Gordon Barfield
Born 1946 Woodford London England
Gordons first memory was falling into the fire at age 3
Gordons dad was in RNVR (royal navy voluntary reserve)
Horse and cart delivered milk every morning. The milk was half frozen half warm because they put the milk that was frozen on the heater. He hated milk after that
Moved out of flats into a rented house
Parents didn’t have a car until 13 had to get around in bus
He went to Wanstead primary school
Lived in flats very small places
Paper round every morning at 6am still dark
Played soccer for a team called barking
Came to Australia all schooling was done in England
Where he lived there were lots of bombed houses from the war it was quite scary
His first car was a 1952 ford prefect he had a old stable with a engine hoist to fix cars another ford angler that he pimped up
Gordon was married twice he had one son from each marriages. Married first in 1972 in Maroochydore Queensland had a son lee born 1975. Married again in 1989 to his current wife Lyn and had a son Dylan born 1991. Lee is living in London, Dylan in Sydney doing sound design.
He is interested in bird photography, cars, and gardening with wife.
Had a dog for 16 years it was a Bitza in the early 90s
He went to highlands England and did outward bond (army training) for a month which Ford paid payed for.
One of Gordon’s favourite story’s was about 8 years ago he got chased by a kangaroo because they were stuck in his yard and he went to chase them out and the big male was left and it attacked him and grazed his leg. There was a big wound on his leg and he got driven to the hospital.
Went to tech UNI end of year 12 and then went to a sandwich course in England half industrial and half classroom work
Started as Cooling system design engineer
developing carburettors and fuel systems
Gordan worked with Tickford what later became FPV (Ford Performance Vehicles). He was doing press work. He got to take the cars home and do test drives with them
Ford Geelong Jan 1972 Working on v8 351 GT falcon and 302 v8 falcon
worked at Ford until 2008
He has worked with Ford most of his career doing different sorts of testing and designing. Testing was done at ford proving ground
then Worked on the bush master armoured troop carrier
Gordon was involved styling and differentiating from standard models
Researched and planned performance engines and transmissions particularly the boss 5.4 4v v8 and turbo six cylinder engines
Gordon lived in Eltham for 6 years now he lives in Research
Retired in 2012
Etham High School Stories of my life of Gordon Barfield by Jack & Julian.
