L
OTS of cruising. Those three words will
bring a grin to the face of just about anyone
who loves cars, and for Canberran Steve
Santos, they represent a reward for
building this frosty silver XY Falcon in an
almost unbelievable nine months.
“Yeah, she was hectic,” Steve says of the
experience. “Finding the drive to go work on the
car every single night for nine months was the
hardest part of the build. We’d knock off work
[Steve is a builder] at 4.45pm and then work on
the car until 10 or 11 at night.”
The XY was bought in Newcastle, five
hours’ tow north of Canberra. “It looked pretty
good,” Steve says, “but when it came back
from the blaster it looked pretty average. We
contemplated chasing another shell but decided
the effort involved would be better spent to fix
the one we had.”
The plan was always to build the car the way it
sits now. It needed to be that way to fit the nine-
month gestation, and there was little time – or
temptation – to stray from the picture in Steve’s
imagination. The body mods and mechanical
package were planned together, as plenty of
tweaks would be needed under the skin of this
Falcon to allow it to accept Steve’s intended
driveline: A retrotech fuel-injected V8 driveline
from a BA Falcon XR8, a suspension system
set up for street driving without being over-the-
top, and those enormous 22-inch wheels – all
wrapped in the XY Falcon’s classic bluff styling
layered in a frosty silver.
After purchasing the XY, Steve bought awritten-off BA Falcon XR8. “It was for sale
about 40 metres from where we were going to
build the car!” he laughs. “I bought it the same
weekend. Even though it was a write-off, the
damage being at the rear meant I was able to
drive it.”
Steve had two staunch allies in the build of
the XY. His mate Roberto ‘Tito’ Contreras, a
panel beater by trade, was there every step of
the way, while all the work happened in a bay at
Kelley Body Works, the shop of another mate,
Greg Stevenson.
“We sat the two cars under the same roof,
stripped everything we thought we’d need and
got rid of the remainder.” Of course that included
the engine and gearbox (with 120km on the
odo), but Steve also had plans for the XR8’s
front seats and plenty of other parts too, such
as the wiring.
The silver that Steve chose for the Falcon
has a story behind it. “Years ago I had an XR8
ute that I made a custom tray for and added
VZ Commodore guard flutes to. It was at my
mate’s panel shop and he asked: ‘What colour
are we gonna paint it?’ I thought we were just
going to blend in the modifications, but he said:
‘Choose a colour!’ Since then all my stuff has
been silver: another ute, a work van, the VL
Commodore, a Harley, my work trailers, the
work truck. All silver!”
The black stripes, inspired by a later-model
GS, were applied because the finished car was
very silver indeed. “It needed something to break
things up,” Steve admits. “And I didn’t want toFINDING THE DRIVE TO WORK ON THE CAR
EVERY SINGLE NIGHT FOR NINE MONTHS
WAS THE HARDEST PART OF THE BUILD
REAR
Most Ford fans will know about the
XE-AU-series sedans’ Watt’s link
rear suspension that keeps the
beam rear axle located sideways
in the chassis. The RRS rear
suspension conversion uses a
kinda-similar Mumford-link system
that results in better roll-centre
control. If you’re bamboozled by
that, knowing there’s a tough-as-
nails, old-school, 31-spline 3.5:1
9in axle swinging from it might
make you feel better! Yes, it’s mini-
tubbed, too