XBOSS AT THE MOUNTAIN

EVER wondered what it would be like to drive Australia’s greatest Falcon coupe show car around Bathurst? Chris Bitmead, owner of 2016 SMOTY winner XBOSS (left), did just that at the Hardtop Anniversary. “It was awesome; just to drive the car around the track was excellent,” he said “To be honest, I enjoyed watching the other boys drive it as much as I enjoyed driving it myself.” Of course, being a completely custom-built car, something had to go wrong. “We had a battery die on us, of all things, so we weren’t able to adjust the airbags by the end of the weekend,” Chris said. “We thought there was an issue with the alternator, so on the Saturday we pulled half the car apart to get the alternator out, but couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so we put it all back together again. That was about a five- or six-hour exercise! Apart from that, the car went really well. I think we ended up doing about 18 laps, which adds up to about 100km. “When we built the car I did a string-line wheel alignment, and I don’t think I need to change anything, it just steers beautifully. The car seems to ride nice on the airbags and did everything it needed to do. For a place to test out a car that you’ve hand-built, this is awesome. “The only sadness is that it was our last weekend going away to events and enjoying the experience as a group. The biggest problem now will be getting the car back off Greg Maskell!” After 18 months in Greg’s workshop, the car will finally be making its way back home to Perth, and you’ll be able to check it out at Motorvation 32.