GOING FOR Gold

JUSTIN GAUCI SPENT NINE YEARS BUILDING HIS SMOOTH XR FALCON ONLY TO FIND HE CRAVED MORE POWER. IT WAS TIME TO GO BIG OR GO HOME

- IAIN KELLY

CAN you remember what you got for your 13th birthday? If you were Justin Gauci, you’d never forget, because the lucky so-and-so was gifted a ’67 XR Falcon sedan from his dad! Now, before you go stomping off to yell at your old boy for not getting you a sweet ride for your first teenage birthday, Justin’s XR didn’t look anything like the beautiful gold machine you here.

“Dad bought it for $600,” Justin says. “It was a bare Falcon 500 shell with no wiring or anything, so we had to put it together piece by piece over the years.” In fact, it took nearly a decade of hard work and toil to build this 700rwhp turbocharged weapon!

“The body needed a bit of work,” Justin says. “We had the guy who does the rust work on our cars fit a whole set of floorpans; plus it needed rear quarters, both inner and outer sills, and new front doors. “It took about 18 months, as there weren’t that many parts for XRs floating around back when we were building it nine years ago.”

Once Justin’s dad had the body straight, PPG GT Gold was laid over the Mustang-bred Falcon shell, paying tribute to Ford’s first high-performance Falcon, the 289ci XR GT.

“I tried to be a little bit different with the XR, which is why I did the gold body with the white GT interior,” says Justin. “Once I got it painted and got it home, it took four years to get it done. We spent a lot of time finding parts, building up a collection and then trying to sell them off to afford better bits and pieces. I wasn’t earning huge bucks as an apprentice so there was always a budget to work to, so it took time.”