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Ford Falcon utes are as Australian as a meat pie. While the iconic pick-up was a mainstay on local roads across the country, one driver showed their Aussie pride by turning the Falcon into an off-road monster.
The yellow ute has been circulating on social media for the past couple of years, but one Reddit user finally saw the lifted pick-up in person and took to the social media platform to share the unique custom car.
“Saw it on Reddit once, but yesterday I came across it IRL [in real life], I had to do a U-turn,” the user stated. Users on the Cars Australia Reddit thread shared their delight in seeing the true blue (or in this case, yellow) icon.
One commenter stated, “Me: ‘let’s buy a new [Ford] Raptor, Wife: ‘We have a Raptor at home’, the one at home…”.
Another Reddit user said, “As a guy who doesn’t care much about cars, that’s pretty cool,” while another remarked, “I’m pretty sure I saw this car IRL. [It] was pretty cool even though I don’t like 4x4s much”.
According to the owner, who goes by Roady’s Garage on TikTok and Instagram, they purchased the half-built Falcon-stein in March 2022, after finding the abandoned ute at an unspecified barn in Australia.
Roady’s Garage said the modified ute started its life as a BA XR8 Falcon and is powered by a Barra powertrain – an inline-six engine developed by Ford Australia between 2002 and 2016 that was derived from a Ford Falcon FG XR6.
Rather than keep the entire Ford DNA, the owner utilised the chassis of a Nissan GQ Patrol to capture the Australian off-roading spirit.
Despite a complete overhaul of the Falcon, the custom ute is surprisingly road registered in Victoria, with the owner taking it on various road trips across regional places in the state, as well as Fraser Island in Queensland.
The Ford Falcon 4x4 ute lost in history
While it's not as extreme as Roady Garage's custom ute, Ford Australia once built a 4x4 version of the Falcon ute sometime in the early 1970s.
Dubbed the Ford Falcon XY 500 4x4, the off-road variant of the iconic Australian ute was built between 1970 and 1972 at its Brisbane facilities, with Ford only producing 472 examples of the pick-up truck in two years.
According to Australian car insurer Shannons, the Falcon 4WD ute was reinforced with extra bracing on the body while utilising leaf springs in its suspension.
The Ford Falcon XY 500 was popular among Queensland and New South Wales drivers, with the limited-edition pick-up previously popping up at auctions throughout the years.
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
