After getting rid of my previous unfinished project (a 1962 Humber) I was unsure of what I really wanted, I was leaning towards something in the essence of a 1950 Ford Single Spinner, when this came up at a reasonable price. And with the 'Spinner still far out of reach in the cash department I figured I'd buy this, rat it out, rego' it and use it daily for the time being... When I brought it home. ... One rainy Sunday afternoon, after the Falcon was already in its finishing stages of paint, I sat in the garage looking over the car contemplating my plan of metalflake gold over the almost completed satin black, feeling a little less than motivated I threw on the Fuel Tank Annual dvd I hadn't yet watched and came across the story of the build of El Dorado's car club member Kyle DeKuijer's XL Falcon Squire wagon (viewable here - The Squire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwC0PWLf4-8) ). Which is what inspired me decide the Falcon deserves better than a sh*tty black paint job and a rush to rego' build... The grille in this photo is off of an XK Falcon, although I do have a complete XL front grille/headlight surround set-up to go on. How it currently sits. One my brother took of me whilst I was teaching him to use my camera. Paint & body; The new plan for paint will be a high gloss off-white for the entire body of the car, as for the exact colour I am currently undecided. The roof will be VL Calais White Gold with mixed in metal flake and there will also be scallops in the same colour stretching the length of the sides although I'll be working with the factory body moulding, (once I tape the car up, I'll use photos to explain moreso what I mean). All the badges and trim will be shaved, rear spats will be also added, the body itself with the exception of paint will mostly just be a resto job with very mild custom details. Interior; The dash and all the metal areas will be red which was an original factory option, with front and rear bench in red and white vinyl. Engine/ Driveline; The currently non-running 170ci will be replaced with a 250ci out of an XW or XY backed by a 4 speed. Wheels/ Tyres; The current 4 stud set-up may remain unless I find a cheap 5 stud set-up. With the four stud set-up the 13's that are on the car at the moment will be replaced with 14's, however if I go the five-stud option I will be running 15" steelies. The rims will remain black with the factory centre caps, and tyres will be wide-whites. 2.5 or 3" lowering blocks will drop the rear nicely. That's really all for now, I'll try to keep this thread up to date for those interested, I know setting a time limit is never a good idea but I have high intentions of finishing this as a car for myself and my son (who will be 3 y.o by my finish date) to go cruising in and so I hope to have it done by Christmas 2015. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

here are some photos of my (slow) progress but progress nonetheless... This is how it's sitting at the moment. The photo of the bay below was taken the day after I got it home. I've since stripped the engine down to what you see below, it just needs to be unbolted from the trans' and the mounts and it's ready to come out. I'll have to wait until I can get it around to my Dad's place as he has a winch attached to the garage beam which will make hoisting it out easy. The 170 I'll most likely rebuild, and put it in something small down the track. I had a spare rear door laying around, and so I cut a piece out of it to weld in and repair this section in the drivers door. This is the lower rear corner of the drivers door, it's dinted and has weird cuts in it that were bogged up? Doesn't look like it was caused by rust (although it has rusted and split along the bottom seam). I'll have to cut and weld in a new piece for this too. This is the inside of the inner tailgate skin (it's upside down). It's not too bad, somebody at some point has attempted to weld it back together (badly). And what's left of the window channel from inside the tailgate... I marked out all the areas of floor that need replacing, luckily it's only the drivers side that's rusted. I'll be getting new floor pans from 'Old Skool Falcon' shortly and just make sections out of sheetmetal for what the floor pans won't cover. And finally, yesterday I found this little surprise, not a hard fix but still a pain in the arse. There's some small cracking on the right side too above the tailight area, so I'm going to take that back to metal maybe tomorrow and see what's hiding under there, feels straight from the inside so hopefully it isn't as bad.. Some original photos have not been recovered yet.

So I was trying not to work on it for the moment but Melbourne's received some much needed sun in the last couple of days, and with that I decided to push the wagon out and clean up the garage. That clean up led to me finding a pile of wet & dry sandpaper which I didn't know I had, one thing led to another and I've begun wet rubbing the car back. The right hand guard was taken back to metal a little while back, whilst pondering taking the whole car back to metal. I'm only taking the areas back to metal that have to be so they can be properly repaired. I haven't got alot of the wet-rubbing done, mostly just around half of the left hand side, including the roof, but it's a start. Since I hadn't had it out of the garage in a while, out came the camera... Some original photos have not been recovered yet.