Taming The Beast
Following the journey of a family car with particular significance to our site.
We’ve been wanting to publish this one for a while now. But it has fallen onto the backburner. This car hasn’t always enjoyed a great reputation in Australian culture and its New Edge styling still draws plenty of criticism to this day.
Nevertheless, now seems as good a time as any to reveal the car currently powering our trips to meet Australian car Makers and Owners.
It’s not a Monaro. It’s not a GT-HO Falcon. It’s not a Charger.
It’s a 1998 Series 1 Ford Falcon AU XR6.
We’ll let that sink in for a moment. It may not be the most popular story we share on the site. But this car has never once let us down and giving it a moment in the sun feels right.
This is the story of a car coined ‘The Beast’, featuring a few more yarns from Ross Clark, who you may remember from this very popular Charger Week story.
So, here are the keys, Ross. You can drive.
Something different
“In 1999, these wonderful new Ford AU XR8s started racing in the V8 Supercars. They looked fantastic, particularly around the headlight area. They were a completely different and original design. My son and I watched them race in 1999 and 2000 and we desperately wanted the AUs to win. Paul Radisich did his best in the most wonderful AU of all; the Dick Johnson Racing Shell Helix AU.
“Being fans was great, but back in 1998, the only Ford we could afford was a 1993 hatchback Ford Laser. It was time to upgrade to a real Aussie car, but we didn’t have a lot of money. It was going to have to be a second hand one and it was going to be an XR6. It seemed like XRs only came in five colours; black, silver, white, blue and red. The blue colour looked to be the best until one morning in early 2001 when I saw it, a wonderful green AU XR6 driving along Footscray Road.
“Straight away, I knew I wanted a green one.”
Buying from the enemy
“It took months to find one. Eventually, in July 2001, I found a green XR6 advertised in The Saturday Age cars for sale section, which was then THE source to find all second-hand cars. It was at Reg Hunt Holden in Chadstone. Buying a Ford from a Holden Dealer was just wrong, but I gritted my teeth, lowered my pride and bought it. It had only 16,000 km on the clock and cost me around $30,000, the most I had ever paid for a car. Reg Hunt Holden had put a sticker on the back window. This was the ultimate insult and the sticker was promptly removed as soon as I had driven the car home. On detailed inspection, I found that the previous owner had added parts to it including extractors and an alarm system.”
Ross with the Ford AU XR6 at Calder Park
Unmatched Performance
“What a car! It had great performance, unlike any other car I had driven. For that reason, it was christened ‘The Beast.’ We could now participate in the annual Victorian pilgrimage, the drive to the Queensland beaches via the Newell Highway, and we could do it in comfort. Six months later, in January 2002, we left Williamstown for the first of many pilgrimages north. They had the standard format; leave at 4am in the morning, breakfast at Wagga Wagga at 8:30am, lunch at Dubbo at 1pm and spend the night at Narrabri or Moree. The next day we arrived at either the Sunshine Coast or Gold Coast at lunchtime.
“On the first pilgrimage, we were almost at Moree and the family was dozing whilst I was driving. It was over 40 degrees outside but lovely and cool in The Beast and it was purring. The road was straight and there were no trees or animals, so I thought to myself "I wonder how the Beast would handle 150kmh?” As it turns out, beautifully! However, in the distance, a white car was approaching. I slowed down slightly and it promptly turned on its flashing red and blue lights and pulled me over. The policeman was quite friendly and very interested in Fords and The Beast, probably because his police car was a Commodore. He had never seen a green XR before and was impressed, so we talked about it before he handed me the minimum fine for speeding. I had learnt the wrong way about The Beast’s performance.”
Chewing gum and a blocked radiator
“The Beast took us on the annual pilgrimage for many years. Two further pilgrimages stand out. I think it was the second pilgrimage when we were returning from Queensland and my then 7-year-old son, Tristan, accidently smeared his chewing gum across the velour back seat. I was mortified. He had damaged The Beast! The chewy later came off very easily and 15 years later Tristan is now the proud owner of The Beast.
“On another pilgrimage, we experienced a severe locust plague followed by a giant sandstorm north of Dubbo. These events would have been okay except it then started to drizzle and this congealed the mess. The red sand and locusts turned into a gooey mess and I noticed the temperature gauge rise, so we took it slowly to the motel in Tamworth that we had booked into. I asked this motel if they had a car wash facility. They were very obliging and I proceeded to wash many kilograms of sand, mud and locusts out of the radiator, making a massive mess across the motel forecourt. I was impressed at how blocked The Beast’s radiator could get and yet still keep cool. I was also impressed the motel staff didn’t charge us to clean up the mess!”
The aftermath of the locust plague and dust storm
Defensive driving
“In 2003, the company I worked for sent me to a full day defensive driving course at the Calder Park Thunderdome. The company suggested we take our own cars so we could see how they performed in emergency conditions. The truth was that the company pool cars were in such poor condition that they could not handle any emergency and in the case of the then new Toyota Prius pool car, it could never go fast enough to get you into trouble. I turned up in The Beast and so did a colleague in a V8 Commodore. Defensive driving for both of us became a Ford versus Holden competition. The other participants picked up on our driving contest and urged us on. The people running the session had to pull the two of us aside and quietly say that if we stopped competing and tried learning they would let us do some supervised laps around the Thunderdome after everybody else had gone home.
“Post the event, we drove around but were kept separated. This was the first time that I had The Beast running over ‘the ton’ and it just purred and wanted more. Sadly, one of the other defensive driving participants returned to the Thunderdome to pick up something he had left behind and came back just in time to see The Beast's tail sliding out and of course had to tell the company management and defensive driving courses were stopped! “
Ross after cutting laps at the Calder Park Thunderdome in 2001
Impaled
“The Beast has had a trouble-free life and only suffered one minor accident. One night, whilst stopped at traffic lights on City Road, a little Daihatsu buzz box driven by a fool on a mobile phone drove into the back and impaled itself on The Beast’s tow bar. The Beast experienced minor damage to the rear bumper, but the buzz box’s chassis appeared heavily distorted. I was angry with the fool and advised him that I needed to separate the cars. So, I jumped into The Beast, and tried to drive it forward but the cars were locked together, so I put the foot down. This finished the Daihatsu off as The Beast's tow ball successfully pulled out half the Daihatsu's radiator, grill, bumper bar and some other parts that I never knew a Daihatsu had. As The Beast only had minor wounds, I then drove it home. The Daihatsu and its pieces were loaded onto a tow truck.”
A deafening roar
“If I could make one change to The Beast, it would be to its exhaust system. My wife drove it once a week from Williamstown to Mansfield, a round trip of 500 kilometres. One day, I heard this car with the most amazing deep and loud exhaust note. What was this car? I raced outside only to see Janet parking The Beast with its exhaust and rear two mufflers not connected to the engine. What a glorious exhaust note! Apparently, the exhaust had come adrift early on the way home and she had the opportunity to hear a wonderful exhaust, or lack of, for 200 kilometres. I am surprised that she wasn’t pulled over or went deaf.
“I have to say that I loved the sports exhaust system and my son and I enjoyed the return drive from the Clipsal 500 races in Adelaide, particularly driving up through the tunnels in the Adelaide Hills, usually after Marcos Ambrose had beaten the Holdens in his BA! We waited until there were no cars nearby, slowed right down and then accelerated through the tunnel. The steep uphill and AU six-cylinder created the most amazing exhaust reverberation on the tunnel walls. It was like hearing a symphony orchestra.
“The Beast has been a wonderfully reliable car and just keeps running to this day.”
The Beast at Falls Creek in 2019