AU: not gold

The AU Falcon was, and remains, an utter shitbox. Slagged at launch for being fuglier than a HD widescreen screenshot of a Kyle Sandilands colonoscopy, it proceeded to age more shabbily than John Laws, while going through similar amounts of Valvoline. Diff whine, brake shudder, strut tower rattles, driveline clunks, steering box graunches... it's probable there doesn't exist an AU Falcon that doesn't have more creaks, groans, twitters and squawks than an old wharf in an onshore swell, being shat on by a horde of ungrateful seagulls. By far, most AU Falcons served their penance as taxis, racking up multi-equatorial mileages freighting pissed nightlifeists hither and yon in vinyl-seated, grey-plastic-swathed discomfort. And fair enough too; if there was ever a car which deserved to be vomited on with nightly regularity, it was the AU Falcon.

So what do you do with an ex-cabbie 2001 AU once it's finished making people sick on the streets of Melbourne?

Well, you could cram a turbocharged 438ci Windsor V8 into it and take it salt flat racing at Bonneville Speed Week...

...which is exactly what a bloke called Norm from Melbourne did. (It's always a bloke called Norm. Unless it's a bloke called Bruce.) As reported in this month's Australian Muscle Car, he "decided to build an AU Falcon after a mate who worked for Ford said the AU was an ideal candidate due to its slippery, aerodynamic shape." Which is a polite way of saying that it looked like a turd that had been polished too hard. Suspicions remain that the BA Falcon was actually meant to be the model released in 1998, however someone in Ford Design borrowed a clay mockup of the prototype and accidentally ran it through a car wash. Norm's BA had 760,000km on the clock when he bought it off the cab company. The kilometres it has covered since have been at markedly faster speeds - his best run at Bonneville this year over the measured mile was 380km/h, and he reckons 450km/h is feasible.

Just imagine the dif whine at that speed. Not to mention the strut tower rattle. It'd sound like a cage of budgies hooked up to Motorhead's rock festival PA system.

The Doctor is OUT to windowshop for cheap used cars that aren't AU Falcons.