Hi All,

First off I'll introduce myself....

My names Adam, I live in West Auckland New Zealand and am currently onto my 4th and 5th Falcon.

Starting when I was 16 I purchases my first car, a 1995 EFII Fairmont wagon with a seized engine. After replacing the engine and other necessary parts I had a presentable EF wagon with all the Fairmont goodies. We nick named it the 'White Whale' Soon after that the modifications started.....

First up was a new exhaust as the original one fell off one night. I got the middle section replaced with new piping and put a straight through muffler in the middle and removed the rear resonator (thinking back now it was probably way too loud). Next went on a set of extractors and removed the cat (one of the benefits of being in NZ). Shortly after was a set of 17x8" ROH Addrenalines and a set of Goodyear Eagle F1's, lowering springs in the front and new shocks all round. I never lowered the back because I used it to tow car trailers quite regularly. Here's a couple of photos of before and after.

The White Whale:







After 2 years of good service I sold the white whale because I could see some rust issues starting to need addressing if I wanted to keep it long term and that (at the time) wasn't in my skill set so I decided to move it on before it was going to cost me money.

I was planning to take a break from Falcon's for a while and save some money (on fuel) since petrol had peaked at well over $2\L. Then browsing Trade Me one night I came across this manual EF Futura that looked liked a bargain. After a short test drive and some good bartering I was the proud owner of my first manual Falcon. She was no gem but for the price I wasn't going to complain... I don't have a photo of when I first got it but it was on super\ultra lows with black steel wheels. First on the list was to swap the springs out for some std Low springs and put my ROH wheels on it, the came a new mid section of exhaust with straight through muffler (this time keeping the rear resonator to keep the noise levels under control a bit).

Soon we had a set of Bilstein B6 shocks come into work in an EB XR8 with a HD front sway bar so in went those to fix up the handling along with a set of extrators. Then I bought an EL Fairmont Ghia for a parts car which had a mint 3.45:1 LSD diff and roof linning so I swapped them out for my noisy worn out single spinner along with some AU seats (also form work).





One of it's many towing duties



The EF then started to develop some oil leak issues and other minor things that needed attention along with getting hit in the LR quarter by someone so I put it on Trade Me and off it went to it's next owner.

I thought I'd start looking out for something a bit more modern and always being a fan of the BA but with XR6's out of my price range I looked at Fairmonts until this Blue Gem came along. We called her Blue Betty.

Betty was a 1 owner car jam packed with feature and with only 155,000kms on the clock for $4000 how could I go wrong! I hadn't her her 2 weeks and the mods started (again). First up she needed 4 new tyres and I scored a nice set of Xr wheels with good tyres so on they went. The followed with a low kms set of XR struts (again from work) and some tints. The exhaust also decided to give up on life along with the rattly catalytic converter so off they came with a cat delete and new middle muffler to give her some roar. After several thousonds kms towing (mostly other peoples cars) up and down the North Island we parted ways only for my next and (for me atleast) most exciting purchase ever to come...





After always loving the look of my bosses Blue EL XR6 I found another one owner Falcon on Trade Me, this time it was what I'd always wanted to own a Navy Blue EL XR6 with only 154,000kms on the clock and garaged it's whole life I knew this was the one so one cold, wintery Sunday night I flew with a friends of mine down to Wellington to pickup this Gem.

I've had the Xr6 for nearly two years and after getting it home with those hideous Avanti Chromies I swapped them out for the factory wheels which the old owner kindly put in the boot for me.

After a full service with new fluids all round including trans fluid and a new filter, new front wheel bearings, brakes, all Super pro front suspension bushes and new shocks it drives just like it should. To get the car looking it's best I enlisted the help of a friend who's a car painted to help me give it a full cut, polish and wax and a full shampoo of the already immaculate interior.

I've Replaced the stereo with a new Pioneer Bluetooth unit and Alpine Type R speakers all round powered by two amps along with a Rockford Fosgate 12" sub.

There wasn't much I wanted to change on this car and any modifications had to be tasteful as I didn't want to take too much away from the cars originality so next on the list was a set of extractors and an SS Inductions intake snorkle as the car has already had a sports exhaust system fitted by the previous owner as well as an AU Blue momo steering wheel and set of tints to help keep the interior cooler and protect the fabric.





Who's is who's?

When I thought my life was complete I stumbled upon a $1 reserve auction.... I think we all know how dangerous these can be.... It had 40 minutes to close and the AU XR8 in question was well within my budget so click, click, click away I went and after a nervous bidding war I'd won. It was bit of a risk, unseen only going off the dealers vague description. But I thought what the heck it's cheap enough I could always get my money back in parts if it's a lemon and who doesn't love the sounds of a v8 right?

Down the road we went soon after to collect what we've nick named 'XR8M8'

It drives really well for 230,000kms and nothing major mechanically seemed wrong until 2 days later it sprung a leak from 2 coolant hoses so of they came for a replacement along with a coolant flush, new overflow bottle to replace the ugly brown one, oil and filter change and set of HT leads of fix the miss it had developed.





It rides better than I thought with the king springs and 17" AU1 wheels. It also came with a few goodies... Better flowing intake manifold off a Mustang, Edelbrock throttle body, stainless steel extractors and full exhaust system with no cats along with an SS inductions intake snorkel. Fitted with the AU2 200kw engine, black leather, tinted windows, premium sound system and working Air con what more could I ask for out of my first V8!

After only 6 weeks of ownership I've already done a return 1000km trip to Napier to pickup a Hillman Avenger (don't ask) for a very 'special' friend of mine and had it down the 1\4 mile getting a best of 15.3 seconds with a 0.67 reaction time. Which seemed pretty in line with the advertised 1\4 mile times from its error. On my 6th run of the night I got down to a 0.15 reaction time but ran a 15.4, I think everything was very heat-soaked by that point.

With more to come for both Falcon's I will keep everyone updated.

Looks nice will need to keep up to date on the progress