Go to: ‘the OG MINCER‘

Blown MINCER Capri

You’d go a long way within the Aussie car scene to find someone who hasn’t formed a robust opinion on Tristan Ockers’s iconic MINCER Capri. The car’s reputation precedes it, and in the court of public opinion, the jury is still well and truly out on whether or not it can be remotely considered a ‘street car’.

First published in the June 2026 issue of Street Machine

It must be said that MINCER does feature all the trappings of a streeter. It’s all-steel and all-glass, has functioning lights, turn signals, wipers and a horn. It’s just the 14/71-blown, mechanically injected, alcohol-chugging, 510-cube Oldsmobile big-block that some people seem to take issue with.

“I think whether this is a real street car or not is one of Australia’s greatest debates; everybody sees everything through different eyes,” says Tristan. “To me, this is just my old Capri; I hop in it, push a button, start it and drive it. It drives pretty docile; I think I’ve driven it enough kays to prove to myself that I believe it’s a street car, but others definitely wouldn’t agree. I enjoy the controversy.”

The blown Capri is the one most people would associate T.O. and the MINCER name with. However, it’s his recently reacquired aspirated Capri, dubbed ‘the OG Mincer’, that he owned first, and this has prompted some confusion.

“When I bought the OG Mincer, I’d only just got my P-plates,” says Tristan. “It was in The Trading Post for five grand with a Windsor, C4 and nine-inch, so I bought it, took it to Summernats 7, and kind of got laughed at by the scrutineers, because it wasn’t exactly beautiful! So, then I came back home and stripped it. I was only 17 at that stage, and I did a full resto on it and took it back down to Summernats 9.”

Engine troubles in Sunday’s burnout comp saw Tristan planning a rebuild with tubs, a rollcage and a fresh motor, but then another Capri popped up for sale. It was already tubbed, ’caged, engineered and registered in NSW, so T.O. jumped on it, sold the OG Mincer as a roller, and progressed with the new car.

“Although I sold the OG car, I always kept tabs on where it was, and then years later – probably about five years ago – I got it back,” says Tristan. “It’s confusing, because [the way it’s built] is a bit of a mash-up of the two cars, and because the OG car was at Summernats 9 and the new car was at Summernats 10 – there wasn’t a big break between the two of them. Hopefully that clears things up!”

While the blown Capri might be the ‘new’ one in relative terms, it’s been in Tristan’s keeping since February 1996 – that’s 30 damn years! In that time, it’s seen a range of engine packages, and has evolved from a tough, regularly driven aspo streeter into perhaps Australia’s best-known outlaw pro street car – a wild, six-second, 200mph quarter-mile freakshow that has been known – on occasion – to prowl the semi-rural streets of the Wollondilly region of NSW.

“It’s on the wild side of the pro street scene, if that’s how you’d best describe it,” says Tristan. “It’s gone 6.9@201mph – which is around 325km/h. For a car that was originally built for a four-cylinder or a V6, it’s probably not really meant to be doing that, but it’s got a decent chassis in it. It’s old by today’s standards, but it’s fun, because while it does go down the track pretty good, it’s also a handful – you’ve got to wrestle it; you’ve got to fight it. I enjoy that; I don’t want to race a slot car. Sometimes you don’t know whether it’s going to throw you over the left-hand fence or the right-hand fence.”

ProFlo Performance has long looked after MINCER, and is responsible for its towering big-block Olds bent-eight. Topped by one of ProFlo’s own PFP billet mechanical injector hats, the 14/71 Kobelco pump is 20 per cent overdriven, and encourages compressed air and methanol into the 510-cube mill at a scary rate of knots. The heads are 18-degree Big Chief items, while the rotating assembly consists of a Howards crank, Oliver steel rods, and custom CP slugs. A custom Bullet solid-roller cam works the valves, and alcohol is on tap thanks to a Waterman fuel pump.

The trans is an Al’s Race Glides-built Turbo 400 paired with a Neal Chance converter, sending grunt rearwards to a sheet-metal diff with an alloy 3.89:1 Mark Williams centre.

Simmons V5 rollers are a throwback to T.O.’s favourite era of street machining, and measure up at a monumental 15x15in on the rear. After all, when you’re grappling with 2350hp worth of mechanically injected grunt, you need a decent grip on the earth.

Much like the powertrain, the car’s aesthetic has gradually evolved over the years, but one thing that hasn’t changed since its debut at Street Machine Summernats 10 is that it’s always been green. The current hue features a good amount of metallic fleck through it, and was cooked up and applied by Kresi Basanovic at TSR Paint & Panel.

Tristan’s ownership of the blown MINCER has been as long as it has been storied, but the two Summernats Tuff Street Champion gongs – arguably the holy grail for Aussie pro street cars – are right up there among his highlights. “I’m far from a trophy-hunter, but to go to Summernats and come away with Tuff Street Champion two times, up against the best of the best, is something that I hold pretty dearly,” he says.

Cracking the mid-to-low sevens with the car when it was small-block Ford-powered was another highlight. “So many people said we wouldn’t be able to do it, and that lit a fire under me,” says Tristan. “I travelled up and down the east coast with Paul [Sant of ProFlo] and other mates and did a hell of a lot of racing with that little 362ci small-block, and at one stage we had the quickest Pro Street car in the country. I don’t mean to take away from what we’ve achieved with the big-block, but people almost expect it to run in the sixes. When it had the small-block, we were the underdog.”

TRISTAN OCKERS
1971 FORD CAPRI

THANKS
Paul Sant and all the boys at ProFlo Performance; Al’s Race Glides; Street Car Fabrications; Ontrak Auto Electrical; Jack Moss at Finer Detail Industries. There are so many people and shops that have been part of the journey with this car over the past 35 years – you know who you are – and I really appreciate everything everyone has done to help, no matter how big or small.

[Back to Top]

‘The OG Mincer’

Given that the OG Capri was where it all started for Tristan, you’d imagine he’d have felt a pang of sentimentality when he managed to reacquire the car some five-or-so years back.

“I never really thought that I’d get that car back, so when the chance came around, I grabbed it, got it home and it kind of slowly started to sink in,” he says. “My mate Daniel Wood and I were only 17 or 18 years old and we did a full resto on it. We were just kids, and it brings back memories and a bit of self-satisfaction; it’s something to be proud of all these years later.”

Dan worked at JJ Performance Smash Repairs in Bargo at the time, and he painted the Capri in Spies Hecker Porsche Green in exchange for the princely sum of $4500 way back in 1993, just up the road from where Tristan currently lives. “That paint is still on the car today, and it really adds to the nostalgia for me,” says Tristan.

Now that the car was back where it belonged, Tristan’s game plan was to build it into a bit of a melting pot of MINCER’s different guises over the years, all while harking back to his formative years mucking around with cars. “I wanted it to look like a 90s speed parts catalogue,” he grins. “I love the vintage 80s and 90s speed parts – things like the blue and red anodised fittings and braided lines – because I think that’s had the biggest impact on me, growing up through that era. Everything was polished and anodised; it was a really cool era. You pop your bonnet and everything sparkles.”

And while the blown car’s status as a street car is a tad subjective, the plan was always to make the OG Mincer a far more readily streetable machine. “I’m happy to debate whether the blown car is a street car or not, but this one really is a street car,” Tristan says. “There’s nothing better than being able to just drive to a service station, fill it with fuel and know that you’re going to be cruising for a while.”

Of course, the fact that it’s all-motor and runs on pump fuel doesn’t mean it’s some meek little cruiser; that’s not how Tristan rolls. ProFlo Performance was again called upon to bolt the engine together, and while we covered it in detail as our Mill of the Month in the March 2026 issue, let’s just say it’s a burger with the lot as far as aspo small-blocks go.

“When I spoke with Paul at ProFlo, I wanted it to have a tunnel-rammed Windsor with twin Dominators,” says Tristan. “We came up with a 447-cube package with good compression that was still safe to run on pump fuel, and a mechanical roller cam. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the gold Moroso valve covers to work, which is a shame, but we made our own similar-spec gold covers. We’ve had no dramas with it; it makes good power and runs cool.”

“Good power” is somewhat underselling it – the dry sumped, Dart-blocked screamer stomped out 861hp on pump fuel, and 879hp on MS109 on the engine dyno. That’s a monumental 1.97hp per cubic inch!

“I’ll tell you what, when you squeeze the throttle, you can feel it through all the gears; it just explodes like a bomb, in a good way!” Tristan enthuses.

The fact that the OG Mincer ended up in the final four out of 70 cars competing in the Powercruise 99.9 Off Street Drags amidst all manner of competition certainly proves that the little Windsor has the goods, and there’s been plenty of trouble-free street miles in between.

Without question, the 90s aesthetic has been nailed. In addition to the aforementioned tunnel ram, blue and red fittings and anodised gold rocker covers, the B45 Simmons rollers, tartan trim and solid green duco combine to make the modern version of the OG Mincer a dead-set time-warp.

And it, together with its bigger, blown brother, is destined for a long-awaited return to the drag strip following the recently announced launch of the Australian Pro Street League.

“The blown car will get a full strip-down and update to run in the Pro Street Blown class, and the OG car will run in the Mod Street Unblown class, so there’s some really exciting times ahead for pro street-style cars in Australia,” says Tristan.

As if running two cars won’t be a big enough undertaking, Tristan is also busy screwing together a 530hp, 4V Clevo-powered XY Falcon 500 for his young bloke, Lucky, to run in True Street. It sounds like T.O.’s lifelong obsession with pro street toughies ain’t slowing down anytime soon, and is looking set to become an intergenerational affair.

“Sometimes you have days where things aren’t going to plan, and then you walk up to the yard, pull the roller door up, flick the lights on and think, ‘Life’s not so bad’,” Tristan says. “Even though I’ve owned these cars for basically my whole life, it kind of still takes your breath away, and it’s exciting to think about what lies ahead.”

TRISTAN OCKERS
1971 FORD CAPRI

THANKS
Everyone at ProFlo Performance, especially Charlie Sant for the engine build; Al’s Race Glides; Ontrak Auto Electrical; JD, Pete Robbins and Brodie Ward for car assembly; JJ Performance Smash Repairs for the paintjob; my kids Lucky, Elula & Shyla; Nathan Ockers.

[Back to Top]