I clearly remember the day back in 1979, when my parents picked me up from school in this car when it was new. I was in Year 7 and had bragged to my friends that we had bought a new car, yet no one had seen it. On this day, they were all there and witnessed what looked like a space age car pulling up... ultra modern and very square. My parents had originally factory ordered a Ghost Gum (beige) Fairmont with a 4.9 litre V8, limited differential, T-Bar automatic and a Class II towing pack. Back then, factory orders took months and the dealership forwarded a price increase despite a deposit being paid. My father was furious, so relinquished his order and settled for this car instead. It was a demonstrator that the service manager at Alan Coffey Ford had been using. It was sold to us at the reduced price of $7,700 with a little over 4,000km on the clock. Throughout the 1980's, It spent most of it's time tied to a horse float, until mother and sister retired from the dressage ring in 1993. It was used as a spare car over the following years, until one day in 2009, I drove past a policeman who was in the midst of booking someone... he stared at me as I drove past. Although it had always been mechanically well maintained, I knew at that time, that the very shabby old Falcon could no longer be driven about unless it had some restoration work carried out. Here is it's story...
Probably should have washed it first, the old beast also needs the oil pressure gauge repairing, but here she is after a drive.
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Pretty disappointed, I went to drive this car and it would idle then struggle to run on 5 cylinders. I also found the compressions were down. It turned out just needing spark plugs, some TLC and a good long drive - then its health made a full recovery. Cars form the 1970's; simplicity and longevity at its very best.
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