First published in Street Machine’s Australia’s Toughest Fords #2, 2004

It’s hard to imagine now, but this XP Falcon wagon had chickens living in it when Ben Rusmus found it as a schoolboy. The poor old thing had been a farmer’s paddock basher, complete with makeshift sunroof and wooden box turret so the owner and his mates could shoot rabbits out of the top.

“Along with the chickens, it had about 10cm of dirt lining the interior,” says Ben. “We gave the guy $60 for it.”

The next few years saw Ben dovetailing high school homework with car restoration. His budget rebuild nabbed the Falcon’s first award. “It was voted best car in the school,” Ben says with a proud grin.

It proved reliable for about eight months. Then something broke. Unfortunately for Ben and another ill-fated motorist, it was a rear brake cylinder and the brake pedal sank to the firewall. “His car was worse off than mine,” says Ben. “The roof was bent!” Ouch.

The XP was stripped and wouldn’t see the light of day for another four years. Well, not so much stripped as broken down into tiny fragments. Most of the pieces still retain Ford DNA, but nothing was left untouched. The result is an authentic slammer with all of the ’60s signatures and trappings.

Apart from the excruciatingly low stance, the exterior is a myriad of little detailing tricks. Although there are plenty of obvious mods – such as the removal of the door handles, badging and rear window winder – most are inconspicuous. Both bumpers are smoothed and rechromed, as was the custom tube-steel grille. Baseball caps and cat’s eyes adorn the headlights, while the tail-lights use polished factory buckets loaded with custom-made lenses. Note, too, the dual frenched aerials, dummy spotlights, breezies on the doors, little chrome bullets on the indicators and subtly modified side trims.

Adding to the period-friendly ’60s flavour are those funky colour-coded rear wheel spats and a set of Dodge Sunburst front runners. The bunny-buster sunroof was simply filled with dark perspex.

The XP’s interior is what Ben describes as “a bit of tradition and a bit of ’90s comfort”. A pair of rebolstered and shortened XC buckets are bolted up front and the standard rear bench was split in two to accommodate the long centre console that divides the cabin down the centre. The centre console itself is almost a work of art: timber wrapped in maroon vinyl, with glorious chromed steel and a unique front armrest that was once the front section of an XP bonnet!

Sheer performance is definitely not this ground hugger’s raison d’etre, so the wagon’s mechanical motivation remains close to stock with a minor workover. Modern cast slugs, 9.5:1 compression, a 350 Holley and a larger intake add a bit of spice to the old 250ci Crossflow six. The C4 three-speed auto and 2.92:1 diff are perfect cruising material. Lowest point of contact, quite literally, is a three-inch exhaust pipe that runs under the diff housing! “The exhaust actually holds the car up,” says Ben, only half-joking.

The XP wagon is a dream come true for Ben. He reckons it’s turned out exactly the way he pictured it when he first rescued it from its previous life as a chicken coop.

So the XP Falcon slammer is finally finished, right? “Well,” says Ben after a pause, “a chopped roof would finish it off… ”

Ben Rusmus
1965 XP FALCON WAGON