We ran into Adam Patruno and his tough-as-teak XF at Geelong All Ford Day, where the combination of 295/50s and a blow-through carby stuck out like a sore thumb among the Clevos and Barra swaps. And when we learned that Adam was born this side of the Y2K virus and built the entire car himself, we had to pull him over for a yack about his inspiring work ethic and allergy to T5s.

First published in the March 2025 issue of Street Machine

How’d the XF come into your life?

My old man brought me up watching Grunt Files and 90s V8 Supercars. My grandfather would pick me up from school in an XF, and some of my uncles had them too. I came across this GL wrapped in orange; I swapped an EL GLi for it. It needed a lot of work, but I thought that was just part of owning an old car. It was a carby car with a bench seat and had been converted from column shift to a single-rail. On my second day of owning it, I was heading down Plenty Road and suddenly the shifter came away in my hand, so I had to limp it home in third!

We don’t see many worked crossflows these days; what’s the go with this one?

The bottom end is all original except for 200ci rods! DB Cylinder Heads built the head with some port matching, bigger valves and Crow double springs. It’s got a Crow cam, ICE ignition system, an Aussiespeed intake, and a Quick Fuel E85 750cfm carb I found on Marketplace. The turbo is a Pulsar G42-1200 with a 3.5-inch exhaust and a 60mm Turbosmart ’gate with a 2.5-inch screamer. A mate did all the stainless pipework for me, and Maztech tuned it to 400kW (536hp) at the wheels.

The paint looks great! Has it been resprayed?

I pulled the wrap off and it took the original paint with it. I’d never done bodywork, so I started sanding and bought a tin of Monza red. I sprayed it in my mum’s garage; I watered the floor to stop the dust, but it got into the skirting boards and they came away from the walls – it was a complete disaster!

And you’ve made some changes to the car since we took the photos?

It kept spitting belts, so I’ve fitted an EF balancer and alternator pulley and replaced the water pump with a Davies Craig electric one. It was running a T5, but it snapped pedal boxes and cracked the firewall. When I blew that up, I changed to a manualised C4 with a transbrake, roller conversion and Dominator converter. The car’s a rocket ship – it’s come such a long way.

Got any other cars?

I’ve got a white ’94 EF XR6 that I bought when I was 17. I’ve had 10 to 15 EF/ELs, but it’s been a dream of mine to own a white EF XR6 for ages, so I’ll never sell it. It’s one of my mum’s dream cars, too; she was an apprentice when they were brand new, and she just loved them. I baby it now, but I tend to drive my cars pretty hard; I’ve been through seven T5s in it!

You don’t muck around! Any future plans?

I’ve never raced on a drag strip, and my boss runs junior dragsters at Heathcote, so I’d love to bolt some slicks on and get some seat time at the track. It’s what I built the XF to do, so if it runs a low 10, I’ll be very happy. The crossflow is probably hanging on by a thread, so I’d like to replace it with a blown 7.3 Godzilla at some point. And my old man was always into Cortinas, so it would be great to build one with him some day.

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