1968 Ford 1968 XT Fairmont

The late ‘60s and early ‘70s were pretty cool years for the Australian motoring enthusiasts. In 1967, Ford introduced the high-performance version of its XR Falcon – the GT – and what followed was a purple patch for the nation’s automotive industry. The ensuing five years would see the emergence of a series of absolutely cracking homegrown muscle cars – including Ford’s GTHO series, Holden’s Monaro and Torana, and Chrysler’s Valiant Charger – and the manufacturers were able to churn out a record-setting 475,000 units in 1970.
It was a glorious time.

In 1968, Ford introduced the XT model Falcon – a revised version of the 1966 XR which was the first of the second-generation Falcons. The model was produced for only one year with some 80,000 XTs built, of all variants, during that period.  Prices were in the $3000 range back then, but these days, with the model nearing its 50-year birthday, they can sell for a good deal more than that, especially ones in tip-top condition.

And they don’t come in much better condition than Duane Theaker’s 1968 Fairmont model. For a start, the V8-powered 302ci Ford classic has done just 23,000 miles. For a car knocking on the door of its golden anniversary, that is a remarkably low figure and is one reason that Duane, who owns XXXplicit Refinishing in Townsville, snapped the car up at the first opportunity.

“It was owned by a Townsville local who hardly drove it,” says Duane. “He was only the second owner and he brought it up from Melbourne. He drove it to and from Melbourne one more time and then, so the story goes, all the driving it ever did was when his missus would drive it to the shops once a month! That’s why it has only 23,000 miles on it and is why it was in such clean condition when I got it.”

While in terrific condition for a car of its age, the XT did still need some work and Duane and his team at XXXplicit worked in their spare time, over a period of six months, to restore the car to as close to factory condition as they could.

“One of the guards had been repaired once before and had blistering paint on it,” says Duane.

“If we had just painted that area it would have looked out of place so I did a bare metal respray on it and used the original factory colour for the respray.

“I put brand new bushes in it from one end to the other, although that was just me being fussy because the ones that were on there weren’t in that bad condition. I sandblasted the steering components, put two-pack black on them to seal them up properly and make them look nicer and did some work on the gearbox.

“I’ve put original wheels on it, the original headers and original exhaust. I’ve tried to keep it as original as possible. The exception to that has been the interior which had to be different because I couldn’t get the original interior colour. We had to change the front seats because at some point in the past they had been swapped for XD seats – I suppose to make it a bit more comfortable. I had to get another set but couldn’t get the material colour. So, we went all black on the interior but with the correct design.”

Duane, who established XXXplicit eight years ago but has been in the paint and panel industry for more than 20 years, has a habit of going beyond the norm when ‘restoring’ his cars. He has a reputation for doing exceptional custom paintwork and has one VK Commodore into which he has dropped a fuel-injected VS Maloo 5-litre engine; another VK which is now powered by a 6-litre monster from a VE and which will soon have a turbo set-up added to it; and also owns a 700hp supercharged HSV Clubsport – a beast of a thing that will be frightening the life out of onlookers at this weekend’s Powercruise meeting in Brisbane.

Controlling his instinct to upgrade the XT, both in appearance and mechanics, in the same fashion, was not easy.

“I can get carried away,” Duane says with a laugh.

“And it took some willpower not to do it – it wasn’t easy!

We do restoration work and all sorts of custom paint work – special effects, harlequin and so on – and I enjoy doing them and get a buzz out of it. But I always intended to get the XT back to as original a condition as I could.”

With the XT now finished, the question becomes what is Duane going to do with it? As a classic car, fully restored, as close to original as can be and with extraordinarily low mileage, it’s unlikely to be his daily driver.

“I enjoy driving it but I don’t want to put too many miles on it,” he says. “It’s worth a bit and I want to keep it that way – it is an investment. So, I take it out on a weekend for a bit of a drive but nothing too out of control. And it is fun to take out. People come straight up to me to talk about it – specially the old fellas who will reminisce about the old days when they used to have one and so on. That’s a lot of fun.”

With the XT project now complete and the car to be treated with kid gloves and used sparingly, Duane is moving on to another restoration project – an XY Falcon.

How that one will turn out will, we guess, depend on whether Duane runs with his instinct to upgrade or not. But whatever he does, one thing is for sure, it will look the business!