If you’ve ever been to the Bright Rod Run (and you damn well should’ve), odds are you’ve seen Joel Beatson lapping in an early Falcon. He’s a native of the gorgeous Victorian town, and his business, JRB Automotive & Offroad, sponsors the iconic weekend every year.

First published in the July 2024 issue of Street Machine

“I’ve always had a car to cruise around in: a couple of other old XPs and XLs,” Joel says. It was one of those cars that set him on the path to the Kurrajong Green XP sedan delivery you see here – though it’s well beyond anything he’s done previously.

“In 2014 or 2015, I had an XP Fairmont I’d bought from a mate that had hit a deer,” Joel says. “I needed some panels, and a guy had them at a swap meet. He asked, ‘You don’t want to buy a delivery, do ya?’ I said, ‘Fark, you’re kidding me! I’ve been looking for one for years.’ I’ve always loved them, but you can never find them – they’re always chopped up, flattened or crushed. He was moving overseas, and we did the deal; he’d already started what he was going to do with it.”

Joel shared a fair chunk of that bloke’s vision for the car, so Shane and his team at Bright Smash Repairs didn’t have the toughest of jobs. Even so, finding straight and dry panels turned into a slog. “We only had half a tailgate, so we made the other half from three others I found,” Joel says. “I’ve got an endless amount of spare panels now! They’d be full of rust inside, or the aftermarket skins would shrink and the winder mechanism wouldn’t work, but we got there in the end. There aren’t lots of people around that you can ring to ask how they work.”

The sedan delivery (no, Ford didn’t call these panel vans) is by far the rarest early Falcon body style, and it’s even rarer to see one built with big power. “There’s a couple with V8s and things like that, but I just wanted something a bit different,” Joel says. “It was just going to be a basic 302, but one thing led to another.” One of Joel’s mates had great things to say about Adam and the team at Bendigo’s Advanced Engine Dynamics, so they got the call-up to build a beefy, aspirated tall-deck Windsor.

Starting with a Dart Iron Eagle block, Adam hooked a set of CP Bullet pistons to a Scat 4340 crank via Scat rods for a 363ci capacity. Higher up, Ferrea valves in CNC-ported DRP alloy heads take orders from a custom-specced Crow roller cam, while an Edelbrock Victor Jr manifold and APD 850cfm carb distribute servo 98 or E85 from an Aeromotive pump.

The ProCharger D-1SC is the newest addition, appearing after some extra real estate was opened up in the bay. “It had power steering with a nice eight-rib belt, but it kept spitting belts at big revs and hitting the radiator,” Joel explains. “I cracked the shits and put an electric Astra pump under the guard, and never looked back! Then I looked at the engine bay and saw the big open area and thought, ‘I reckon a ProCharger will fit.’ I did some measurements, ordered it from RaceMAX, and off we went.”

Joel says the end result will net around 850hp, though he can’t give it the full bickies until Adam swaps out the pistons for a lower-compression set. The rear of the chassis is tied together with extra bracing to survive the twist, with Rod Shop lower reinforcement and an RRS strut brace kit up front. Between the removable braces and RRS shock tower notch kit, everything is reasonably accessible, though clearance to the inner guards couldn’t be much tighter. “It just clears a bit of paper, so when we pull the engine out, we’ll massage it a little bit,” Joel laughs. “It’s a piece of piss once you’ve taken it apart once, and it’s all under the bonnet – that’s the main thing!”

A Dominator 4000rpm converter and transbraked Powerglide by ATS Automatics send power to the 35-spline nine-inch, which holds a locker and snappy 4.11 gears.

Joel looked to Weld Wheels for a pair of rear hoops suited to the XP’s factory tubs, but found that the company didn’t offer anything big enough to clear the 330mm Hoppers Stoppers discs. “I emailed Weld in America, and they said they can customise this range to whatever we want,” he says. “The S76 is similar to the front wheels, and they had them here in about six weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, it cost me a ridiculous amount of money – about $4K a wheel with taxes and freight!” The 17s wear 245 rubber, and though 15s would’ve been Joel’s preference, the car still hangs low and everything looks proportionate. “I almost wish I hadn’t gone as big on the brakes, but with the way it stops, I can’t complain,” he says.

Factory stuff abounds inside, with one major departure: the sedan delivery now seats six. While they were only offered with a single bench from new, Joel says there was “bugger-all” involved in making the back seat fit. “They’re the same floorpan as a wagon,” he points out. “I got a wagon seat, put in some holes and brackets for the engineer, and he was happy!

A little bit of work went into the quarters, with bracing for seatbelts, but it wasn’t extremely difficult.” Split-fold XP coupe seats replace the original front bench. “It gets pretty warm back there with no windows,” Joel says. “The kids whinge a bit, but that’s all right! Just cruising around is fine with air flow.” The fuel tank was replaced with a hidden cell and cradle to make everything fit; the filler is accessible through a sealed, lockable trap door.

Everything came together late last year, just in time for a Bright Rod Run 2023 deadline. “One of my good mates has the panel shop, so it sat there for a bit, but I couldn’t bust his chops too much,” Joel laughs. “When it came to the crunch, we hooked in and got it done.”

If the all-motor XP is anything to go by, the force-fed version will be a beast once the pistons are knocked in. “I had a lot of fun with it before the ProCharger, so I know it drives grouse,” Joel says. “It’s a bit of a handful!” In a car that originally weighed not much more than 1200kg, we reckon that’s a fair way to put it.

JOEL BEATSON
1965 FORD XP FALCON SEDAN DELIVERY

THANKS
My wife and daughters; Shane and the boys at Bright Smash Repairs; Murray at MC Motor & Marine Trimming; Advanced Engine Dynamics; ATS Automatics; McDonald Brothers; Hoppers Stoppers; Loud Pedal Vehicle Engineering; Romsey Automotive Electrical; Exhaust Fix Lilydale; 74works; Shaun’s Custom Alloy; Wangaratta Brake, Clutch & Automotive; my staff at JRB Automotive for putting up with me always working on it.