Claytopia's XB GT Coupe restoration

[Claytopia]

Hi All

A little while ago I started to get a bit more active on Ford Forums, I mentioned that I was restoring an XB GT Hardtop and a few members asked me to start a thread, well here it is…

The history.

The year was 1968 and my father has just seen this cute blonde… sorry that’s too far back, Ok the year was 1997 and I was on the hunt for a nice tidy falcon hardtop to waste my time, money and youth on.

Most of the cars I had seen were, to put it nicely, utter pigs’ ploppies. I even drove 2 hrs to go and see one the owner had said was almost perfect body wise with a sweet 250 six in it. It had actually rusted through the floor pan both sides at the front and if you closed the drivers door too hard the whole back quarter flexed and showered rust everywhere. Oh and that sweet six took 5 minutes to start, blew smoke into the cab and wouldn’t rev past 3k. I left less than impressed.

Well at the time there was this bloke selling his XB GT for 11K, I didn’t have 11k but it was by far the best car I had seen out of the 30 over the last 9 months so I offered 9k but he never got back to me. I went away glum but my father being the champ he is rang the bloke and must have said some mighty pretty words because they settled on a price of $8500, which was great seeing as it was in the budget and he had also put his price up to 12k.

And so the deal was struck. At first the car was registered in my mums name due to me having lost my licence only a short time before and for me to get insurance was either the funniest thing that the insurance companies had heard or they wanted 4k a year to insure it for 5k a year. Under Mums name it was $300 for the full $8500 and so in 1997 my Mum bought her first car, a 1976 XB GT Hardtop.

Now the plan had always been to build up a Mad Max tribute style of car but after finding out I had just bought a one of a kind GT, yes that’s right it’s a one of a kind; you see only 3 Hardtops from factory were painted in Antique beige and this was the only one with a parchment interior (it was black when I bought the car). From factory it had air con and power steering and was automatic. When I bought it air con and power steering had been removed and it had a top loader.

So while it looked nothing like it had from factory when I bought it I knew back then that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do right by the car.

And so after a house, a reliable car for me, an engagement ring, another house, a wedding, a honeymoon, several OS holidays, two kids and a new car for the family, I was told by the much-better-half, “pull your finger out and start on your car”. (Yeah she’s great and smoking hot too and no you can’t clone her). So I built a small 7.5 x 12m shed and started to strip the car ready for a full bare metal rotisserie restoration.
And after all that dribble, here are the before pics.

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And so come with me if you will on a restoration that will last longer and cost far far more than I ever intended, Oh and honey if your reading this everything has come in under budget and I just love it when you mother stays with us.

Cheers
Clayton