One of the young guns from the Central West Car Club is 20-year-old Jesse Magill with his 2000 AU Tickford XR8 Falcon.
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"It's a series 2 model that I've had for about 18 months now," said Jesse.
Tickford was the performance arm of Ford in Australia and the AU featured the last of the Aussie built V8's.
"It's a 5.0 litre (302 cubic inch) Windsor which Ford has produced for many years but this was their only one with electronic ignition, and it's fuel-injected with a 5-speed manual so it's a fantastic car to drive," Jesse said.
Jesse said he's always been a Ford fan with his favourites being the XB coupe, the BF GT and of course the AU XR8.
With the first two being well out of his reach, Jesse was lucky enough to spot this AU for sale and going cheap.
"It wasn't running and had been sitting under a tree for about 7 years so I was expecting it to be in a really bad state," said Jesse.
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But to his credit, Jesse has done all the work himself and got the AU running and cleaned up nicely.
"There's still some more detailing to do yet but I'm really happy with it so far and I reckon it's a keeper," he said.
Not only is the XR8 back on the road again, but Jesse's also taken it to Wakefield Park for a day on the race track.
"It's a safe way to really put it though it's paces and it's cheaper than a speeding ticket," Jesse laughed.
"It went really well except for a busted water pump, but the beauty of the older generation V8 is that we could just go into Repco on the day and get the parts to keep racing."
It was not long after that first track day that Jesse noticed the value of the AU XR8's going up a bit, and wisely decided that it's track days were over.
"Despite a few imperfections, it's too tidy to keep flogging it on the track so I've bought an EB Falcon for that and the AU will get a bit more of a makeover for a weekend cruiser," he said.
He's already added a set of 19 inch FPV rims, and there's a new bonnet and front bar on the way too.
It's great to see younger people with a passion for the older cars and Jesse deserves full credit for the work he's done to present this car so far, but also for his wisdom to preserve it as another future classic.
You can find out more about the Parkes-based Central West Car Club at https://www.facebook.com/centralwest.carclub.
The club is hosting a street meet at the Coles carpark in Parkes this Friday from 6.30pm, with all cars welcome.
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