Back in the day - when XR GT Falcons were new

[Squalo]

The guy who wrote this was a race car driver who competed at Bathurst, among other places. I'm sharing this because it is so ******* cool.


Ah the old days, I was living in Balmain when the 289 GT (in any colour you liked as long as it was gold) first came out, a mate of mine had a very rich father who bought him one, they were very rare at that time. Anyway Barry and I are cruising Parramatta Rd into the city one Friday night, at the lights at Glebe the cops pulled up beside us in the typical grey F100 bum wagon of the day.

The cops pull up on my side, one asks how the GT goes, I said very well, he says show us, I looked at the cop and said hey talk to him (Barry), Barry says 'no way, you'll book me', cop says 'no we won't', lights change and Barry raises a chirp of the mark and we pull up at the next set of lights, cop pulls along side again and says 'no not like that give it some', again Barry says 'You'll book me', 'no we won't' came the reply'. So a little more aggression this time and at the next set we get the same reception, the lights change at the final set and Barry gives it a bootfull.

As the smoke slowly starts to make its way to the front of the vehicle, I cannot see the cops beside me anymore for the smoke, Barry backs off a touch for bight and the GT launches out from under the thick whiteish smoke. I'm looking backwards and I can't see the cops or any other vehicle, there is that much smoke, we hit the next set of lights which were thankfully green and do a hard right up into Surrey Hills to get out of there as fast as we can. As we got out of sight there was still no movement from the vehicles that were sitting (still unseen) in that smoke.

Maybe not a typical 60's Parramatta Rd Friday night but close, I remember an encounter with a red E-Type up on Woodville Rd one night, GT first, Daylight second, E-Type third.

[last fairlane]

Back in 1967 I worked at Allan Coffey Ford at Ringwood (now Ethridges)
and we had XR GTs in Gold and also light Blue
the blue ones were for the Victorian police force
by the way Ethridges were at Lilydale and sold Minis and Austins

[champ]

Hey Squalo, this is gold!!

[FPV6]

My old man landed in Australia 1966 his first car was a brand new XT GT falcon

I wonder if the next generation those kids that are the 10 year old mark now will look back at cars with ore as we do

every time Im around kids and I talk about cars like a simple question whats your favourite car I usually get a blank stair at that age I could rattle of quarter mile times of my favourite ones and had huge collection of match box cars

[mik]

Good those old cars, forgetting about quarter mile times and electronic gadgets, a lot of those old cars where just really great cars to cruise in.