In Our Garage: Paul Surmon’s XB Falcon John Goss Special

Paul and Carol Surmon’s XB Falcon is a John Goss Special which has even been signed by the motor racing legend himself.

Q. Tell us about the car your car you have here:

A. It's an XB Falcon, John Goss Special and I’ve had it for roughly eight years, had it done up for the last three years and you don't want to know how much I spend on it.

It was after John Goss won Bathurst and this was Ford’s way of saying ‘good job, John’.

There is only 800 of them made with roughly equal numbers of the green and the blue.

This one's got the green inlay that was done at the Ford dealer where it came from, not the factory, but the Ford dealer put the green into the seats.

When they came out, as much as they look very nice, they didn't even come out standard with a radio in them.

That was an optional extra, air con, power steering and that's all extras.

Q. Why did you decide to buy this car?

A. Well, this car was not intended to be bought.

I spoke to a bloke at Gosford, he had another car, I was going to buy that one.

He said, if you buy that one, you've got to take the other one, it’s only been used as spares, but you can have it as well, and I'm glad he threw it in.

It had been sitting down in his shed and he sort of snatched bits off it every now and then.

Q. What was the car like when you first got it, and what have you done to restore it?

A. Apart from the running gear it was still pretty complete, which was good.

Still had original paint, everything on it was original.

It had been sitting in the shed for the last 20 years.

Previous to that, it had been stolen by somebody and still had the police powder all over, where they get the fingerprints from.

I’ve done a complete restoration by taking it back to bare metal, new motor, new gearbox, new diff, everything's brand new.

It came out with what they call a 302 motor, I've beefed it up to a 351 motor, put a stronger gearbox in it, put a stronger diff in it.

The spoiler, that came off the dealer, he threw those on, he thought they would look good, I do like it.

The car has been signed by John Goss himself.

We were at a function on the Gold Coast a few years ago, and I'm very proud that he got to sign it.

Q. What do you love about the car?

A. just look at it, I mean, what's not to love about it?

They're just an iconic Aussie car and I just love them.

You get that many looks and it's just people's reactions to it, everyone that sees it really likes it.

This is my wife's car, she loves this one.

My favourite is probably the one I’ve got at home, but don't get me wrong, I love this.

Carol loves driving it.

Having a car like this, you meet a lot of likeminded people.

I mean, it doesn't matter if it's Ford or Holden, everyone puts a lot of effort into their cars.

I just tinker here and tinker there, there's always something that you got to do to them.