Cool car gets thumbs up from fans

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This article was published 25/08/2023 (1120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If this 55-year-old Fastback could talk, she just might share what it’s been like to lead a pampered life, take weekend trips to the lake, and how, thanks to a restoration, stops people in their tracks.

“Oh yeah, she’s a she, and as far as I’m concerned, a pretty sharp looking car,” said her owner, Brandon’s Ken Black. “For one thing, the paint on it is original, and that’s amazing.”

Black’s Royal Maroon 1968 Ford XL Fastback, two-door hardtop is also a rarity. The body style was only built for two years, and Black knows the exact date that it rolled off the assembly line — information that was provided in the Marti Report.

Kevin Marti is an American mechanical engineer who created a database of all Ford vehicles made between 1967 and 2014. Car owners can send in the vehicle’s VIN, and for a fee, will receive a personalized report that provides all the information about the vehicle’s original equipment.

“So, the Marti report says it was scheduled for production at the Twin Cities plant in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to be built on June 13, 1968, which I thought — oh oh, the 13th was not good. But it was behind schedule, so it wasn’t built until June 14, which was a Friday — not good for building cars either,” Black said as he laughed.

Black’s Fastback was one of 50,045 built in 1968. His is one of 1,334 that were painted Royal Maroon, is included in the 15 that were equipped with heavy duty suspension and is the only one that has a power ventilation system.

“And I’ve had the Fastback for a year and a few months,” he said. “The owner before me had it for about 20 years and he did the restoration. He rebuilt the engine with a 390, V-8 and an aftermarket fuel injection carburetor. The black vinyl bucket seats are new, as are the carpets, dash, and headliner. Other than that, everything else is original.”

The trunk on the 55-year-old Fastback still has the nameplate of Canadian Motors, the dealership that once stood on the south side of Victoria Ave. in Brandon, just west of 26 Street.

Brand new, it would have had a base price of about $3,300.

Black said the car has never left Brandon, and while he thinks he is the fourth or fifth owner — he has met two people at downtown show and shines who told him they remembered the car from, “back in the day.”

“A fella came by and said when he was a kid in 1968 this car was in his neighborhood, and he remembers it sitting in someone’s driveway. He said he always thought it was a nice-looking car,” Black said.

And at another event in Brandon, Black was approached by a previous owner — Darron Hyrsak, who told the Sun that he owned it right before it was restored — and that the Fastback was the source of lots of fun during the two summers he had it.

“When I got it, I was just out of university, and I used to pull my Sea-Doo with it to Clear Lake. And it was kind of funny because the Sea-Doo just happened to have the exact same colours as the car, the deep red and white stripes. It looked like the car had been painted to match the Sea-Doo, or vice versa, it was just the way it worked out,” Hyrsak said as he laughed at the memory.

There are many features on the Fastback that make it unforgettable. On the front grill are hideaway headlights with shutters that are vacuum operated. They open once the car is started and the headlight switch is pulled. The rear brake lights are an oblong almost square shape, with the back up light in the middle. And the XL insignia is on each side of the car, the trunk, and the hood.

“I’ve been to about 10 car shows so far this summer and she’s beautiful to drive on the highway,” Black said. “I don’t have cruise control or anything like that, but that’s alright. It just makes me feel good when people wave and give me a thumbs up when they drive by you know. It’s a feel-good type of thing.”

Black can add one more person who’s told him that his car is, “pretty sweet,” — his 26-year-old granddaughter, Sarah Doud.

“When I first saw it, I said, wow. It’s a very cool car, but then again, my grandpa has always been a pretty cool guy, and this makes him even cooler,” Doud said.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

» X: @enviromichele