XLent Falcon

Les Woolridge’s Superb Sedan Delivery...

- AL O'TOOLE

Les Woolridge built a few cars with his friends and neighbours as a youngster before migrating to Australia from Canada back in 1973, but never put together anything as neat as this beautiful XL Falcon sedan delivery until much later in life. Getting married and building a family took precedence over spending money on cars.

In 2007 Les was selling a business to a guy who had this van sitting in his shop. It belonged to a friend of his and had been a bit neglected but Les loved the look of it and asked the guy if he could tell the owner that if he ever wanted to sell it let him know, he wanted it. About eight months later Les received a phone call and after a brief negotiation, the derelict early bird was his for $5000.00.

Much like our yellow Falcon work van, this sedan delivery is a combination of models. Ours now has XP front sheet metal on an XM body while Les’ Kurrajong Green Falcon uses an XP body with the front off an XL.

“I never liked the XP front end and this one had damage on the radiator support. Because we were going to fix it to a reasonable standard and that radiator support was going to be too much effort to repair, I then had the choice of whatever front end I wanted to put on it. It was kind of a process of elimination for the front end; I like the sleekness of the XL lines, I thought the XM had a bit too much chrome on it and the XK didn’t have any.”