It was Allan Richards’ dream to own a cool Falcon coupe, now he’s got two…  just don’t tell his wife.

Buy or build, that’s the dilemma faced by many of us, but when your love is for early Falcon coupes it becomes simpler. A rare vehicle when produced 45 years ago, if you find one now you just grab it, whatever you can find, as you never know when you will have the opportunity to buy one again. That’s exactly what Allan Richards decided to do many years ago, having always admired the classic shape of the XM and XP coupes but never managing to find one for sale. Allan had built a few nice cars over the years, of GM origin, but the early Falcon coupe was always his dream. The dream was interrupted for a few years, spending 12 years working in the UK where he met his Kiwi partner Robyn. They returned to Australia, settling in Allan’s home town of Melbourne where the coupe search began in earnest.

Persistence finally paid off when in 2003 an unfinished but tidy XM Coupe with XP front sheetmetal was bought from a work colleague. He was looking to offload it to fund another project, the price was right so the cash changed hands and Allan’s dream project was underway. The coupe was already part-built with a Castlemaine Rod Shop V8-conversion kit already installed in the car. A strong rebuilt 302 and C4 were also part of the deal, as was the narrowed 9-inch and Detroit Locker. Whilst a mate, Keith Symes, sorted the rest of the mechanicals, the bodywork was not going so easy. (more…)

Classic looks and character, modern performance and handling — what more could you ask for in a 1966 XP Falcon?

There are many ways to own your dream machine. The simplest method is to wait for the car you’ve always lusted after to come up for sale, write out the cheque and walk away with the keys. Apart from the tear as your bank account gets drained, you wouldn’t really work up a sweat going about it in this manner.

Then there’s the option of buying a car and babysitting it as it bounces from workshop to workshop, with the hardest part for the owner being to push it on and off the trailer.

At the other end of the scale is the way Ross McLennan went about building his gorgeous 1966 XP Falcon coupe. That way involved spending thousands of hours on the car and performing almost all of the work himself.

Stick With The Plan

Where many people start with a plan then deviate from it, Ross stuck fast to what he set out to do. The results speak for (more…)

On this week’s show we wrap up our Powercruise Taupo coverage with some V8 feature cars on the track. A supercharged ’77 Torana, ‘Clutch’ a former NZV8 cover car and a ’79 Chevy C10. We also show you the burnout competition finals with the top 5 burnouts of Powercruise and we take a look at an XB Falcon from Matamata Panelworks that took out the Show and Shine Prizes.

Our Meguiar’s feature car for this week is a blown XP Falcon which will really show viewers how to build a great classic V8 on a budget.

It’s an epic show and not to be missed so don’t forget to tune in this Sunday.

NZV8 TV is on at 2:30 pm, this Sunday on TV1. It will run each week at the same time so check it out.

Also watch this week for your chance to win a 3D LG TV and other prizes. Click here to find out more.

Click here to view profiles of this season’s presenters.

If you missed the first five episodes of this season’s NZV8 TV, no worries, click here to view them online.

Episode 6 – Part 1

Part 2

After spending 18 years building it, Dunedin’s Leigh Thompson can relax in the knowledge he now has the best XP Falcon in the country.

I’ve been building this car for literally half my life,” says Dunedin-based panelbeater Leigh Thompson of his beautiful 1966 Ford XP Falcon. “I’m not really sure what happened, but somewhere along the way things got a little out of control.” It is a story we hear often at NZV8 magazine, with about half the owners of feature cars telling a similar tale. Perhaps not in terms of build time, but in regards to the dynamics of a serious, ever-escalating car build. It’s a true labour of love for most, but for some, like Leigh, it’s also a lifelong obsession.

“I was 17 years old when I first saw the car,” Leigh explains. “It was sitting in a shed in Mosgiel with a blown gearbox, a boot full of hay and horse teeth marks all over it ” I loved it. Next thing I knew I was towing it straight home to my parents’ garage.”

Originally purchased from Alan Cofey Motors in 1966, the car made its way over to Mosgiel with the original owner in 1970, which is where it sat until September 1989, quietly waiting for Leigh to stumble upon it. Amazingly, this makes him only the second owner of the car since new. Now, at 37 years of age, Leigh has grown up considerably, and somewhere along the way the Ford deviated from its original path and diverted to tidy weekend cruiser-dom, growing up right alongside its owner to now grace the cover of NZV8 as a complete nuts-and-bolts rebuilt street machine.

(more…)

McLaren is now in the final phase of development for its upcoming supercar the McLaren MP4-12C . The company with the Kiwi connection are set to announce official performance details on their new prototypes next month, leading to the car’s global launch next year.

McLaren has released a video showing the car in testing and refers to each vehicle as an “experimental prototype,” or XP for short. Shown in the vid are cars named the XP8 and XP10, camouflaged behind matte black vinyls. These vehicles began road testing five weeks ago, according to the video.

In the four-minute long video, the cars can be seen moving freely around roads near Montblanc, Spain, and on the race track.

The MP4-12C is to use an updated version of the McLaren M838T twin-turbo engine, and a gearbox with optimised ratios.¨¨ McLaren claims that not a minute goes by that the XPs prototypes are not tested. The company has a team of about 25 engineers working on the car in shifts 24/7.

It must be a tough job thrashing a Supercar prototype around rural roads in Spain, so all credit to the brave engineers involved.

Check out the video below it’s a good watch.

You’ve gotta love that sound

Twin-turbo Ford Falcon XP runs a Ford 302

Classic Ford from 1965