ORIGINAL SIN

WHEN YOUR DAD BUILDS RACE ENGINES, YOUR GENUINE XA GT BETTER BE ABLE TO REEL OFF AN EIGHT-SECOND QUARTER-MILE IN 70s STYLE 14797 z PONTIAL

TONY Murr’s XA Falcon GT sedan has a lot to live up to. You see, Tony’s dad, Joe, had a horsepower addiction that saw a young Tony brought up on high-octane, seriously swift GT Falcons.

“My old man built motors for John Goss back in the day, so he worked on his engines and rubbed shoulders with Moffat, Brock, Seton and all those guys,” Tony says. Papa Joe had also bought an XA GT sedan brand new, tuned the hell out of it and spanked it around the track – and the streets. “My dad told me the same story a thousand times: there wasn’t a car on the street that could keep up with his XA,” Tony says.

As for Tony, he’s built a serious back catalogue of cars that have graced the pages of Street Machine, but when it came to building an XA Falcon, it was something more personal. “When I bought this GT, it was about reliving that era with my dad so he could jump into an XA sedan again,” he says. “But I also wanted to make sure that the motor in it had enough power to beat most cars on the street and give him that sort of buzz.”

Being a genuine GT sedan, Tony wanted the XA to keep its original spirit. “I just thought it’d be nice to do more of a factory-looking car but still have it as a tough car,” he says. “I don’t want to take away from the era of the car; I feel like that’s what loses the character. I was trying to keep that classic look.”

This particular GT sedan is one of only 44 built with Wild Plum paint, and one of only eight that rolled out of the factory with the racing bonnet, automatic transmission and Parchment interior, so it’s a little different.