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Sam is the proud owner of this gorgeous XW Falcon. Sam's a Ford nut from way back and he couldn't resist making some performance improvements to his Shelby XW Falcon. We asked Sam if he decided to go the Shelby theme over the more traditonal GT look and it came down to wanting to be different to all the other XW's that are rebuilt. "Every one does the GT look and I wanted my XW to be different so I went with the racing Shelby stripes". We think those Shelby racing stripes look pretty darn good too.

Sam's had this XW for eight years and has made a few go faster add-ons in that time, and from our cruise in Sam's Falcon we can agree to that.

This is a Ford 1969 XW Falcon painted in Toyota dark red. Some extras on the XW are the GT fuel cap, driving lights, and front spoiler all taken from the GT. Interior boasts an impressive sheet metal custom made dash fitted with a full set of all the essential Autometer gauges including the 5 1/2" shift light rev counter for those runs on the drag strip.

Interior has also been re-upholstered with full grey and black fabric trim, and a trusty fire extinguisher for those unexpected emergencies.

Sam's XW runs a 351 stroked to 377ci. Heads are ported and polished 2V's with hardened valve seats and roller rockers which now allows the engine to run on premium unleaded fuel. The camshaft comes from Crow Cams and sitting between the heads is a Funnel Web high rise manifold topped with a 750 Holley double pumper to keep the juices flowing, huge air cleaner poking through the hood and fuel is fired by an MSD ignition system. Exhaust is pumped via a set of extractors into dual 2 1/5" pipes ending with some cool looking shot gun pipes.

This engine is also the work of Harry from Big H Racing at Condell Park. Sam told us that Harry is such a top bloke and he does a great job and couldn't give Harry and the boys enough high praises for the work done on his XW which is good for around 500 horsepower.

Power is passed from the engine to a C4 auto running a 4000rpm stall converter and full manual valve body controlled with a B&M shifter, then moving the power back to a 9" diff running 4:11 gears. Rolling on a set of Centerline Convo Pros 15x3" front runners and some big 15x10" on the back which meant the diff needed to be shorted a few inches to get the clearance needed for that chunky rear rubber.

Sam's had his car out on the dragstrip at Eastern Creek for one meeting and 3 passes with time of 11.06 sec run. First time I had this on the track after the motor was built it ran an 11.6 second pass first run.", Sam said.

It's great to see such great cars still cruising our streets and we're looking forward to many more cars like Sam's ride in the future.