If anything tells us that it’s a particularly awesome era for us gearheads, it’s the fact that Daniel Hookham’s 1979 VB SL/E Commodore is what we’d consider a ‘street car’ today. It’s a stunningly detailed build that was unveiled to the world in the Elite Hall at Street Machine Summernats 37, but it’s also wheelspun its way to a 7.09-second quarter-mile thanks to an EFI, twin-turbo V8 making north of 2500hp.

First published in the December 2025 issue of Street Machine

This is far from a tube-frame Pro Mod or a gutted race car, and the engine package is based around a production block and cylinder head combo like you’d find in thousands of off-the-shelf production cars. And Daniel’s VB is immaculately detailed, too, with paint in the engine bay nicer than what you’d find on the body of some elite-level show cars.

“We wanted a seven-second car, but I want to drive all my cars, so it had to be street-driven,” says Daniel. “I always seem to like the lesser-liked models, so I prefer the VB and VC Commodores as opposed to the more popular VH and VK.”

Predating the Brock Commodore era by a year, the VB SL/E was a shocking departure from Holden’s burly Torana SS and big-bodied HZ GTS. Focusing on European-style refinement over brash go-fast stripes and lurid colours, the SL/E was lauded at the time as being a seriously impressive car to drive, and Daniel’s was one of the highest-spec examples of the model you could buy.

“It’s a genuine 310-pack car, so it came with all the gear like a 308, TH400, electric windows and the like,” Daniel explains. “We were going to take it back to original with a tough 355, but we obviously didn’t end up doing that.”

The lure of drag-and-drive competition saw Daniel’s initial goal of a tidy street-tough cruiser morph into something that he could run single-digit ETs with before packing up and cruising hundreds of kilometres to the next strip. That sounds simple in theory, but this particular VB Commodore wasn’t in showroom-fresh condition.

“I owned it five years before I started building it,” Daniel says. “It turned up at Spot On Performance already blasted, but it was cooked. It was full of rust and hail damage, so it was a huge job to get it where it is. The rails in the rear have been moved in to fit a 315 tyre, and the floor was cut out and the tunnel was lifted to get the ride height dialled where I like it.”

Once the shell had been ironed straight, it was sprayed in the custom PPG Black Bronze by Spray King Restorations before it came back to Spot On Performance to have Daniel’s chosen turbo LS-based powertrain fitted. However, once Daniel and the Spot On crew had the Commodore on the dyno, they realised they had a big problem.

“Reliability on and off the track is why we built a turbo LS combo for the car,” says Daniel. “It was a pretty nice motor, but it only had four-bolt heads, and while we hoped it would do the numbers to let us run a seven-second ET, it lifted the heads on the dyno way before we had the power to run that time, so we had to pull the pin on it.”

Instead of throwing his toys out of the cot, Daniel got straight into making lemonade from the lemons the LS had left him with. Thankfully, he’d already purchased another engine for his Capri that could do the job in the VB – even if it had a Blue Oval cast into the block.

“I had bought a 7.3 Godzilla for the Capri, but I was talking to Andy Coles from Spot On and he was discussing the Fast Forward Race Engine Coyote packages and Brett LaSala’s ‘Snot Rocket’ Mustang, so he got in touch with FFRE, and I sold the Godzilla and bought a Coyote from FFRE in Florida,” says Daniel. “Then we were standing around the Commodore in the dyno room and realised it was a far better home for the Coyote than the Capri, as the Capri isn’t set up for 2000hp.”

FFRE’s Coyote is a long way from the basic 5.0-litre unit found in late-model Mustangs and F150 trucks. Starting with the hardcore, 5.2-litre sleeved Predator block (see sidebar), FFRE added Manley rods, a Mallory billet crank, and 10:1 FFRE-spec Manley pistons, allowing them to push capacity out to 440ci (7.2 litres). Up top, the FFRE crew reworked the deep-breathing, double-overhead-cam Gen 3 DI heads with cams of their own spec. Rounding out the package are upgraded timing chains and guides, and an Aussie Plazmaman billet 16-injector plenum.

With a Haltech R5 Nexus controlling the show and two Garrett G42 turbos pushing up to 40psi through the combo, Daniel has 2025rwhp to hand when it’s running on methanol.

However, packaging the enormous FoMoCo donk in the small GM-H sedan was no picnic, and not just because the engine bay was already painted. “The car was 90 per cent done when we decided to fit the Coyote,” laughs Daniel. “There was a lot of work to make it fit, but I knew the lads at Spot On could do it.”

By the time the call had been made to switch powerplants, Daniel’s VB had already been invited to be part of the Great Meguiar’s Uncover at Summernats 37. “We were up against it timeline-wise, because Summernats was only a few months off,” he says. Thankfully, with the lion’s share of the car already sorted, the VB made it to Canberra in time to have the sheet pulled back, driving into and out of the Elite Hall. Better yet, it made the Top 60 and won the Top Retrotech trophy, and it even got to make a lap of Tuff Street.

“I thought I’d cop a heap of grief, but I haven’t gotten a single complaint about the Ford engine in a Holden,” Daniel laughs. “It’s pretty hard to challenge the car when it’s making the power it does and it looks like that.”

Following that stellar debut, the VB has already been to the track to fulfil Daniel’s primary goal for the car. At the time of our interview, he’d done two quarter-mile passes that saw the VB rocket straight into the sevens with a 7.70@171mph and 7.60@181mph. Turns out, Daniel was just getting started, as he’s since blitzed those times with an incredible 7.09@198mph pass at Willowbank Raceway! “For an all-steel, all-glass, full-interior, street-registered car, I’m stoked,” enthused Daniel on his socials after the run. “We know that a six-second pass is just around the corner.”

PREDATORY INSTINCT

While Ford’s Coyote mill is renowned for making bulk power out of the box, the most serious builds tend to start with a brand-new block (and sometimes crankshaft) from the epic, 760hp, 5.2L Predator V8 used in the S550-generation Shelby GT500. This was the Blue Oval’s most powerful production engine ever until it was superseded by the 815hp Legend V8 in the new Mustang GTD.

While the naturally aspirated, 5.2L Voodoo V8 found in the S550 GT350 Mustang ran a flat-plane crank, the aftermarket NA Aluminator and forced-induction Predator both use a traditional cross-plane, forged-steel crank. The Predator also boasts boost-friendly 9.5:1 compression and forged rods and pistons, allowing 12psi from its Eaton TVS2650 supercharger.

The Predator V8 was available as a crate motor through Ford Performance, but it’s now been discontinued, while other Coyote-platform engines like the Aluminator remain available. Of course, there are plenty of aftermarket options if you want a built-to-spec, quad-cam Ford Mod Motor.

DANIEL HOOKHAM
1979 HOLDEN VB COMMODORE SL/E

THANKS
The guys at Spot On Performance for building a car that works straight out of the box; Spray King Restorations for the panel and paint; Cam and the team at North Coast Custom Trim; the team at Fast Forward Race Engines for the engine; my friends in the scene and everyone who helps run the car at the track; as always, my family, as we commit so much time and money on these projects.