Australian Muscle Car 2020-02

there so long that the paintwork on the bootlid
did get slightly sun affected. It’s taken a lot of
polish to bring it back.
“It’s hard to keep a car’s finish in good
condition over such a long period of time no
matter how well you store it
Dust particles get
into the chrome work,
even if you keep a
car garaged, and
without a cover the
dust collects and gets
into the paint and
starts to eat into it over
time. And the paint
technology back then
was pretty rudimentary.
“I can’t see anywhere
on the car where it’s
had an accident. I can
tell it’s had a little bit
of paint around the car
here and there – but that
could even have been
from when it was new,
because it is an acrylic
base, and it depends
where and how they painted it at the factory.”
From his years of experience in the panel
repair industry, Reed can easily spot the tell-tale
signs that show this car was not built on an
assembly line.
“When you look at some of the door seals
– see the glue? That’s all round the car. In a
normal production line process, that would be
laid by something and it would be very neat and
clean. To me, this shows how it was put together,
by hand, and not on an assembly line. When you
have a look around the car you can tell that it’s
been put together with spanners.”
So, how does the old girl drive?
“It’s really good. Really smooth. You can tell
just by driving it that it’s a very low mileage car
– it doesn’t rattle or shake. It’s nice and tight,
almost like a new car. It just cruises smoothly
down the road like a beautiful old thing.”
It was not the weekend cruiser Reed originally
had in mind but, now that he has the Fairlane, he
doesn’t think he’ll ever part with it.
“You don’t buy a car like this to sell. It’s a pretty
unique car, and I’d love to be able to verify the
story of how it was put together.
“There are a few around, some really good
ones, but they’re restored. This one is original.
I don’t think there’s another one anywhere like
this.”
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