They say that good things come to those who wait, which may go some way to explaining the quality of Gez Di Giammatteo’s XR Falcon. You see, there’s about 15 years of hard yakka spread across these pages. This thing is a clean, mean street machine dripping with subtle style, while also packing plenty of boogie under the bonnet.

First published in the June 2026 issue of Street Machine

Gez has been into hot Henrys since he was a little tacker, but he’s also got a bit of a thing for Valiants. “My old man had a VJ Charger, but he passed away when I was young and we had to sell it,” he recalls. “I used to get Street Machine when I was a kid, and I loved seeing XMs and XRs in it.”

About 20 years ago, Gez sold an XR he owned so that he could lay his mitts on an XM coupe. The same XM has been gradually modified into the spiffy, 302-powered cruiser that it is today, and still sees regular street kays. But he lamented the lack of an XR in his shed, so he began the long hunt for a suitable candidate, finally finding this beautiful silver item while the ’Rona was busy ruining the world.

“Most of the ones I’d looked at were just buckets,” he says, reiterating the experience of many Falcon buyers searching for appropriate project cars. “A lot of the pain is in getting the bodywork done, so I wanted to find something that was straight and already painted.” This one turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered: not a skerrick of rust nor a carpark dent in sight, with most of the interior present and a column-shift, 289ci Windsor for shove.

“The guy had spent 10 years doing the bodywork in his shed and had it painted, but during COVID, he decided to take off and dropped the 289 in to sell it,” says Gez. “The panels hadn’t even been aligned, but it was really straight – it was just what I was after.” Although the outside of the XR was schmicko, the underside required attention, so Gez stripped it back and covered the lot in Raptor undercoating. With the body handled, it was time to apply some serious driveline upgrades to match the shiny exterior.

Gez turned to Shepparton speed stalwart Peter ‘Radish’ Raditsas of Eastend Performance for a nudge in the right direction, and Radish sent him to seek out Chris Doonan of Doonan Competition Engines. Chris whipped up a tasty, 427-cube stroked Windsor, based around a Dart block filled with a Lunati crank, Manley rods and CP slugs. The decks are sealed by Aeroflow 200cc heads that were given a tickle by Danny at SRP Competition and fitted with PAC springs and Comp Cams hardware, all driven by a Crower solid-roller stick. Crowning the engine is an Edelbrock Victor Jr wearing a Holley 750 HP carb, and the fires are lit by a brace of MSD bits.

After the Windsor turns sauropods into 627 thundering horses, the cremated remains scream down a set of custom extractors modified by Radish and out through a twin three-inch stainless system built by Steve at Frankensteve’s Creations. The C4 auto is from Performance Automatic in the States, though Gez had Burko Transmissions give it a once-over before stuffing it into the XR, and a Burko-specced Dominator converter connects it to the Windsor.

Gez wasn’t particularly impressed when he discovered the factory tubs would only swallow eight-inch-wide wheels, so with a bit of coaching from Radish, he chopped them out and welded in mini-tubs from Chris at McDonald Brothers Racing. With more room available, the boys then fitted a McDonald Brothers four-link and nine-inch, and Sydney Competition Warehouse supplied an aluminium diff centre filled with a Truetrac and 4.11 gears.

The seats that came with the XR were newly retrimmed, but nothing else in the cabin was in a good enough state to reuse. Gez modified the rear pew to clear the tubs and had Dashboard Doctor restore the dash, while Dash Original supplied replacement GT door cards. Instead of the usual XR GT woodgrain dash inserts and wood-rimmed tiller, Gez has gone for black woodgrain and a black leather-trimmed Billet Specialties wheel. Finally, he shunned the current trend of large screens in favour of a set of classy American Muscle gauges from Auto Meter, resulting in a cockpit that looks sharper than a scalpel wearing a tailored suit.

Gez had the XR running in time for Street Machine Summernats 37, where it made the finals in the Street Elite class, and at Summernats 38 earlier this year, he simply cruised it all weekend. There’s the potential for a swap to EFI on the cards, but for now, Gez’s sights are turning to the VH Charger in the shed, which is waiting patiently for a pair of tubs and an R5P7 NASCAR donk.

“The XR snowballed a bit,” he admits. “But I’m rapt with how it turned out, and I love driving it.”

GEZ DI GIAMMATTEO
1967 FORD XR FALCON

THANKS
Peter ‘Radish’ Raditsas for all his help and guidance; Chris Doonan Competition Engines; Mark ‘Punchy’ Rachele at Eastend Performance; Louie Martello and his boys Alex and Marco for their help; Chris at McDonald Brothers; Hayden Frappell; Clint at CRM Auto Electrical & Air Conditioning; Scotty Briant at Reflection Metal Polishing; Steve at Frankensteve’s Creations; VPW; Speed Pro; my wife for her eBay account – I miss the packages arriving every week!