Spotted at the Old Beach car show in Hobart, was this absolutely gorgeous Ford Falcon XW GT…representing the height of the muscle car era in Australia, the XW and its successor the XY were potent machines in a 4 door package that you could take the kids to school in…
Fitted with the glorious 351 cubic inch V8 engine and the legendary Top Loader 4 speed manual transmission matched with the equally legendary 9" differential unit this car was a real bruiser in its day.
These vehicles have achieved iconic status in Australian folklore driven by the fame of the top model in the range, the GTHO which took Ford Australia to victory in the Bathurst race which was (and still is) the signature event in Australian motorsport.
Values of the GTHO reached stratospheric levels in the recent muscle car boom, with examples of the XY Phase 3, the ultimate variant of the breed, fetching upwards of $700,000 and ordinary XW GT models fetching over $200,000…unthinkable prices for a Falcon not too many years previously!

This photograph shows the cartoon character of “Super Roo” which was a feature on the GT models and has become synonymous with them.
It featured large on the XW models but with the light facelift to the XY poor old Super Roo was relegated to a much smaller size in the redesigned stripe layout.

I took this photograph on my favourite camera, my 1954 Rolleicord V twin lens reflex which shoots 6×6 centimeter negatives on 120 medium format film.
The Schneider Xenotar lens on this camera is quite capable of stunning results in black and white or colour even now and is a firm favourite of mine!
Shot on Fuji Superia 100 colour negative film, processed by Perfect Prints in Hobart, and scanned on a Kodak Professional PCD 4050 film scanner.
Adjustments, spotting and cropping was done in Photoshop 7.0