Herald Ford competition winner: Wally Bolton

Wally Bolton's new Ford.

A true Ford fan has won the Herald's Ford Falcon competition to celebrate the New Zealand round of the V8 International Supercars.

Wally Bolton, 72, who says he's spent a lifetime driving Falcons, has already nudged the odometer reading of the MkII XR8 up by 75km.

John Andrew Ford presented him with the car on Thursday and he immediately took it for a spin on the motorway.

"It's got plenty of grunt. But I've only put it up to 100km/h of course."

Mr Bolton says his grandson Walter talked him into going to the 2005 PlaceMakers V8 International Supercars at Pukekohe last week.

He saw the Falcon there, walked past and then went back to enter the competition.

When he heard on Sunday he had won the car he drove straight back to Pukekohe. "I admit I might have sped a little bit then. The gearbox in the old car blew out on the way."

He left his wife waiting for a tow truck, carried on with his grandson in his son's car and kissed his new Ford on the bonnet.

It is the latest in a long line of Falcons for Mr Bolton.

"Back in the 1950s they brought the Mark I Zephyr out. They were beautiful so I ordered one. They cost about 850 and when it arrived we were off to Australia. So I tossed a coin on whether to buy the car or go to Aussie, it came up heads so we went to Australia."

He bought his first Falcon - a 1966 XP - on a road trip around Australia a few years later and brought it back to New Zealand afterward.

"Since then I've had three Falcons and my son has had two or three, so we have been Falcon people all our life."