AUSSIE car prices are going through the roof but one man – who bought his collection before the prices rocketed – has no plans to quit any of his high-performance and rare Falcons.

Falcons control most of the space of a unique, private car museum in a Perth southern suburb but the owner isn’t totally Ford-focussed with an eclectic mix of the exotic Lamborghini Aventador, the working-class Fiat 500, an immaculate and original Porsche 356 Speedster and the hand-built, Shelby approved GT40.

“Every car has a story,” said collector Ian Terriaca, the owner of one of Perth’s biggest car collec-tions now housed in a private museum in a south-city suburb.

The 32-car collection, which includes cars owned by his friend and former Perth restauranteur Bri-an Greenwood, are part of a bigger stable that are sheltered elsewhere.

The museum is a maximum security, purpose-built space, complete with climate-control air-conditioning, individual extractors for the exhaust of each car, below-floor hoist, an upstairs confer-ence room and sound-proof walls.

Each car also has surprises. The 2014 Ford FPV GT-F looks like any other model of the era but lift the lid and space on the firewall and inner guards is a graffiti of the signatures of Ford engineers and celebrated Bathurst legend Allan Moffat who made this car the forerunner of a new line of high-performance Falcons.

The prototype of the last of the GT line from FPV — named the GT-F with F for final — this is the production proving car that had the dubious honour of proving the durability of the supercharger when driven by Ford’s engineering team between Melbourne and Sydney.

The fact the supercharger past the test ticked the box for production to begin but for Number 1 built car, it was to be the end of its short life. Ford deemed the car never to be sold and it was stored in the Ford museum.

But philanthropy had a different idea. Ford Australia saw great merit in supporting the Breast Can-cer Foundation and turned to auctioning the shelved FPV prototype as a possible way of raising much-needed funds.

The “never to be sold” mandate was thrown out the window and the national auction came to the attention of Ian – who was also a strong supporter of the foundation – who successfully won the car.

“It’s only done 6000km,” he said. “Since I’ve owned it, it’s only done about another 100km which is mainly the regular start up and short drive to keep it fresh.”

“It was signed by all the engineers who worked on the car, along with Allan Moffat. It also came with Victorian number plates ‘GTF 001’.”

To keep it company, Ian ordered the same model in the same colour with the build number of 057.

But two Falcons was not enough. Ian’s collection now includes one of the last V8 Falcons, an XR8 supercharged in white, to pair with one of the last six-cylinder XR6s, a Sprint turbo, also in white.

“I’ll never sell these,” he said. “They have done about 100km each and still have the plastic on the seats and door cards from the factory.”

But even four Falcons isn’t enough.

The blue 1969 XW Phase I GTHO is original and has 134,000km on the odometer from new — nothing for a 52 year-old classic. With its original 351 “D” block, the 1971 XY GT Superoo is a repli-ca but one that Ian used to drive around metro Perth and says he loves it just as much as the others in the collection.

“I was after special ‘Superoo’ number plates from the 1970s for the XY but they weren’t available in WA,” Ian said.

“Apparently they were already taken. It was some time later than my son said he knew someone who had the plates and, after some conversation, I found out that they were bought but never col-lected from the traffic office.

“The owner had bought them for a car but had then travelled overseas. He had met a girl, got a job, got married, had children and so didn’t return to Perth.

“For 34 years, they had been sitting, unclaimed, on a shelf in the traffic office building. So I went with the plate owner to the office, negotiated a price and picked them up.

“I recall a plate like that selling for about a quarter of a million dollars in Victoria.”

Alongside the XY is an original XB GT351 in orange, and a red 2002 Tickford XR8 with 26,000km that has a similar ute as a sibling, then a black 2012 R-Spec 335 with only 200km on the clock from new.

“The owner just bought it and put it in his garage,” Ian said.

“It was the same model I was after back in 2012 but I couldn’t get the one I wanted then. The owner died and the car came available. See that it has the original fuel consumption sticker on the wind-screen.”

The relationship with Moffat continued with a white FPV GT R-Spec Boss 302 in Cobra blue and white colours with a bonnet signature by the race driver. The car, which celebrates the XC Cobra, has only travelled 1400km.

“I have a white Falcon XD ’S’ with a 351 engine and four-speed manual gearbox that was bought in 1981 by the WA Road Traffic Authority (now Police) and went to serve as a plain clothes pursuit car in Karratha in the north west,” Ian said.

“It still has the rear-window venetians with the small cut-outs for the police lights, and holes on the console for the two-way radio, and the very rare – and now very expensive – perspex headlight co-vers.

“But it has no provision for roof-top lights and sirens.

“It sat for 20 years under a tarp in someone’s backyard before I bought it in 2018.”

The silver-grey Tickford FTS50 from 2001 is a special car for Ian as it has been carefully modified to punch out 440kW thanks to extras including nitrous.

“I had a (Mercedes) E55 AMG that had 280kW and wanted a Falcon to have the same,” he said.

Ian also has a 1997 EL GT Tickford, badged “Koni Improved” and a black EB GT. But it’s not enough.

“I’m actively looking,” he said.