Trivia time, no prizes: what would you say is the rarest Australian-made Ford?
Is it one of the four Phase IVs which escaped the factory before the program was axed? Or is it one of three Rothmans-commissioned XA GT Promo cars?
Well there is certainly an argument that it’s this: a six-door XY Falcon, the only one of its kind!
We did a full story on this car back in Unique Cars Magazine #295 back in 2009; and according to paperwork it began life as a plain old Falcon 500 station wagon with a 302ci V8, three-speed Cruise-O-matic gearbox dipped in Bronze Wine metallic.
Legend has it that Broadmeadows brass commissioned the six-door sensation to ferry guests from Detroit to and from the airport, and the bronze XY Falcon (#JG31KB26415) was chosen.
The limousine conversion was carried out at B.S. Stillwell Ford in Kew, Victoria, over a couple of months which saw the Falcon gain a coat of white paint, an extra bench seat, two extra doors and a healthy dose of extra sheet-metal.
The car’s known history shows that it spent much of its early life in Tasmania, emigrating there by the early 80s at the hands of its then-owners Harry and Robyn O’Dale. The O’Dales would then ship the car to Melbourne, and then on to Nauru where it would live for the next few years.
In September 1984, the stretched-XY would return to Melbourne before being sold up to Queensland in 1986.
It has seemingly lived in up in the sunny coast ever since, passing between a handful of owners and enjoying a ground-up restoration in the mid-90s.
Along the way it was fitted with a larger 351ci Cleveland V8, and now sports a T-bar auto finished off by Fairmont trim, a GT dash and steering wheel. Apparently the local-limousine has travelled just 13,000 miles since its full restoration and has been featured in various publications around the country. Try finding another!
See the XY for sale here.
From Unique Cars #446, November 2020
Photography: Unique Cars Archives