POLICE 151 MPH X A 1972 FALCON SUPERCAR
John's favourite Ford originated as the October 1972 built Ford XA Falcon 351 Police Interceptor first registered as LHH 035 a former VICTORIA POLICE Q CAR the plain wrapper a wolf in sheep's clothing
a Mobile Traffic Section sole unmarked pursuit car on the Calder Highway
Hi, I am John, the owner of LHH 035 since 1994. At that time I was only 16 years old and an apprentice mechanic back then. I saw the an advert in the Trading Post paper for an XA Falcon 351 ex police interceptor on enquiring it happened to be located not too far from me in Clayton, my brother went to see the interceptor first, it looked good so he made a time for me to check the car out , it sounded like what I wanted, dad drove me down there.
The seller was a truck driver who said he bought it off his uncle who was a highway patrol officer It was sold to the Victoria Police by MELFORD MOTORS his uncle purchased it from New Oakleigh Motors being the first owner after the car was decommissioned and disposed, The owner's wife worked a New Oakleigh Motors where they purchase some GT parts, replaced the instrument cluster with the GT dash, the standard guards with fluted guards and the bonnet with NASA air scoop, the proper genuine GT parts including the metal GT and GT 351 badges. The car looked like a GT externally it was also re painted in the original ultra white U code colour paint with saddle trim .
I didn't drive the car dad took it for a test drive I was a passenger, The performance of the 351 was exhilarating a moment I will always remember the thrust into the seat especially on take off in 1st gear I said to dad and have to have this It was love at at first sight even before that test drive
We agreed on a price and the deal was done. At sixteen I was now the proud owner of this fantastic superfast interceptor 351 V8
Let me tell you about my Nifi . I spent every spare moment with the car cleaning it just sitting it pretending to drive it even my mates would join me sitting in the car like we were on a real drives
When I turned eighteen I got my license, boy did I have fun with driving the car, so did my mates the power was really fast. I still spent most of my spare time in the garage with my car so much so that mum said it was the love of your life you are married to it, your nifi (Greek for bride, wife) so from the on the car was called Nifi.
It was not long after I bought the car that I wanted the car to go even faster so I built a new racing engine, that was fast and yet street legal I changed the 12 slot wheels that the previous owner added with centreline wide wheels on the back and narrow on the front, I changed the fuel tank to a lightweight safety tank, The bullnose top loader was replaced with a high stall FMX auto transmission. The seats were showing signs of wear so I had the trim done with cloth inserts, I wasn't out to replicate the GT trim,
Fast forward to 2016 my mate Peter from Western Australia saw this Victoria Police 8 XA Candy car group site on Facebook searching for anyone who owned an XA police 351 pursuit car. So Peter responded he said I've got a mate that owns one, a request for a photo of the compliance plate was made. I was excited to learn that my Nifi was the first HO powered police 351 of the 8 XA Candy cars with a direct lineage to the first road registered Victoria Police 1967 XR 289 GT that was also a Q car unmarked. I took a photo and sent it to Peter who posted it on Facebook. However, it was very hard to make out the VIN. They got the number wrong that vin number didn't come up on the Victoria Police transport XA FORD FALCON 4 SPEED register. I informed Peter of the exact vin number as the 8 looked like a 6 so we did a search and confirmed it was the first XA Falcon 351 Police GT variant built of 8 Hume Highway Group ‘S cars’, better known as candy cars.but I later learnt that it was not marked up as a candy car it was actually an unmarked plain white police pursuit car known as a Q car. The police vehicle registration number was LHH 035 the vin prefix JG23MY 3XXXXK . The car was built ultra white in colour with saddle trim with a T code 351 4V USA imported engine with 4 speed floor shift commonly called top loader gearbox it was the sole 1st Division Victoria Police Mobile Traffic Section Q car (unmarked) pursuit
I passed on my phone number via Peter to Chris, an administrator of the XA candy car group on Facebook dedicated to police pursuit cars. I invited Chris to come down to look at the car as it was certainly a beneficial experience to learn a bit about the history of the car.
The print media stated that these police pursuit cars were good for 145MPH with high output engines, so we searched the car for any signs of its tell-tale history. We found that it had police siren holes drilled on the passenger side apron the VIN number was hard to see because it overspray showing signs of repair work done ,the compliance plate was retained from the day it was built it was stamped engine T code with L code transmission plus S front axle I replaced the driveline for drag racing with a competition engine the engine that was in Nifi when I bought it was stamped DK 2004 which replaced the original police HO engine. Now in the car is auto transmission replacing the bullnose top loader the finned rear drums and tramps rods were there, the fuel tank was replaced with a non metal lighter weight tank purpose built for racing ,I have replaced the 31 spline rear axles with 28 spline to suit the auto for drag racing. I still have parts of the as well as the drag racing engine stored away with the original rear springs, harmonic balancer and other parts that were on the car when I bought it, The car has a black tailored carpet in the boot like the axed GTHO would have had compared to the rubber mat in the standard XA GT I had that made
Soon after this I got a call from Chris saying the police driver that drove LHH 035 wanted to get in touch with me and was keen on buying the car back. I said to Chris “you handle it mate, please speak to him. I don't want to really talk with him, I don't want to sell the car, just say he's happy for you to come and have a look at the car”.
I will let Chris administrator of the police Facebook 8 XA candy car group pick up the rest of the story, thank you
In 1973 Senior Constable Geoffrey Robert Brown was one of the 3 police drivers of the LHH 035 pursuit car.
Ian Meates, a retired former career Victoria Police member, also a police transport historian that was responsible for the Victoria Police Transport collection of some 600 plus vehicle photos plus history back in the day.
Ian Meates was at a retired Victoria Police members event when retired Senior Constable Geoffrey Brown approached Ian about LHH 035 that he saw on Facebook and asked Ian to get in touch with the owner and please pass on his mobile number.as he is keen to see the car Geoffrey also was keen to know how he knew it was a HO High Output version
Geoffrey was a Senior Constable Mobile Traffic Section driver for highway patrol duty of the 1st Division he informed Ian that LHH 035 was not an S car the high visibility marked candy car but a plain white unmarked Police pursuit Falcon GT variant with a HO motor, a Q car the sole unmarked police pursuit car for the Calder Highway patrolling up to Harcourt. central Victoria
I contacted Geoffrey Brown, his first question was how I did I know the XA LHH 035 was a HO powered pursuit car because he has known this since 1973?, he was happy to recall his career with the police force including in charge of Transport at Dawson Street Brunswick involvement with Bob Jane for safe Drag racing, developing the BT1 Police Commodores, Police driving instructor, sharing the experience with this LHH 035 supercar to support the research confirming the fact that there were HO motors in some of the Ford XA Falcon Police cars and that part of The Victoria Police and Ford Motor car history with a full account of a police chase sharing his driving experience with the car intercepting an E type Jaguar speeding at 148MPH plus recalling a letter produced by Ford Motor Company stating the fact that LHH 035 was one of 37 Police vehicles fitted with the High Output motors originally built for the XA Ford Falcon GT HO Phase IV production which the series were axed the production stopped back in SUPER CAR crisis days late June 1972
Geoffrey Brown sent me an email with the full account with the Ford letter details for a court brief as remembered as evidence that was produced and recited in the SUNBURY Magistrates court back in 1973 to prosecuted the 148MPH speedster
I was extremely happy with what Geoffrey Brown shared with me as I had owned one of those XA Falcon 351 HO Police pursuit variants back in 1973. I contacted John the owner passed on all of the information that Geoffrey Robert Brown shared.I uploaded a you tube video which was put together of that 148MPH Chase in the Q car The video was posted for the public to share in a bit of the Ford Motor Company and Victoria Police SUPER CAR history of the cars capability plus where the axed XA Falcon Phase IV engines went. The subject Police car LHH 035 is a survivor that is still around with its changes over the last 50 years or so
John is currently working on building a 393 CID FORD engine to place into LHH 035 for a celebration of a 20 year anniversary of his late brother who used to drag race with John and their mates The drag race event will be at Heathcote Park ON SUNDAY JUNE 2ND 2024 hopefully the car will be ready stay tuned https://www.facebook.com/policev8
148MPH CHASE video link for the full story from the Police driver of LHH 035
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