DAVES XA BIRD HASN’T BEEN FIRED UP SINCE 1988 {25 years.}The BIRD wants to FLY LOL.

Dave’s 1973 Ford XA Falcon Superbird — one of around 750 built — hadn’t run since 1988. Twenty-five years of silence later, the engine finally gets its first crank in this video, with a full restoration promised to follow. For a car this rare, every attempt carries real stakes. Watch to see if it fires.

Twenty-five years is long enough for a car to be forgotten by everyone except the person who parked it. Dave’s Ford Falcon Superbird sat silent since 1988, and by the time this video was filmed, most of the people who’d know how rare it actually is had likely never seen one running. Only around 750 of these were ever built, which means starting this particular engine again wasn’t just a mechanical question — it was the difference between one more surviving example and one more entry on a list of cars that used to exist. What happens when the key finally turns is the payoff a quarter-century of patience earns.

What an XA Superbird Actually Is

The XA Superbird has nothing to do with the Plymouth Superbird that American muscle car fans typically picture — it’s a Ford Falcon-based special edition built by Ford Australia on the XA platform in the early 1970s, part of a run of Falcon GT variants that never officially reached North American shores. Australia’s muscle car era produced its own distinct lineup of high-performance Falcons and Holdens built specifically for local touring car racing homologation, and the XA Superbird sits inside that lineage as one of its rarer trim packages.

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Why Only 700 Were Built

With only around 750 examples built in 1973, the XA Superbird was never a mass-production car to begin with, and attrition over five decades — accidents, rust, cars broken for parts, examples simply lost to time — has thinned that number considerably further. Surviving cars in any condition are treated as significant finds within Australian muscle car circles, which is part of why a community has organically formed around channels documenting this specific car’s progress.

A Quarter-Century of Silence

Dave’s example had been sitting since 1988, meaning it went quiet before most viewers watching this video were even born. A quarter century of storage does more than let dust settle — fuel systems gum up completely, rubber components perish, and anything with a battery or electrical connection needs to be assumed dead until proven otherwise. The video frames this not as a quick weekend project but as the first tentative step in what the owner describes as a restoration that’s about to begin in earnest.

The Risks of Waking Up a 25-Year Sleeper

Starting an engine that’s been dormant for 25 years carries real risk, and it’s a different calculus than the nine-years-and-under storage revivals more commonly seen in car content. Cylinders can be seized solid, oil galleries can be partially blocked with old sludge, and forcing an engine to turn over before manually verifying it rotates freely by hand can bend a rod or crack a piston. The caution in how this start is approached reflects an awareness that a rare, largely irreplaceable engine is on the line.

Why Australian Muscle Cars Rarely Cross the Pacific

Cars like the XA Superbird rarely turn up outside Australia, and that scarcity in North America isn’t an accident — Ford’s Australian division engineered the Falcon platform specifically for local emissions rules, right-hand-drive production, and touring car homologation requirements that had no equivalent in the U.S. market. Import costs, compliance conversions, and simple distance have historically kept most surviving examples within Australia and New Zealand, which is exactly why a car this significant to one country’s muscle car history remains a near-total unknown to American audiences who grew up steeped in Mopar and GM lore instead.

Why the Owner’s Patience Matters as Much as the Car

What comes through clearly in the video and the surrounding commentary is the credit given to Dave and his wife Pam for simply keeping the car intact for a quarter century rather than parting it out or letting it deteriorate past saving. Preservation, in cases like this, is its own form of restoration work — a car that’s merely complete and unmolested after 25 years is worth vastly more to restorers than one that’s been picked apart for spare parts along the way.

What a Full XA Restoration Actually Involves

A first successful start is only the opening step of what the video promises is a full restoration to come, and for a car like this, that process typically runs far deeper than a repaint and new upholstery. Bodywork after 25 years of storage usually means addressing rust in the floor pans, sills, and wheel wells, rebuilding the entire fuel delivery system from tank to carburetor, replacing every rubber hose and seal in the engine bay, and often a full brake system overhaul since brake fluid absorbs moisture over time and can corrode internal components even when the car never moves. For a rare, largely irreplaceable model, sourcing correct parts for that kind of work can take years by itself.

Why First-Start Footage Matters to Restorers

Documenting a first start before any restoration work begins also serves a practical purpose beyond entertainment: it creates a baseline record of exactly what condition the engine and drivetrain were in before anything got disassembled. Restorers frequently reference footage like this later in a project to confirm which sounds, leaks, or issues were present from the start versus which ones appeared during the teardown — a useful troubleshooting reference that a written note or photo alone often can’t fully capture.

How Word Spreads About a Car Like This

For niche models like the XA Superbird, word tends to spread through owner registries and marque-specific forums long before mainstream car media takes notice, with dedicated communities tracking known surviving examples by chassis number in much the same way rarer American muscle cars are tracked. A video like this one, once shared into those circles, often reaches exactly the small audience most invested in the outcome even if its total view count stays modest compared to mainstream car content.

A Community Still Watching and Waiting

The video’s own comments point to a small but dedicated audience specifically following this car’s journey, including at least one viewer whose father owned the same model and who’s been checking back for updates. For rare regional muscle cars like the XA Superbird, that kind of ongoing, personal audience interest is often the only reason detailed restoration documentation exists at all — and it’s exactly the kind of following that turns a single first-start video into the opening chapter of a much longer story.

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