TAS MOURAS' 1976 FORD FALCON XB GT - READER RIDE

By: Spencer Leech, Photography by: Spencer Leech

Date: 19.10.2016

Tas Mouras shares the story of his pristine 1976 Ford Falcon XB GT

TAS MOURAS' 1976 FORD FALCON XB GT

Back when I was in the motor industry I had a customer ring me up and tell me their friend had an old Falcon sitting in the shed and that they wanted to sell it. So I went to look at it and was really surprised — it was completely rust-free, and overall very clean other than a couple of small dints at the front.

So I bought the car, repaired the dints and put on a new bonnet, and it ended up being a really straight car.

The previous owner thought that using a scouring pad to wash it with would be a good idea, but obviously it wasn’t, and it dulled the brown paint. So I ended up repainting the brown parts of the car. But other than that, the car is completely original as it left the factory.

Very few XBs came out in this particular colour scheme — Mushroom Beige and Wallnut Glow. I think it’s a great looking car, and it’s something a bit different, kinda quirky. In total, Ford only made around 12 with Mushroom Beige paint in the Sedan and Coupe, so it wasn’t a very popular colour, but now it’s becoming a lot more appreciated for its uniqueness.

I heard about the Ford Fan Day through my club, the Ford Coupe club, who were asked to come down by Phil Grant and the rest of the GT club. The Falcon community is very close knit, everybody knows everybody. So we (Ford Coupe Club) decided we’d come down and support the event, seen as it’s the last hurrah, and Ford’s not gonna do this again, so we made sure we didn’t miss it. 

The biggest thing to people, especially at our age, is that we associate our youth with a lot of these vehicles. I grew up at a time when they were common cars and to see a Toyota or a Mazda was rare. Now that we hardly see them on the road, and are constantly overrun by imported vehicles, seeing all of these old Falcons together in one spot is really refreshing. It pulls at all of our heart strings.

It was an easier time back then, it was a pleasure to get in the car and go for a drive. There were no speed cameras or defect stations and if you broke down you could fix the car yourself. You’ve got to remember that when people bought these cars back in the day, the finance options were nothing like they are now, so people had to earn their car. It was a status symbol — how you presented your car defined who you were, so people looked after them.

But anyway, sorry for going off on a tangent, back to the XB! The original owners bought the car with a ton of factory options: the protection pack, vinyl roof, a cassette player, long-range tank, manual transmission — only thing they missed was electric windows and a sun roof. It even had a sun visor across the front, which I’ve since removed. A sun visor on a GT is sacrilege if you ask me. That’s why my friends call it a Grandpa car, such an old-style colour scheme and it came with old-people mods like seat covers, clip-on mudflaps and the sun-visor as I mentioned. But it’s great that is was owned by old people, because it barely got driven — no wonder it’s completely rust free.

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