October 2026 will mark a decade since Ford shut down Falcon production, ending a 57-year-legacy. The Falcon remains one of the most powerful icons of a golden era in Australia’s history – transporting families, working as taxis and police cars, helping farmers work the land, and winning touring car races all over our wide brown land.

First published in the December 2025 issue of Street Machine

Those brash, bold Falcon GTs of the late 1960s and 70s had a huge impact on Queensland’s Ryan ‘Oxy’ Kelly, who clearly remembers when his own GT love affair began.

“I think I was about 12 years old when I saw an XY GT Falcon driving down the road, and I just knew at that point that I wanted one,” Ryan recalls. A quarter-century later, his passion has evolved into a 1346hp, supercharged Godzilla-powered mauler set up to run eight-second passes and cruise the streets with ease.

Around eight years after that first, inspirational GT had lit the fire, Ryan found himself in a position to start thinking about buying one of his own. “The budget wouldn’t stretch to a genuine GT, so I had to settle for a replica,” he says.

He may say that almost dismissively, but the Electric Blue XY GT tribute he found was a righteously clean example, something even Holden fans would love to carry the keys to. And under Ryan’s stewardship, the beloved four-door only improved over time.

“When I first purchased the car in 1999, it had a 351/Top Loader/nine-inch combo, and was basically in GT configuration – just without the ID plate,” he says. “It stayed this way until 2002, when the drag racing drug bit a little due to having other mates heavily into racing.”

With the quarter-mile in mind, Ryan swapped the standard 351 for a more worked unit putting out approximately 500hp. The Top Loader four-speed made way for a C4, and the diff gears were upgraded to 4.11s. “This was enough to see the car running mid-11-second quarter-miles, and it was definitely quick enough to scratch the drag racing itch in the early 2000s,” he recalls.

The XY stayed in this configuration until the early 2020s, when what had been relatively powerful and swift 20 years prior no longer cut the mustard. Ryan knew it was time to step things up.

“I’m mates with Al Butler from Allied Performance Projects, and he loves an engine swap, so he started putting ideas into my head that the old carby engine should be swapped out for something newer-tech,” Ryan says. “Various non-Ford-based ideas were thrown around, but I just knew I had to keep a Ford heartbeat in an XY Falcon, so the main choices were a Barra or a Coyote. I really wanted to keep it V8, and it was around this time I started seeing the results Dandy Engines was having with an even newer engine: the Ford Godzilla.”

Al Butler had worked with Dandy’s Frank Marchese previously and put Ryan in contact with him. “Frank and I discussed the possible configurations, but if I was giving the Falcon a birthday, I might as well give it a good one, so a max-effort build with a 2650 Harrop blower was chosen.”

A 7.3-litre Godzilla small-block was duly fitted with Diamond pistons and Callies Ultra H-beam rods, while the stock forged steel crank has been left in place. A Callies cam, Johnson short-travel tie-bar lifters and ported heads ensure all the compressed air from the 2.65-litre Harrop blower gets in and out fine, exiting via custom twin four-inch pipes.

Controlled by a Haltech Nexus R5 to allow for flex-fuel, the go-juice is supplied by a trio of Walbro 525 pumps to eight Siemens Deka 2400cc squirters. All up, the stout combo made 1346hp on Dandy’s engine dyno, running 19psi on E85 and spinning to 7000rpm.

Once the old Clevo, C4 and nine-inch were offloaded, Ryan sent the car down to Matt Rogan at Rogan Industries, where the heavy lifting began. The Electric Blue shell was in great nick, but it needed significant upgrades underneath to handle the snot Ryan wanted to throw at the XY.

Matt and the Rogan team got on with the job of setting up the engine, transmission, and new sheet-metal nine-inch diff, which also necessitated mini-tubs. They also added a six-point rollcage and chassis connectors to put a bunch of strength back into the old Falcon shell. “Without Matt, this project wouldn’t have been possible,” says Ryan. “He did just about everything: the rear end, installing the IFS, the ’cage, and making the gearbox and engine fit. He went above and beyond with this build, and I can’t thank him enough for all his hard work.”

While they had the car on the hoist, the key decision was made to chop the towers out and install independent front suspension from Southern Chassis Works, even though Godzillas do fit into early Falcons with the standard front suspension. “Removing the shock towers would give some extra room and make the handling better,” Ryan explains.

“I wanted the car to be powerful, but I also wanted it to be comfortable to drive, so it’s running electric power steering and electric air con. The advantage of the a/c is that I can now also run an Interchiller set-up to keep intake temps in the supercharger down.”

With his XY GT tribute ready to run numbers and cruise the streets of the Sunshine State, Ryan is rightly keen to start clocking up the miles.

“I couldn’t be happier with how the build has turned out, but that shouldn’t be a surprise when looking at the people and companies involved in the build,” he says. “The power and weight suggests the car should run somewhere around the mid-eights, but it will take time to get a handle on it.”

Hopefully the combo will provide thrills and adventures for Ryan and his family for at least another quarter-century.

RYAN KELLY
1971 FORD XY FALCON

THANKS
Matt Rogan at Rogan Industries; Frank at Dandy Engines for the engine build; Harrop Engineering; Kye Knight at Knight Family Motorsport for tuning; Tim Heibloem at OneSix Industries for wiring; Curley at Southern Chassis Works for IFS set-up; Mark Tralau at Outcast Automotive for the ’box; Shayne Curd for paint and panel; Chris Wheatley for assembly help; Jason Levy for help transporting the car; Big Muz for his wealth of knowledge; Alan Butler and Turbo Grogu at Allied Performance Projects for assistance; my dad for helping me buy the car 25 years ago; my wife and family for being so supportive of the build.