<\/span>Rad XP! Tell us a bit about it.<\/strong>I had wanted an XM or XP since I was 16 years old. A close family friend had one when I was growing up; he was like the brother I never had. I was 19 years old when I bought this as an all-original second-owner car. It was metallic silver-green with a beige interior, bucket seats, 221ci six and a column-shift auto. Thankfully the body was straight and fairly rust-free. But I\u2019d always planned to modify it.<\/p>\n
Ford nut Melissa Davis wanted a modern colour for her XP Fairmont, but it had to suit the classic look of the original hubcaps and whitewalls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":4386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[30,566,641,678,705,709,1100],"coauthors":[35],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ford-xp-falcon-melissa-davis-nw.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4385"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4385"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.streetmachine.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span>When did you start swinging the spanners on it?<\/strong>
After about a year my dad Neil and I rebuilt it. I really enjoyed the hours we spent in the shed together. He\u2019s a fairly well-respected auto-elec, so he would do work for people in exchange for something done on the car. Part of that included the re-spray in Blueprint blue.<\/p>\n
<\/span>How hands-on were you during the build?<\/strong>
I helped Dad with laying the carpet, bleeding the brakes, working on the chrome \u2013 all of that sort of thing. I planned it all, as I wanted a modern colour with a contrasting white interior but the classic look of the original hubcaps and whitewalls. And by adding an XM\/XL bench seat into a Fairmont, it\u2019s unique; it could well be one-of-a-kind. Once it was complete, Dad took it to the previous owner and showed him what we\u2019d done. He offered to buy it back from me for what I paid him. Ha!<\/p>\n
<\/span>What\u2019s it running now?<\/strong>
It\u2019s a stock 302ci Windsor \u2013 which was part of my 21st birthday present! I blew the auto so we replaced that with a C4 through the floor and added an eight-inch in the rear.<\/p>\n
<\/span>So is the whole family a pack of revheads?<\/strong>
My pa had a hot rod when Dad was growing up, so Dad\u2019s always been into cars \u2013 he currently crews on Norm Hardinge\u2019s salt car, and has a Model A roadster and another project underway. Mum has a \u201965 Mustang as a daily driver and my sister has an XR and was also an SM<\/em> Iron Maiden. For me it\u2019s a way of life \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way. I\u2019ll have the XP until I die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"