XA 4 PhotoS
XA-4 "COMPANY CAR" Bill Santuccione Former Repco engineer before he and the team moved to Ford's special vehicles division at Lot 6 under Al Turner and later Howard Marsden. Bill was in charge of the "Top secret" QC BLUEPRINT Geelong mini production line at Geelong for the GT-HO engine development programs, particularly the stillborn Phase IV. Bill's brother John also worked there with a small team As a test mule Bill's "COMPANY CAR" was the RED FALCON GT XA with a sunroof powered by many Phases of the developing HO PHASE 4 engine as well as bedding the brakes for the Ford Special Vehicle race cars and some rally cars there were numerous changes in racing cams and various tweaks tested on the car which also did the hard yards at You Yang Fords proving ground There was also experiences with the HO Powered motos between Broadmeadows and Geelong on the Geelong Highway Bill claims the HO 4 was a far superior car to the superceeded HO Phase 3 it could out corner the XY by up to 15 mph faster on the Special Globe 15 ' wheels which were superior and stronger than the steel 14' Wheels Howard Marsden refered toBill's car as the Prototype 4 to John Wright in the 1987 SuperFord No 1 Winter Edition page 27 that translates to XA 4
