The beautifully boxy XD-XF Falcon range has long been somewhat overlooked in Aussie street machining circles, but more recently, it’s having its moment in the sun. Arguably the coolest of the lot is the XE Fairmont Ghia ESP, with its two-tone paint, Scheel interior, gold snowflake wheels and V8 heart.
Dragos Bjelogrlic’s example is particularly impressive, due in no small part to its stonking Dandy Engines-built twin-turbo Windsor, which should make a monumental 2800hp once it’s set on kill. But don’t go thinking Dragos is a dyed-in-the-wool Ford guy – he’s completely brand agnostic. Sitting alongside the ESP in his shed is a very rapid R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R, an HSV VS GTS 215i, and his beloved HK Premier.

First published in Street Machine’s Yearbook 2024

“My Prem went 10.1 at the track, and to go any faster, I needed to put a rollcage in it,” says Dragos. “I love that car, and it killed me to put a bonnet scoop on it, let alone a ’cage, so it meant I really needed another car. The XE belonged to my brother and was sitting in my factory. They weren’t worth much back then, so I got it for a steal.”

The original plan was to follow the well-trodden path of a Barra transplant, but having sampled their aural properties at the track, Dragos back-pedalled on that idea. That’s when the monster Windsor combo out of Joe Gauci’s legendary six-second Cortina fortuitously came up for sale. “Small cubes, big turbos and proven numbers; it sounded like my cuppa tea!” says Dragos.

Freshened up by Dandy Engines, the 382-cuber runs a Bryant crank, Diamond pistons and GRP Pro alloy rods. The cylinder heads and inlet manifold are from CID, and it runs FT820 injectors and a FuelTech FT600 ECU.

The twin 88mm Garrett turbos and Powerglide trans the combo ran in Joe’s Corty were also part of the deal, but Dragos has switched out the ’Glide for an M&M Turbo 400 due to the gearing being a little more favourable for the larger-bodied Falcon.

“The engine ran sixes comfortably 10-plus years ago, and while the XE is a bigger car than Joe’s Cortina, he has told me how much it weighed, and we’re not far off,” says Dragos. “I’m hoping we’ll make a little more power than it did back then with different fuel; technology has come a long way since then. Frank Marchese and Nathaniel Ardern will be tuning it, and they’re confident we’ll get the car into the sixes, so I guess the rest is on me! My GT-R ran 149mph at the track, which is pretty fast, but it’ll still be a big jump!”

B Custom Fabrications did the chassis work, with Dragos seeking a very specific look: slammed with big rims and stretched 275s like the radial racers in the States. That required putting a full rear clip under the car, and with it being a genuine ESP, that didn’t win Dragos a lot of friends within the rivet-counting community – not that he was the least bit concerned.

One thing that did concern him was that it was crucial that the XE be certified for street use. “The car absolutely had to be engineered – I’m all about cruising, so the street stuff comes first,” he says. “So, as Brenton at B Customs did the chassis work, he was consulting with an engineer, but that engineer became tricky to deal with, so the project got put on ice for a while. Eventually, Adam Rogash at MPW offered to finish the car off, again in consultation with an engineer.”

While the car is capable of producing monstrous amounts of horsepower and is pretty significantly modified under the skin, maintaining the factory ESP aesthetic was absolutely critical to Dragos.

“It had to have the original ESP look – even the wheels had to be gold,” he says of the 17×4 and 15x12in Weld V-Series rollers. “Inside, everything has been restored – GlobalTrim helped out massively there. Instyle Custom Trim did the Kirkeys in ESP fabric and modified the rear seat to fit around the tubs, and Michael Stahl even restored the factory Phillips head unit. I love my trim, and it had to be 100 per cent.”

Certain concessions did have to be made – the MPW-built rollcage, M&M shifter and MoTeC dash, for example – but the way the race-inspired equipment blends with the stock ESP stuff in the cabin is undoubtedly a highlight of the car.

That same level of commitment to the factory ESP flavour was maintained for the car’s exterior, with the body absolutely standard besides being slammed far closer to the tarmac. The factory-spec Monza Red over Charcoal paint was applied by Eric Kangur, while Tom Perrott painted the sheet-metal boot and the rollcage in the Charcoal from the lower half of the body.

“Everything we envisioned, we’ve nailed. The factory trim, the painted boot, the gold wheels – everything,” Dragos enthuses. “The plan is to register the car and drive it on the street early next year. It was built to satisfy an engineer, but before people get too upset, the way the car will run at the track and be driven on the street will be very different. We’ll change fuel, fit the bullhorns, add the wing and the ’chutes and we have a race car. It’s a very expensive way to build a car, and it hasn’t been an easy process to engineer a car like this, so there’s been some delays. There’s been a lot of love and hate with this car, but the attention it received at MotorEx was amazing, and I can comfortably say that when I look at it, I think ‘What a f**king car!’, so that’s a good sign.”

And of course, one would hope that Dragos wouldn’t go building a 2800hp street car and never venture down the drag strip with it. “Once I get comfortable in the car, I’d like to take it to Sydney and start doing some passes,” he says. “Depending on how I feel driving it, I might let Adam [Rogash] jump in and go for that six-second pass. Or maybe I’ll end up changing the alloy rods out for steel ones and turning it into a bad-arse streeter. Unless someone offers me good money for it, of course!”

DRAGOS BJELOGRLIC
1982 FORD FAIRMONT ESP

THANKS
My family and close friends for the love and support, not only with the ESP, but all my cars; the GlobalTrim team for their amazing products and helping put the car together; MPW Performance for the fab work and getting the car driving and on track for the engineers; Dandy Engines for the killer engine and support; Instyle Trim for the custom trim and working with GlobalTrim to put the interior together – they absolutely nailed it; B Custom for the chassis work – I couldn’t have asked for a better stance.