My love of FC`s started when I was fifteen and my dad gave me an FC ute that my Mum used to drive from Mount Gambier to Traralgon when they were courting back in the sixties. (b4 my time!!) Mum was from S.A. and Dad was from Vic.
It had been sitting in a paddock for many years by the time I got my hands on it, but remarkably all it needed was piston seals in the wheel cylinders and a kit through the fuel/vaccume pump. It was very rusty by this stage. I had no intension of getting it on the road, it was to be my paddock bomb.
Over the next three years I spent every bit of spare time after school and on weekends working on the ute. It went through many stages of repair and dissrepair. At one stage it had dual wheels on the back with no front mudgaurds or bonnet, and later it had massive tyres on the back that I found on a farm on top of a silage stack holding down the plastic cover. I hand made the rear rims by welding two 15 inch VW rims together and welding in an FC center. The front rims were made by welding two standard Fc 13 inch rims together.
Another modification I made was by getting three inlet manifolds and cutting off the arms either side of the carby and bronsing metal caps over the holes. Then I mounted one carby over each inlet on the head. Tripple carbies!! It didnt idle real well, but boy did it blow some flames out the exhaust when you got it revving!!
The poor old ute copped a flogging by me and my mates in my dads paddocks on weekends. I have included some photos which barely scratch the surface of the changes this ute had over the years I had it. One shows it where I got it bogged on the edge of a dam. I had to get a tractor to pull it out.
Sadly, I turned 18 and my thoughts turned to road legal cars and girls, and the poor old ute got sold to some guy for about $100.00. That was thirteen years ago.
The only thing I have left of the ute is the lowline canopy and heap of photos and memories.
The bonnet scoop in the last photo is actually half a childrens wheelbarrow welded into the bonnet.
Chow,
Brendanc
