Well, my ‘story’ is an interesting one. But straight up, I should let you all know that I was always a GM man. Even since my firstvdriving experience, I wanted to get my behind into a Holden.
i eventually did, back in the 70’s-80’s. It was a show stopping HR Premier, which I had built from ground up to be a showcar in that period. All that aside, so how did I fall in love with a Ford. Well, I’ve always ‘liked’ them, and have had a desire and fineness for an early Ford Falcon or a Galaxie .
But back to the FG-X XR8 in question. I was driving past City Ford and noticed one of the new (at the time) Victory Gold FG-X’s up on display on an elevated display. Seeing that, I spun around, drove back and checked the car out. It was a beautiful example of the XR8 6 speed manual model.
I found it it very interesting and then decided to look into the model’s history. I tried to raise funds to,purchase the gold unit, but by the time I had them, the car in question had been sold. Feeling disappointed, I set about searching the various dealers nation wide for a super low Klm FG-X XR8 6 speed manual. Which were/are very hard to find at the time. Over the space of 4 weeks, I only found 10 cars that fitted that precise set of requirements.
When I was just about to arrive at the bank to organise payment and then transport of a Black unit in Wagga. As I was driving to the bank, I got a notice from my ‘wish list’ on CarSales that there was a ‘very’ very low Klm demo just placed on the market just a few kilometres away, on the way to the bank.
Naturally I turned back to Rockdale, and found the car sitting in the driveway and it had literally just been rolled off the transporter. I ended up meeting a lovely salesman, and after discussions, and the twisting of an arm or two, ie the managers arm, I swung a deal that suited me perfectly. It was to be the managers personal drive, and still had dealership demo rego attached to it.
I eventually picked it up with just 2040klms on the clock, yet it had been built in early November 2014. It was apparently one of the initial batch of FG-X’s that had run off the production line. The original purchaser had reniged on the deal from one of the primary dealerships subsidiary car yards on the Central Coast.
Apparently they had to wait a period of time legally, so the car was shelved into their storage areas for almost 8 months. It was then moved to the dealerships Victorian Head offices for several months to sit in their showroom, and thus occasionally used as a demo model, but never offered up for sale.
It eventually was brought back to Sydney via transporter, then procedeed to be used again as a showroom demo model due to its unique colour. Emperor Red Pearl. I’ve found out that the colours actual mix contains 4 different styles and tones of pearl mixture and gold flake. Once they decided to sell it, it was placed up on CarSales.com, which is where I was notified of its appearance. It was sold within a day of it going up for sale at the end 0f August 2016.
i didn’t even bother to test drive it, as I’d driven several XR8 test vehicles in my search for a car, so I knew what they were like. I simply paid the costs, and arrived on the day, grabbed the keys, fixed her up and drive off in her. One thing however I noticed straight away is that it had a deeper tone to it, and it seemed to have a little more ‘punch’,in it than the other FG-X XR8 manuals I’d test driven.
After further investigation, I’ve found a few FPV items on the car, and a dyno showed that the ECU had a 351 Tune in it, rather than the base models 335kws. So there was something definitely different about her. And she’s definitely proved to me a potent machine. It’s given me a base line of 4.98 over the 0-100 tests. Over 6 runs, that’s it’s best run to-date.
Ive also found out that she’s literally one of just 24 built. There were 76 automatics built, 24 manuals. From a total of 100 made. That’s FG-X XR8 model’s . . . A 100 were made, 76 Auto, 24 manuals. 2 of the autos ended up as police vehicles, one in Victoria, and another in NSW, that I know off . . . .
Since being built, she basically resided with the primary dealership for exactly 2byrs, I purchased her on August 31st 2016. She’s now just clicked over to the 8000klm mark. She’s had her initial free 3000klm break-in service, and she’s running perfectly. She’s still pristine inside, out and underneath. I’m enjoying her enormously and simply clicking up the kilometres slowly.
Thats is my car’s history to date. Owning it has reignited my passion for modified cars, and started to do my detailing once again. Offering high class car detailing and taking pleasure once more in helping people seeing their cars looking like they first purchased them. . . .
I’ve also started to design stripe kits for the FG-X XR8. The stripe kits are Specialised to show off the fact our motors arevspecial they are called Boss 5.0ltr Miami Kits . . . You’ll notice some pictures of the kits on a black, Emperor Red and silver on the black models. . .
