The Chicken Coupe, a 1973 Falcon XA GT RPO 83, Fetches Insane Amount at Auction

Meet Australia’s most (in)famous Ford Falcon, a very rare and very well-known XA GT Hard Top with the RPO 83 package dubbed “The Chicken Coupe.” It got its moniker from sitting in a chicken coop since 1988, when it was parked there by the original owner, with the intention of taking it out on the road again, some day.

This makes this Falcon a very literal barn find. And it just traded hands for a small fortune at a Grays Online auction, probably setting a new record: AU$309,909, which is roughly some US$220,000 at today’s exchange rate.

This Ford Falcon was literally covered in pigeon and rat poop, rusted, badly destroyed by the elements and no longer in working order, having not been started or moved since 1988. This makes the final price even more astounding, considering a same-year (1973) Ford Falcon in excellent condition is worth an estimated $180,000.

But this Ford Falcon is not like all the others. Not only is it one of the 120 ever built for Australia, and one in three in the unique orange shade called McRobertson's Old Gold, but it comes with features not standard at the time, like power steering and power windows, A/C and Ford aluminum rear bumper. It’s a four-speed manual, with a 351-cubic-inch V8 engine with 330 hp under the hood, and all original parts.

It also tells a story more fascinating than any other. You can find it in full in the PDF attached.

Gordon Stubbersfield bought it right after the “supercar scare” of the ‘70s, when automakers were warned of safety concerns on their increasingly faster sedans. “Ford had released the fastest sedan in the world in 1971, the Phase III GTHO Falcon,” Bill Freeman, head of classic cars at GraysOnline auctioneers, explains.

“The government ended up saying to Australian manufacturers, ‘If you produce 160 mile-an-hour [257 kp0h] supercars, we won't give you fleet orders.’ By 1973 Ford was all set to launch its Phase IV GTHO, and it had all the parts in the factory. So Ford quietly put the parts on some GTs under the option code ‘RPO 83,’ and that's what makes this car very special.”

Gordon knew the rarity of the car he’d come across, so he didn’t hesitate one bit when he bought it. He decided it would become his wedding car, and for this reason, he never wanted to sell it. He parked it in the shed because he could no longer afford the high insurance premium, but not for a single day did he lose hope he might get it back on the road.

As time crept by, the car began to deteriorate. Still, Gordon refused to sell it, even though he kept getting good offers, based on the rarity of the car. The “Chicken Coupe” name stuck because, after years of sitting in the shed, it had become home to many a chicken and pigeon, and the occasional rat or mouse. Even so, Gordon said he loved the car – too much to want to part with it.

Gordon passed away last year, and his estate finally agreed to sell the car as-is. The identity of the new owner has not been revealed, so it’s not known whether he plans to restore the Falcon to its former glory or keep it as “The Chicken Coupe.”