James couldn’t let the car suffer that kind of fate, but he already had a couple of project cars and no space to store the thing. Besides which, the Falcon wasn’t yet properly registered in BC, and there’d be further weirdness to come.

McMillan struck a deal with the tow company for the scrap value of the car, $350, found space at a friend’s storage yard, and had the Bopper towed there. When it showed up, the guy at the gate said, “That’s odd – I’ve seen that car advertised, asking $7,000.” Thinking he’d been scammed, James tracked down the original owner, and gingerly sussed out the situation. The owner had attempted to import the car from the US, but an unscrupulous shop bilked him out of funds, and then an indignant landlord insisted that the uninsured Falcon be removed. To the original owner, the car was an albatross, and he just wanted it gone. “I told him I hated to see it just get junked, and asked if he’d be okay if I fixed it,” McMillan said, “He said he’d be stoked!”

But the Bopper wasn’t running yet. There was plenty of work to do to get it moving under its own power, including dealing with Australia-only parts. McMillan made contacts in Australia’s classic Ford community, but the shipping was just ridiculous. Happily, years of wrenching on his own cars – mostly Datsuns and Mopars – gave him the skills to do stuff like developing an adaptor plate to make a North American-spec power-booster work.

After months of work and passing a nerve-wracking provincial inspection, the Big Bopper was finally in McMillan’s possession and ready to run. It’s Sunday morning, and with the clank of 1970s steel doors, we shut the doors, crank the slightly recalcitrant 351 Cleveland V8 up into a rumble, and head on down the street to see what trouble we can find.

Cosmetically, the Bopper’s got a few bruises. That lower splitter was broken by the tow company when McMillan got the car, and the right rear door dented as well. It fits the character of the machine though, and as we skulk around back alleys and abandoned buildings, the dirtier the wheel arches get, the better the Bopper looks.

James has a CD made by a group of Mad Max fans that replicates the radio chatter from the movie, so we listen to that as we set up near the old Dueck building on Marine. The Bopper also has a working PA system, CB radio, and lights, and is filled with small genuine touches like the rosary beads hanging from the rearview.

Marine’s a pretty busy street usually, but down here among the scrapyards and derelict buildings, it’s like an apocalyptic wasteland. We spot a guy dumping tires illegally, get the thumbs up from a homeless guy carrying a trashbag filled with cans. A security guard in a van comes over to try and chase us out of one back lot, but seems content to let me take a few more photos.

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