READER RIDES

CAM’S ’65 FAIRMONT WAGON AND A MAGNUM BY BROCK

In some ways it’s a surprise that Newcastle NSW local, Cameron Jordan reckons fish ‘n chips on the drop-down tailgate of an Aussie family wagon – a birthright for many older car enthusiasts – is cool. Ford and Holden lost their old-school tailgates in 1979 (with the XD Falcon and VB Commodore respectively) and with Cameron being 22, he was born in the decade after, the decade after two-piece tailgates were killed-off…

Cameron, who works in retail menswear (and modelling/acting when he can get the work in that hugely competitive industry) is right into cars. His first car – that he still owns – is a tight and tidy 1962 VW Beetle that, with his dad Gary, he rebuilt to a Herbie replica (from the movie Herbie The Love

Bug) while at high school.

“I was 16 when I bought that one,” Cameron says. “I was looking around for an old car: Beetles, Kombis, Minis, old Falcons and Holdens… I was looking at an XM Falcon and almost bought it but then I saw a Beetle and knew that’s what I actually wanted.

“It was my daily driver for a few years.”

Then Cameron bought a more recent-model Subaru. “But it was crap.” he says with a laugh. “It was reliable and all that – it wasn’t a bad car – but I just found myself driving the Beetle more often because it was more fun.”

With a little more cash in the bank, Cameron decided a couple of years ago that he’d buy a second cool cruiser and re-visited his idea of a 1960s Falcon.

“I was onto one in Queensland,” he says. “I’d agreed to buy it and bought

“CAM’S 1965 FAIRMONT HAS THE 200-CUBE SUPER PURSUIT ENGINE AND THREE-SPEED AUTO RATHER THAN THE EARLIER FUTURA’S 170 AND TWO-SPEED”

the plane ticket to go up there and drive it home. But then the seller rang and said he’d sold it to someone else.”

Damn!

“Yeah, I had the shits,” Cameron says. But he knew there were others out there. “I was looking on the net for something else and I found this 1965 XP Fairmont wagon in Sydney.”

Bought from a clothes-shop owner living in Sydney’s inner west, Cameron’s 1965 Ford Fairmont wagon has the 200-cube Super Pursuit six-cylinder engine and three-speed auto rather than the superseded XP Ford Futura’s 170-cuber and two-slot slush-box. When Cameron collected it, it was suffering from rust in the lower windscreen corners and a little in the sills. Cameron and his dad again worked together to fix all the blemishes in the first week of Cameron’s ownership of the XP.

It’s been a great regular driver and cruiser. Bigger than the VW, Cam can cart around a few more mates when he wants to. There have been a couple of mechanical let-downs – such as a broken tail-shaft uni joint – due mostly to the Ford’s age and mileage, but he reckons the car’s reliability issues have all been sorted so he’s now confident of the car: Just two days before our photo shoot Cameron returned home from a 1000km trip to country NSW.

However, Cameron is aware of the fact that his cool classic cars were designed in another era of motoring, when only main roads had centre-lines painted on them and – often – suburban streets had no kerbs and gutters. It’s astonishing to think that there were no freeways anywhere in Australia when this ’65 Fairmont was built. It’s designed for –

and happiest when – poking along below 100km/h, slowing down for corners every hundred metres or so. That’s how Australian motoring was well into the 1980s.

So in short, the regular freeway treks to Sydney became a bit of a chore in both the Bug and the Fairmont. So Cam has recently bought another Ford, a ’95 EF, as a daily driver/freeway flier. Even though it’s 30 years younger than his XP (and his Bug) his new ride is a bit special, too: it’s a Futura V8 sedan that is far more capable and comfortable – and after breakdowns with both the Fairmont and the Bug, more reliable – on the open road.

“It’s a bit of fun because it’s a five-litre V8 but really, it’s just so I can park in the shopping centre while I’m at work,” he says. “People are always running trolleys into them and opening doors against them…”

“Plus, the air-conditioning is going to be good in summer!”