E
VER met someone who embarked on a ‘quick tidy-up’
of a car and managed to keep a lid on it? Someone
who managed to stay on brief, on schedule and on
budget, and avoid having the entire build change
scope almost of its own accord before their very eyes?
Nah, we haven’t either.
It’s something Sydney bloke Paul Xuereb certainly
struggled with. In 2010, Paul finally managed to negotiate
the purchase of this XM sedan after hassling the previous
owner for yonks. He had the most modest of initial intentions,
and even left it completely stock for the first two years. When
he eventually did crack out the spanners, it was only so he
could replace the car’s tired old six-pot with a mild Windsor,
before resuming regular cruising. But we all know what they
say about the best laid plans.
“I was only going to do a quick drivetrain conversion before
my son was born in 2013, but on closer inspection I found
the usual rust and that other repairs were needed,” Paul says.
“The firewall looked like Swiss cheese, with a thousand holes
from previous owners who’d added unnecessary accessories.”Paul works an office job from nine to five, but that didn’t
stop him carrying out the bulk of the dirty work himself. “I’d
helped my cousin Dave with his Cortina prior to doing the
Falcon, so I learnt a lot from that. I’m self-taught with all the
fab and bodywork, and I just asked a lot of questions, did
some research online and learned how to do it along the
way,” he says. “I figured I’d get in there and give it a go. At
the end of the day it’s only a bit of steel; if you stuff it up you
can always cut it out and go again.”
There was a fair bit of it to get through too, with the
front floorpans, front guards and front passenger door all
replaced on account of rust. After originally planning to fit
the biggest tyres he could within the standard wheel tubs,
Paul ended up buckling under peer pressure from his mates
and mini-tubbing the car, tackling the whole job himself in
the shed.
“The mini-tubs were a big job; I moved the springs inboard
of the rails, so I got the engineer’s advice on what to do
there,” he says. “I measured it all up, tacked everything in
place, then got the engineer to check it out before I fullyI FIGURED I’D GET IN THERE AND GIVE IT A GO. AT THE
END OF THE DAY IT’S ONLY A BIT OF STEEL; IF YOU STUFF
IT UP YOU CAN ALWAYS CUT IT OUT AND GO AGAIN