G
ARY Taylor is one of those car lovers who was born into
it. “When I was born, I came home from the hospital in
an XR Fairmont, and Mum used to drop me off at school
in an XC Cobra,” he says. “We had a couple of Holdens,
but Mum was always a Ford person, and Dad was a panel
beater and spray painter who was into any car that had
petrol in it.”
Given his background, it seems pretty easy to understand why
Gary would build this tidy XP as a weekender, right? “I don’t really
like XPs, but ironically I’ve had three of them!” he laughs.
For someone who doesn’t like XPs, he sure knows how to build
a pretty striking example of the breed. This marvellous machine
looks mean from any angle, while at the same time exhibiting a
subtlety rarely seen among built 60s muscle cars. The colour
scheme is so simple and effective that you’ll be hard pressed to
find anything on it that isn’t silver or black.
“I saw it at a car show and I said to my wife: ‘If I ever win the lotto
I’m going to buy that,’” Gary says. “A few years later I found out it
was for sale, so I snapped it up. It looked pretty sad because it
had been sitting in a carport for a couple of years. I just wanted
something finished so I could cruise to shows in it, but I had
dramas with it from day one. I started fixing little things and it
snowballed out of control.” Doesn’t that sound familiar!
The first major job on Gary’s mile-long list was to give the noisy
BorgWarner diff the flick in favour of a nine-inch with 3.5:1 gears
and a mini-spool. After that, it was time to address the XP’s
most serious fault: a predilection for overheating and munching
gaskets. “It had a small under-bonnet blower on it and it broke
down every second weekend,” Gary says. “I couldn’t even get
to the end of the street and it would be starting to cook!” The
blower was ditched for the sake of reliability, and Gary bolted on
that righteous Weiand tunnel ram in its place.
Underneath the ram sits the relatively stock 302ci Windsor
crate motor the XP came with, though Gary gave it a freshen-up
and added some goodies here and there to improve its attitude.
The Comp Cams stick hidden in the valley controls the valves in
a pair of Edelbrock E-Street heads, and dinosaurs burned by the
ICE ignition system exit out the back via Castle Headers pipes.
The twin Holley 390 carbs may seem a little on the small side, but
they help make the little 302 a responsive and driveable engine
that excels on the street.
Gary doesn’t take credit for the paint and bodywork. “The car
was originally built by a bloke in Queensland, and from what I can
tell he did all the body mods, mini-tubs, panel and paint,” he says.
“I did try to roll the rear guards myself to fit bigger rims, and quickly
discovered that I’m only a window tinter and not a panel beater!”
Instead, Brad at Cessnock Paint & Panel repaired and repainted
the rear guards, and did a masterful job of blending the SilverGT608