Few Aussie cars have garnered quite the reputation in recent years as the infamous ‘Chicken Coupe’.
While ordinarily, any Ford Falcon XA GT Hardtop will bring good money at auction, this neglected, rusted-out carcass of a car earned $300,909 back in July 2020. That’s despite it having spent the previous three decades gathering dust and other less savoury detritus in a south-east Queensland shed hemmed by chicken wire.
A large part of the reason for the rusted hulk’s extraordinary sale price was the fact it is a rare RPO 83 model – effectively the canned XA ‘Phase IV’ which uses XY GT HO Phase III mechanicals, of which only 120 coupes and 139 sedans were built.
One of only two finished in MacRobertson’s Old Gold, and the only one with a white interior, the unique combination of options made this a true ‘one-of-one’ rarity.
“From its accidental birth after the ‘supercar ban’, to its decades in a shed surrounded by chicken wire, to its colour scheme that honours a local chocolate company, it’s a uniquely Aussie story surrounded by rumours and legend,” explained Rian Gaffy, classic car specialist at Grays, ahead of the vehicle’s sale back in 2020.
Fast forward to 2021, and it was announced that classic car restoration experts Finch Restorations would be handling the extensive rebuild of this car – although given the car’s advanced state of decay, calling it a rebuild might be an understatement.
However, having seen first-hand what quality work the South Australian business can deliver in our road test of its blueprint-accurate SS Jaguar 100 replica, they would seem to be the team to handle it.
Although there was a lot of publicity around the car in the early days of this mammoth job, things went quiet until recently when the car finally resurfaced, now shrouded in added layers of social media-driven controversy.
Finch Restorations recently invited Retro Rides to look at the Chicken Coupe and the progress that has been made on bringing this infamous car back to life.
Ransacked by rats, but the Chicken Coupe’s Falcon GT soul remains intact
The first time we saw the Chicken Coupe in the metal was in 2022 while visiting Finch’s main facility in Mount Barker, South Australia. This was about the earliest it was even safe to go near the car according to Peter Roberts, owner and CEO of Finch Restorations.
“Rats had been living in it for 20, maybe 30 years, it was a total biohazard,” Peter explains.
“One of the cleaners even told me they went through over six cans of Glen 20 during the early stages of working on the car. It wasn’t until the vehicle had been alkaline dipped that the stench finally went away.”
This rodent infestation was the primary reason the car required such extensive rebuild work. The amount of rat excrement that had been sitting in the dips and valleys of its chassis and bodywork had rusted entire holes in some sections, such that it more closely resembled a colander than a car.
Three years later, the turnaround is remarkable. While some online commenters have argued that all the car needed was a wash and a fresh set of tyres, else it wouldn’t still be the Chicken Coupe, Peter believes that the soul of the car still remains intact.
He compared it to the major restoration currently being undertaken on HMS Victory, the world’s oldest naval vessel still in commission after 247 years.
“No matter how much of that ship has been replaced,” he argues, “it’s still the same ship, and the same can be said of the Chicken Coupe.”
Fundamentally, without this chassis restoration, the car would not have been safe to drive. Now, with the panels still stripped away from the chassis, it looks like a brand-new car – arguably even better.
During that initial 2022 visit, Peter confidently told us that “ground-up restorations are our specialty, particularly the hardest and most complicated ones”, and that’s clear to see in how far this immense project has come.
With the vehicle’s owner specifying it needed to be restored to stringent GT Nationals standards, every decision required thorough consideration and a lot of back-and-forth.
“For example, the boot lock on the car was originally 15mm off-centre, and re-centring it [to the blueprint specifications] would also necessitate a new boot lid to ensure the locking mechanism aligned,” Peter tells us.
There was also the matter of sourcing new panels or trim items where necessary. “To give an indication of just how much this can cost, new old stock rear carpets would’ve cost $12,000 while a set from Rare Spares would only be $300,” he added.
The extensive work Finch Restorations has undertaken on the vehicle is now complete, with it left at the stage of being ready for paint to be applied. The reason why Finch’s time with the car ends here after four years, however, is where the controversy comes in.
Why the Chicken Coupe Falcon is never far from controversy
Recently, after Finch shared a video across social media documenting their progress with the car, an anonymous Facebook account claiming to be run by the owner of the vehicle left a series of comments and posts that put a bee in the collective bonnet of the classic car world.
Given the anonymity of the account, Retro Rides is not suggesting that the posts came from the car’s actual owner, only that they purported to be.
Among the posts was one that declared “the Chicken Coupe is on the move” to another business. The same account also left a comment under one of Finch’s own Facebook posts that the business is “delusional if you think your [sic] doing anything further work [sic] on my car”. The poster also demanded the car be returned to them (the purported owner).
A spokesperson for Finch Restorations described the situation as a “storm in a teacup” in their own comments online.
“The owner has advised that he […] wants the car finished elsewhere to reduce cost,” they explained.
“We have not done any work on the car since [the owner] requested we cease work. We confirmed in writing that work has ceased and the car is being packed up.”
There also appears to have been some misconception around a post by Finch that stated, “every surface [has been] refined to meet the demanding standards of GT Nationals judging”. Some readers took this to mean the company was planning on presenting the Chicken Coupe themselves at GT Nationals.
One commenter even suggested, “The way this restoration is heading with the extremely high cost, Finch Restorations will likely take ownership of this classic and then display the finished car at a high-end motor show just to show everyone what this company can do and how good their work is.”
A spokesperson for Finch Restorations refuted this suggestion, saying, “Any assumption that we will take ownership of the car is incorrect, and we are not entering the car into GT Nationals.
“It was the directive of the owner that it be restored to GT Nationals standards, and they can choose whether or not to enter it themselves.”
All comments left online by Finch Restorations’ spokesperson were echoed verbatim to us while seeing the car in person.
Finch Restorations would not reveal the identity of the owner to Retro Rides, so we have not been able to reach them for comment.
Clearly, there are more twists and turns yet to come with regards the restoration of one of Australia’s most infamous classic cars. Many enthusiasts, including the team here at Retro Rides, will be waiting with bated breath to see what happens next with the Chicken Coupe Falcon GT.
Photography for this story provided by: Patrick Jackson, Andy Rasheed/Eyefood Photography, Marcus Cardone, and Finch Restorations.
