Folks outside of Australia may not recognize the squarish lines of the XY-series Ford Falcon, but the shaker hood scoop is a universal sign of something cool under the hood. This is a rare 1970 Ford XY Falcon GT, recently pulled from a cramped garage beneath a house where it sat for nearly 50 years. And it brought $152,000 at auction, still covered in dust and dirt.
Auction house Grays.com documented the find of this ultra-special Falcon. Ford built approximately 1,500 examples, starting in 1970, the model year for this car. The auction description says this is an early example that may have been a field evaluation vehicle for Ford. It’s equipped with a factory manual transmission and a factory sunroof. Under the hood sits the car’s original 351 cubic-inch (5.8-liter) V8. Back in the day, it was rated at 300 horsepower. Though as with many muscle cars of the classic era, it’s widely believed to be underrated.
The video shows just how snugly the car sat during its decades-long slumber. It was in Ford’s hands for the first year of its life, at which point it was sold to a Ford employee who had it for roughly a year. It came to its most recent owner next, who parked it “around 1979,” per the video. Why was it parked under the house? The owner changed jobs and got a company car, and then the years turned into decades.
That brings us to 2023. The Falcon’s exterior needs some help, as we can see in the video. Collision damage on the passenger rear door was repaired but didn’t hold up well over time, and there are some other rust spots scattered about the sedan. The interior, however, is in very good (albeit dirty) condition, and the trunk still contains the original jack. The odometer shows 65,278 miles, but the status of the engine is unknown.
The XY Falcon is among the most sought-after muscle cars in Australia, but they’re getting global attention these days. And enthusiasts are willing to pay serious dinero to take one home. A 1971 XY Falcon GTHO – an exceedingly rare variant of the GT sedan – fetched over $1 million at auction.