First published in the October 2004 issue of Street Machine
As a car-crazy kid I never rated Cortinas — that is until one morning, when a bloke in a bright orange example dropped his little brother off at my high school.

No big deal. Until it shrieked against its stallie and launched up the street like a cat with a pellet up its arse. That day in 1985 or ’86 was my introduction to WOG007 — one of the more infamous street/drag cars in Sydney during the 80s and 90s — and the marvels of V8 transplanted Cortinas.
Johnny Roso likes V8 Cortinas too but unlike me he didn’t need a life-altering experience to teach him some respect.

“I like all cars. Ford, Holden … anything lowered with big wheels looks good to me and I’ve always liked Cortinas since I was young. Just the shape and a good power-to-weight ratio. I think they’re classy.”
His relationship with this one began when he was 17. It was bought from Windsor in far-western Sydney. It had already been transplanted with a Ford V8, like many others around at the time.
“It was in good condition,” remembers Johnny. “But it was just really stock, with standard-style trim in it.” It’s come a long way since then.

Johnny was a diesel mechanic in those days but he left the one-hour hand-wash sessions behind to work in construction.
“I was always doing something to it,” he says of the Cortina. “Tidying the wiring, new engines … I converted it from a Windsor V8 to a Cleveland and raced it a bit. I did a best of 11.9. Then I decided to go all-out!”


That ‘all-out’ included a fresh engine and driveline, new paint and interior. Johnny is a Canberra lad and fellow local Darren Woodbridge tweaked the body before Belconnen Smash Repairs applied the Standox HSV Hackett Gold three years ago. Johnny also spent some time living in Adelaide, where the car was taken from shell to almost show-ready the year before Summernats 16. He’s also full of praise for his late buddy Vince Macheda. “He was there with me just about every day. He helped strip it and put it together. Rest in peace.”
Con, from SA’s Competition Automotive, built the engine. The original engine was sold and a new block sourced. The Con-built Clevo is a 351 stretched to 408ci by a stroker SCAT steel crank and overbore. The rods are H-beam Eagles and the pistons are forged. Heads are 4V irons fitted with inserts to close the runner sizes up for greater velocity — Con thnks stock 4Vs are too big.

The intake is a cast, isolated runner unit. “I think it’s a TFC,” head-scratches Con. “It’s made here in Australia. Really nice manifold.”
Up top is a 1095 King Demon carb. The cam is a Crane roller — the rest of the valve train is Crane, too. A High Energy sump holds around seven litres, and firing it all is an ignition system that features an MSD billet distributor and programmable box.
“It allows you to do absolutely anything,” Con reckons. “You can tune it for individual cylinders, by laptop if you like, although I’ve found the hand-held controller is fine for the track.” Keeping it all cool is a Mick’s Metalcraft alloy radiator.

All that gear and effort is worth just under 640 horses. “You can do 100 kays, stab the throttle and change lanes!” laughs Con. “But you can idle around too. It’s not a pig, thanks to its size. It’s bloody torquey!”
The twin 3½-inch exhaust and headers are by Advance Headers. Avgas is fed from an alloy tank in the boot with a BG400 pump. There’s plenty of other work in the engine bay, too — hidden lines and relocated brake master cylinder (under the dash) are two items you may notice are ‘missing’.
Behind the engine is a two-speed Powerglide fronted by a 5800rpm stall, built and tweaked by Adelaide’s MV Automatics. “The amount of torque it has, and the light weight of a Cortina, it doesn’t need any more ratios,” says Con.

The rear end was — at the time of the photos — a 4:1 nine-inch under a set of mini-tubs on standard geometry suspension with just a few tweaks to bushes, springs and dampers. Brakes are Falcon discs on the rear and Outlaw four-spotters up front, biting on cross-drilled rotors. Wheels are 17-inch Simmons FRs — sixes up front and 10s behind.
The flat floor, and the rest of the interior, is the work of respected trimmer Carmine Carofano in South Australia.
“Jeez…” says Carmine. “That car is the biggest job we’ve ever done. Johnny came over and said: ‘I have a Cortina and I want to go to Summernats. At the time I was doing Beaumann Jones’s Chev C10 (SM July 2004) and it was only six weeks before Summernats 16. I arranged to take a look at it. I thought: ‘you’re crazy!’ No bull, it wasn’t much more than half-finished.”

As you can imagine, that meant some serious dedication to get it all finished. Like a month of junk food-fuelled, 18-hour days, with four blokes buzzing around the car full-time. Everything in the car is hand-crafted, with Dave Carofano responsible for the timber work under the filler, foam and fibreglass. His efforts include building — from scratch — a custom, flat-panelled dash that looks far sharper than the Cortina’s droopy original.
The front seats are highly modified Mazda and the rear seat was built from almost zilch (Carmine used a Commodore foam base as a start) to fit the shell. The leather is Australian — all 18 hides’ worth — and is tanned and dyed specifically for Carofano. It covers just about everything except the seat belts and the faces of the Auto Meters.

“He left it to me to design the door trims,” explains Carmine. “Being a toughie looking car, it needed a toughie interior so I designed a claw appearance for the trims.” Each door trim took four days, building up from a flat masonite backing board. The boot build took an astonishing 100 hours. The seats? Dash? Who knows — but with the hours invested, the invoice should have more zeroes on it than an oil baron’s bank balance. The quality and innovation is worth every cent.
The trimming session included cutting short Christmas parties. “I was there most of the time when he was doing it,” recalls Johnny. “It was spun-out — I’ve never seen anything like it. While they were doing the interior, I was installing the engine. I was doing the fuel lines, engine, bonnet, wheels and setting everything up. And there was another bloke there as well, threading in the stereo. It was full-on! Carmine was explaining things to me but I couldn’t keep with what he was talking about! But when it was all finished, it was amazing.”.

But that’s not all …
Johnny likes hard work. That’s why his car is in “a million bits” right now, stripped and part-way through a rebuild that includes a three-quarter chassis, high-tech, sheet metal, nine-inch diff with Mark Williams internals, four-link rear suspension conversion and tubs. The work — being undertaken by Adelaide’s Zagari Engineering — is to allow Johnny to fit a set of 19×12 Simmons FRs running enormous 355/35 Pirellis. Plans also include a totally flat show-style underfloor area. The car will then be painted in a new colour — yet to be chosen — with the interior substantially modified. But it won’t be ready for Summernats 18. “I just don’t have the time this year,” he says.
Johnny Roso
1975 Ford TD Cortina
Colour: | Standox HSV Hackett Gold |
GRUNT | |
Engine: | 408ci Cleveland |
Carb: | King Demon |
Manifold: | TFC |
Heads: | Sleeved 4V |
Pistons: | Forged |
Conrods: | H-beam Eagles |
Crank: | SCAT stroker |
Cam: | Crane roller |
Valve springs: | Crane |
Ignition: | MSD programmable |
Exhaust: | Advance Headers twin 3½-inch |
Radiator: | Mick’s Metalcraft |
Sump: | High Energy |
DRIVE | |
Converter: | TCE eight-inch, 5800rpm |
Gearbox: | GM Powerglide two-speed auto |
Diff: | Ford nine-inch, 4.1:1 |
STOP & STEER | |
Suspension: | Lowered Pedders springs, Koni dampers, Nolathane bushes. Four-link rear coming soon |
Brakes: | Outlaw four-pots, XB Falcon vented discs (f); XF Falcon discs (r). Tilton master cylinder under dash. Falcon stud pattern |
ROLLING STOCK | |
Rims: | Simmons FR, 17×6 (f); 17×10 (r) |
Rubber: | BF Goodrich, 215/35 (f); 275/35 (r) |
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