At Seagulls Rugby League Football Club...heard there was a car show on so got the cover off the Stage 1 Buick and went over her with some detail spray and a microfibre cloth, cleaned windows, checked tyre pressures and oil and off we went. I filled the tank a few weeks ago just before the price went up again, at the airport servo which is the cheapest Premium unleaded (no avgas unfortunately) Parked the black beast, had a look around, my mates Justine and Rod arrived in Justines '67 Stang, We had lunch in the club using the $10 discount from our car entry tickets so a pizza worked out at $5 Got a tour upstairs at the Memphis Rock radio station, from Steve a long time personal friend of Rods. After lunch someone handed me a paper saying I'd won a trophy for the Buick and to drive past the stage at 2pm to collect my trophy!.... I started the healthy 455 Buick mill and let her warm up. Now contrary to what you'd think with a theme like Smoke It, there was no burnouts allowed, and I never smelled any weed neither. No there was a large smoker set up for smoking meat. So I did behave myself which is a shame as a big block Buick can certainly smoke up the bags! I invited Justine, Rodney, and their daughter to ride in the Buick to the trophy presentation, the girls in the back and us boys up front. We sat there at the front of the line waiting to be called to drive through. Pulled up next to the stage to collect our trophy. A bottle of Show Winners Red wine in a nice wooden display case! Surprise! Now as some of you know ,I don't drink alcohol, haven't for 24 years so we did a little photoshoot and had a good laugh. I tried to give Justine the Red as it was her prompting that got me and the car there. She wouldn't take it though, said it was my trophy.... Hmmmmm, what to do with it???... Remembered our club the Gold Coast Muscle Car Assn. have now got a clubhouse at Ashmore and part of that is a trophy wall, so I msg the Pres and suggested my Trophy Red go on the trophy wall. He thought that a great idea. Oh..some pix?....ok
Some of you will notice my V8 Buick forum T-shirt, thought it a good time to take it down off the wall and fly the flag. By carefully removing the tag and wearing it backwards (nobody knows) I can wear it with pride!
The shirts washed and back on the wall, well on my speaker actually. A few weeks ago I bought at auction a Ford Falcon XB Panel Van, yes same model as the Mad Max Falcon, but in a panel van, or Shaggin Wagon as we call em Down Under! Might as well throw a few pix of it up while I'm in here, even though it is a blue oval I'm sure it'll have some cred with the motorheads here. Yeah it's only a 200 cube six and hadn't been started in over a decade, but when I got it trucked home I added gasoline to the dry tank and threw in a good battery and a bit of cranking and some juice down the carby as well as a spray of 'Start ya Bastard!' (ether) It roared into life... Well a choppy 5 cylinder roar anyway. Pulled the plugs after getting some temp into it then ran a comp test Only 80 psi on No 2 160-170 on the rest, so dosed her up with good ol' Aussie Eucalyptus Oil down the hole in No 2 and let sit for 30 hours....then fresh plugs. And she was back on six again!!! Comp test showed 160 on 2 so was just stuck rings, that Eucalyptus Oil is Wonderful stuff Pulled out the factory buckets and gave em to my trimmer to work his magic on, ripped out the carpet remnants to find mostly factory green paint on the floor, just one bit of rust below the throttle pedal which I cut out and migged a patch into....see pic I saw on another auction a Borg Warner single rail 4 speed out of an '82 XD Falcon , as the van only had 3 on the tree(column shift) I bidded and won. Pulled the 3 speed and tried to bung the 4 speed in but she wouldn't go,!!! A closer look revealed a thicker spline on the BW 4Speed input shaft, so I've ordered the correct clutch kit and taken the 3 speed bellhousing to my local engineer to modify to suit, needs one bolt hole drilled and tapped, the other 3 line up same, and the centre hole milled out to 122mm to take the bigger snout of the 4 speed. Why 4 speed you ask? Well it's got factory bucket seats and a centre console as well as GS dash and GS steering wheel, I think it's a delete stripe option GS Panel Van actually, I'll get a verification letter off Ford Australia next month when their computer system is back up.... So yeah the 4 speed is the go I reckon, more $$$ and work but what the hell it's only money and time and I'm sure the van is worth it....it's super straight and very minimal rust, I was amazed when going over it in the auction yard at just how good the body is. Oh sure it's got the crow's feet surface rust under the paint that that era Ford seemed to get, it's on tops of front fenders and all over the hood, on the back barn doors and a bit on the roof but that's what they call patina these days and they're only Original once.
Dang it, I was going to say two thumbs up. Great story and awesome pictures. Glad you had a great time and thank you for sharing.
Thanks everyone!!! The pleasure is all mine! The joy of driving a Stage 1 that still drives and smells like new! and I've run 13.78@99mph at the Nostalgia Drags in her just to prove she can do it. With the way the world's going down the chute I'm seriously considering putting her through the August auction at 782 Motors, they do very high end cars and get good dollars for em too. I reckon a Triple Black Stage 1 with all the options this one has, well it's gotta be pretty rare! An auto with the handling options, Power discs, Air, Steer, bench seat tilt column shifter, and all the rest of the goodies, Engine rebuilt to 70 spec heads and cam with forged slugs and proper headers. I've had 10" bands fitted to the rear wheels with 295 rubber and she still has the original spare never been on the car. That, the headers, and steering wheel are the only departure from stock. The odometer just slipped over 100,000 miles and I've got full history from day one plus 3 photo albums of the body off chassis refresh. Funny thing is though. Most Aussies wouldn't know what it is.... Very rare beast Down Under. Rare beast anywhere is my guess.
