With a record six Street Machine Summernats Grand Champion titles, a SMOTY win and countless other accolades to his name, Peter Fitzpatrick, aided and abetted as always by his better half Michelle, is firmly among Australia’s most decorated street machiners.

With 2025 marking the 50th anniversary of his involvement in the show scene, his 70th birthday, an exciting new project taking shape in the shed, and the evergreen ‘Trilogy’ FC on display at MotorEx, Fitzy’s had a bit on this year. So, it was the perfect time to send photographer Ben Hosking to Canberra to capture some images of the new FC wagon project, while I sat Pete and Michelle down for a chinwag at MotorEx.

Respectfully, a lot of guys your age are starting to slow up a bit, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here!

Peter Fitzpatrick: This year marks 50 years in the scene, since I took my EH to the first Street Machine Nationals in Griffith in 1975. We won Top Engine Bay! People often ask me if I’m going to retire, but I’m building another car because I need something to do with my spare time. It’s an FC wagon, and I’m building it as my version of a street car. It’ll hopefully be at MotorEx or the ’Nats next year. The street machine scene is just part of us. We do it because we love doing it, and the amount of people that I’ve got to meet all over the world is just great.

It seems building cars is very much an intergenerational thing for the Fitzpatricks.

PF: My sons Aaron and Dan came along when I debuted the FC sedan in 1991; they were just little tackers then. As they’ve grown up, they’re into cars as well, and Aaron bought a Datsun 1600 that we built into a pretty stout little thing. It was a pretty big moment when he went out there at age 19 with his first show car at his first show and took out Grand Champion with a Datto [Summernats 19]. I think we’re still the only father-and-son pairing to win Grand Champion. Now we have three granddaughters and a grandson, and we think they’re all going to be car people.

Your Trilogy FC has an incredible story behind it.

PF: Michelle has owned it for 51 years; her dad bought it for her as her first car. She’s basically the second owner of it. The original purchase receipt was for $240. Both our boys came home from hospital in it, so it’s a family heirloom.

Michelle Fitzpatrick: I’ve had it longer than I’ve had Peter! We’ve been together for 48 years now, and I was into cars before I met Peter. When I got the FC, I rubbed it back to bare metal and resprayed it. It had twin carbs and extractors and Torana chromies on it!

PF: I always reckon she chased me because she knew I was pretty good at mucking around with cars! When we met, the grey motor went out and the 192 went in, complete with air conditioning! I put baby seats in it and Michelle used to drive around with the kids in summer with the windows wound up – that used to confuse people!

Tell us about this new FC wagon project.

PF: It’s got a turbo RB30 in it with a five-speed manual, GT-R independent rear end, and a VR Commodore strut front end that’s been modified to work how I wanted. It had the RB in it when I bought it from Mackay; I had a GT-R head for it, but I’d rather keep the Holden connection.

It has a Haltech Nexus R3 and Lovells coil-overs and brakes. I’d like to put the car around a race track, because I think it’s going to handle unbelievably. It’ll still look like an FC, but really the only part that’s FC is the body. It’s got a lot of body mods that a lot of people won’t see. We’ve got a name for the wagon, but we’ll keep that under wraps for a bit.

Planning to have a crack at a seventh Summernats Grand Champion title with it?

PF: That’s the plan! We’ve got launch control set up for it, and it’s a manual with 4.11 diff gears and a decent amount of horsepower. It’ll all help.

What’s the secret behind all the Grand Champ wins?

PF: My aim when I built the FC was to build it for what we wanted, and I went to the Summernats for one reason: to win Grand Champion. I didn’t care what the judges thought, and I still don’t, even though I’m mates with a lot of them.

What I always say is that if you want to compete in Grand Champion, you must have the mindset that you’re going there to win it – if you don’t, that’s okay, but you have to give it your best shot. If you go there thinking, “I’m gonna give it a go” – well, Peter Brock didn’t go to Bathurst to give it a go, he went there to win it.

Have you got a favourite trophy?

PF: I’ve got one at home that I could go and put my hand on. Daniel was in a baby seat in the back of the Brougham when we took it on a two-state run to Mildura. We came across the Hay Plains and I was probably doing 110mph and hit a bunch of locusts. I had to stop because I couldn’t see out the windscreen. When we got to Mildura, it was dark, and I stayed up washing the car all night to get all the bugs off. The next day, we had the show ’n’ shine and I was awarded car of the day, and the trophy is smaller than your phone! Most of the trophies I don’t even know what they’re for, but because of the memories that go along with that one, I know exactly what it was for. That was ’82 or ’83.

Another highlight was winning the Victorian Hot Rod Show. My car was the first non-hot rod to win it in 48 years, I think it was, but the best part was the trip they gave us to Beach Hop [in New Zealand] – that was 2011. We met Noddy who runs the Beach Hop, and now we’ve been there four times. What a great bunch of people over there; we’ve made dozens of friends in Whangamata. I always tell people if they want to go to a good car show they should go to Beach Hop. It’s like Bright on steroids, and then some.

What’s your favourite of the cars you’ve built?

PF: Obviously, I’ve still got the FC, and I’ll probably never get rid of it; that’s probably my favourite car. But I’ve got to say that the ’35 Chev I built for Kees Weel from PWR is just a magnificent car. Taking it to SEMA and winning the GM Designers’ Choice blew me away – a little backyard builder from Canberra with the help of a few very talented car people, up against the big boys like Ringbrothers and Kindig, and some bloke from Oz took the trophy away! That was an amazing thing to do. The top designers from Chevrolet said they wouldn’t have changed a thing – that’s pretty cool. I always said to Kees that it’s his car, but it’s our baby.

What’s your take on the state of the car scene currently?

PF: There are a lot of talented people coming through. People like Pat’s Pro Restos; look at that Falcon they built – phenomenal car. And if Shane Rowe [of Southern Rod & Custom] doesn’t have the best custom shop in the world, I’d like to see what’s better than it. Young Steve Alldrick [of Deluxe Rod Shop], too. They’re all talented and have lots of builds on the go, so things are pretty healthy. It’s expensive now; building a Street Elite car is $300,000-500,000 – if you can’t do it yourself you have to take it to a shop, and they have to charge at an hourly rate.

A lot of people complain about the Commodores and Falcons at the ’Nats, but when I started in 1975, I had a 1964 EH, and that car wasn’t very old at the time – 11 years. Some of these Commodores are 35 years old; they’re a historic vehicle. The older stuff is getting too expensive to buy, so the younger kids have got to have the later-model cars. You go and buy an HQ with a 202 off a farm and they want 25 grand for it, and you’ve got to spend another $150,000 to make a half-decent car out of it.

Any tips for young aspiring car crafters?

PF: Build it for yourself. If you have a clear vision of what you want to build, just do it. Don’t pay attention to what anyone else is doing; it’s fine to take other people’s advice, but if you keep changing tack, you’ll never finish. Also, building a car is not a five-minute job; even a Street Elite car takes four or five years – you can’t do it in 12 months. Do it once and do it right, and never build a car for a deadline. If you miss a car show, it’ll be there next year. If you need to put a build on hold to have kids or build a house, that’s fine; you can always come back to it in a few years. When it’s finished, it’ll be finished. And don’t put blingy late-model wheels on early-model cars!

Fitzy wishes to thank the following businesses for their support of the FC wagon project: Birrong Automotive; Enthusiast Motor Insurance; Hillier By Design; 3M; Car Builders; Trims By Shaun; SLR Specialised Restorations; DeBeer; Haltech; PWR; Lovells; Meguiar’s; Rare Spares.