WE have been watching Ryan O’Hara from Uranquinty, NSW, build his new creation dubbed ‘The Slug’ via the wonders of Instagram.

He finished the project in time for the Kandos show on Australia Day weekend and even got it out on the burnout pad for a skid. We thought we’d better answer the question that was on everyone’s lips and ask Ryan that the heck it is!

“It is a 1960 (I think!) Morris J2 bus/van cut down into a ute,” he says. “A mate in my car club, Junkers, found it on a farm at West Wyalong. The original plan was to get it registered but everything was a bit too far gone, so I just decided to make something I could trailer around for burnouts, shows and possibly drags down the track.”

Ryan ditched the factory I-beam front end for a Mitsubishi L300 IFS unit and used some fancy wrecking yard engineering to make it work; including adapting Subaru and Nissan Pathfinder power steering bits and an XD Falcon brake master cylinder. He also notched the chassis in the rear, raised the floor and fitted a four-link rear suspension with airbags.

“The back of the van was already cut off with a nine-inch grinder when I got it, apparently to cart around hay bales on the farm, so I just finished it all off to make it look a bit like a factory option,” Ryan says of The Slug’s body mods.

For a driveline, Ryan went for a factory-blown Holden V6 and an auto transmission, with a HiLux diff out back. The motor is basically stock with some extra boost and a 2.5in exhaust.

“The signwriting on the doors was done by my mate, Hardy. The image is taken from a picture of my dad racing at Bathurst in the 70s and ‘Tas Tuned’ is a reference to his old business. Kandos was its first outing, the only time I had driven it was a few hundred metres on the dirt at a mates farm to check if everything worked, so I’m pretty happy. My wife and I have a new baby due soon, so I’ve probably used up my shed passes for a while [laughs].”