Blogtime

Hi,

It's about time to start writing a separate blog rather than spamming my Facebook friends feed with project updates.

This blog is about the Finnish Falcon - the only Ford Falcon XA GT Hardtop in Finland. The car that was made in Australia in 1973 as one of the 893 XA GT Hardtops, exported to UK as started it's miles as a company car owned by Evertons Coaches Ltd, Chapel Bridge, Droitwich, UK. After several owners and two color changes the car was offered to me as I had sent a wanted-ad to Custom Car UK magazine. It was November 1999 me and Mika flew over to the UK and took the most frightening coach ride to from Heathrow to Cheltenham we have ever had. There we met Les who had the car at his backyard as the current owner had moved to Canada and left the car to be sold.

One of the printed photos that was sent to me prior our trip to UK - I was already sold.

From there Les offered us a trailer ride to the Felixstowe port from where the car was shipped to Helsinki, Finland. We left the car there and flew back to Finland for the ship to arrive.

Unfortunately the driver's door was bent over it's hinges during the shipping. The automatic transmission was changed recently and the floor shifter boot wasn't attached to the body frame at all. That made it possible to have the shifter display at P while the actual selected gear position was R. The driver's door was wide open at the moment the stevedore started the engine. Luckily it was only a tractor tire which the door hit as the car jumped backwards and no personal injuries occurred. The door was bent but the damage was still  repairable. We quickly fixed the door, gave it some fresh mat black paint from a spray can and the car served as our wedding car in July 2000.

After that there was 15 years while I was just too busy with my other project cars, my loved family or building a house. The car was randomly driven but most of the time it have just sat in a garage. Of couse I have done something with it. Headwork for the engine which appeared to be the numbers match one. Suspension work, renewing the joints and bushings and wheel hubs and bearings etc. Now it's about time to start with the sheetmetal.