Falcon XE
| Purchase Price | Sales Price | Year Purchased | Year Sold | Years Held |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2,100 | $1,200 | 1998 | 2001 | 3 |
I bought my 1983 Ford Falcon XE Wagon (I named him Neville) in 1998 when I decided I wanted to go and live in Queensland.
I sold my XF Falcon in 1995 to my next door neighbour as I was provided a company car from the business that I was working for at the time. At that stage, I hadn’t owned a car for about three years, so I needed to find a suitable ride that would get me to Brisbane and carry all my worldly possessions with me.
I decided on a 1983 XE Falcon station wagon with 3.3 litre motor and a 5-speed manual.
When I bought Neville, it was actually a seven seater and had a dicky seat in the back which I removed so I had place for a spare wheel. The interior of this Falcon was as basic as my XF, being manufactured 2 years earlier.
This one also had cloth seats, manual windows, no power steering, no air-conditioning and no lidded centre console.
It did a marvellous job getting me to Brisbane and the only mods in the 3 years I owned it was a new stereo and speakers. I eventually sold it to a bloke I worked with in the bakery.
*The first two pictures are my car. The interior pic is not my image and was sourced off the internet. The interior configuration is exactly as it was in my car
Favourite Memories
Driving to Brisbane
We left Launceston on Tuesday 22nd of September 1998 a cold wet day.
We drove to Devonport and boarded the Spirit of Tasmania later that afternoon for the 6pm sailing that night. On arrival in Melbourne the next morning we hit the road and travelled through Shepparton, Narrandera, West Wyalong, Narrabri, Glen Innes and Tenterfield.
I can’t remember where we stayed on either nights (Wednesday, Thursday or Friday) but it blew my mind that we could drive for 16 hours straight and still not get to our destination.
We drove across to Casino, to Lismore, then Tweed Heads and up the M1 and finally into Brisbane.
We arrived on AFL Grand Final day in 1998 where my boys North Melbourne Football Club were playing Adelaide Football Club. I didn’t get to see any of the game and it was probably a good thing as North Melbourne lost that Grand Final (and let Adelaide go back-to-back) after being the best team all year.
Side note:
Unfortunately, radio reception in outback NSW comes and goes but I was very fortunate to get my first ever taste of Martin & Malloy when reception was clear.
Also, I had only one cassette (yep, cassette) in the car, that wasn’t buried in all my stuff, so when the radio ‘ran out’ I listened to a double shot of my two favourite Chris Rea albums for two days solid…
Random other memories (good and bad)
Throwing a pie through the open window of a road-rager
I was coming home from the bakery one day along Abbotsford Road onto Burrows Street/Hudson Road. I was in the left hand lane and wasn’t allowed to merge by a guy in the right hand lane even though I was ahead of him.
He flipped me the bird and we both turned left onto Albion Road.
When we pulled up at the next set of lights, on the corner of Albion Road/Lutwyche road, I pulled up in the left hand lane next to this idiot. He pulled up in the right hand lane, and was turning right. I noticed his passenger side window was down and concocted my revenge in an instant.
I had two pies that I was bringing home from the bakery so I decided that I would give him one of them. So when the light turned green he moved off and started heading to the right. Once he was fully commited to the right turn, I hurled one of the pies through the open passengers side window of his car. The pie hit his front windscreen which then broke the pie and exploded it all over his dashboard. He couldn’t go anywhere and had to keep turning right but I turned left at the last moment and got the hell out of there.
I’ve never had so much anxiety driving my car all the way home back to Lutwyche.
Sucks to be that idiot cleaning a freshly exploded pie out of his car.
Listening to Ride on Time at full tilt going to work
One weekend I put some new speakers into the rear of my station wagon after previously upgrading the stereo. That same weekend TD and I went into Brisbane CBD and had a squiz through a secondhand music shop looking for some new music. Spotify hadn’t even been invented at this stage so if you wanted a particular song you had to but the whole album/cd.
I had been looking for ‘Ride on Time’ by Blackbox for quite a while and found it on a cd called ‘Italia – Dance Music From Italy’ for $8.00 and promptly bought it.
Fast-forward to Monday morning and driving across the Storey Bridge heading to work at 4.15am and I had ‘Ride on Time’ playing club style in the wagon… on repeat!
Having my clutch cable disconnect at the five-ways in Brisbane
Coming home from the bakery one day at around 2.30pm, my clutch cable disconnected from it’s housing on the side of the gearbox and left me with out a clutch.
Luckily, I had a company car for years previously and had perfected the art of the clutch-less gearchange!
I put the car in gear and when the light went green, hit the ignition key and turned it – the car fired and moved forward on the starter motor. I had around 5 kms to travel to get home along Bowen Bridge/Lutwyche Road and made it all the way using this method – even stopping at lights when necessary.
* All stats on this page from https://www.automobile-catalog.com
Identification Data
Ford Falcon GL Wagon 3.3-Litre 5-speed (XE) (man. 5 speed)
as offered for the year 1983 in Australia
Production/sales period of cars with this particular specs:
March 1982 – October 1984
Country of origin: AUS Australia
Make: Ford (Australia)
Model: Falcon 4th generation (XD-XE-XF-series) 1979-1988
Submodel: XE-series Falcon GL Wagon 1982-1984
Class: mid-size / large family car
Body style: station wagon
Doors: 5
Traction: RWD (rear-wheel drive)
Basic dimensions
Length: 4980 mm / 196.1 in
Width: 1860 mm / 73.2 in
Height: 1397 mm / 55 in
Wheelbase: 2959 mm / 116.5 in
Fuel capacity: 72 liter / 19 U.S. gal / 15.8 imp. gal
Drag coefficient: estimated by a-c: 0.5
Weights
Curb weight estimated: 1480 kg / 3260 lbs
Engine Specifications
Engine manufacturer: Ford Falcon Six 200
Engine type: spark-ignition 4-stroke
Fuel type: gasoline (petrol)
Fuel system: carburetor
Charge system: naturally aspirated
Valves per cylinder: 2
Additional features: Weber ADM 1-barrel
Cylinders alignment: Line 6
Displacement: 3273 cm3 / 199.7 cui
Horsepower net: 89.5 kW / 122 PS / 120 hp (DIN)
Torque net: 240 Nm / 177 ft-lb / 2500
Car power to weight ratio net: 60.5 watt/kg / 27.4 watt/lb
Car weight to power ratio net: 16.5 kg/kW / 12.1 kg/PS / 27.2 lbs/hp
Transmission specifications
Gearbox transmission type: Borg Warner manual
Number of gears: 5