Early Falcon Car Club of Queensland


1965 Falcon XP - Nathan Johnston


Pre-Bash days back in 1999 when it was a touring car.

(Click on a thumbnail for an enlarged image)

Year: 1965
Make: Falcon
Model: XP
Style: Sedan
Rego: CJ 7007
 
This car used to belong to my grandfather when I was a kid. He built it as a touring car - so he and my grandmother could tow a caravan around Australia six months of the year when they were semi-retired. He wanted something reliable, srtong, easy to fix if it broke down in the Outback, but also wanted the modern conveniences of air conditioning, cruise control, LPG etc. So he bought this 4-door and customised it himself.

When I was living overseas, he decided to sell it and as it such a unique car, I couldn't see it leave the family. So I bought it from him and stored it at my parents place for years under a car cover. A year before we returned to Australia, some friends were looking for a car for the Variety Bash and asked if they could use it - and would fix it up at the same time. We agreed, and it made it through the 2007 Bash. On my return to Australia, we decided that as it had done one Bash, we'd like to do it ourselves. So we stripped it back, repainted it, redid the interior, redid a lot of the electrics (still lots more to do), fixed a lot of things that needed replacing and put it in the 2008 Variety Bash. It survived with only a few minor problems, and now we're preparing it for the 2010 Bash.

The car is a standard 1965 4-door XP sedan, with the original factory Pursuit 170 straight-6 motor. It has:

* 4-speed Toyota gearbox (on the floor)
* Dual-fuel (LPG/Unleaded) conversion
* Morey's Upper-Cylinder Head lubrication system
* Mag wheels
* Custom bull-bar
* Cruise Control
* Air Conditioning
* Sunroof
* Side-accessable toolbox (through the passengers rear-guard)
* Intermittent wiper system
* AM/UHF radios with external PA system
* Pinoeer AM/FM/CD player
* Heavy-duty tow-bar

The "rocket" as it's named (because of the NASA theme we follow for the Variety Bash) has been in our family for over 25 years. It's done over 90,000 miles on the clock, but I'm sure it's gone around once or twice before! I have details of this car on it's Variety Bash website at www.rocketxp.com.


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