IRON MAIDEN
TOOWOOMBA, QUEENSLAND
AMANDA Archer has recently developed a penchant for chromebumper rides thanks to an unexpected love affair with a 1964 XM Falcon coupe. Her striking orange Ford seems to be a trophy magnet wherever it goes, and showing it has become quite an involved hobby for Amanda.
Why an XM, Amanda?
I never had a passion for old cars, only new.
Then my husband David bought an XP coupe, which is a ’66 model and he’s a ’66 model himself. So, I thought that it’d be cool to get a ’64, which is my year. We came across this in Cooly [Coolangatta] a couple of years ago and asked the owners to let us know if it was ever for sale, and six weeks later, they did. My passion just grew from there.
What have you done to it?
The car was already registered, painted in the Lamborghini orange with the Weld Draglite rims and running the Microtech-injected 5.0litre out of an ED Falcon with a four-speed auto and XF disc brakes. We’ve done a lot of work on the motor fixing what someone else had half-done. David is a mechanic by trade, so none of it was a big deal. We’ve also added our own touch to it with alloy dress-up parts, a twin two-inch exhaust and updated the interior, which was an off-white cheap vinyl. Now it’s better-quality material with a gold undertone shimmer, which goes nicely with
the orange. We’ve also trimmed the boot, and put Dynamat under the new carpet. We hear you’ve got quite the trophy haul.
It does well at the shows; every show I go to, I pretty much come home with something! At the 19th Early Falcon Nationals at North Haven in 2018, I took home five trophies: Grand Champion, People’s Choice, Hers Not His, Best Engine Bay and Best Modified XM. To win all of that and for a modified car to take out Grand Champion was an unbelievable feeling. I’ve also taken out Car of the Show at the 2017 All Ford Day at Willowbank and Top Street Machine at the 2017 Harrigans Rod & Custom Show on the Gold Coast. I was really chuffed to get Top Street Machine against so many nice rods and street machines. We clean our cars after each show to keep on top of it so that the car doesn’t start to look tacky. At some shows, you lose points for grass on your mat or scratches on your glass – it’s quite interesting to see the judging at
the bigger shows. So you enjoy the show scene then?
I’m in my element; I just love going. This has given David and me a joint interest again after our daughter left home – though it’s always a bit competitive when David and I are there together with our cars! It’s nice to see girls getting out and going to shows to step up beside the boys. There are more and more women out there; it’s great to see. So now I do this for the girls.