record would be reached. The automobile now owned by Neilson – one of only seven produced in electric blue with black trim – was bought by Glen Jahnke from Queensland in 1971.

He told Carsales that “we would use it as just an everyday family hack’’.

Not so its most recent owner before Ms Neilson.

Late last year news broke that an investment scheme run by Perth businessman Chris Marco was being wound up, with $240m allegedly owed to investors.

Marco denied at the time that the Australian Securities & Investments Commission intervention was to blame for losses, and said the figures in a related Federal Court judgment were “not even close to being true’’.

But one of the curious elements of this process was that as part of the process to wind up Marco’s scheme, his classic car collection, housed in a purpose-built showroom, would be sold off.

It was, according to auction site Slattery’s, one of the best collections of Australian muscle cars ever to hit the market at once.

Included were a 1971 Holden Monaro GTS HQ Coupe, a 1972 Chrysler Charger VH E49, modern examples such as a 2017 Holden “Maloo” ute, and of course the Phase III.

Slattery Auctions asset manager Steve Waterman said at the time in February that there were four serious bidders lined up for the auction, which was scheduled to come to a close shortly after 6pm on Monday, February 15.

Such was the interest, however, that the Slattery auction site crashed under the pressure, as the bid price for the Phase III tipped over $900,000. The auction was restarted the next day, with only a select few logins provided, and history was made.

An anonymous bidder – later revealed to be Neilson – had bought a key part of Australia’s motorsport and vehicle manufacturing history for $1.15m. For that price you don’t get airconditioning, ABS braking or bluetooth connectivity. But what you do get is a car that Slattery’s said was in better nick than when it rolled off the production line, with just 17,340km on the odometer.

And that odometer won’t be ticking upwards any time soon.

The Ford GT-HO Phase III is now safely ensconced in Neilson’s Dangrove storage facility in the Sydney suburb of Alexandria, and will be preserved for future generations – and therefore not driven, but treasured and celebrated.

“I consider my work a document of this time,’’ Neilson says. “It’s to stay part of that document for 100 years. It’s got a building that looks after it, it’s not going to be driven, ever. It’s there as a perfect and wonderful example of something that happened.’’

And while it might seem apt to balance the collection by seeking out an iconic Holden, Neilson says that wasn’t the intention.

“It’s wonderful to have something that everybody takes ownership of, and they want to help and they want to watch it and they’re really proud,’’ she says.

And like any passionate car owner, it’s only fitting that Neilson has named her new set of wheels, with True Blue set to spend the next few decades sitting shoulder to shoulder, perhaps axle to axle, with some of the world’s finest art as part of the billionaire philanthropist’s private collection.