Next one - the XA Falcon wagon.

This is the car that sits right in the midst of my youth, the car that I remember the most and probably has the most childhood memories for me - mostly because it was while my parents had this car that I grew from being a little kid, to a big kid, and that's when you start to take interest in more than just the immediate things of your family.

This is the car that I remember having the caravan behind it, which means it is the one which has the most travel associated with it for me. It is the car that took us to many Model Aeroplane National Championships.
The memories are many and varied - from one drive to I don't remember where, when I was sitting in the very back of the wagon - no seatbelts there, but it was legal - or at least it wasn't illegal! Because we were a family of six, it tended to be a bit cramped sometimes in the two rows (3 front and 3 back) so sometimes I would sit in the cargo area in the back. This day I was back there with the dog(!) and I remember looking across sometime during the drive, and seeing a neat little lump of mincemeat sitting on the floor. Not realising, because I was just a kid, I asked mum why she had left some meat out of the esky. They asked some questions and pulled over to clean up where the dog had been sick!!!!!
Another time I remember sitting on the right hand side in the back seat - my oldest brother and sister must have been somewhere else. But I had my arm resting on the armrest, which in the old falcon had a hole in it which served as the grab handle as well. Sometime on the trip, I felt something on my arm and looked down to see a huge huntsman spider crawling through the armrest and onto my arm.
I let out a 'manly yell' (OK I screamed!!!) and ripped off my seatbelt and jumped right across the car into my brother's lap - Dad panicked thinking something was terribly wrong, and pulled over as quickly as he could, as I blubbered and gibbered like a madman on my brother's lap. He eventually figured out that the 'pet' spider that lived in the model plane club's first aid box had escaped and come out to say hi. They knew the spider was there, but could never seem to find him - but we did that day.

Must say, I still don't like spiders very much, although now I have an uneasy truce with them generally.

Much more happened with that Falcon, and it took us to most states of Australia, but that will do for now.

Ours was a colour that we called bronze - a metallic mid-dark brown.

The Old Falc.

The oldest family car I can remember was the old blue falcon - not entirely sure but, I think it was an XM falcon - wagon, in powder blue with a white roof.

Don't remember much about it, except we traveled a lot in it.

I guess I was still pretty young, and I think we got that when we got back from the Canadian sojourn.

In fact remember very little about it - but it is burned into my memory for some reason. It is the first car that I associate with model airplanes - when I was young my parents were into control line flying - a little bit of RC too, but mostly control line, and for some reason when I think of this car, it leads my mind to model planes.

This is one of the reasons why cars play such a big part in my memory in fact, because as a family we traveled to the national championships every year. These were held in a different state and town each year normally at Christmas time. This meant that I had been to every state but Tassie before I can remember that I hadn't - if that makes sense. As long as I can remember we had been all over the place.

And always by car.

I remember days driving in the Victorian countryside while Dad and his friends looked for a place to fly their R/C sailplanes - just driving miles and miles and miles, until they found a fantastic looking slope to fly from. Then they would find the homestead and ask permission - most would say yes - Including on one occasion Gus Mercurio - an Aussie actor (who we didn't make a fuss about - until we were well away afterwards!), and who was nice enough to let them fly on a slope on his property.

I think in fact we were driving the Brown Falcon for that one, but there will be more on that soon.

Anyway - ever since that blue falcon, I have been a Ford man - never actually owned one myself by the way.....