G'day from Germany

[MGDriver]

Hi everyone, I'm Marvin from Germany and I have recently aquired a 1999 Fairlane AU Ghia in Lightning Silver powered by a 5.0 Litre Windsor V8 and the only one of it's kind in Germany. My friend John (Troutman) has posted the process of the car on here and suggested for me to sign up myself so I did. As someone has mentioned in Troutmans thread, the Fairlanes are popular in England for limousine and hearse conversions, there is a British coachbuilder called Coleman Milne which has specialized in importing and converting them and they also offer to supply spare parts, there is a little scene of enthusiasts and owners of Australian Fords in the UK but it is very small with less then 100 members if even that. However outside of Britain in continental Europe these cars are basically non existant, my Fairlane is known to be the only one in Germany and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the only one in the rest of Europe as well so when I saw the car up for sale I knew I had to take the opportunity as it most likely won't arise again. I have always been a fan of Australian cars, Fords much alike as Holdens, but I would never have thought of owning one myself because buying and importing them over from the UK is expensive and difficult, let alone getting them from Australia. I still can't believe I got this deal, I ended up buying the car for €1800 which converts to $2800. Here's a few pictures of the car that I took today, there are a few issues with it and I know nothing about these cars so hopefully you guys will be able to help me getting the Fairlane back to its original shape.

[ed40]

[SnipeZ]

Good luck with it mate


Cheers

[Bipolar]

Awesome.

Love seeing pics of our home grown machines overseas.

[NUT347]

Wow!

From the pics in the other thread the interior is mint.

Great pickup!

[GIFFO97]

Good to see one over there! I know a guy with an earlier FC LTD in America. Shame our license plates are a little smaller than yours

If you need parts sing out, I'm sure some members here such as myself will be able to ship some stuff over for a small fee

[DEVLXR]

This is pretty cool, if only Ford Australia actually exported the Falcon, Fairlane and Territory! Good luck with it all mate.

[MGDriver]

Thanks for the welcome everyone, I'm currently going through the process of getting it permanently registered which is difficult being a right hand drive car. There's a few things wrong with this car that I need to fix, first of all it has some major rust problems underneath the spare wheel and around the wheel arches on all four sides. It's really bad under the spare wheel where I think it has actually rotted through so I probably will have to weld a new panel in there. However it's not surprising having lived in wet England for most of its life so I knew that beforehand. Another thing is the air conditioning which only works partly, it blows cold air but it won't heat up which being in the middle of winter would be useful to have. The traction contol light stays constantly on and the button does not work however traction control is working and there does not seem to be an issue with it it's just that the car thinks it's off. Shock absorbers on the front are shot and probably need replacing. There is some moisture on the inside of the lower rear window so I'm guessing the window seal is leaking which causes the windows to mist up very quickly. The display shows a little wrench symbol so I'm guessing there is some error in the system which needs to be read out.

The car is currently being inspected by the German TÜV I will get it back on Monday and find out which parts I need to replace apart from those already mentioned above. As for the license plates if get it on a permanent registration I can order custom sized plates for it that will fit the brackets, it currently runs on temporary transit plates and they only have regular sized plates available for those so it looks a bit awkward being crammed into the plate brackets like that. Here's some better shots of the interior.