Ford Falcon XA GT review

By: Dave Morley, Photography by: Mark Bean

Date: 21.03.2022

The Falcon XA GT is probably the most Australian of them all

Now, this is going to sound a bit controversial, but before you start slipping rude notes and dog turds through the mail-slot, let us make it absolutely clear that a GT Falcon of pretty much any sort is about as Australian as they got. It’s just that the XA GT is probably the – ahem – most Aussie of them all.

Rear blind a nice period touch

See, up to that point, every model of Australian made Falcon – from XK through to the XY – had been somewhat based on a US-market compact Ford family car. None of this is to suggest that those previous Falcons didn’t have lots and lots of local input and engineering (primarily to stop the front ends falling out of them on Aussie roads) but they were still derived from US models even if the internet hadn’t been invented yet to blow Ford’s cover on that point. Anyway, by the time the XA was in the planning stages, Ford Oz’s US overlords had figured that those crazy people out at Broadmeadows on the other side of the planet had it going on when it came to designing and engineering family wheels. And suddenly, the all-Australian Falcon was born. They called it XA.

Curvy XA body replaced boxy XY

Okay, it wasn’t quite that simple, and the clay designs were still done in Dearborn with Ford Oz’s stylists flying over to do the sculpting under the watchful eye of Detroit Big Brother. And even though the significance of an Aussie-designed Falcon might have been watered down over time and successive generations of truly Aussie Falcons since that time, back in the early 70s, the Australianisation of the Falcon was a huge deal. Not to mention a feather in our cap.

The XA was also – and again, we know not everybody shares this view and you’re more than welcome to disagree – a better mousetrap in some important ways. It was a bigger car at a time when small cars really were small (Have you seen a Corolla these days?) and featured a too-cool interior with a fighter-jet cockpit feel and a dashboard that made the most of the interior space. The XA was also a more solid platform to begin with, and that’s important when you plan to cram 351 cubes of small-block fury into it and race it at Bathurst.

Okay, so thanks to the supercar scare just before the XA hit showrooms, the Phase IV GT-HO never happened beyond just four, lucky-to-escape-the-crushers examples. That story is well known, of course, but it pays to remember that even though the Phase III GT-HO won Bathurst in 1971, making it the emperor of all local supercars in the process, the XA GT in hardtop form claimed the great race in both 1973 and 74. So then, Bathurst-conquering heritage despite the lack of a GT-HO option-tag on it? Tick.

| Buyer's Guide: Ford Falcon XA GT 

Sparkling underneath and on top

While the bodyshell and packaging of the XA Falcon range might have been a lot more forward looking than ever before, engineering-wise, the XA was still pretty much a child of the 60s. The rear springs were still leaves, the steering box remained a tardy five-or-so turns lock-to-lock and drum brakes were still your lot unless you wanted to spend more.

| Read next: Ford Falcon XA GT RPO83

The GT version gave that philosophy a bit of a shake up, but only to a degree. Yes, the 351 cubic-inch Cleveland was the headline news, but you still got a four-speed manual (five-speed boxes in a local big Ford were still about a decade away and if you wanted your GT with two pedals, it was a three-speed unit). But again, there were subtleties in evidence. The four-speed box was not, in fact, the same old Single Rail fella found in rank-and-file XA Falcs. Instead, it was the fabled Toploader which is about, ooh, 50 times stronger. Clearly, Ford was still entertaining Bathurst fantasies. And if you did tick the auto box, rather than the Borg Warner transmission, you got the considerably stronger FMX box. The same sort of thing was happening at the rear end. Yes, the XA still rode on cart-springs, but the diff was the legendary Ford nine-inch, just about the strongest pumpkin ever fitted to a production car. And it had a limited-slip centre.

| Read next: Ford Falcon XA GT-HO Phase IV

While Ford was philosophically unable to ignore that supercar scare we were talking about, the basic XA package was still stout enough to be turned into that thousand-kay enduro-winner it became. While the 351 cubes remained, however, the rest of the engine package was quite a bit milder than that on the earlier XY Phase III, not to mention the fire-breathing but still-born Phase IV. The lopey, loopy camshaft was toned down and the carburettor became a more road-car-appropriate item. But you know what? If you want to be absolutely honest about it, that kind of made the XA GT the nicest road-car of all the GTs to that point. It was perky (Ford was still claiming 300 neddies) and the smaller bumpstick made it easier and just nicer to drive. Can less ever be more when the subject turns to muscle cars? Well, maybe in this case, it can.

The rest of the XA GT was about comfort and style. Power-steering was available as an option and the interior presentation was pretty plush. Well, compared with the majority of local cars at the time, anyway. But even today, that heavily sculpted vinyl trim and the dashboard that wraps around the driver filled with all sort of small but important gauges is impressive stuff.

Powerful and blue 351 V8

The Broady style gods also got busy with the exterior, adorning the GT with black-outs around the body and bonnet vents that haven’t been bettered since. The basic Ford 12-slotter was the official wheel for the GT, but plenty of them were soon sporting the Bathurst Globe five-spoker that had been designed for the Phase IV.

Assembly line paint splodges recreated

The other area of endeavour where the XA GT really shone was – for us – in the paint and trim option chart. While Vermillion Fire with a black interior was the default setting for the XY GT buyer, the XA GT hunter had a pretty psychedelic palette placed before them. Who could forget Lime Glaze with a black interior, or Yellow Fire with parchment vinyl? Or indeed, the combo on these pages which must surely rate as the high-point of 70s colour-explosions: Wild Violet with that sparkling white interior.

The XA wrap around dash was avant-guarde

One Falcon GT trait that remained firmly in the XA’s DNA was its all-round skill-set and its value for money. It would, for instance, still tow a bloody big Viscount caravan interstate with a bum in every seat. And it could still be driven home from your friendly Ford dealership after the exchange of less than five grand. Yet for all that, it was still a hairy-chested mutha in the important areas and it was still a Bathurst winner.

A bright colour trim combo

It just happened to be more Akubra than Stetson than any Ford before it with a GT badge. And as we drift ever farther from the reality of a local car industry, that’s the sort of stuff we can’t afford to forget.

Falcon XA GT owner - Isaac Tohme

Isaac Tohme, the owner of this very car, has no problems with granting the XA GT full legend status. The Sydney-based operator of a fleet of concrete trucks, Isaac has plenty of GT history, having owned a Phase II when he was just in his early-20s. So he knows what he’s talking about.

"I’ve owned this car since 2016 (it’s a 1972 build) and I’ve just loved that model since I was a kid and a few of my uncles had GTs."

"It’s a genuine GT with factory power-steering, D block and Toploader. I’ve made a few changes, though – you can improve these things – and it now has a Detroit Locker with 3.25:1 gears and a mild 408 with about 450 horsepower at the wheels."

The XA has also been meticulously restored, in-house by Isaac and his crew, and the task soon turned into one of those forensically-correct deals with details like the assembly-line paint splodges being recreated in parts of the car nobody will ever see.

Isaac tells us he found the car on an online sales site, way over in Perth. And he knew instantly it was the car for him. Why? Simple; that colour combination.

"Wild Violet and white interior. I loved that combination from when I was a kid. That was always my first choice and why I really wanted this car. And there’s something about the XA that I just love. Okay, the XY is king. It won Bathurst. And that’s true in a way, but it ignores so many other cars."

Isaac’s only regret is that he doesn’t get to drive the car much at all. "Very rarely," is his estimation. With a fleet of 12 concrete trucks on the road, he simply doesn’t have the time. But that doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the XA and its place in history. In fact, it probably just makes those rare drives even more special.

1972-73 Falcon xA GT sedan specs

Number built: 1868 (XA GT 4 door)
Body style: All-steel integrated body/chassis four-door sedan ENGINES: 5766cc V8 with overhead valves and 600cfm 4BBL carburettor
Power & torque: 224kW @ 5400rpm, 513Nm @ 3400rpm
Performance: 0-96km/h – 8.0 seconds 0-400 metres – 15.8 seconds (auto sedan)
Transmission: Four-speed manual, three-speed automatic
Suspension: Independent with coil springs, telescopic shock absorbers & anti-roll bar (f) Live axle with semi-elliptic springs, telescopic shock absorbers and anti-roll bar (r)
Brakes: Disc (f) drum (r) power assisted
Tyres: ER70H14 radial

From Unique Cars #461, Jan 2022

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