FORD’s XR-XY Falcon sedan is one of the most instantly recognisable and revered body shapes in Australian motoring history. A two-door coupe version was never offered on our shores, but the family resemblance between our XR sedan and its American cousin, the ’66 Ford Falcon Sports Coupe, is immediately obvious.

Nick Labara had a fond appreciation for Aussie Falcon sedans, but a US-sourced Sports Coupe was the holy grail for him. After a long search he came across quite a neat 289-powered, left-hand-drive example, and made it his. A trip to the drags heralded 12-second timeslips, which Nick reckoned was pretty lacklustre.

A subsequent rebuild – and a less-than-stellar paintjob – saw Nick take the car to Sydney’s Exclusive Customs to have them give his XR the quality finish he was looking for. On went a custom-mixed ‘Dannick Blue’ paintjob, along with XR GT stripes in contrasting orange. With the recently completed car on display at the Hot Rod & Custom Auto Expo at Rosehill Racecourse, it was easy to see why Nick is so happy with the job.

The car has also been converted to right-hand drive for added Aussie flavour and features a Feneck’s Race Engines-built 427ci Windsor, with a transbrake-equipped C4 replacing the old Top Loader manual ’box. Nick went for an old-school pro street theme, and 15×10-inch Weld Drag Lites under the bum wearing 15.5×29-inch Mickey Thompson hoops really help nail the look.

Nick’s planning to head to the track in the coming weeks, and hopes to run into the 10s on the motor. From there he’ll plumb the car up with nitrous, with a view to spraying it into the nines.

We look forward to bringing you a full feature on the car in a future issue of Street Machine.