How long before the supply of Falcon coupes dries up?

[flightsuit]

And then what happens?

There are kit cars out there for building other types of film and TV car replicas, such as the 1966 Batmobile. Do you think there will ever be a reproduction Falcon coupe body on the market, as there are for first generation Mustangs and Camaros?

It seems to me that Falcon coupes are only going to get rarer and more expensive, and the fact that so many of them are getting turned into MM replica cars can only accelerate that process, yes?

[roadwarriormfp]

How long is a piece of string?

While coupe are becomming a bit rarer (not many appear for sale) they are usually hidden away in garages and not driven due to various reasons.

As for "kit cars"... Several years ago there was company who was promoting new coupe bodies would be coming soon. (as well as Monaro shells).
Nothing eventuated, but he is making new panels etc... all in China apparently.

Now the law here states a kit car must be built by the owner and would need to meet current emissions standards. This would mean that you would have to buy the latest V8 complete with emissions gear or use a pure LPG V8.... very costly.
The other issue is that the car wont be and never will be a "Falcon" as its replica, and didnt come from Ford.

Several years ago Ford USA was about to take the company who was making those Mustang bodies to court because it was in breach of copyright laws as the shells were being sold as "Ford Mustangs", which they arent... they are replicas. Ford eventually came to it senses and actually struck a deal so it could sold as a Ford body shell, as well selling classic "Ford" spare parts.

Ford Australia and Rare spares here have joined forces to sell their classic spare parts legally, which now means you should be able to order "Rare Spares" parts from Ford soon...

Back to the cars themselves, they will last as long as the owners who own them look after them.

[flightsuit]

Would I be correct in assuming the Falcons were unibody designs? I ask this because, presumably, a body-on-frame car would be easier to replicate, since the replica body could possibly be bolted to a different type of car's donor frame.

[roadwarriormfp]

The Falcon pretty much shared the same chassis (not a full chassis) as the Mustang of similar era.

So no, cant really unpick it and plonk it on another frame.... however building your own chassis isnt out of the question, have seen full custom rails added to make it more rigid in drag racing and racing applications as well as a few show cars. Anything is possible with money!

[.MAD MAX.]

Let the prices rise.....my appraisal has nearly doubled in the last 8 years and once MM4 hits, it will increase even faster

[flightsuit]

Is there any friction between the classic car collecting community and the MM fan community? I would imagine some Ford collectors might not be too happy about all those Falcon coupes being chopped up and heavily modified.

[.MAD MAX.]

Doing a Max conversion is far from chopping up....very straight forward to remove some fiberglass pieces. The only thing that gets "chopped up" would be the bonnet and there seems to be plenty available

[roadwarriormfp]

Theres a few out there who dont like the idea of madmax cars, even yellow 4 doors.... lord knows why.

Doug, genuine GT bonnets are getting very difficult to find, GS ones are a plenty however as they carried over to the XC.

Some replicas have had their rear guards butchered too.

[MFP1]

Fiberglass bonnets of top quality have been on the market for quite some time. They are better than steel for cutting a blower hole anyway due to the increased linear stength. Anyone who has cut a steel one knows that they turn into floppy tinfoil when you cut the hole and that you have to reinforce them if you want it to look good in the long term.
Glass ones are available here:
http://www.madmaxcars.com/products/prod ... 3871203248

[Daz]

Now the law here states a kit car must be built by the owner and would need to meet current emissions standards. This would mean that you would have to buy the latest V8 complete with emissions gear or use a pure LPG V8.... very costly.

under the new laws for Australian cars, it would never get registered. Even something as little as changing brakes (from say drum brakes to discs) requires that you hire an airport runway and an engineer does hard braking tests from 100kmph and it must meet the current stopping distance for new (ABS) cars. Same if you increase the body weight my 10%, say by fitting tradies toolboxes or a bullbar. You'd be looking at over 5k just to do the test!
Bottom line, if it isn't a prius, the government wants it off the road.
People I know who work for ARB (4x4 modifiers) think they'll be unemployed in 2 years at this rate.

If ford did a retro run of the coups with modern gear, I reckon they'd be all presold, but they'd never do that.
My ultimate dream, if I won lotto, would be to build replicas of cars like the Torana GTR-X and Effigy.